The end

After 16 months of unsuccessfully trying to get pregnant, enduring tests, blood draws, procedures, bad news, more tests, surgery, donor inseminations, and month after month of negative pregnancy tests, we've decided to end our TTC journey. We realize that maybe God has different plans for us than we thought. The more and more we thought about it, the more we realized adoption was our chosen path. We will now begin down this path with hope in our hearts and a lot of love to give to our forever child. Our new journey will be told on this blog:
www.chrisnstephsadoption.blogspot.com

Not looking good

My temps went down a little today and the tests are still negative. I'm 11dpIUI, so it's still early, but I was hoping something would show by now. I'm starting to think this cycle failed. These failures are SO hard to handle. I'm not sure how much longer I can do this.

BFN!! Yay!

Yesterday and today's tests were both negative, so it looks like all the HCG trigger is out of my system. My temps are following previous months' patterns, so no indication of anything there. I'll just keep testing until I know something one way or the other. In the meantime...

I went to my injection training class yesterday. It was pretty cool. I got a Follistim pen and my rx was sent to the special pharmacy. One cartridge of 900iu, which should last one cycle, is $590. They are checking with my insurance to see if it's covered, but I looked it up on the drug list and it's not covered. I called a local pharmacy and the exact same drug is $950! The special pharmacy is the one the clinic recommended. I told them I wouldn't need it for another 5 weeks, if at all. Hopefully not at all!

We also went to the adoption class and I think we're leaning towards Vietnam. The director didn't like the fact that we were thinking about starting the process before completing infertility treatments. She said she didn't want to have to put us on hold if we get preggo. Anyway, that's the latest update. Hopefully none of it will matter because hopefully I'm already pregnant!

Still positive

I think I explained in an earlier post that due to the HCG trigger shot I got last Monday, I would have positive HPTs (home preg. tests) for a while. Last month, I tested at 6dpo and it was negative. This month, I ordered 25 HPTs online (cheap) and started testing daily at 3dpo. It has been positive every day so far, but it's getting fainter. It should go away completely, then hopefully come back around 12dpo. I've heard of women getting a positive at 8 or 9dpo, but I won't get upset until I get to 12dpo and it's still negative. Another week of testing and I should know something!

Adoption

Chris and I talked a LOT this weekend (we went out of town-10 hours in the car in 2 days) about adoption. I'm still not ready to do it right NOW, but I'm definitely getting more comfortable with it. If this cycle fails, we've decided to go ahead and select an agency and apply. It's only a few hundred dollars to take this step. If the next cycle fails, we may go ahead and get started on the Home Study (a required interview/inspection at our home by a social worker before we can be approved for adoption). It's around a grand, but if I happen to get pregnant in the meantime, I won't be upset at ALL. If we go too far into it, we may end up getting pregnant and getting a referral for adoption at the same time, but we decided that's ok, too. We'd have a ready-made family. As long as I'm not traveling overseas while I'm 8 months pregnant or something! I don't think my doc would allow that!

The very first step is selecting an agency, so we've been researching a few of them online. It's quite overwhelming, but we've found a few we really like. One of them is Children's Hope International. They have an office locally, and they're holding a free information meeting tomorrow night, so we signed up. I hope we get a lot of good information. We've also narrowed down our donor list to about 10 and if this cycle fails, we'll purchase the extended profiles (which include baby pictures of the donors) of the ones on our list. It's a lot of work, but it will all be worth it in the end.

Sharing

I’d like to share a passage I read today in “Conquering Infertility” by Dr. Alice Domar. It’s very appropriate for anyone considering egg/sperm (gamete) donation or adoption. I tried to read it to Chris and we both ended up in tears. I suppose it’s more meaningful to us, since we’re in the middle of it. I’m almost finished with this book and I highly recommend it. It’s been right on target with my thoughts and feelings.

“If you don’t believe you can accept adoption or gamete donation-if you’re thinking as you read this, ‘Forget it. If I can’t have my own baby I don’t want any baby’-I urge you to push those thoughts aside for a short time and read this chapter anyway. Even if the idea of adoption depresses you, if egg donation seems unnatural and surrogacy seems freaky, I still encourage you to read on. Here’s why: Very few people start off liking these parenting alternatives. But other time most couples come around to being okay, and eventually very happy, with these choices. They read, they discuss, they think, they let it simmer. They talk with other couples who have taken these paths. They read some more and think some more and agonize some more. Gradually their discomfort turns to acceptance. Their acceptance turns to excitement. And when they hold their baby in their arms-their adopted baby or their sperm donor baby or their egg donor baby or their gestational-carried baby-their excitement turns to sheer, unmitigated joy. Finally, after all those years of dreaming, they are parents. Maybe not genetic parents, but real parents nonetheless-the people who will love and raise and parent that child forever. You may think of the word ‘parent’ as only a noun, not a verb, but I disagree-in my mind it is the most perfect of verbs. What matters most is not where a child came from or whose genes she’s carrying around inside her, but who will love her, who will hold her all night long when she has a 103-degree fever and a double-ear infection, who will help her with her math homework, who will walk her down the aisle on her wedding day. Her real parents are the people who parent her.”