D&C

No, not talking scriptures here folks...its the medical procedure.  We will not have internet for a few days so writing this a bit early.  The plan is to go in for the D & C at the hospital on monday morning.  It is kind of a rushed procedure.  Originally we had discussed doing the procedure at the fertility doc's office. They don't put you completely under, just mostly. They said you feel some pain, but will not be with it enough to remember by the next day. However, we learned we would have to wait three more weeks to get in with the only doctor who takes our insurance there.  We will defiantly meet our 3,000 dollar deductible with this procedure and then some. When it all come out , looks like we will pay a few hundred more because we decided to do the hospital route. This will allow us to do the procedure earlier, and if we qualify perhaps medicaid will chip in a bit (in process of applying). We are not counting on that at all however.  Michael is very nervous about having me under anesthesia since he has seen so many different reactions in the hospital to it.  So we are praying all goes well.  The procedure itself is relatively simple, only taking about 3 to 4 minutes they say,  but I will probably be in the hospital a few hours....
However, we are not 100% certain we can go ahead with the procedure.  They did a urine test in the doc's office, and the test still comes out positive for pregnancy.  That is strike one. This is not completly unnormal, as it takes awhile for levels to go back down and your body still thinks its pregnant.  So I had to go in for a HcG blood draw (I am sooooooooooo getting tired of these draws...yuck!) .  If the levels are lower than when I started pregnancy I will get a green light to go ahead. However, if they are the same or still higher I have to get a second blood test drawn on mother's day (yeah, considering I will be home with Matthew all day[except church of course] by myself while Michael is doing labs for school...no choice on that, he comes or is kicked out of the program).  Not super excited if you can't tell. Anyway, we are hoping all works out with everything.  So many things going on here, so lots and lots of prayers please!!!  What if the levels aren't down or coming down, what will we do? um..yeah...I have no idea!

the news...

So we went in for the second ultrasound today, and there was no heart beat. The doctor looked around for a while to make sure. Last time we saw it very easily, but no luck this time.  She said the baby probably died soon after our last ultrasound. The egg sack was still very large, not too much over the normal, but way big in comparision to the baby .  The baby was still super small.    They said seems very much like a choromsomal abnormality with all the signs. And yes, I did shed a few tears in the doctors office after the official news.

What does that mean now?  Back to square one.  We will wait two weeks to see if the baby comes out on its own, but probably not. Its only a 20% chance, most require D&C aparently.  Our doctor is out of town for two weeks, and only he is covered under our insurance, so we have to wait until he is back.  Another option would be a pill that causes contractions and starts the miscarriage, but that option didn't sound pleasant to me.  They said it was pretty painful. I've heard that from more than one person. We do have the option of getting a D&C done at the doctors office or the hospital. At the doctors office they would not put me totally out, just give some other pain medication so I would still feel the cramping some, but I wouldn't quite be all there either.  The other they would put me out, I'd have the procedure and it would be done.  The procedure itself is very short. So we are going to look at what this would cost us before we decide which route we would take, if that's the route we have to go.  We still have 1,500 left to pay on our deductible, plus the 20% after that.  Our health savings is already gone, but we do have some savings for school that will have to be used. (lucky us all these bills this year, not to mention we have now have to fix some things on our car and just payed a huge school bill also. Good times. i know some of you have definatly been there. So thankful for our savings or at this point we would really be in some serious trouble! :) Glad I learned the habit of saving early on, its been a HUGE blessing for us ).

After that?  We need to wait a month for my body to recover a bit, then we can try again if we want.    At this point I don't know what we will do quite yet. We still need time to process things, look over our finances, and see how we feel about things.  The doctor was pretty optimistic that since we did get pregnant, we could do so again.  I also feel very optimistic about that.  I am greatful that we were able to get pregnant, even though it did not work out because that means there is hope for future pregnancies, or at least one. It is very trying to go through treatments, so how many times we do this will depend on how much we can handle not only financially, but emotionally. 

But overall I am greatful we were able to get pregnant.  I really feel comforted by this, that it did work. Its kind of funny that the very thing that is bringing us great heartache at this time is also the thing the brings us the greatest hope.   I pray the Lord will grant more children to be part of our family, and we are pretty confident He will, no matter how they get to us.  We are thankful to Him and the strength He gives us daily. 
On another note...go BYU! (haha just a tidbit in there to get a smile on your face after reading our news!)

Got the news...

We went in for an ultrasound today and the news was not what we were hoping to hear, but also trying to prepare ourselves for just in case. There is only one baby. When we got the ultrasound the baby was measuring small...no big deal to me cuz Matthew measured small, he still does! (24 lbs, 2 1/2 years old).  But you combine it with the other factors, and it is almost guarenteed there is a genetic abnormality and this pregnancy is not going to survive.  The other factors were: there was a bleed elsewhere in the uterus, the yolk sac was extra large, the size of the baby, and the heartbeat was only about 40 beats a minute, where it should be 100+.  I knew it would not be good news when the first thing she said was "well, there is the baby and the heart is beating about 40 beats a minute". I knew that was way too slow for the baby to survive.  She did not give us much hope for even a slim possibility for survival, unless things suddenly changed super fast.
It was very hard to hear the news, especially after the time and money spent to even get this far.  It will probably take a bit of time to process.  However, for now she said treat the pregnancy as if it is still viable because there is a heart beat, which means I am still taking progrestrone.  This also means if the heart stops beating and normally you would bleed and cramp, this may not happen.  So we are getting an ultrasound done the next friday to see where we are at, and if the baby is still alive at that point.  We will discuss what to do then.
We realize these things happen, and a lot of people have had to go through exactly what we are going through.  However, we ask for your continued prayers for the strength of our family.  One day our family will grow, but when and where is not always up to us. I know the Lord will send a child somehow at the right place and time. Waiting is hard, but I guess it is a great way to learn compassion and patience.
The hardest part is knowing what to do next. We don't really have funds now to keep try much longer, if at all, so if this does not work out, which is highly likely, we will probably wait a few months and then figure out what we can do and when.  We'd love to hear other's stories that have delt with this too. I'm not sure when we will post again, we will just have to see how things go.
In the mean time the best thing we can do is cherish our dear Matthew, who still is more and more of a miracle and everyday. A definate gift from our loving Heavenly Father.

Here we go again...take 2

Six weeks pregnant, cue morning sickness.  Which is actually more like afternoon sickness for me...at least it was with Matthew and so far its the same. Luckily with Matthew I never actually threw up, I just had that awful nausia.  You know, when you want to throw up to make yourself feel better, but it never happens.
Anyway, we got the blood results from today's test back, and yes we are still pregnant!!  Wahoo!  We will have an ultrasound on the 26th, which is a little after they normally would. Their office has been swamped though because they just got a new office, so last week was switching everything around.  I am excited for that, getting to see the baby early :).  (well as long as things keep looking good). 
They told me I will continue the progerstrone until 12 weeks. Fun. Yep anyway that's all signing off for now.

Updates to try number three....

Some of you may have been wondering what the latest is....Its been a crazy and emotional three months.  Three months of medicating and hoping and praying (plus all the time on our own before that).  I warn you, this may be a relatively long post.

When the doctor did the tube test she was expecting different results. She said if she was the doctor she may even reconsider the course of action as to not waste money, or try only once or twice, however, she would leave that decision up to our doctor.  We are very glad he decided to give us the go ahead to try.  As we talked about before, we weren't sure what we would do if this didn't work. We are nearing the end of our money and time for now. We were thinking that the most likely possibility of having another child was to look into foster-to-adoption, and do foster care for a while.  Well, as it turns out, as of today that won't be necessary because we are pregnant! :) :) :). ((By the way not ready to tell the world yet, since we are not far along at all, so please don't post anything on facebook or tell people other than those who live in your house, thanks!)) We are so excited about this.  We want to thank all of you for your faith, prayers and support.  As we said before we really felt we would get pregnant again, at least one more time, but didn't know when that time would be. So we ask for you continued prayers that this child will grow and stay. Our percent of miscarriage is about 30% compared to the normal 15-20%, so a little higher. However, the knowledge this can work for us and at least one tube must be good enough is so freeing.  This definatly leaves us hope that if this didnt work out, it is possible to get pregnant, however slight the chances. We are greatful for modern medicine! We are also greatful to the Lord who has heard our prayers and others. We know this is another miracle!  Normally we would not tell anyone so early, but with our situation and the blog people would start asking sooner or later and we need as many prayers/good thoughts as possible!

We feel so blessed. We know a lot of our friends and family who go through simular issues have not been able to find solutions yet, and I know how hard that is.  We pray for them.  We don't know why sometimes God answers sincere prayer with yes, and others still have to wait for that blessing. But we know all works out for the best.  To those in this situation, keep moving forward, we love you!!

I felt the first time we went to the clinic we were doing the right thing. Not only we were doing the right thing, but it was the right timing to try this as well.  For those of you who don't know Michael just got a new job and into nursing school, both of which start soon, so I feel the timing couldn't be better.  If he was super busy it would be difficult to do the treatments, and the money would have run out long ago.

Again thanks for the prayers and support through this difficult trial in our lives. We truly feel that and are very appreciative. Stay tuned to make sure the pregnancy goes well, and see if we have one, two or three on the way.  Hopefully one or maybe two, don't know how we would deal with three!! But we will take whatever we get and we will be extremly greatful no matter what the case!

For information, we will take a second blood test this week to see if we are still pregnant, and if we are will schedule an ultrasound for the next week. Wish us luck!!!!

Third times a ???

So today we got the IUI again.  We had 3 good eggs. Everything else also looked good.  We thought this would definatly be our last time, but talking to the NP today she said that the doc would not be in for another consultation for a while if this time didn't work, so we should just go for a forth time. However, we hope not to have to try again, of course :).  We are not entirely sure what we will do if it does not work this time. We have spent over 3000 so far, and wiped out our health savings.  It is not only expensive, but a definate emotional roller coaster. The drugs certainly do not help with that.
It definatly hard to find out month after month that there was no success, especially with doctor intervention.  However, everything happens for a reason. 
 I know the Lord creates miracles.  I know he will put a child into our lives when the time is right, but as I said before, I don't know when that time will be.  It is hard to wait and put that trust in God, but his plan is always better.  We are still hoping and praying for a child, another miracle baby. But if not... I am so greatful for the first. He is a handful for sure, but definaly a joy and full of smiles. Growing more each day. :) His current request is for a sister.  So keep that in mind for your prayers :) (ha ha)

looks like....

Looks like we are in for a round three folks.  We were not able to get pregnant. This time it was a little more hard to get the news than the last time around because it does not leave us as hopeful for a third shot.  However, we are going to carry on and hope that third time will be a charm.  We definatly need lots of prayers for health and strength to try again.  Michael only wanted to go through this twice, but he is willing to try this last time.   I really hope we can get pregnant; however, if not, we are considering adoption also.  If we get to that stage we will also continue to discuss that on this page, so you won't be left out. :).  The other option if this does not work is IVF, invetro fertilization. We are not sure we want to do this option, as it costs much much more and is very invasive. (about 10-12,000 plus medication and of course insurance does not cover it, nor does it work everytime).  It would definatly eat up our savings and we really need to hang on to that if michael gets into school this year. So I am not sure if that would even be a real option.  Adoption is also very expensive obviously , so if this route does not work, our next child may not be here for a while...
Anyway, stayed tuned because here we go again....