Online article

I called the journalist back today and within a few hours her story was ready!
It's already available online and will be printed in the Edmonton Metro Newspaper tomorrow!
Crazy stuff!! I'm really happy but the minute I sat down and actually read the article I got a sense of panick and shyness... This is for real... my IVF fund journey is out there for everyone to see... I even wonder if someone in the waiting room at the clinic tomorrow will see the article and show the Dr's there haha.. After 3 IUI's pretty close together and countless followups the nurses have gotten to know me by name.

To read the article click on this link...

Crazy day!

What a strange day I've had... it started off with a voicemail from Edmonton Metro Newspaper wanting to write a story about my journey.. they found my Go Fund Me page and wanted to ask me questions about it and write a story.. that's just crazy! Calling the lady back tomorrow... nervous & excited. Also funny fact.. when we went to the bank to extend our line of credit to help pay for treatments, our bank guy told us he is an IVF baby and to not give up.. crazy! Crazy what can happen when we decide to speak up..

The Infertile Mrs.White

TTC community

I'm sooo happy now that I started up this blog over a year ago...
I was really struggling with my infertility journey as I felt like I was going threw it alone in silence. I never felt understood when I did try and talk about it and I felt alone. Friends and family tried to support me as best as they knew how.. but unless someone is walking in my shoes, I didn't feel understood and I didn't feel like I was getting the right kind of support. I got really tired of hearing "Just relax and it will happen" "Just adopt" "Take a bank load" "Don't stress" "A friend of a friend of mine did this.. and now she's pregnant" "I know how you feel I've been ttc for 4 months" "Try a surrogate" "It's only been 3 years keep trying" "it will happen when you stop trying" and the list goes on. The TTC world has really opened up my eyes and heart. Going threw my journey with other TTCsisters has really changed my views on infertility, on the path I was on, on the possibilities, on real facts, proper information, sharing stories good and bad and that no matter how bad my day is going, no matter how much pain I'm in due to injections and hormone overload, I know that there's someone out there who can relate, we can all relate to one and other and laugh and cry with each other threw our journeys. We all have our own journey and that's what makes this community so special, we share openly, we don't judge, we support each other threw the good and especially threw the bad and we make dark days a little brighter. Every comment, every e-mail, every new blog I find makes my heart a little fuller and my journey a little easier to go threw.

I couldn't go threw this if it wasn't for my amazing husband who's patience I have tested, who's shoulder I have cried on, who's arms I've cuddled up in when I was stressed, worried, in pain, felt alone.. He's been my rock, my #1 support.

I think he's secretly happy I also found the ttc world haha, this allowed me to grow and be less insecure and scared of what's next in the infertility world and this helped him be able to support me better. It's also really nice to not have to go to him every time I feel blue.. I tend to just curl up on the couch with my laptop.. read a couple blogs, check up on the blogs I follow and I feel more relaxed already. It's really nice to not always be putting all my worries and stress on his shoulders, he already has enough to worry about without me always reminding him that I'm hurting deep inside over and over. My blog is my escape and the one area I can be honest about everything and just let it all out. It's even more rewarding when people comment on my posts because then my worries and struggles actually feel heard and everyone's kind words I take to heart.

So thanks to all of you for going threw my journey with me and I'm glad to be along for the ride and support others in theirs as well. I'm always here if anyone needs to talk, have any questions or just needs someone to listen to them.

The Infertile Mrs.White
xoxoxoox

1 Year Anniversary with Fertility Dr.

Today marks our 1 year anniversary with our Fertility Specialist Dr.Cumming. (yes this is really his name). I still remember  Our First appointment  and how hopeful and excited we were to finally have that initial appointment. It took me months and lots of tears in my family Dr's office to even get on the waiting list for the fertility clinic.. for some stupid reason my family Dr never took me serious.. like c'mon, I was a married 25 year old with pcos, whose been ttc for years with 5 failed clomid cycle and still it took me sitting in his office crying saying I'm not leaving your office till you do something to get me on that list or at least make calls to get my clomid dosage higher since apparently he wasn't allowed to, it would have had to come from a gynecologist that followed me. Anyways a week after my fit in his office I got a call from the fertility clinic with an appointment.. Yay right?.. Only down point was that it was for in over 9 full months down the road!!! That's like the length of being pregnant it's nuts and that wait felt like forever!! Not to mention I had to watch everyone else around me announce their pregnancy and see their babies be born before I even got that appointment but months went by and it came and now it's been a year and we're still at the same place we were 3 years ago.. still waiting for a miracle.

This journey has definitely tested our patience and stretched our faith and hope. Now here we are, it's officially been 1 year since that first initial appointment with the Fertility Dr.

- Tons of paperwork asking questions about our health and history
- MANY bloodwork drawns to test what feels like absolutely everything possible
- HSG procedure done (Hysterosalpingogram) .. aka my tubes are good to go
- AFC done (Antrol Follicle Count)
- SIS done (Saline Infusion Sonohysterogram)
- Thyroid medication dosages were up'd twice in 6 weeks
- Countless baseline ultrasounds
- Countless ultrasounds to check the growth of my follicles
- 2 accounts hubby had to get his sperm tested and counted.
- 3 accounts hubby had to produce sperm for my iui's
- 3 failed IUI's with injections (Gonal-F with Ovidrel, / Menopur with Hcg)
- Progesterone tablets to support after 3rd IUI
- Many Follow Up appointments to ask "What went wrong? & What's next??"

I really didn't think I'd be saying that IVF is now our next step in our journey. For some reason I was so hopeful when it came to the IUI's.. I mean my body produced really nice follicles and my husbands sperm has great volume and quality... yet it keeps failing. I'm trying so hard to now be hopeful for IVF but I can't help to be really scared and be very realistic.. I've done my research and IVF is definitively NOT guaranteed a healthy born baby. Sooo much can happen from growing follicles inside the ovaries to extracting them from the ovaries to growing the eggs in a dish to re-inserting the 5 day old embryos to that BFP test, to a healthy pregnancy to a safe and successful delivery.

As things stand now, IVF still feels like a dream and something to only happen way down the line.. especially since we have to wait till we save up that amount and get my line of credit extended. (We had a apt with my bank last Friday and we had to get some papers organised, signed and faxed over and we only got that done this Wednesday so we are still waiting to find out if we got accepted or not and how much). Once we know, this will take a HUGE load off my shoulders and then saving up will feel much more realistic because at this point what is $700 when you need $10 000++. I really need to book an apt with Dr.Cumming to talk about IVF and I want him to give us everything we need to know about the procedure and meds and all that stuff while we save up money at least this way it will feel more real and I'd really like factual numbers... divide exactly how much money will go to what part of the IVF process. I remember a little while back we had asked him some quick questions about that and I wrote them down somewhere... I'll have to go back and read some old posts and make a new one..


I am happy to be here, at the same time I'm sad that my infertility has lead us to our last option (of conceiving on our own) and that it's gonna cost us WAY more then we ever expected. I'm also scared.. scared of the process, the needles, the side effect, the pain, the 2ww, missing work, surgery, recovery, stress.. all of it... but hopeful that we still have this option available to try. All in all, it's a whirlwind of emotions.


The Infertile Mrs.White

Start Again.

I just need to keep reminding myself that every day is a new day to start over again. 

Everyday is another day for us to save $ for IVF.. 

Everyday is another day threw my journey.

I got this.

The Infertile Mrs.White

I'm so tired of...

I'm so tired of the wait,
I'm so tired of the disappointment,
I'm so tired of trying to convince myself that "this time is OUR time"
I'm so tired of future planning our lives to only see years go by with nothing changing.
I'm so tired of waiting on the side line while everyone else gets pregnant by just looking at a man.
I'm so tired of being tired
I'm so tired of all the injections
I'm so tired of all the doctors appointments and follow ups
I'm so tired of spreading my legs for someone other then my husband
I'm so tired of being hiked up on hormones that mess up my body for weeeeks after
I'm so tired of being in too much pain from ovaries growing stupidly big&fast to have sex
I'm so tired of mood swings and being overly emotional
I'm so tired of all the side effects especially horrible daily headaches/migraines
I'm so tired of gaining weight when we're ttc
I'm so tired of taking prenatal vitamins every night to just keep getting bfn!
I'm so tired of clinging on to hope & faith for dear life because we both know how much being parents mean to us and at what lengths were willing to go to to get there.
I'm so tired of throwing money at a dream that's starting to feel like it's always just gonna be that.. a dream.
I'm so tired of always being scared to hear the next pregnancy announcement
I'm so tired of being asked if I have kids to then be told "oh just not ready yet eh" like making babies is clockwork and like we haven't been trying month after month for 3 years bitches
I'm so tired of looking into my in laws eyes knowing that I might never give them the gift of grandchildren born from their first born.
I'm so tired of feeling so misunderstood
I'm so tired of the title of this blog.
I need a miracle and I need it asap !!!!

The Infertile Mrs.White

a 3rd dog?

Cuddling with my dog watching Netflix always makes me feel better.

She's a Shepard cross Rottie...

We adopted her from the SPCA last Mothers day. 

They named her Mia so we stuck with the name :)

She's awesome despite her shedding fur ALL over my house.. literally everywhere! 

You see that divet in the couch cushion on the top right corner of the pic?

That's my shitzu Nella's spot haha. She's seriously like a cat it's too funny.

No matter how much we try to fix that cushion, it always ends up with a divet in it.. 

She loves to sit there and look out the window and catch some sun rays :P

When she's really tired and wants extra attention, she likes to shove her head in small areas and falls asleep.. she's adorable! Love her to bits! 

This picture was Mia and I a couple days ago, we were watching tv all cuddled up and my hubby thought we were too cute to pass up a Kodak moment :P 

They both love to cuddle "mom" and get lots of attention, pets and cuddles so it's not uncommon to see them hanging out together. Nella is getting a haircut over the weekend too.. she always looks like a different dog after haha.. i'll have to post her before and after pics.

Hubby recently brought up wanting another dog.. woah eh! haha.. two is a handful already.. but he's been bringing it up alot lately and has even been surfing the net looking for puppies born in the next month or so. I think this is his 'discrete' way of filling that baby void.. I can't see us having a 3rd dog in our place so that's gonna have to wait till we move somewhere else (we both don't like it here but the rent price is right so we stay for now..)  I would LOVE a 3rd dog just not all that comes with it especially when we are trying to save up for IVF!!! (1 more dog= extra bags of dog food$, extra poop to clean up, extra cage to buy cause we crate them, extra treats, extra toys, extra leash, more barking to piss off the neighbors..) I think for now we will have to stick to 2 and their amazing dogs and I love both sooo much!

The Infertile Mrs.White

The aftermath.

What IUI #3 looked like....

To grow follicles: 11 days of Menopur 150iu injected into stomach (buuurns like a SOA-bitch!)

To Ovulate: 1 day "trigger shot" Chorionic Gonadotropin 10.000usp injected into stomach (ouch!!) 

IUI day: Injecting husbands sperm into my uterus ($250) and hope for the best. 

Post IUI: 15 days of Prometrium tablcts 2Xam & 2Xpm inserted vaginally

Post 2ww: Big Fat Stupid Negative.. what a big surprise.. 

1 baseline ultrasound (check that we are all good to go)

3 follow up ultrasounds & bloodwork (check on follicle growth progress)

1 iui procedure day (inject hubbys sperm into me)

1 7day post iui bloodwork 

5 pregnancy cheapie tests (test out fake positive from left over trigger shot)

3 expensive pregnancy tests (All BFN)

5 days of AF to confirm it failed.

 And why it's so hard to "be okay" failed cycle after cycle. At some point you're just not "okay" anymore and all the sadness you barried deep deep down inside cycle after cycle suddenly comes pouring out of you and there's no stopping it. I carry this sadness around with me everyday and everywhere and it feels like no matter what I do I can't get back to that place where I was "okay" where I was able to keep all my emotions and feeling barried deep down so that I could keep moving forward.. What does one do when you get to this point. Ya sure I still have IVF to try.. but god knows when that will happen and then what? We have absolutely no guarentees and what will our lives be life after a failed IVF that cost us a huge ass chunk of money. As understanding, patient and amazing my husband is, I can just see us be different people after going threw that. Both going threw our own grief and that scares me to death... not only the whole ivf but what the whole process does to a person and to a couple. At least if we were well off with money to spare I would dive right into IVF no problem but when money is an issue and we just don't have that kind of money laying around with no guarantees its so scary. That could be a nice down payment on a new home.. and if IVF fails we would turn to adoption but you have to own your own home in order to adopt and then we would have to wait even longer to save for a down payment on a house and push back the adoption process even farther. We want kids, we want to be a large family... we always planned on having a pregnancy for our first and then turning to adoption to grow our family.. but if ivf doesnt work then that just screws up the whole plan process..   

This is what INFERTILITY really looks like.

Barry it inside all day and once you get home it just comes pouring out and there's no controlling it.

We get pretty good at pretending we're "okay" though. 

Becomes a skill set we acquire.

Don't mind the stupid face im making.. 2 seconds after the pic was taken i was curled up on my bed in a ball bawling my eyes out.. I was home alone and needed to just let it out. I took this picture because way later down the road I want to remember this moment... and all the moments that lead me to hopefully someday a miracle of my own. I also took it to remind people that everyone has a story of their own and for the past 3 years this has been mine.

What sucks the most is this cycle would have been amazing timing. Baby would have been due in the beginning of November... my husbands birthday is Nov 7th and he's turning the big 30 and he had reminded me at the start of this cycle how amazing it would be to get a son/daughter as a birthday present. Ugh :( Plus my best friend is pregnant with her second and found out on New years eve so how perfect would that timing have been!!! We would have been like 2 months apart!!! But nope, apparently God has a bigger plan and I clearly don't see what it is because we both wanted this so bad with every molecule in our bodies.

The Infertile Mrs.White

15DP-IUI

Call me crazy. I tested 1 last time... I wanted to make absolutely sure I was out of the game.

Message was received loud and clear...

Please try again...

I can't help but think of all those people out there who are overcome with joy and relief when they see this pop up.. It's hard to wrap my head around the fact that so many drunked one night stands lead to "Oh Fuck I'm Pregnant!" and such hard effort and energy put into trying to actually make a baby leads to "You fail, do not pass threw pregnancy, do not collect all the money you just spent, better luck next time". This "Not Pregnant" stared at me in the eyes like daggers. It hurts no matter how often I see it month after month.   

Now I need to shake off all these mixed up emotions & deep deep sadness and take a step forward into a new plan. I need to keep moving to stay sane. 

For some stupid reason I let myself day dream about what my pregnancy would be like.. How being pregnant with my best friend would be like.. All the memories we would make and how even closer we would get and that bond we would make. I let myself imagine myself being part of the pregant and mommy world and how it would feel. 

I was foolish and now I hurt cause of it. 

The Infertile Mrs.White

14DP-IUI

I'm not gonna lie, I spent a good hour crying curled up on my couch alone at home. I don't know what it was but something came over me and I couldn't control it. I gave this cycle my all and it failed me in return. I didn't shed a single tear IUI#2 because I had hope, I knew that we had agreed to 3 IUI's total and that there was still a chance for us out there.. that each IUI gave us more and more information on what dosages I needed and how my body reacted to different meds and different strengths. #3 failing stung more then I thought it would. It's almost like hope and my strength had left me.. I felt weak and vulnerable and all I wanted to do was disappear for a while.. a long while. My best friend and close friend are both pregnant now with their 2nd and I really thought it was my turn to jump on board.. be part of the action.. grow and live threw pregnancy with them and finally be truly happy. Instead I'm back to square 1.. back to the blank canvas and I'm really not sure where that road will lead us. Yes, we still have an option.. IVF.. but it's definitely not cheap and it's definitively a huge hurtle to cross with no guarantees. My body still feels really messed up from all the injections and I know AF is lurking around the corner and that it's not gonna be a fun cycle... my lining actually grew really nice and thick so to have to shed it now sucks and everyday of AF, I have a feeling will make it harder and harder to get back to being "okay" with it all. Everyday I see red & go threw cramps and all that fun stuff is going to be a constant reminder of my body's failure. I want this cycle to come and go as fast as it possibly can so that I can truly turn the page on my failed attempt to becoming a mom.

The Infertile Mrs.White

12DP-IUI

Alright so the verdict is I was too impatient to wait to poas so I did with my cheapies on day 7, 9 and 11 post iui and again this morning. All were clearly marked NEGATIVE.

I really don't know how I let my guards down this time around. You'd think id know better it being my 8th time around with meds and 3rd with injections. I really don't know why I thought this time things would magically work for us. This cycle was not fun harsher injections harsher trigger shot and added progesterone twice a day. 

Yesterday my breast stopped to hurt and that's when I panicked. I was mixed between maybe it's a good thing means AF isn't coming? But then I was like crap that means I have no pregnancy symptoms what so ever right now. I tossed and turned all night thinking what now. I know I still have up to day 14 to get a proper reading but still the test I took this morning is Clearblue and it's supposed to detect 4 days Before missed period. 

I guess I get to watch once again both my best friend and friend go threw their second pregnancy while I sit on the side lines crying once more. I really thought this was it.. Finally our chance at pregnancy.. At a baby... A family. I really don't know what's next and that hurts really bad right now. At least before we knew we had up to 3 iui's we were ready to try in order to make sure we knew what my right dosages would be. I'm starting to think the issue is with egg meets sperm. I don't want to do another iui. This one we had the right cocktail and the whole process went really well so why make my body go threw all the hell I put it threw for nothing... For another measly 20% chance that never seems to be on my side :( 

The only option I see next for us is IVF. Just need to somehow find $10 000 + + + in order for a maybe pregnancy. Ughhhh. 

I feel like I'm in a bad dream that's playing on repeat :(


The Infertile Mrs.White