Thursday, April 28, 2011

Baby Fever

Every since we decided to try for #2 I have had the most intense case of baby fever. And now that we aren't taking meds anymore it almost feels painful. I feel just like I did trying for #1, everytime someone announces a pregnancy I feel angry and want to stop talking to them and never see them again. It's like they are getting babies easily even though we are trying so hard for it! I want to keep trying soooo badly! This waiting game is ridiculous! I'm in this weird limbo right now. We took femara this month and at CD 17 only had one 10mm so we cancelled, but we are now waiting for AF that isn't showing. I don't know if I Oed, if I did I don't know when, and I have NO clue when my period will show up. This is hell. *sigh*

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Versatile Blogger Award!

I just received the versatile blogger award from Mandi!!! Thank you for nominating me!
Here are the rules:
1.) Winners- Put the above image in your blog.
2.) Include a link back to the person who gave it to you.
3.) Tell 10 things about yourself
4.) Award 15 other bloggers
5.)Contact the bloggers you awarded and let them know they won.
Here are 10 slightly interesting things about me...
1.) I met my husband back in high school marching band. Band geeks unite!
2.) I am an Avon representative
3.) I'm currently getting certified as a wedding planner so I can start my own business
4.) I have two tattoos and I have been planning many more, they are just too expensive
5.) I'm a self-proclaimed hard ass but can't stand people being mad at me, which don't work together well.
6.) I'm a horrible housewife, I would rather do ANYTHING other than clean
7.) I received a bachelors in elementary education and substituted for a year just to find out I can't stand the public school system and never finished my masters because of it.
8.) I was at Virginia Tech when the shooting occured, my class was two buildings to the left and my sisters class was two buildings to the right. Luckily I skipped class that morning. We couldn't get ahold of eachother for hours.
9.) My brother is autistic
10.) I can't stand people who think having money makes you better and/or more important. I have everything I need right here, every thing else is just extra.
My nominees!- I don't know 15 and I'm not sure how to search for blogs, so I'll put who I have that hasn't already received this.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Our plans now...

I've been doing a lot of research lately, trying to figure out what options we have and where fertility clinics are around us and if they have special things they do. Shady Grove is the closest, and they have financial help which we got 30% off last time we went there (which ended up only being one appointment) and they have guarenteed risk free IVF programs where you can pay one flat rate and go till you get a baby. There is also Dominion, which is farther away but they work with ARC Fertility financing. Which allows you to pick a cycle package, say 3 injectable cycles all the way up to guarenteed IVF, and go through with the cycle and they pay the doctor and you just pay them monthly payments to pay it off. Which is awesome because we wouldn't have to jump straight to IVF in order to get discounts on stuff and we would know what we are going to pay instead of the visit to visit crap. They likely are going to base it off of our credit though, which means we need to spend some time fixing our credit. I'm also at the highest weight I have ever been at, so I'm thinking it would be best for me to lose some weight before we continue anyway. I would also like to donate eggs if they let me and I have to be under a certain BMI to do that. I figure it gives us a good cushion financially for our treatments and I may even be able to give another woman her dream at the same time, so it sounds like a win win to me. So.... I guess the plan right now is to lose weight and work on upping our credit score for the next few months while we do our intro doctor's appointments and get everything set up with the new office, then we can start injectibles near the end of summer/beginning of fall.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Stupid bastards!

I went to the doctor this morning and the office refused to accept my payment plan as payment and said they don't have to answer to billing because my treatment is for infertility. So all other rules don't apply to infertility. Just one more way they can continue to fuck us over! And on top of that, because I didn't have the $180 on me that they demanded anyway, they charged my account $380!!! Because if they charge me they "have" to do the insurance price, not my discounted price because I don't have coverage. Seriously????? So they could charge me the $180 if they wanted to, but they just don't feel like it. Well fuck you too, I'm going somewhere else. Looks like the hubby and I will be saving up money for either injections or IVF.

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Amazing news!!!!!

I've been completely stressed and depressed lately at the news that we will need to start doing injections in order to get pregnant. We do NOT have the money for it, we were barely affording the $300-$600 a month we were already paying to do Femara cycles since they require payment at the time of service. Well I called up the billing line today and asked if I could set up some kind of a payment plan, so I wouldn't have to worry about paying out of pocket all the time. There are some appointments where I don't need an ultrasound and just pay my $20 copay, but there are also times where I pay $180 for an ultrasound and he wants me to come in the very next day for another one so I need another $180, and it is impossible to budget it all out because I never know what I am paying or when. The lady with billing let me set up a payment schedule and since I have one in place I won't have to pay out of pocket when I go in to the office, I just tell them I have a payment schedule and to call billing if they need to confirm. And the amazing part is that she set me up for only $200 A MONTH! To them $200 a month is extremely great because most can't afford to pay that much to medical bills, and to me it is FANTASTIC because it is EXTREMELY less than what I would be paying on my own! So it doesn't matter if I get 3 ultrasounds or 10 ultrasounds that month, I only have to keep up with my payments! This brings my stress level down a ton. Out of 10 I was easily at a 9 before, and now I am like a 3 or a 4. I was SO upset when after finding out Femara wasn't working, I was devestated because I knew injections weren't something that fit into our situation right now. The ultrasounds would break us alone and we still had to worry about injectable meds and the fact that my doctor's office is an hour and a half away so thats a ton of gas. This payment plan is our saving grace. Now if this cycle truly is a bust it isn't the end of the line for us, we could actually keep trying!

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

No good follicles :(

Went into the RE's office today to get my follicle scan so I would know if we could trigger tonight. Apparently I don't have any dominant follicles at all. It's CD 14 and my right ovary only had 2 small 10mm follicles, and my left had several very small ones and maybe 2 that were about 10mm as well. He wants me to come in again on friday, CD 17, and get another scan, but he said if we get to CD 18 without enough progress we will have to cancel this cycle and try again. It hurts so much, I've never had this problem before. We tried for 19 medicated months straight to get pregnant with my first and I NEVER went a month where I didn't ovulate, I just never got pregnant. Even on low doses of clomid I would ovulate but after going a few and not getting preggers my old doctor would automatically up the dose. I've never had to deal with this before so I'm not even sure what to think. I've had times where it took a while and we had to wait for them to grow, but I always had one dominant that we could tell just needed some more time. He told me we might be able to try a couple days of injections to save this cycle but he wants to see what it looks like on Friday before we make any decisions. Which means even more ultrasounds to pay for out of pocket, *sigh*. I'm not sure what to do. I thought for sure since we got pregnant on Femara, my body reacted VERY well to it the first time we were TTC, and we hadn't waited long to TTC again that it would be as simple as take Femara and try for a couple months. I honestly thought now that I had proved I was capable of getting pregnant and I knew what med would do it, it would just mean wash, rinse, and repeat until BFP. We can't afford the injections I don't believe. My old insurance paid for the injections, apparently it was listed under hormone injections instead of infertility, so I actually have some follistim in my fridge but only a month's worth. I don't think my new insurance will be so nice. They love rejecting EVERYTHING. Even if it is a normal GP appointment, they find a reason to reject it and make me fight them. Moving up to injections would mean an average of $800-$1000 a month.... I just don't see how we can do it.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Lily's 9 month check up

I made this a separate post for any who are TTC #1 and don't want to read all about her doctor's appointment.
The doctor was AMAZED how great Lily is doing. She said she is far above what they would expect from a preemie baby and even ahead of the curve for some full term babies. About the only thing that is preemie about Lily now is her size, she is still on the preemie scale and much smaller than other babies her age. She measured 26.5 inches and 16lbs 5ozs. :) Which is the 70th percentile for length, and 70th percentile for weight. Her head is still a little small, coming in at the 40th percentile, but the doctor said she wasn't worried. Now we don't have another check up till she is a YEAR OLD! I can't believe she is almost a year old, it completely blows my mind. I swear the time flew by so fast I feel like I missed it all, which makes me so thankful that I am a picture whore LOL! I look back at my pictures from months ago and I'm like holy crap it really has been that long, definitely doesn't feel that way though. I'm REALLY looking forward to her party, I never thought I would be able to throw a birthday party for my own child! It feels amazing.

RE tomorrow morning



We went to the park on Sunday and met up with my cousin and his family for the Family Fun Day. It ended up being a county run event with not much to do, especially because the ground was SOAKED, but it was nice to get out of the house and it ended up being a very warm day. Plus they had the firetrucks and helicopters there for the kids to look at which was fun.
Tomorrow morning we have to be at the RE for my follicle check, which I believe will be CD 14 for me, so I am hoping that everything will look good and we can trigger tomorrow or the day after. Ready to get this show on the road!! I accidently watched that didnt know I was pregnant show the other day and it made my baby fever worse and it royally pissed me off because so many women get pregnant when they are actually trying NOT TO! How is that FAIR??? Hopefully this will be our month though!

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Trouble losing the weight

I have been having such a hard time recently trying to stick to a diet and exercise plan. I gained SO much weight near the end of my pregnancy being stuck on bedrest so long. My DH and I started exercising and counting our calories and for a while there I was doing really good. I started at 242 pounds and I am now down to 229 pounds, which is actually only 8 pounds away from my pre-baby weight. But now I have hit this wall I can't seem to break through. I'm having a hard time finding the time to exercise with Lily not sleeping like she used to, she used to go to bed around 7-8pm for the night and now she is waking up again around 9pm and I would do my Zumba after she went to bed. And I've completely fallen off of my diet. I literally feel like I can't find good food, as weird as that sounds. I buy things that aren't horrible (granted I also have the bad stuff because I'm a couponer and I always have a stock of all kinds of things in the house). It just seems everytime I go to find something to eat I just keep finding all the things I shouldn't have. I'm hoping now that the farmers market down the road is finally open I can get more good foods into the house. I'm also hoping by posting all my issues and admitting that I'm falling off the wagon will push me to work harder.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

PETA acting like infertility is a joke

I don't know if some of you saw this through other blogs, but PETA is giving away a free vasectomy in honor of Infertility awareness. Not sure how that HONORS us??? Those who have complained about it were told how just like animals there are thousands of babies looking for homes but we picked to do expensive treatments instead. Heartless bastards..... here is the petition for them to remove the contest if you would like to sign.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

How to have a "girls night" without telling the girls I'm trying for a baby....

We haven't gone public that we are trying to have another baby. Lily is about 9 months old now, and I know many people aren't going to "approve" of us trying to have another so soon. To be honest, I don't care what they think but I just don't feel like having to hear their "advice". Notice that is in quotes, because one person's "advice" is another person "freakin annoying". I have a friend who just moved back into the area and started setting up these girls nights every month, which is an awesome idea. I see girls from high school I haven't seen in forever and have only talked to on facebook. However, now that we are ttc I'm not about to go out and drink a bunch because regardless of what part of my cycle I'm at a bunch of alcohol isn't exactly a good idea. I'm either on pill to make eggs, hormone injection to ovulate, or I'm waiting to find out if I'm pregnant. But how am I supposed to keep taking it easy without bringing attention to myself? And those who notice go straight to "OMG are you pregnant???" *sigh* I wish! It's okay, add a little more salty insult into my injury. Not that they know, but every time I get asked that it's like a reminder that no, I can't get pregnant on demand like the rest of you. What a dramatic and difficult time my "fun girls night" has become. :-/

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Warning: Infertility Rant

Last night of Femara tonight. Been feeling very sore around my ovaries, so I am hoping that is good news! I'm really hoping for at least two good follies this time around. That is what I had when I got pregnant with Lily so that would really excite me. Not to mention I don't know how much longer we can do this, I dont think we could even do it next month. It was easier to make the sacrifices the first time around. If I had to drive the hour and a half to the doctor everyday I would've done it. And if I had to eat ramen and macaroni and cheese everyday, I would've done it. But having a baby completely changes everything. I can't sacrifice everything for treatments. Lily can't be dragged constantly to the doctor with me because that is a seriously long drive for her. I can't divert all our money to it because I still need to provide everything for the one that I have. And I know a lot of people try to say if you cant afford the treatments then you cant afford another child, and to you I say BULLSHIT. My cycles are running $400-$600 a month. That would be difficult on anyone. And another baby would not cost us an average of $500 a month. If someone has any financial problems trying to get pregnant people automatically begin to judge, and only a person who has been through the same thing could ever begin to understand. TTC #2 has been both easier and harder than TTC #1. Its easier because I don't feel as desperate to get pregnant. Yes I feel I want it just as bad, but I know life will go on. Before I felt like if I didn't get pregnant it was the end of the world, I wanted it so desperately. And each month I don't get pregnant it still hurts, but I dont think it hurts on the same level it used. At the same time though, it is so much harder to devote yourself to getting pregnant. There are times I need to find a babysitter so I can go to the doctor, or I have to make Lily endure the 3 hour trip to and from the doctor two days in a row because he wants to check my follicles again. And $500 a month is much harder when you are already paying for baby food, toys, wipes, formula and diapers. I knew the money would be tougher to come up with this time around, but I don't think I prepared myself for how much harder it was going to be trying to do all the same stuff with a baby. I'm hoping and praying we can get pregnant this month so we won't have to worry about treatment anymore. If we get pregnant this month my due date would be around the beginning of January, which would be exciting because I could have a new years baby. Here's hopin at least!

Trip to the park and a grouchy night


It was a wonderful day so I decided to pack up Lily and take her to a new park that is near my parent's house. We picked up Nana on our way and headed to the park to spend the afternoon. She wasn't much of a fan. They didn't have baby swings (which was surprising and annoying) so she could only play on the little kid playground area. She didn't like the playground because the grating had holes in it which meaned she could see the ground below her, which freaked her out a little I guess because she didn't want to move around. We put her on the slide once and she was not a fan. But regardless, we still had a good time. And got some good pictures, which always makes my day. I'm obsessed with pictures. The day was good till we got home later and I wanted to put her in bed. I could not get her to go to sleep to save my life. I tried every trick in the book. She had every medicine she could possibly need, her puppy was playing its lullabies, she had a fresh diaper, she had a bottle before I put her down, EVERYTHING but nothing was working. I wasn't able to get her down till 11:30 when I first started trying to put her in bed at 8:00. But once she was down we were good, thank goodness. She slept till 8am, which we were thankful for. After what it took for her to fall asleep I was terrified of the whole night being like that. It all worked out though.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Easter Bunny



Another beautiful day! I could definitely get used to these, but I know we are supposed to have some VERY bad storms roll in late tonight. We took Lily to the mall this morning so she could get pictures with the Easter Bunny. I was kinda worried. When we took her to see Santa Clause she was still pretty young and just stared at him, it took everything to make her smile. She has started crying when being held by people she doesn't know now, so I was so worried I was going to hand her to the bunny and she would just scream. Especially when we were second in line and the kid in front of us was having a full blown meltdown. On the floor screaming and kicking kind of a meltdown, and the bunny wasn't even there yet! We were still waiting for the Easter Bunny to show up! We kept trying to distract Lily by getting her to laugh but she kept staring at the boy having a tantrum. I was terrified she would see him freaking out on the bunny and follow suit. Once that bunny showed up she forgot all about the boy though and just stared at the bunny. I didn't know if she was freaked out or interested. But once we got her on his lap she was all smiles. She wanted to grab at his face and feel his fur, she thought he was awesome. We were SO lucky! After watching the other kid fall apart I thought for sure we were doomed, but we got some good shots. Now all I have to do is get off my butt and finally address all of our Easter cards! LOL!

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Trip to the River



It was absolutely beautiful outside this afternoon so we decided to pick up lunch and head to the river with Lily. I completely forgot my camera and had to settle with my cell phone camera, which I was not happy about but it all worked out. She loved being outside! I love watching her take it all in. It is amazing to see someone see and touch something for the first time knowing they had no idea what it was because they had never seen it before. I love watching her study something, you can tell she wants to know as much about it as possible.
We walked along the river and at one point we stopped and I took off her sandals and feel the sand in her toes, IT WAS SO CUTE! Then we decided to put her in the field so we could take some pictures and she kept trying to eat the purple clover, lol! She is so silly sometimes.
Today is also day 3 of taking Femara, so I'm CD 5. We go back to check my follicles on the 12th.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

April is Autism Awareness Month


I LOVE SOMEONE WITH AUTISM!
My little brother, who is now 17 and now so little anymore, has high functioning autism. Ignorant people in this world try to say autism is just in our heads and we make it up to explain why our children are "stupid and lazy". SPREAD AWARENESS NOT IGNORANCE!! Autism is real and it effects real children who need our help. My brother is highly intelligent and struggling to get through high school because his teachers don't understand him. They aren't ignoring you and they don't know what they are saying is rude. They are not stupid or lazy or crazy, they are AUTISTIC! It is its own diagnosis, its own explaination for their behavior. Spread the word! It is real and it is not going anywhere! We need to accept it and help these children. PLEASE educate those around you who don't know what it is. And when you meet someone like Dennis Leary, who has his head so far up his own ass that he can't see what is plain as day all around him or he is just so stupid he can't understand it, send them my way. I'll lock them in a room alone with an autistic child stimming who is on the edge of a meltdown and see if they still think these kids are just "lazy and stupid".

Friday, April 1, 2011

I HATE April Fools Day


I don't think I've ever had anything GOOD happen on April Fools Day before. This morning started off by my BIL calling my husband at 8am to tell him he had got into a car accident. Then after a few minutes he told him April Fools....HOW IS THAT FUNNY??? How is tricking someone into thinking you got into a car accident fun? Then we had to drive an hour and a half to my RE's office for my appointment. He wants us to try a little longer with just the Femara since we know it works before we up any of my treatments. He is really hopeful that we can get the Femara to work for me again, so I will be starting that tonight. Then I went through hell at the pharmacy trying to pick it up! My doctor was supposed to call it in, but when I got there they had no record of the prescription. So I'm calling my doctors office and the receptionist keeps giving me the run around and wants to get an attitude with me, then all she does is take the info and forward it to their pharmacy for them to handle and says they will call me back....yeah right! I never heard from them, I knew I wouldn't. So I turned around and called the nurse line and left her a message, knowing she would remember us from this morning. She finally called me back, apparently my doctor sent the prescription to the wrong pharmacy. So she sends it to my pharmacy and thinks problem solved, right? Wrong. While we were playing phone tag and everyone was pointing fingers the other pharmacy filled the prescription, so now it is null and void and cannot be filled again! So I have to try to get the info for that pharmacy, so my pharmacy can call them and cancel that prescription so that they could fill it instead. And this all going on for over and hour and Lily is in the cart screaming at me because she is getting just as fed up as I am about it. I'm actually thankful she was as patient as she was actually. It was a complete fustercluck. And after all of this I still had to wait for them to fill it! *sigh* So I am ready for today to just be over with already.
On a positive note though, Lily's birthday dress was finally delivered! I love it! Her birthday is July 11th, one week after Independence Day, and the weekend we want to celebrate is right in between the two. So, this dress was PERFECT! I can't wait! My baby is getting so big!