Today is Day 2 of National Infertility Awareness Week. Today is the first day that I am actually feeling pretty normal since we found out that we had another failed cycle. That was two weeks ago.
I have read a couple postings about infertility awareness today and as I read them I couldn't help but think that it would be easier to just stop all treatments than to try to figure out what to do next. It is true!!! It is easier to just go from day to day in denial of my issues. Realistically I know that the "easier" part would only last for so long and then I would be very disappointed in myself for letting precious time slip away. But for at least a couple days I think I am going to give myself permission to just feel "normal"!! And, hopefully in that time I will get some grad class stuff done. IVF completely overtook my life and grad school was pushed to the back burner. :/ YIKES!! I have a lot to do in a short amount of time. I am not sure what I was thinking when I signed up for two grad classes and went through two IVF cycles all at the same time. MADNESS!!! ;)
I guess my little nugget of information about infertility today is that these treatments can take over a person's life and make them feel like a shell of the person that they once were. A lot of days it is hard to push yourself to go places and do things because you just feel SO crummy. Don't take it personally. Hopefully someday things will improve and your friend will once again begin to feel like herself again!!
Monday, April 20, 2015
Sunday, April 19, 2015
National Infertility Awareness Week
Today marks Day 1 of National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW). It was my intention when I started my blog to increase infertility awareness. Since starting my blog 9 months ago we have had over 11,000 views. This is amazing to me! Somehow, just by sharing the blog to my friends on Facebook we have reached readers in many countries around the world. It didn't hit me until today that I should allow my Facebook posts with blog updates to be seen by anyone in order to reach more people, but in honor of NIAW I will make this my first public post. As I was trying to determine what to share today I thought that I would share some statistics from www.resolve.org. These statistics have obviously changed over the last 5 years. The number continues to grow each year. I have seen in more recent articles that the statistic is closer to 1 in 6 couples experiencing infertility, but the statistics below are the statistics from the CDC:
- 7.4 million women, or 11.9% of women, have ever received any infertility services in their lifetime. (2006-2010 National Survey of Family Growth, CDC)
- 1 in 8 couples (or 12% of married women) have trouble getting pregnant or sustaining a pregnancy. (2006-2010 National Survey of Family Growth, CDC)
What I know to be true is that these numbers are not correct... I know this because I know that there are SO many couples that will never come forward with their struggles to have a family. I personally know many people who suffer silently. I know that sounds strange... how could they be suffering silently, yet I know about it!??!?! Well, after I started sharing this journey I was entrusted with the secrets of many others. People who have reached out to me and told me that I wasn't alone and that I helped them to realize that they aren't alone. What a blessing to know that our trials are bringing awareness to others. I remember Mike telling me that we might need to accept that sharing our story and helping others might be the purpose for our journey. Believe me, that was not the most popular thing that he has ever said to me!!! I was in tears and upset at the thought of it, but as time has passed I have realized that he could be absolutely right! Mike has never read our blog. (He doesn't even know how to get to it... he isn't much of a Facebooker, so he doesn't even know that I post update links to it!) Though he hasn't read the blog he knows that before starting the blog I felt compelled to share our journey, but I didn't want to share it because I enjoyed living in denial of it, I was scared of it, and if I am being honest... I was ashamed that I couldn't get pregnant. I spent YEARS telling people that we weren't ready to start a family simply because I was ashamed of the truth. Especially because we had no idea why we couldn't get pregnant. But, even with those feelings of denial, fear, and shame I continued to feel compelled to share. Some people say that they feel the call to adopt or the call to foster children as they go through their journeys. I have never experienced those feelings. I have looked into both options extensively and really "tried to feel called to them", but I have never felt called to them... but I ABSOLUTELY felt called to share our journey. And I felt called to do so in a way that was true. It might make people uncomfortable from time to time when I share the good, the bad, and the ugly, but it is the raw and honest truth. So, maybe Mike is right. Maybe this is our "why" or purpose of this journey. (I don't have to admit to him that he could be right... he doesn't read this, remember!?!?!?! HAHAHA!!)
So, as the first day of National Infertility Awareness Week is about to come to an end I leave you with the knowledged that at least 1 in 8 couples are experiencing infertility. And that over 7.4 million women have recieved treatment for infertility. But remember that these statistics only paint part of the picture. Be kind. Be supportive. Be mindful of what others might be going through.
If you have been experiencing difficulty getting pregnant or staying pregnant please know that you are not alone. Maybe this week is an opportunity for you to reevaluate your current situation. Have you talked to your doctor about what you are experiencing? Is your doctor listening? If not, consider looking for someone who will... after all, you employ them!!! I know that it is hard to remember that sometimes, but it is something that has hit me recently. You are your own best advocate AND if they are not listening YOU have to advocate for yourself and find someone who will listen. Is your doctor able to help you? Sometimes your doctor is listening and is fabulous, but they just don't specialize in what you need. It might be time to find a new doctor if that is true.
Thank you to all of you who continue to follow this journey! We are not any closer to a next step yet, but I have had one heck of a time the last two weeks and I am still trying to recover. I am not certain of exactly what happened to cause my back problems, but it was excruciating! The Monday that I found out that our last cycle failed, my back started to hurt. By that Friday I was in tears at school and ended up at the doctor's office. The physician's assistant told me that I threw out my back. She prescribed muscle relaxers and vicoden and referred me to physical therapy. The muscle relaxers did NOTHING and neither did the pain meds. By Monday I was still in horrible pain and a friend referred me to her chiropractor. What a blessing!!!! I have been to the chiropractor 3 times and the physical therapist once. I am not 100% yet, but I am feeling SO much better than I was. I have a couple physical therapy appointments this week and a chiropractor appointment. Hopefully I feel better soon and will be able to start looking for a new facility. The crazy thing is that after going to these appointments I don't think it has anything to do with my back like they said at the doctor's appointment. I am pretty sure that it has to do with the rump injections causing inflamation to my rump muscles! Both the chiropractor and the physical therapist have found that I have a deep rump muscle (one that is over the sciatic nerve) that is VERY tender!!! VERY tender!!! So SADLY I am also going to have to see a massage therapist to help with that and my normal back and shoulder issues. DARN the luck!!! HAHAH!! Who doesn't love a good massage?!?!
Thanks again for all of your prayers and support as we continue our journey! I have the best people surrounding me! I truly do. I hope that someday infertility will no longer be such a silent journey. I never could have imagined the level of support we would recieve from family, friends, and complete strangers. But, I am sincerely thankful for it!!! I would be lying if I said that there aren't jerks out there who will hurt you with their words. I come across those people more often than I would like to... but WOW!!! The supportive people FAR outweigh the jerks!!! And thank goodness for that because we all know that we need a lot of supportive words to outweigh one negative jerk!!!
Have a wonderful night!
Thank you to all of you who continue to follow this journey! We are not any closer to a next step yet, but I have had one heck of a time the last two weeks and I am still trying to recover. I am not certain of exactly what happened to cause my back problems, but it was excruciating! The Monday that I found out that our last cycle failed, my back started to hurt. By that Friday I was in tears at school and ended up at the doctor's office. The physician's assistant told me that I threw out my back. She prescribed muscle relaxers and vicoden and referred me to physical therapy. The muscle relaxers did NOTHING and neither did the pain meds. By Monday I was still in horrible pain and a friend referred me to her chiropractor. What a blessing!!!! I have been to the chiropractor 3 times and the physical therapist once. I am not 100% yet, but I am feeling SO much better than I was. I have a couple physical therapy appointments this week and a chiropractor appointment. Hopefully I feel better soon and will be able to start looking for a new facility. The crazy thing is that after going to these appointments I don't think it has anything to do with my back like they said at the doctor's appointment. I am pretty sure that it has to do with the rump injections causing inflamation to my rump muscles! Both the chiropractor and the physical therapist have found that I have a deep rump muscle (one that is over the sciatic nerve) that is VERY tender!!! VERY tender!!! So SADLY I am also going to have to see a massage therapist to help with that and my normal back and shoulder issues. DARN the luck!!! HAHAH!! Who doesn't love a good massage?!?!
Thanks again for all of your prayers and support as we continue our journey! I have the best people surrounding me! I truly do. I hope that someday infertility will no longer be such a silent journey. I never could have imagined the level of support we would recieve from family, friends, and complete strangers. But, I am sincerely thankful for it!!! I would be lying if I said that there aren't jerks out there who will hurt you with their words. I come across those people more often than I would like to... but WOW!!! The supportive people FAR outweigh the jerks!!! And thank goodness for that because we all know that we need a lot of supportive words to outweigh one negative jerk!!!
Have a wonderful night!
Thursday, April 16, 2015
Maybe...
I have sat down to write many times over the last week. There are two drafts in progress that just never made it to the point that I felt right hitting the "publish" button. In all honesty, my back issue made it possible for me to just be a complete grump. Yes, the pain was like nothing I have ever felt before. I don't even remember the pain after surgery being like the pain I felt last Friday. But, what shocked me was how far I let it bring me down. I guess I couldn't handle the emotional pain and physical pain combo that was happening. Along with the fact that deep down I was convinced that the nurse was wrong. See... physically I had not lost the embryos yet. I hadn't had a "period" Even through the weekend I was still convinced that they could absolutely have been wrong. Maybe it was just a late implantation. I kept asking myself whether I should start up injections again "just in case". I decided that I was going to call on Monday at lunch to see if they could do another test. Then on Monday as I sat playing a sight word game with a group of kindergarteners I knew that they were right. Monday was rough and extremely painful. Thankfully a friend from school referred me to her chiropractor and he was able to do an adjustment to my pelvis that gave me some relief from the back pain because I just couldn't take that pain anymore. The "period" was more pain than I could handle and the additional back pain was horrendous. Thankfully Monday was the worst of my pain and things have been just "regularly painful" yesterday and today. Though my cranky demeanor could be blamed on the hormone changes, the stress, the back pain, etc. I think it comes down to the fact that I am not in control and I don't have a plan.
Tonight I "made the mistake" of watching "The Fault in Our Stars". Don't get me wrong, it was an amazing movie. I intend to read the book soon because it I enjoyed the movie SO much. But, I say that I "made the mistake" of watching the movie because it caused me to get WAY too emotional at a very late hour in the day. I just finished the movie and it is getting late! It caused me to think of so many maybes. So many "what ifs". I won't bore you with all of the maybes or what ifs, but the last one was very profound to me... (For those of you who are not familiar with the movie, the main characters are teens with cancer. The girl knows that she is terminally ill from the beginning of the movie. There is so much more to this story, but that is all I need to share to continue my thoughts!) So, my last maybe... my last what if was: What if the answer to this journey is that this is all I can handle?!? What if the pain that I feel now is so much less than the pain I would feel if my prayers were answered and my dreams came true?!? What if God knows that He is saving me from pain and loss that I could not bounce back from, couldn't create a plan to move forward from, couldn't fake a smile to get through?!?! WOW! When that thought hit me I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. I sobbed because it hit me that I could go through all of this in hopes that a miracle will happen only to have that ripped away in an instant and MAYBE that is what God is trying to save me from. Maybe He knows that I am not strong enough to face that. This was just one of the many maybes and what ifs that have crossed my mind over the course of the last week (and month, and year, and several years before that...), but it was definitely one that hit hard. I live in awe of the parents who face such horrific trials. I watch them take each day in stride and I pray for God to give them strength and peace. I cannot fathom what they are going through. Absolutely cannot fathom it.
I guess I have spent a lot of time focusing on the "why" of this. Not the "why me", but more of the "what am I supposed to learn from this". I just feel like there has to be something... right?!?! It just wouldn't make sense that this was happening without a purpose.
But, maybe I haven't found the right answer yet. Maybe, just maybe the world isn't ready for a little McVey to join the world yet. Maybe God has such HUGE intentions for that little McVey that he/she has to be born at just the right time. Maybe he/she has to be frozen longer to gain the wisdom necessary to cure the evil illnesses of the world. Yep, that has to be it!
Ugh, I better go to bed. It is already Thursday and it is going to be a LONG day. It is the Spring Concert for United West. It just hit me that I have absolutely no clue what the theme is for this program. A strange reality of not having my own classroom anymore.
Thank you to all of you who have continued to pray for us and have kept us in your thoughts. Unfortunately in every journey there are twists and turns along the way. This just happens to be one of those times. As usual, Mike seems to be doing really well. This time I feel like I got to a "bridge closed sign" and there isn't a posted detour. Someday soon I will start researching and find my way again. It is just taking a little longer this time. And that's okay!
Goodnight!
Tonight I "made the mistake" of watching "The Fault in Our Stars". Don't get me wrong, it was an amazing movie. I intend to read the book soon because it I enjoyed the movie SO much. But, I say that I "made the mistake" of watching the movie because it caused me to get WAY too emotional at a very late hour in the day. I just finished the movie and it is getting late! It caused me to think of so many maybes. So many "what ifs". I won't bore you with all of the maybes or what ifs, but the last one was very profound to me... (For those of you who are not familiar with the movie, the main characters are teens with cancer. The girl knows that she is terminally ill from the beginning of the movie. There is so much more to this story, but that is all I need to share to continue my thoughts!) So, my last maybe... my last what if was: What if the answer to this journey is that this is all I can handle?!? What if the pain that I feel now is so much less than the pain I would feel if my prayers were answered and my dreams came true?!? What if God knows that He is saving me from pain and loss that I could not bounce back from, couldn't create a plan to move forward from, couldn't fake a smile to get through?!?! WOW! When that thought hit me I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed. I sobbed because it hit me that I could go through all of this in hopes that a miracle will happen only to have that ripped away in an instant and MAYBE that is what God is trying to save me from. Maybe He knows that I am not strong enough to face that. This was just one of the many maybes and what ifs that have crossed my mind over the course of the last week (and month, and year, and several years before that...), but it was definitely one that hit hard. I live in awe of the parents who face such horrific trials. I watch them take each day in stride and I pray for God to give them strength and peace. I cannot fathom what they are going through. Absolutely cannot fathom it.
I guess I have spent a lot of time focusing on the "why" of this. Not the "why me", but more of the "what am I supposed to learn from this". I just feel like there has to be something... right?!?! It just wouldn't make sense that this was happening without a purpose.
But, maybe I haven't found the right answer yet. Maybe, just maybe the world isn't ready for a little McVey to join the world yet. Maybe God has such HUGE intentions for that little McVey that he/she has to be born at just the right time. Maybe he/she has to be frozen longer to gain the wisdom necessary to cure the evil illnesses of the world. Yep, that has to be it!
Ugh, I better go to bed. It is already Thursday and it is going to be a LONG day. It is the Spring Concert for United West. It just hit me that I have absolutely no clue what the theme is for this program. A strange reality of not having my own classroom anymore.
Thank you to all of you who have continued to pray for us and have kept us in your thoughts. Unfortunately in every journey there are twists and turns along the way. This just happens to be one of those times. As usual, Mike seems to be doing really well. This time I feel like I got to a "bridge closed sign" and there isn't a posted detour. Someday soon I will start researching and find my way again. It is just taking a little longer this time. And that's okay!
Goodnight!
Monday, April 6, 2015
Unfortunately it did not work.
Late this morning we got a call that our cycle was not successful. The fact that we lost two more embryos is hard, but the idea that we do not know what has caused these cycles to fail is even more upsetting. I do not do well with situations that are beyond my control, and this situation is definitely beyond my control. I did everything and avoided everything that the post transfer list told me to. My lining was "perfect" and the embryos thawed well, yet once again we were unsuccessful. At this point we do not have a plan for what to do next, which is extremely difficult for me. I handle situations best when I have a plan that I can start working toward. As of now I am just trying to be proactive because we know the chances are high that I will have another allergic reaction to the oil. I already have had a little redness, but they didn't think it was enough to stop using it. I have started benedryl and I hope that it is somewhat helpful.
At this point we think it will be best if we consult with other doctors and ask them if they have an approach that would be different. We do not feel that we can continue to try this same approach over and over. It is insane to think that continuing the same thing will give us different results. It is frustrating because we know that we will most likely have to submit a lot of paperwork in order to get consultations with other facilities. I know that our previous facility that we used while insured by Blue Cross/Blue Shield has a different protocol, but they are not covered by health alliance. Hopefully we will find a place that is covered that will not only use a different protocol, but will also allow us to freeze all unused embryos. Freezing all of our unused embryos is very important to us and some facilities do not allow that.
Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. I know that we have many people who are invested in this journey right along side us. We appreciate all of your support as we continue to determine the steps to take next.
At this point we think it will be best if we consult with other doctors and ask them if they have an approach that would be different. We do not feel that we can continue to try this same approach over and over. It is insane to think that continuing the same thing will give us different results. It is frustrating because we know that we will most likely have to submit a lot of paperwork in order to get consultations with other facilities. I know that our previous facility that we used while insured by Blue Cross/Blue Shield has a different protocol, but they are not covered by health alliance. Hopefully we will find a place that is covered that will not only use a different protocol, but will also allow us to freeze all unused embryos. Freezing all of our unused embryos is very important to us and some facilities do not allow that.
Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. I know that we have many people who are invested in this journey right along side us. We appreciate all of your support as we continue to determine the steps to take next.
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