The latest and Greatest News!

I have so much to update since our trip to California in April.  We ended up doing IVF with my eggs and our donor.  We were keeping the focus on our donor, but I ended up responding better, so we ended up transferring 3 really good quality embryos to our surrogate.  We froze 3 of our donor embryos and 2 of mine.  We were very optimistic that this would work. Unfortunately we did not get the news we were so hoping for.  Our 6th BFN.  I was heartbroken and angry.  I cried for 2 days straight and was concerned I wouldn't ever feel my normal happy self again.  By Wednesday I was feeling back to myself.  Still up and down, but I knew there is no sense in sitting around feeling sorry for myself.
I talked with Dr. Boostanfar and he felt the embryos must not have been healthy.  Our plan was to move forward with our frozen embryos, we would plan for a day 3 transfer with our donor and if hers don't make it then we would do mine 2 days later.  June 3rd was here before we knew it and only 2 of our donors embryos made it, one looking good and one fair.  After speaking with Dr. B we decided to see if they make it to Day 5 and if not then we would transfer mine.  Well, day 5 is Sunday, the day of my sister's baby shower that I'm hosting.  God, are you really testing my emotional state or what?  Dr. B called at noon and said our donor embryos did not make it, but mine look great.  I had such mixed emotions, because mine have always looked good, but never work and now we went thru all that with our donor for nothing.  I was just praying that God's plan is for us to have our own bio baby and not to have to worry about what to do with left over embryos.  As I was rushing around getting ready for the guests to arrive I wiped the tears out of my eyes...I didn't want anything to distract from my sister's special day.  
Our surrogate called tonight and she has had positive home pregnancy tests since Thursday night.  I feel so thankful.  I keep telling myself one day at a time and today is a very joyful day.  We have our first blood test on Monday. 

Feeling so alone....

I often wonder what are the chances that someone else can relate to exactly what I'm going thru and have experienced the same road bumps as me?  What are the odds that there is someone else out there that was diagnosed with cervical cancer, has RA, tried to conceive a baby thru surrogacy with frozen embryos and is now co-stimulating with a donor to transfer embryos to a surrogate.  I doubt it.  I think of myself as a unique person and that is a good thing and I certainly hope no one else has to or has gone thru all that I have and do on a daily basis.  The RA  is enough by itself.  I wake up everyday with my first thought being...what hurts, what joints are moving, do I need to take my meds now in hopes they will start working so I can start working.  I'm so thankful that I had a cortisone shot in my knee a week ago.. I feel like a new person.  Going to the bathroom is no longer an dreaded challenge.  Healthy people take getting on and off the pot for granted....for someone with RA that is not always easy.
Anyway, I joined an online support group in hopes to find someone to relate with what I'm going thru.  Well, I started by asking if anyone has RA and is going thru IVF...no replies...then I try anyone co-stimulating with an egg donor to transfer embryos to a surrogate...no replies.  Yes, I am one in a million!  That's ok I still visit the site to see if I can relate to some other situations my co-infertile are dealing with.  I can't.  They talk in alot of code...like MENTS which means "might be hard to read"...i read alot of those and didn't understand what was hard to read.  Perhaps I'm just different, I dont' have emotional trouble being around babies...I never have.  I get that everyone's reality is there own and some people have alot of trouble being around babies when they are having fertility problems. As much as I feel alone in this process I've been very open about what we have been are are going thru with my family and close friends.  It means alot to me to be able to share this with them and have them understand what we are going thru.  They have all been wonderful,caring and supportive. My Mom has always been there for me no matter what and she cares so much to learn about this whole IVF process by asking alot of questions to ensure she understands.  My Mom is what every child dreams for in a Mom...caring, loving, helpful, supportive, but not overly intrusive.  I know how much my Mom wants Marcio and I to have a family and I'm equally as excited to have her help, guidance and support as a new mom.  I love that she cares so much to ask the right questions, to learn what we are going thru, and to know to just take one day at a time with me.  My sister has also been my rock.. she is expecting her 1st in Aug and she has said to me on a couple occasions that she knows this timing is bad.  It's not bad timing I just pray things work out for us this year too so our kids will be close and we can be new Moms together.  My sister and I are extremely close and she has always looked up to me for advice and I can't help her now.  I guess even if we already had a child I would not be able to help her with pregnancy questions. 
Well..one week until we leave...I can't wait!!

So Ready for the next round!

Today has been an amazing day. I have such a sense of peace about what we are going thru and about to go thru.  The last few weeks have been a whirl wind of appointments, phone calls, medication orders, etc.  I am co-stimulating with our donor and we will transfer our embryos to our surrogate.  My hope is that I produce at least one healthy embryo to include in the transfer.  We will see.  So far so good with all my test, I have 15 follicles on my one lonely ovary.  That is great!!  Now it just needs to produce some great eggs and I will be one happy camper!
This has been such a long road, I'm so hopeful this will be our time for some good news.  If all works as planned we could have a newborn by December.  I just beam from ear to ear at the thought of being a Mom for Christmas 2011.  My sister is due in Aug so our kids would be close in age and that is so wonderful. 
Marcio and I leave in one week for California!! I'm so excited that we are able to stay with one of my best friends, I look forward to spending some quality time with Chris and the family during this very special time in our lives.

A question I often ask myself...

When is enough, enough?  Enough time, money, emotion and personal health spent on trying to have a baby?  A few weeks ago I answered this question differently every day.  One day my emotions felt I had experienced all I could handle.  I have been let down 5 times, and not to mention the Surrogensis scandal that wiped out our escrow account, really how much more can I handle emotionally.  The next day I felt we can not bare to spend another dime trying to achieve our life long goal of having a family. Really is it worth all the money we have spent and will continue to spend?   Then there is time...I'm 39 for crying out loud, I should have toddlers by now, not making plans to have a new born in 9 months.  I find myself scanning magazine and making mental notes of all the celebrities that are pregnant or just gave birth and their age.  OK so Celine Dion just gave birth to twins at 42 and I'm only 39...yeah!!! Then there is my personal health...I have RA and have been off of my medication in hopes my eggs will be good enough to make some fabulous embryo's.  Marcio and my family are all concerned about my health during this time.  Certainly a valid concern, but for me if my days have to be more challenging physically for a few months so I can have a chance at having a biological child, I will do it and without complaining.  I feel negative energy is not good regardless of what your situation is.  I will have a positive mental attitude throughout this whole process.  That is how I try to live my life anyway so this is not hard, but the pain from RA is no joke, it's my reality. But for now there is no sense in complaining...it is what it is and I know I will be OK.
After going through all these stages I realize I'm really an emotionally strong person and if it costs us all our life savings and we have a baby in the end, I will have not a single regret.  Money is money, but giving up on a lifelong dream and what I know will complete Marcio and I as a couple is not an option now.  We want to have a family so badly and if that's when I turn 40 and Marcio will be 42 so be it.  We will be the fun, cool older parents and I'm OK with that. 
For now we have the time and resources to make having a baby our #1 priority and I'm so thankful for that.  We will know soon what the next month will entail.  I have always said that I will put my heart and soul into whatever I want out of life and this is no exception.  I continue to thank God for bringing the most amazing people into our lives that are committed to help us achieve our goal. God Bless you all. 

Excited for 2011!!!

It's amazing at how things can change in such a short amount of time. My focus and energy for the past 2 months has been on what our next step will be in our family building goal.  We are still on the waiting list for our referral from South Korea, but I'm afraid that still may take a while.  So our surrogate still wants to help us in trying another IVF round. She called us in early January and told us she has a friend that would like to help us out by being our egg donor.  Marcio and I were so excited to receive this news and begin yet another journey to fulfill our dream of becoming parents. 
So let the phone calls, emails and coordination begin!  As I begin contacting the doctors, attorney and psychologist I realize how I'm struggling with the fact that I will not be having a biological child of my own.  I'm not one to sit around crying feeling sorry for myself, but this has hit me hard and I think it's in part because I always thought we would have one biological child out of the 9 embryos we produced.  I know that I will love any child God places in our life...be that thru adoption, egg donation or biological, but there has just been something tugging at my heart strings and emotions.
Last week I met with my RA doc and we talked a bit more about our family building plans and he agreed to look further into how my RA drugs may affect my egg quality.  He also suggested that I see my OB and ask him.  I called the OB's office as soon as I left and they had an opening to see me in 30 minutes.  Great, let's keep the ball rolling.  After explaining my situation with my Doc, he suggested we do some blood work and schedule an ultra sound to see how things look.  We discussed the success rates are much higher with egg donors vs. my older eggs and based on how much financially, emotionally and time we have to keep trying our options may be limited.  Well, I'm running low on all of the above, but need sometime to think about all this.  He did not feel being on my RA drugs should be an issue.  Great news there.  So I took my emotional self home to ponder his advice and talked to Marcio.  After much thought and we decided the most important thing right now is to have a baby and therefore our egg donor is our best option for success, so we will move forward with her. 
As I continue to think about all this, since time is what I have the most of these days and I'm not sure whether that is a good thing or not.  Anyway, I got thinking wondering if our insurance would cover me.  I also received a call from my OB's PA and she said that my test was inconclusive since they don't know when I ovulate, she suggested retesting me in 10 days.  She also brought up a great idea and suggested that I could co-stimulate with our donor and then see what the best embryos were and go from there.  Great idea!  After talking to our doctor's office in California, she said they could do that, but it would be double the cost.  Not Great.  But that brought me back to my initial thought to check our insurance.  Well after speaking with them they do cover my costs and our egg donor, just not our surrogate.  I'm on cloud 100 right now.  So this is my focus for now and we will see where it goes.  I may not have good enough quality eggs, but if that is the case then I think that will be the closure I need to fully embrace egg donation. 
I often think of this journey as a winding road with many bumps and forks in the road where we are forced to make decisions, but I also see this road lined with beautiful trees and budding flowers that represent the people that are helping us in this journey....whether it be our surrogate, egg donor, doctors and nurses, attorneys or family and friends that support and love us unconditionally.  They all play their own very important part in this journey with us.

Looking Back on 2010...

I have been meaning to post for a while now.....at the end of each year I always like to reflect on the past year as I look forward to what the new year will bring.  2010 was a very busy year with it's share of highlights and lowlights.  First and foremost I feel so blessed for my family and friends.  I have an amazing husband who is my rock of support through the bumps of life.  As the years go by I feel like our relationship grows stronger and stronger and for that I feel so fortunate and thankful.  I have always had a close relationship with my family and I feel blessed that we spend alot of time together and are always there for eachother.  I talk to my Mom and sister almost everyday and see all of my family at least once a week.  My sister-in-law owns her own company and I was so thankful that she hired me to help her with the coordination of some really amazing weddings. I've always known how talented she is, but being able to see her "in action" has really been fun, I admire the way she runs a successful busniess and is an amazing Mom. I feel blessed for this opportunity and we have become so close during this time, she is always so supportive and caring to me and all we are going thru. Her office is out of there home so on the 2 or 3 days a week I worked with her I would see my niece, nephew and my brother too.  When the office work started slowing down Renny asked if I would like to watch my niece one day a week.....ummm let me think...YES!!  Thursday's turned out to be my favorite day of the week!!
When I really think about 2010 I can't believe how busy we were.  I will start with the highlights first....
In March my Mom and I met my brother and his family in Disneyworld to celebrate his 40th birthday.  We all had a great time at the parks, hanging at the pool drinking Mai Tai's and my nephew was 4 at the time and it was really fun to see him so excited to see the characters. My brother loves Disney and it was the perfect place to celebrate his 40th. I'm so thankful he included me and my Mom on the trip. I have always looked up to my brother and I admire what a fun and loving Dad he has become. My sister and I were asked to be the 2010 Arthritis Foundation Chicago Walk Honorees.  My sister and I are so close and share so many similarities, RA being one of them.  We had a great time raising money for a charity that is very important to both of us.  Right after the walk Marcio and I left for California to meet our surrogate and the doctors to start the process.  We had an amazing trip and feel so blessed that she has decided to help us out.  We enjoyed the summer, went to a few Cubs games, celebrated the Hawks winning the Stanley Cup, enjoyed some outdoor concerts, bbq's with our families, celebrated our 10th Wedding Anniversary and on March 31st marked my 10 year anniversary of being cancer free! This is not something I ever make a big deal to say anything to my family or friends, but for me it is a day I will never forget and each year on March 31st I thank God for another year of being cancer free. I kind of think of it as my secret little holiday. I also had my 20th class reunion which I was the main planner for the festivities.  We had a blast, all my best friends came home and we were able to spend some good quality time together.  Then 2 weeks later I was co-chair for the Arthritis Foundation's Gala auction.  This could also go on my lowlights of 2010, because I nearly killed myself trying to get donation and then worked the event until 1am. Thankfully my Mom was there with me.   My friend Lynne came through with a signed hockey stick from the Stanley Cup Blackhawks team.  She is amazing and I was so thankful for her help.  My Dad also helped a ton by asking his friends for popcorn machines, DePaul and Bulls tickets.    We finished off the year with a trip back to California for our last transfer. nbsp; The last highlight for the year was my sister and brother in law are expecting their first child in August 2011.  We are all so excited for our extended family to grow and we know Christine and Jim are going to make amazing parents.
Now for the lowlights....
The biggest hardship of my life happened Aug 31st.....we had to say goodbye to our beloved Tommyboy.  He had a large mass that the vet found in Febraury, he survived the surgery and was doing great up until the third week in August.  We knew it was time to say goodbye, but to this day I miss him so much.  I'm actually crying as I write about it.  We did plant a nice rose of sharron bush by his favorite spot in our yard and my family gave us money to buy an adirondack chair to go next to it.  This will be a real nice memorial spot for him.  We also had our last transfer fail, we received this news the day before Thanksgiving.  I also had 2 surgeries....my 5th tendon repair for a ruptured tendon on my left hand in Janurary and hip replacement in November, both went fine and I'm all healed up.

As I put my recap of 2010 in writing I realize how much more time I spend talking about the highlights and even though we had some real challenges this past year. I will continue to focus on all that I have to be thankful for and stay focused on my dreams and goals.  I am so blessed in my life and I refuse to allow anything to bring me down or change me as a person.  Don't get me wrong, I feel sad for what we lost, but I have a choice in how I respond to what life presents me.