Believe...

I found an instagram account of a couple who had just found out their round of IVF was successful and in one of her posts she talked about some inspirational jewelry that she had that would remind her to keep hope and have faith through their journey. I really liked the idea of having a reminder close to you and so I decided to go online and purchase my own necklace that I will wear everyday while we go through this process. The necklace I bought says "believe". 

It came with a cute box that says, "In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can." I love that quote! I ordered the necklace online on Sunday and the tracking said it would arrive on Saturday the 9th. I was hoping it would be here today but didn't worry too much about it. We were pulling out of our driveway this afternoon to go to our first appointment and I decided to quickly grab the mail. I was so happy when I saw a small package in the mailbox. I opened it up and immediately put the necklace on. This was such a small thing, but meant so much to me!

I am excited to have this small reminder to believe in Heavenly Father and His plan, the doctors, nurses, the process, and in Jordan and myself. 

We walked into our appointment today with a notebook full of questions. I did a lot of research on "what questions to ask your doctor before you begin IVF" and I was prepared with probably 20-30 questions. I wanted to make sure that we knew what we were getting into. We were taken back to Dr. Heiner's office where he sat and asked a few routine questions about what we have tried up to this point. He looked over my charts from previous doctors (which by the way I didn't realize how many doctors we have already been to until he started going over my charts. Crazy!). I was very honest with how we have been feeling and that we wanted to look into IVF. After visiting for a while he told us that before we try IVF he would like to try IUI but he wants to add in additional FSH hormone injections. He explained that a woman with no fertility issues has a 16% chance of getting pregnant each month. He said that for me, having PCOS, I have about an 8% chance. The IUI rounds we have tried in the past took that percentage up to 11%. This plan he wants to try takes us up to a 23% chance. He feels that since we know we can get pregnant he isn't ready for us to jump right to IVF just yet. Jordan and I discussed it and once he had explained it all in detail it really makes sense for us to try this plan first. 

What will happen is I will take femara (which I took with the previous IUI) on Cycle Days 3-7, on day 7, 9, and 11 I will do an FSH injection (I have never done FSH injections up to this point) and on day 12 I will go in for an ultrasound. If the eggs look ready then I will take an ovulation trigger injection and the insemination will take place 36 hours later. There is a chance that when I go in for the ultrasound I won't be ready for the trigger shot yet and may need to do a couple more FSH injections and then go in again a few days later for the insemination. We will try this for 3 rounds and if we still are not pregnant we will discuss IVF. 

We really thought that we were ready for IVF but honestly as soon as Dr. Heiner began discussing this other option, we both felt like this was best for us right now. Especially when it comes to the finance part! We made sure to ask about all the fees that will be included with the insemination and it is cheaper than what we spent up at The U. We are looking forward to beginning this process and we were so impressed with the doctor and the nurses who helped us today. Everyone was so kind and explained everything well and answered all of our questions and concerns. I will contact our nurse once my cycle begins which should be the end of this month.

BELIEVE!

-Shawnee