Costumes, Phone Calls, and other randoms

Hubby and I officially decided to go down the IVF path.  I called the facility last Thursday and left a message (that's how they do things there).  Expecting to wait an entire week before I heard back from them, I was completely surprised to have my phone ring yesterday.  It wasn't the call I was hoping to have, but it was another step in the direction of getting an appointment.  Basically I learned that my Doctor here needs to submit a referral to them.  Once they receive that, a team of doctors reviews the referral to see if I am a good candidate and they make a decision.  Based on that decision, I'll get another phone call to either set up an appointment or learn that they think I'm a hopeless case.  From what I gathered, this whole process could take about a month or so (I'm hoping it doesn't), so another month in limbo.  TTC is a huge rollercoaster.

In other news...

With Halloween right around the corner, Hubby and I tried so hard to figure out what we wanted to dress up as.  I had no idea - I figured I'd hit up Sal.va.tio.n Ar.m.y and Go.od.wil.l and be inspired by whatever I found.  Hubby had a pretty good idea for his Redneck costume.  Finding stuff for him was a completely different story.  He kept pulling stuff off the racks that was no where near being Redneck-ish.  He's now changed his mind and decided to dress as a construction worker or something along those lines.  I don't think he really knows for sure.  Me?  Well, I found a super cute plaid skirt (for $2.00!!) and things went from there.  My costume will be a not-quite-so-revealing/slutty Catholic school girl.  I thought about going all out for the slutty version, but I figured since we'll be with a bunch of church people, it wouldn't be smart to go all out.  So I've toned it down a little.  The best part - my entire costume cost less than $12, and I had to get everything - the white shirt, shoes, skirt, and stockings.  I love second-hand stores.

My brother will finally be moving out of my parent's place!  He's 26 and finally getting out.  It's been a year since he moved back home, but he's been mooching off my parents for that entire year.  Well, he's probably helped out with like $200 in groceries, but that's about it.  But he finally found a house of his own, so I'm excited for him and my parents.  Before he can move in, he'll need to do a lot of cleaning and some minor cosmetic things (it sounds like the previous people did a horrible job to the house).  It's all stuff he can do though, and over the Thanksgiving weekend, Hubby and I will be back home so I figured that we could help him a little.

Other than that, things are pretty normal around here.  We're gearing up for the Halloween party, and my hubby is planning something on Friday night for my b-day.  Saturday is technically my b-day, but with the party, he had to adjust his plans.  That's fine, except he tells me that I have to help make dinner!  Say what??!?!  Yeah...it's my b-day dinner - I shouldn't have to help make it.  It's supposed to be a day that I get to take it easy, not make my own b-day dinner.  I tell ya...  We'll see what he has up his sleeves though.  He's good with surprises and getting even better at keeping them.

For other randoms...

Christina, good luck!  Get as much sleep as you can now because once that girl's here, sleep becomes a very rare and precious thing!

E and Kristin for some odd reason, I have major issues posting comments on your blogs.  I don't know what it is, but instead of posting the comment, it just erases everything and basically reloads the page, no matter what method I choose for posting it (Google Account, Anonymous, etc.).  Very strange stuff.

....TRIGS....

An old college friend/co-worker just found out that her and her hubby are expecting their first...just weeks after they celebrated their first anniversary.  Thanks to FB, I get to read about every little complaint she has.  This morning was something about how she did too much moving and how it wasn't good for the pregnancy because now she's exhausted.  I was so tempted to write something evil back to her about how she should be happy that she's experiencing that because there are some people who may never get to enjoy that.  I didn't though.  I suppressed evil Gabsy and decided to keep that to myself (and now you guys).  I've got to double check my emotions/feelings.  Granted I am happy for her, but honestly when she complains about every little thing, I almost want to scream, "You got yourself into this!  Enjoy it!!" 

Post-Op Report

Today was my official post-op appointment.  Dr. M took a look at my incisions and said they are looking great.  I must agree.  Aside from them being a little red still, you wouldn't be able to tell I had surgery a little over 3 weeks ago. 

As for the appointment itself, she showed us the 8 pages of pictures she took during surgery.  I had to laugh at a couple of them.  She had to take pictures of both the left and right sides round ligaments because I have no fat surrounding them.  She told us that the surgery staff had never seen something like that before because they'd never worked on a patient with such little body fat as myself.  Heart disease will never be a problem for me, she joked. 

As we progressed through the pictures, we got to the ones she had taken of my tubes and ovaries.  From the outside, they look perfect - no scarring or anything that would indicate any kind of infection or endometriosis.  However, when she injected the dye, it pooled in one area on the right side.  She said that she had a hard time trying to get it to spill like it should.  Getting it to spill into the left was impossible.  She moved things around and still no luck.  She's somewhat at a loss as to how they got the dye to get through my left tube during the HSG.

So, she came to the conclusion that it's most likely inside the tubes.  Hence, the diagnosis of Tubal Factor IF.  She said that they could have removed the diseased tubes, but since I'm so young, didn't really see much of a benefit of doing so.  Because of the possible diseased tubes, she also doesn't recommend us doing an O-inducing medications (Clomid, Femara, etc.) because there is such a heightened risk of having an ectopic pregnancy if we do get pregnant.  Our final choice:  IVF.

I'm fine moving on with it.  Hubby has his reservations now.  He's looking at the financial aspect of it all.  Paying for transportation, lodging, and the embryologist (I believe it is) currently wouldn't be feasible on our one-income right now.  My thoughts are that we won't be able to get an appointment with the RE for at least 6-8 months, which would give us a lot of time to get things in line financially so we could do it.  And who knows, I could have a job by that time and it wouldn't be such an issue.

We're going to discuss it more and go from there.  I know I don't want to waste too much time cuz this girl isn't getting younger (as my 25th rapidly approaches next week - not that I'm old, but being a military spouse puts a litttle damper on some aspects of life).  Plus, if at all possible, I want to utilize whatever routes we can to try to have a baby before we get to the point that we have to decide about living CF or adopting.

Now what to tell the families...that's an entirely different post, especially since they don't know we're TTC.

Weekend Romp

Monday already!?!?!?  What happened to the weekend?  The past few days flew by so fast and now it's already Monday!  I think weekends should be Friday-Sunday - 3 full days to relax.

So here's how we spent our weekend:

Friday, Hubby had off work, but he was busy studying for an upcoming test that he has to take.  I spent nearly the entire day raking the yard, pulling our dead or near-dead flowers, and bagging it all.  No so fun either.  But the weather was gorgeous, so I won't complain.

Saturday morning, Hubby and I volunteered to help rake leaves at our church (yeah, as if I didn't already get enough of that on Friday...).  I ended up with a blister on my thumb (which did pop), but we had a good time with some of the people from church.  Needless to say, the yard and parking lot looked good for at least a few hours.  The wind decided to pick up a little, so more leaves fell off the trees, leaving our green grass littered with brown and red leaves once again.  Oh the joys of Fall.

Saturday afternoon was much more enjoyable.  A bunch of young couples from our church got together and drove to Cañon City to visit a Corn Maze/Pumpkin Patch.  Despite a wrong turn and getting a little lost on the way there, it was an amazing time.  The weather was perfect and the company was a lot of fun.  We went in little groups through the maze (with the exception of one husband who conquered it all by himself).  Most of us finished in about 20 minutes.  One group took about 45 minutes.  Either way, it was fun racing through the corn stalks and getting "lost".  At the end of the day, we all got to pick a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch.  Lucky for us, they had just opened a new field that morning, so there were plenty of good sized pumpkins to pick from.  Here's a few pictures from that day:

The 2 entrances to the maze.  The theme this year was "Go Green with John Deere."

A photo-op place they had set up.  We never did take a group photo there.

A peek into the new pumpkin patch they had opened that morning.

The older, not-quite-as-good-pickin' pumpkin patch.

Then there's Sunday.  I'm joining the worship team at church, so I had to go to their 7:30am practice.  Wow, that was early.  Then, I had Christmas Choir practice, and finally the actual church service.  It made for a long long morning, that's for sure.  The sermon was somewhat heavy, but then to top it all off, one of the ladies in the church (who is around our age), gave up and told about 2 different stories/struggles that she has faced in her life.  One was about the loss of her father when she was 7.  The second one hit home a little bit harder.

(TRIGS to follow)

Her husband and she wanted to start a family right after they got married.  2 1/2 years later, they finally got pregnant with their son.  When he was a year old, they decided to try for a second child.  Now, their son is 3 1/2.  So another 2 1/2 years later, and they still don't have a second child.  She told us that they have been trying the whole time and actually got pregnant.  They were so excited.  However, when they went for an ultrasound, she was told that she was miscarrying.  She was devastated.  She went on to tell how heartbreaking it was for them to have waited that long to get pregnant, then find out they were miscarrying.  As you looked around the sanctuary, you could almost tell who has gone through a similar situation or known someone who has.  So many ladies where crying and some men even got choked up over it all.  I'm getting misty-eyed once again just typing this.

While some people could identify with her miscarriage story, what really hit me most is that they have been trying for 2 1/2 years with no luck.  Hubby and I are officially at our 24-month mark this month.  October 2009.  Two years of trying to have a baby and we haven't had any luck either.  It's hard.  It's hard to hear other people's stories of their struggle with IF.  I don't know if they have done IF treatments, or just tried every month or what.  I don't know if I would feel comfortable adressing that with her either.  I just know what it's like to want something so much but can't have it.  It's heart wrenching.

But enough of the sad stuff.

On Wednesday, I meet with Dr. M for my post-op.  Hubby is going to join me and we're both excited to discuss our situation with her and take another step in the direction towards getting pregnant.  She's an amazing doctor and super-supportive of her patients.  She's basically already told us what our next step will be, and I know I'm looking forward to talking things over and making progress with this whole IF thing.  As the saying goes, "We don't know what the future holds, but we know who holds the future."