Prayers always appreciated!

I'm sitting here enjoying a great Sunday morning with Adam, drinking coffee, watching the news, fire place going while it rains cats and dogs outside. Sounds perfect, right?! Well we decided to have a relaxing weekend after the horribly long week we had and we were fairly successful, mostly because it has rained all weekend long.

Our week started with me going back to work on Monday after not working for the past 5 months! I was fortunate enough that the week I decided to get aggressive with finding a job, I found out my old boss at the nursing home I was a social worker at before we moved out of Chicago 2 years ago, was looking for a social worker!! The girl who replaced me when I left had just resigned that week. So, I called my boss and she offered me the job on the spot! So, I am back working as a Social Worker at Cambridge Nursing and Rehab Center. I feel so blessed that it worked out this way! :) So, anyway I was pretty excited to get back to work and despite getting up at 5:30 to work out everyday before work, I think I have adjusted pretty well.

Our bad news came on Thursday when I had to go back to the doctor to have bloodwork and an ultrasound done in order to start my medication to prepare for our first IUI after the miscarriage in August. We were very anxious and nervous about starting the process again after our loss, but ready to start again too. After waiting until 2:30 that afternoon, which seemed like an eternity, the nurse called with my results. All of my bloodwork was fine but my ultrasound was not. They found that I have a luteal cyst. This type of cyst develops in the second half of the cycle after the egg has been released (at ovulation). As soon as ovulation has taken place in a normal cycle, the ruptured follicle then develops into the corpus luteum which produces progesterone in anticipation of a pregnancy. If the egg is not fertilized, the corpus luteum withers, progesterone levels fall and a period occurs. A luteal cyst is formed when the corpus luteum fails to wither when it should, and fills with blood instead. Apparently, sometimes it just happens, it's possible it happened because of the miscarriage but it's also possible it had nothing to do with it. Hopefully we will get some more answers on Tuesday, when we meet with the doctor and I have to have a saline ultrasound to look at everything in more detail. Hopefully everything is just fine, but it does mean we won't be able to do another IUI this month because any increase in hormones (because of the medications used) could cause everything to enlarge and potentially cause my uterus to rupture. Obviously that would be a bad thing. However, we were both very upset that we can't do an IUI this month. I wasn't exactly in the mood for cooking when we got home from work Thursday evening, so Adam stepped up and got dinner for us! Let me first start by saying my husband really is a good cook and enjoys helping me in the kitchen but he obviously wasn't in a great mood either. One of the many reasons why living in the city and having everything so close is amazing, a CVS downstairs! It has proved very convenient for  nights like this when we have a bad day. Dinner of champions, or at least down in the dumps, normal people! :) Dijorno, a sprite and a dark chocolate snickers...Adam knows the way to my heart! (And yes, it was Adam who took this picture to make sure I could include it in my blog! love him!)

We went throught the motions and got through Friday and were very glad to welcome the weekend! So, here we are mid-weekend and trying to stay positive for Tuesday. All thoughts and prayers are much appreciated for our appointment this week and also as we continue along this hard journey to having a child.

~Erica

Stronger

Well, I promised after the first of the year I would get better at being more consistent with my blogs and I have clearly failed miserably. We have had a lot going on in our VERY personal life that we have kept somewhat secret for over a year and a half now. After the recent occurrences (which I will explain later) we have decided that we are ready to open up and let people in on what's been happening. Bare with me as I try to make this as simple as possible.

In January of 2011, Adam and I decided to start trying to start our family. After a very long year of let down after let down, we went to a fertility specialist in January 2012 in Urbana. After many blood tests and ultrasounds, I was diagnosed with poly-cystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and Adam was diagnosed as having low sperm morphology (poor sperm shape). These two things put together were keeping us from our dream of having a baby come true for over a year! It was very hard to let settle in but after moving back to Chicago in May, we began seeing one of the best fertility specialist in Illinois in June. Dr. Kaplan at the Fertility Centers of Illinois has a history of very high success rates, so that began putting some of our fears at ease. We underwent our first Intra-Uterine Insemination (IUI) in July and after the very long two week wait we had a positive blood test. I was actually pregnant! We couldn't believe it for quite awhile. Because pregnancies achieved through reproductive treatments are considered high risk we had to go in several times for blood work and ultrasounds over the next couple weeks and it was pretty scary. Unfortunately, on August 8, at 7 weeks, I suffered a miscarriage. As common as they are, anyone who has gone through one will tell you it is a horrible experience you wouldn't wish upon your worst enemy. We are still dealing with our anger and pain daily, trying to understand why some people are given children so easily and we are stuck going through this horrible process. We will have to wait a few months before we are able to try IUI again, to give my body plenty of time to heal from the miscarriage. We were told by our doctor that it is very uncommon for people to get pregnant on the first IUI, which gives us some hope that maybe the next time it will be successful and have a better ending. Only time will tell.

Several of our close friends and family were aware of what's been happening for part of our journey so far, but we have decided that it's getting harder and harder to not tell people and we would love for more people to be educated on "infertility" including myths and fallacies that surround it. I will continue to do my best to help more people understand anything I can. Infertility is a very scary journey to starting a family, those who have or are currently experiencing it know exactly what I mean, and those who don't, well, I'm going to do my best to help you understand! :)

Otherwise we're doing okay and trying to support each other and stay positive! I'm going to leave you with a quote I found on Pinterest the other day. It made me think of my amazing husband as I read it, I could not have gotten through many of the days over the last 20 months without him!

"The couples that are 'meant to be' are the ones who go through everything that is meant to tear them apart and come out even stronger than they were before!"