movie....

So, i just happen to have been a HUGE 90210 fan back in the day and Jason Priestley was my FAVORITE!! So, when i saw he was in a recent Hallmark movie that was going to be playing....i watched it.
Not only did i watch it....but i balled my eyes out too....
Here's a link to the trailer you can watch...

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2254651/expecting_a_miracle_hallmark_channel/

It's about a couple who after 3 IVF attempts, go and take a much needed vacation.....it just made me feel 'normal' when i saw how they responded to each other after the last failed attempt....because, honestly, we've been there. It was then that they had to make a choice, try again, which they didn't have the money for or not have children. Adoption was kinda in the air..... it's a hard place for a couple to have to be at.
If i've learned one thing about our journey, a couple has to STAY STRONG....

OhNo he didn't....

He sure did...just grab up another medal in the Olympics!! I'm talking about the only Apolo Ohno...



http://www.apoloantonohno.com/home

I just have to give a shout out to Apolo....although i was bummed he was DQ'd earlier tonight...he still rocked it and i'm still a fan.....even if i'm a little biased cuz he looks kinda like poppa monkey

'"What's in a name?...

"...That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet." -Juliet


This is the post that i list possible names...
I have my boy name and girl name that i really like but am keeping a secret for now.....

Boys: Cody
Jacob (Jake)
Alexander (Alex)
Lucas (Luke)
Jameson
Samul
Joel

Girls:
Kalei
Alexis
Eleanor
Ella
Elaine
Josephine

Hello? Anyone there???

It's weird....sometimes i feel like i have the plague....
It seems that when your friends trying for a baby or don't have a baby --you have things in common, you hang out, you go places and then this weird thing happens....your friends get pregnant. And they get all weird and strange and then slowly disappear. I don't sit there and talk about my issues, unless you ask and i try to keep it really short and vague.....and if you're pregnant, get ready....cuz i'm always asking questions...cuz i'm curious......

But don't just ignore me or just drop out of my life because you're pregnant, i realize what you're experiencing isn't what i am, but we are friends...we're going to go through things differently at different times.....talk to me about your pregnancy...be my friend.

Maybe it's something i've noticed cuz like 14 people i know are pregnant, but I'm not contiguous.... :(

So i was over here http://michaelandmarykate.blogspot.com reading Mary Kate's journey of IVF and now life with twins and
and found this poem....i thought it was fitting....

I will be a wonderful Mother

There are women who become mothers without effort,
without thought,
without patience or loss,
and though they are good mothers and love their children,
I know that I will be better.
I will be better not because of genetics or money
or because I have read more books,
but because I have struggled and toiled for this child.
I have longed and waited.
I have cried and prayed.
I have endured and planned over and over again.
Like most things in life,
the people who truly have appreciation
are those who have struggled to attain their dreams.
I will notice everything about my child.
I will take time to watch my child sleep,
explore, and discover.
I will marvel at this miracle every day for the rest of my life.
I will be happy when I wake
in the middle of the night to the sound of my child,
knowing that I can comfort, hold, and feed him
and that I am not waking to take another temperature,
pop another pill, take another shot or cry tears of a broken dream.
My dream will be crying for me.
I count myself lucky in this sense;
that God has given me this insight,
this special vision with which I will look upon my child.
Whether I parent a child I actually give birth to
or a child that God leads me to,
I will not be careless with my love.
I will be a better mother for all that I have endured.
I am a better wife, a better aunt, a better daughter,
neighbor, friend, and sister because I have known pain.
I know disillusionment,
as I have been betrayed by my own body.
I have been tried by fire and hell that many never face,
yet given time, I stood tall.
I have prevailed.
I have succeeded.
I have won.
So now, when others hurt around me,
I do not run from their pain in order to save myself discomfort.
I see it, mourn it, and join them in theirs.
I listen.
And even though I cannot make it better,
I can make it less lonely.
I have learned the immense power of another hand holding tight to mine,
of other eyes that moisten as they learn
to accept the harsh truth when life is beyond hard.
I have learned a compassion that only comes by walking in those shoes.
I have learned to appreciate life.
Yes, I will be a wonderful mother.

Thoughtless Thursday.....

Ever have one of those moments when you walk into a grocery store and it seems like you've been left out on the memo that says ..today is wear your fuzzy crazy PJ bottoms day... well, it seems that when babies are the furthest from my mind...i will walk in on the baby bump Sunday....where it seems like all the pregnant ladies go shopping this day...i go to grab milk and bam, pregnant belly....i shimmy down the dog food isle...bam, another very pregnant belly and then i skip on over to the veggies and there's a maybe baby belly.... but it's just not Sundays.... oh no...there's Twin Tuesday...where i swear everyone who has twins goes shopping that day...or momma is going crazy Monday with a crabby 2 year old throwing a Oscar winning tantrum in isle 10, and 12 and 14 and.... and then there's the We all have baby girls Wednesday, where apparently those with baby girls should go shopping..swarms of pink...everywhere. And then there's Tantrum Thursday where EVERY single kid is crying, screaming, whining and momma monkey is going to have a break down if she hears one more freakn' kid screaming....and then there's adorable future monkey Fridays, where i'm stuck in the longest line ever behind the cutest kids that remind me of what our future monkey's might look like... and then there's the pregnancy test commercial Saturday...where that stupid commercial about how peeing on the test is the best thing you'll ever pee on....yeah, that one gets played over and over and over and over again....

and today says....

"that all is well. All is going according to plan. Trust that there is a bigger picture. Trust that life is unfolding as it should."

Strange things have been happening today.... this is the quote that poppa monkey had on his page and strangely enough...it speaks loud and clear to me today.....

So, remember that when you're doubting things, when things are seeming to be so rough and hard and unbearable..........things will get better, things will make sense and this is where we are to be. :)

and then i don't.....

surrender......yet. So, I began to think about writing a blog on our fertility things cuz well, frankly, i have a lot of thoughts and it's hard for me to keep my thoughts in and not release them. It's hard to talk to poppa monkey, cuz he's a guy and well, sometimes he just doesn't get it....i have my best girls, but sometimes i feel foolish for being so frustrated about 'my issues' when they have their own issues....the last thing they want to hear about is me rambling on about our fertility struggles.
So, i began the blog, as a way for me to vent, to get rid of 2.5 years of trying to get pregnant, to clear my chakra's so our 'spirit baby' will come to us....to release my anxieties and my worries....to not be judged.
Some days i'm frustrated, some days are like yesterday, full of disappointment, frustration and giving up. And other days are like today --where i'm grateful i got my period this morning cuz then at least i know my body is working right. That today i know that i am exactly where i am meant to be. That i can dream about baby names and a future with poppa monkey that includes children. That i know i will be a mother...wither it's conventional or unconventional...it will happen....i just can't control when it will happen.
Today is a new day. I am alive.
97% of the time, i'm like today, my thoughts are clear and happy and like today. Sometimes i'm in between today and yesterday and other times, although seldom, but every few months i get like yesterday. I want to give up.
So, call me crazy...my emotions vary but, it's life - we deal and we move on.

I had acupuncture today - so i'm all balanced. Got new ear tacs...yeah!! I took out my right one last week (she said i could take them out if they're bothering me to much til i get used to them) cuz when i slept it kept hurting. I kept the left one in and seriously....EVERYONE should get these!! When i'm driving and getting all anxious, i push on my tac and a calmness washes over me. Get a headache, push tac - gone! Feeling pissy, push tac- relaxed. Hard time falling asleep, push tac - ASLEEP!! It's amazing! In fact, last week i felt like i was getting sick and i kept pushing on my tac and i felt okay....Friday i took out my tac cuz it was itching and it was like my body went bonkers...i was sneezing, i felt like crap, i had tummy issues, i was coughing....it was insane!! So, now i have new ones and i will NOT be taking these bad boys out...

I surrender...

My white flag is up....it's waving...i surrender.
It's crazy the emotional roller coaster one goes on when they are trying to get pregnant and then throw in some fertility challenges, and it's quite the ride.
The past 2 weeks i've been feeling down, confused...not sure what to do.....
And today...i surrender. I am emotionally drained....i told poppa monkey, i'm done. I give up...we'll finish the acupuncture and then i'm done..... There's a reason why we aren't getting pregnant and no one can tell us how to fix it..so screw it..

I am so tired of crying, i am tired of trying everything under the sun and moon and nothing working...i am tired. I am tired of hearing about people trying so hard to get pregnant only to have it end in a miscarriage, i'm tired of hearing about people getting pregnant period. I am tired of trying for our 1st while ppl we know starting trying after us and are now pregnant with their 3rd child...i am tired.

Have we wasted the money on the acupuncture, maybe...maybe not. If anything, we'll walk away knowing we tired yet one more thing and if poppa monkey's allergies are better and i'm more balanced, then awesome.....we can't get our money back, so we might as well benefit from it as much as we can. I feel foolish that i allowed them to give us false hope.....i am no longer optismistic. I want results and i want them now. I am tired of waiting...2.5 years of waiting is far more then i ever thought i'd have to wait......so i'm done. I'm throwing in the towel and i'm done....

Wordless Wednesday...

Whoops, i forgot all about my wordless wednesday, although mine aren't really wordless....but here's a picture of my new ear wear......it's tiny tacks that i have in both my ears for my acupunture, it helps to keep it flowing and i can press on them if i have a headache etc. It works...and it's helped me sleep too....NICE!!



And a quote a just found...

"If life was easy, where would all the adventure's be?" -unknown

Pity Party for one.....

Yeah....pity party for one. Yesterday was a rough day, i was sad and found out that yet another person i know is expecting. I can't stress enough that i'm happy for everyone who is blessed with a child....blessed with getting pregnant....but once in awhile...i can feel sad and frustrated....i'm allowed to.

The last 2 ppl that i know who have gotten pregnant have been trying for years. One for just over 2.5 years and had pretty much given up all hope, when she found herself excpecting. The newest gal, had a miscarriage 2 years ago, just sold all her baby stuff like 2 weeks ago that she had collected over the last 2 years (crib, changing table, clothes, diapers, etc) cuz her realtionship was on the outs, she reconsiled and just found out she is expecting...her partner's SA had come back horrible, she only had 1 working ovary that worked whenever it wanted to and given less then 2% chance of ever concieving.
So believe me when i say i'm sooo happy for them, for all the ladies i know in my life that are pregnant and expecting or just had their babies.....i don't wish fertility issues on anyone.....

But i can have my days....and i was crampy yesterday and AF should be here in the next two days or so....so, yeah, i'm pissed, i'm frustrated and honestly, i just don't get it...i've tried to not think about it, sex isn't calculated anymore, i'm not OPKn'....i just....what if i never get the chance to be a mom.

We had an earthquake this morning (i live in an area where earthquakes are rare) and i was just thinking...OMG, what if 2012 the world does end.....even if it does, and i only have just a breif time with a baby....as least i'd get to experience motherhood, i'd get to experience feeling a growing baby in my body....gosh, it's got to be just amazing to feel that...to know that you're creating a life. I don't want to die and never experience that.

So, i stuffed my face with reeses peieces, ice cream, chips and gaucamole and then i felt bad for eating out of emotions and PMS so i worked my butt off in the gym and i felt a little better....still want to be a mom though, still want to experience pregnancy, still want to hold a little baby that we make out of love and experience life as a parent.....i'm starting to loose hope....gosh i hope this fertility acupunture works.....cuz i need a little hope....

Wierd, the other day i was 'talking' to God (yes, i talk to God) and i was just venting to Him and of course asked for a sign and the next morning guess what i woke up to.....'Don't stop believing'!! by journey....right at that point of the song.... it of course made me chuckle....and although i'll never stop believing .... my faith and hope is being tested......

IVF

So, i haven't explained why after being told by medical Dr's that IVF is really our only way to have a child...why haven't we done the IVF----well, let me explain...

IVF scares the crap-ola out of me! Plain and simple.
The thought of injecting my body with hormones and getting bloated and then having my body produce a ton of eggs, take them out and petri-dish them with the lil' swimmers and then shove 'em back in my body and hope and pray that they stick....it's just sooo un-natural to me.

I'm in no way against IVF - it's just right now, it's not for me or us. I give props to those ladies who have to endure numerous rounds of IVF...and those who it works for them the 1st time....If IVF is for you, then by all means...go for it.
With that being said.....

I was on birt control pills(BCP) for years - 9-9.5 years..give or take a few months --and when i went off them i felt a little crazy, but then once they were out of my body....i felt like a different person, i wasn't as moody and bitchy...i was 'normal'. I will NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER go back on birth control!!!!(now, obviously, if i do IVF, i will have to be medicated with BCP so my cycle is regulated) I started BCP cuz my cycles were irregular and my friend had just started them and loved that she knew when her cycle was going to start....i wanted that...i was tired of always having to carry feminie products with me cuz there was no real rhyme or reason for my cycles.... NEVER again..... *Now, i'm not saying to never take BCP - take them at your own risk--if you don't use them, use some other sort of protection*

Sometimes, when i hear about a friend who is having a harder time getting pregnant and i hear she was on BCP for years....i wonder, i wonder if that has any correlation.

Anyways--so, IVF....so, when i think about how much BCP messed with my body and really how un-natural it all is....i just don't know if i want to put all those hormones into my body again...

I feel like i'm playing GOD ....if it's meant to be - it will be. I read a book called Hannah's Hope (http://www.hannah.org/ - that's the website and then you can find the book from there) and it talks about Hannah in the Bible who was wanting a child so much...she cried, she prayed and God gave her a child....and then he gave her like 5 more.....the point is.....i feel like when the time is right, GOD will give us children -- I know our prayers will be answered, it just won't be on my time.

Another Moral issue, is when they harvest my eggs, what if i produce like 10 eggs, and they all last the 5 days in the petri-dish...i'm only going to be putting in 2 eggs, and if that works the first time, what do i do with the left over 8 fertilized eggs? Obviously, if we have twins, i'm not sure we'd try again....maybe we'd only put in 1 egg if we tried again, but i'm still left with fertilized eggs--they are eggs that have my DNA and poppa monkey's DNA in them....they're our little baby monkeys...i can't just throw them away...i'm not sure i'd want to have someone buy them to use cuz those are my babies....and i can't just freeze them forever.....

I really don't want twins. I think i'm like one of the very few people out there that don't want twins...now, obviously, if we were blessed with twins....by all means, we would be so incredibly grateful....however, i also don't want to increase that chance. I realize that the percentage of twins through IVF is actually very low (something like 25%)....it's still increasing it significantly if we didn't do IVF.

Our insurance plan doesn't cover IVF or any fertility treatments. Crazy, since i live in a state that is mandated to cover IVF and IUI's (insemination) - but there's always a catch.... like, poppa monkey's work pays for it's own insurance... There's also if you have less then 25 employees and something else to meet this exception. Of course, HMO HAS to cover it, but poppa monkey's work doesn't offer an HMO.... So, we've looked up IVF plans - one that is money back if we don't come home with a live baby - is $30,000!!!! and that's not including the thousands we'd have to spend in meds. If we just did a regular cycle - then it's like $17,000, and again not including the meds. So, we can't afford to spend all this money on something that MAY or MAY NOT even work. I've known some couples that IVF works the 1st time and they only end up with a singleton and i've known some couples who have gone through IVF more then 2 times.....i just don't know if i can go through the emotional toll IVF can cause...i mean, technically, once those fertilized eggs are transfer ed back, you're pregnant...and then to have to wait to see if they stick....*sigh*

So, I know we've been told that we have a less then 1% chance of conceiving naturally, but i've seen people beat the odds, i've heard stories of people beating the odds.....and if we can conceive as naturally as possible, then let's do it!!! After all, 1% isn't 0...so, we still have a chance and miracles can happen everyday.

2010- New Year, New Adventures....

So, i 'blogged' about how we got here - this crazy fertility journey....you may have wondered (if anyone is actually out there reading this) where are we now?

Here's a mini time line--(as mini as i can squeeze 2+years into)
December 2007- began the journey to parenthood in Hawaii
October 2008- annual girl exam, which turned into, you probably have PCOS and here, let's get you started on Clomid and metaformin(sp) and let's schud. a SA for poppa monkey and an HSG for you.... can we say OVERWHELMED!?!?!
December 2008 - Momma monkey's HSG - all good!!
Poppa Monkey's 1st SA -not so good-
January 2009-August 2009 - Poppa Monkey begins male fertility vitamins, has 2 more SA's, meets with a urologist, and momma monkey starts charting, temping, OPKn' and getting more and more discouraged that we're never going to have a child and more and more disappointed every month.
Late summer/early Fall 2009- Meet with fertility Dr. that some friends who were undergoing IVF and IUI's recommended. Told we have less then 1% chance of conceiving on our own and that IVF is the only way. We are given a sheet with numerous tests to get completed before IVF can begin.
November 2009- Poppa Monkey gets a DNA test(i'll have to look up the test name on our paperwork) to see if the morphology issue is due to having no or bad DNA in the lil' swimmers....Momma Monkey gets a ultrasound of her ovaries (very cool!!)
December 2009 - Both Poppa&Momma monkey's tests come back NORMAL!!! Hope is restored...

While our hope was restored - it still didn't give us answers as to WHY poppa monkey's morphology was bad - they have ruled out the major things, but still we don't have answers to WHY - So, no answers as to HOW to treat this....

It was around this time that i kept hearing about acupuncture and a few of my friends recommended that i should try it as either it worked for their aliments or they knew people who had later on gotten pregnant. I googled fertility acupuncture one day and came across a agency - it was meant to be..i loved everything about what they said...so we took a leap....we meet with the Dr. and Sunshine (i'll call her that cuz she's pretty much a ball of sunshine)-i pretty much cried the whole consultation but i loved everything about their program and i loved their chemistry together.

January 2010 - Start fertility acupuncture

I began the acupuncture first - because i'm the mommy and i'm going to be carrying the baby, they had to see where my Chi (energy) was blocked and if i would even respond to acupuncture....i got some charts, found where my chi is blocked and began the needle pricking. :)
Actually, i have to say, it doesn't hurt and i haven't passed out yet (i have been known to pass out/get super woozy and almost pass out when getting shots/seeing needles) It actually feels good -i always feel drained but super duper relaxed...i just feel 'balanced'
My sleep is getting better (i've been known to be quite the insomniac) and my period was actually much better this month - not a lot of cramping or blood clots.
After 3 sessions, they retested me and the acupuncture did balance some of my Chi and i am much more evenly balanced with my Yin/Yang - because i'm the more balanced one, they sat me and poppa monkey down and decided that since poppa monkey has a known issue with the morphology - they would see him 1x a week and me only 2x a month. He's also getting allergy acupuncture -which i'm super excited about cuz his allergies are HORRIBLE!!!

February 2010 - Poppa monkey begins fertility acupuncture(and he likes it)

And so the journey continues.....

more pictures....

This is dinner. Now, you may be looking at this and thinking...what.the.heck.is.that..... It's quite yummy - it's whole wheat noodles, a dab of spaghetti sauce, organic tomatoes, tuna and some peas with mayo...mix it all together and that's what you get....Delicious. It's times like these that i seriously wonder what i'll crave when i'm pregnant....i have a feeling it very well maybe pickles and peanut butter...:)

Another Picture Wednesday....

The inside of the Baby Bin..


Some of my favorites...you'll notice a theme....ANIMALS!!! I can't help it, I'll be minding my own business and these cute, adorable animal shirts jump out at me and then i see the orange sticker and i just happen to also have a coupon....



These i didn't buy. The doggie on the left, my mom bought me after my childhood dog passed away...and the dog on the right, was the 1st valentines day i had with poppa monkey, i think a rose came with it too....awe.


And this one...this one poppa monkey just picked out over the weekend. We had a giftcard to a store with like 5 bucks on it...we couldn't find anything to buy and then poppa monkey said....let's buy a baby outfit....we looked and looked and then poppa monkey picked this....and it was no cost to us cuz it was on SUPER duper clearance....