What a day...

...Most exciting news of today...I PASSED MY FINAL!!!  I've officially passed nursing school!!  The sense of relief that I feel right now is indescribable!!

In baby news...I had my IUI this morning and compared to my previous FETs this was a walk in the park.  Our post wash count was 7 million which the doctor said was good.  I've read mixed opinions about that on different websites, but if the doctor said it's good then that's what I'm going to go with.  Bill wasn't able to go with me today (one of the set backs of being a small business owner), but Mom went with me and I think it meant a lot to her to be there.  We were in and out in 20 minutes and the painless procedure only took 5 minutes.  I think that trigger shot is causing a lot of twinges, cramps and overall weirdness in my uterine region so it'll be hard to decipher those from pregnancy symptoms if this ends up being successful.

I've decided to completely turn this over to God.  I realize that I would have to test everyday to see when the trigger was out of my system and then wait for a "real" positive.  All of that is a lot of headache that I don't want to put myself through.  If this is meant to be, it will be and if not we'll regroup and move on.  I go for my beta on the 29th which is the day of my nursing school pinning so, hopefully that will be another great day to remember!

So tomorrow it is...

...Busy, busy, busy day today!!  I had my appointment this morning for blood work and ultrasound at 7:00, then on to school for my grand rounds presentation, then to pick up Dad, then to Fairfax to pick up what Bill has been referring to as "his little sailors" (get it, semen...seamen...sailors...), then to drop them off in Annapolis, then home to study for my final!

The alarm went off at 4:40 for me to take my temperature and it was still at baseline so no ovulation yet.  I took an OPK this morning that came up positive so I had an LH surge.  The ultrasound showed one "beautiful" 21mm follicle on my right ovary.  My nurse had me set up my appointment for Wednesday, but called after the blood work came back to tell me to move it up to Tuesday.  I did my trigger shot at 8:15 and I'm hitting the hay early.  So tomorrow it is!!  I haven't even bought any tests yet because I think I'm going to turn this one over to God in every sense of the words.  Part of me wants to prepare myself for a negative, but the other part of me just wants to have faith in Him and trust His plan.  Who knows if I'll cave next week, but for now that's where I am with it.  Leaving it all in His hands!

We just saved a ton of money...

...I got an email yesterday from our cryobank saying that they now offer local pick up.  We purchased sperm from Cryogenic Laboratories, Inc, which is based out of Minnesota, but they were bought by Fairfax Cryobank which is only about an hour away.  I called CLI yesterday to ask if there was any way to ship our entire storage supply to Fairfax so we could have it available for local pick up.  The wonderful customer service representative that I dealt with said that she was pretty sure they could but she would double check and call me back today to confirm.  She called and said that not only would they be able to do it, but they would do it for free!!  So all 12 vials of our sperm are en route to Fairfax for storage.  This saves us about $190 in shipping costs per cycle!

I have my blood work and ultrasound on Monday, my final presentation at school, and then I'm going to pick my daddy up and we're going to ride down there and "pick up the grandkids" as he says.  We'll drop them off at the doctors office on the way home and we'll be all set for Tuesday morning if they trigger me Monday night.  I know it's probably weird that I'm taking my dad to pick up sperm, but my parents have been so insanely supportive through all this and I like to make them a part of the process when I can.  Bill will take me down for the actual IUI so I figured it'd be nice to have dad help run this little errand.

We're getting so close and I'm really, really trying not to get my hopes.  It's not working out well!

Moving right along...

I just got home from my final day of clinical for nursing school!!  I take my final on Tuesday and then I'm officially finished!!...this degree anyway!  ;)  I can't tell you what a huge weight that will be off my shoulders when I'm finally done and can start my career!  

In baby-making news, I ovulated late last month which kinda messed up my plans for moving forward with my June cycle so we decided to go for it in May...AAAHHH!!!  May...Like next week May!!  My RE usually has patients come in on day 12 for US and blood work, but I explained to my nurse that I'd been temping and OPKing and I'm usually ovulating around day 16-19.  She said she'll bring me in on day 14 (Monday) and check things out and we'll go from there.  I'm off all next week with plans of going to the beach Thursday through Sunday so it's looking to be a busy week! 

On the home front, we've started to pack up the house to move.  Bill's grandfather passed away suddenly in April and his parents have no intentions of selling his house.  They've offered to let us live there while we sell ours and begin building our new dream home.  This is such an extraordinarily generous offer and while it'll be a little inconvenient for a while, it will save us THOUSANDS in the long run.  We've started working with a builder and are putting our feelers out for a lender who can do a construction-mortgage loan.  

All that being said, these next few weeks/months are going to be busy, busy, busy!!  Graduating from nursing school, moving forward with IUI plans, starting the residency at my hospital, and hopefully, breaking ground on our forever home!!  Oh, and did I mention that I signed up for summer classes for my bachelor's program??  I've redefined crazy!

It's real now...

I just got off  the phone with the sperm bank and we now have 12 vials in storage.  I feel like I'm going to puke.  It's actually happening.  For some reason, this choice was much harder than choosing embryos and I'm not quite sure why.  I really struggled with the anonymity of our donor, but he was just so perfect in every other aspect and I kept coming back to him so I'm hoping that was divine intervention.  

I went to the RE yesterday for day 3 blood work and ultrasound and they also drew my genetic testing labs and sent them off.  The tech who did my ultrasound said that my ovaries are "beautiful".  I can't tell you how many compliments I've gotten on my reproductive organs and I'm always at a loss for words and end up saying "um, thanks?".  I really need to come up with a witty retort seeing as how I, apparently, have some exceptional baby-making parts!  

I got a call yesterday afternoon that all my hormone levels were good and they said I could call by the end of the week to find out about the other results.  The genetic testing is run by a company called Counsyl and I won't have results from that for about two weeks.  I spoke to the nurse yesterday and she said there wasn't anything stopping me from ordering the sperm now so I went ahead and called.  They offered a "CLI Club" which cost $195, but gave us $100 off of our order and 2 free vials.  They also offer a buy back program so if we don't need all the vials that we've purchased, we can sell them back to the sperm bank at 50% of the purchase price.  All in all, I'm excited.  Extremely nervous, but excited.  

HSG...

So, I had my HSG appointment today and everything looked "wonderful"!  I had the same radiologist that did my last one and she remembered me enough to ask how our journey was going.  This procedure is, by far, the easiest one that I have to endure!

I also called our nurse today to let her know that I had my HSG, that my annual PAP smear appointment is next wednesday and that I'll do my day 3 blood work during my next cycle.  DH and I talked about when to move forward and we've agreed to give it a shot in between my nursing school final and the internship starting (around the first week in June if my FF calendar is correct).  That being said...the search for a donor continues.  

We found one that we like at Cryogenic Laboratories, which is affiliated with Fairfax Cryobank.  Their prices are lower and they offer access to the donor profiles for free.  The only issue with him is that he wishes to remain anonymous.  Other than that, he's perfect.  I'm wondering if this is a subtle whisper that this is the route we should choose.  Fairfax is offering unlimited access to donor profiles for one week during the month of March so I'm planning on finding a bunch that I like, adding them to my favorites and signing up for that free week to download all of their profiles.  

We also have the debate about how many vials to purchase.  We'd like genetic siblings so I'm leaning towards purchasing in bulk and storing it at the cryobank.  They offer free storage for 2 years with a purchase of 8+ vials.  I think I'd rather go that route than risk not having our donor be available when we're ready to try again.  Another blogger that I follow recently signed up for gofundme.com and, I have to admit, I'm thinking about it.  Although my parents have graciously offered to help us pursue this dream, I'd almost rather take the "it takes a village" approach.  That being said, I know the bulk of our donations would come from family and friends which would involve us putting our whole story out there and I'm not certain that DH would go for that.  Plus, then there's the issue of everyone knowing that your child is the product of donor sperm and someone letting something slip before your ready to explain things to him/her.  We plan on being 100% honest with our children, but we want them to find out on our terms.  

There's so much to think about and so much planning that needs to take place in order for all this to work out, but I know it will all be worth it...in His time.  Just think, everyone else just gets to have sex to have a baby!

Possible donor...

I know I've been scarce lately, but I've been checking in frequently to check on all my blogger friends.  Especially Diane from Snowflakes in the Rain whose story of resilience and strength is so amazing to me.  As I'm trudging through my final semester of nursing school, I find myself with very little time to search through the endless profiles of donors out there.  I was doing some ironing today and watching A Baby Story and that prompted me to check the cryobanks website and see if any new donors appeared.

I found one that I'm pretty excited about, but he's an anonymous donor.  Since we realized that we were going to have to use a donor, I've wanted to find someone who was comfortable with being contacted by our children if they chose to reach out.  This donor meets all of our criteria except that.  And in all reality, that's not one of "our" criteria.  It's more mine.  DH would rather this be a completely anonymous donor.  I understand his feelings and I have no desire to know this man, but I want my child to have the option of knowing him, if they want.  I have no idea how we are going to have this conversation with our children when the time comes, but I don't want that anonymity to make this any harder for our kids.  I guess I'll have to leave this one in the Lord's hands and see where He leads.

As for an update...we did meet with our RE on February 5th to discuss our options and see what testing would need to be repeated since our attempts with embryo adoption in 2011.  Their requirements are a lot easier than our previous clinic and I'll just need to repeat the HSG and day 3 blood work as well as a new genetic test that they now have available to screen for Fragile X.

We met with the financial counselor there who told us that there was a chance that insurance wouldn't cover the IUI because we were using donor sperm, but that they would submit anyway and see.  She called a few days later to tell us that insurance would, in fact, cover the procedure, but not the cost of the sperm (which we expected).  While paying out of pocket for this wouldn't be nearly as costly as the embryo adoption, it's still a huge weight off our shoulders knowing that they'll cover our first 3 attempts.

I've been doing OPKs and temping each morning and have narrowed down my ovulation schedule, but will probably still do the monitored cycle as opposed to monitoring myself at home.  We'll save the DIY cycles for when the insurance runs out!  ;)  I plan to do the blood work and HSG during my next cycle if my work and school schedule permits and then we'll be ready to go.  I have a brief break between my final exam in nursing school and the internship starting at my hospital.  The plan is to squeeze in a cycle sometime between May 14th (the day I take my final) and July 1st (internship starts).  The first few weeks of the internship will be Monday-Friday and it will be next to impossible to get to the RE's office for an IUI.  If that cycle isn't successful, then we'll give it another shot in the fall once I'm finished the internship.

I must say...I'm feeling better about things now that we have a plan!  Just wish I could hit fast forward through the next couple months, but I know it'll be here before I know it.