Yesterday morning I had a quote going through my head. "He who is thankful for little is rewarded with much." It has been on the marque sign at a church by our house this month. It got me thinking about what I have learned over the past few months.

* My relationship with Neil has grown and stretched in such a positive way. My mom always told me that the true strength of a marriage is tested when the couple goes through a crisis or very stressful time. We've had our share of stress, but nothing that has lasted this long or about something this important. Going through this with Neil has increased our ability to support each other, talk to each other, and has brought our love to a greater level.

* I have learned a great lesson in patience. I've had several people tell me that they are amazed by my ability to be patient. Well let me tell you, it's not easy. This fertility stuff is a SLOW process and pretty much demands patience. There is no way to speed up the processes of the body. It is a daily struggle, but I think it is a lesson that God needed to show me and I am gladly embracing it.

* I have increased my dependence on our loving God. I have come to realize that there are things I just can't do. No matter how much I want to be in control, I'm not. This is hard. Sometimes I want to scream and throw a fit at God, but what would that do? He's got a plan and I've got to be patient and lean on him for support because it is all in His hands.

* I have gotten to spend a lot more quality time with my grandmother. She accompanies me to my doctor's appointments during the week because my mom and Neil both have to work. We get to go to lunch and catch up. It's been a wonderful blessing.

* I am more appreciative of the children I work with. They are true blessings in this world and I am so grateful to get to spend time with them each day. They teach me important lessons in perseverance, resiliency, toughness, and gratefulness. I love them so much.

* I am grateful for my health. My problems could be so much worse. There is actually nothing really wrong with my body, it just doesn't like to cooperate like it should. I am so thankful that we have not received any devastating news up to this point.

* I feel God has prepared me for this journey. Maybe not as prepared as I would like to be, but enough. I think he gave me the personality that I have (a planner, a saver, conservative) so that Neil and I would be in a financial and mental state that would support us through this process. He has sent me through previous trials to ensure that I could handle this situation and He sent me a husband that could handle it as well.

Theses are just a few of the many blessings that I am grateful for. I could sit here and type more, but I've got kids to see this morning! Have a wonderful Thursday.

P.S. I've got another appointment on Saturday at 8:30 to see if these meds are helping my follicles to grow larger. My mom is going with me for the first time.

This morning was my first time to test ovulation on my current medications and the test was negative. I'll continue testing for a few days, but it looks like this dosage of medication is not going to get the job done. A little disappointing, but I sort of expected this dosage to be too low.

I have to go to court today for the first time. I'm nervous! Hopefully, I won't have to testify and if I do maybe it won't be too bad. The good news is that I just have to testify as to the behaviors the kid exhibited and nothing regarding therapy (I only saw him twice to begin with so I wouldn't be able to testify to much in the therapy department regardless).

After court, one of our psychiatrists is coming to Clinton to see some of our kids. It's going to be a long, busy day. Have a wonderful Tuesday.

I had my appointment today with Dr. B and finally got some answers. Turns out that I have 9-10 small cysts in each of my ovaries. This was the first time that cysts were mentioned. However, the spiritual healer always said they were there. Dr. B decided that I would not get pregnant on my own, so we are going to have Intrauterine Insemination. I will be taking Clomid 50 mg for 4 days and Dexamethasone (Dexadrone) 2 mg for 10 days. I will test for ovulation on day 11 and if I ovulate, we go in the next day for the insemination. If I don't ovulate on day 11, I just keep checking it each day. If no ovulation on day 13, I call the nurse (but they didn't say why and I forgot to ask), so not sure what that is all about. If I still haven't ovulated on day 14, I have to get to Dr. B's office by 9 am for an ultrasound and labs.

Can you keep up with all that because I'm having trouble! ;)

If I have no ovulation but start my menstrual cycle again, then I get to have another ultrasound before he increases my medication. So pretty much I go to Dr. B's every 14 days. Fun times. My next appointment is Saturday, May 1 at 8:30.

I wasn't sure what all the insemination entailed and I figure you might not either, so I am including information from this website: http://www.fertilityplus.org/faq/iui.html#faq

Q: What is the success rate for IUI?

A: Searching through about a dozen medical journal articles and a number of web sites resulted in a rather wide range of statistics. Basically the odds of success are reported to be just under 6 percent and as high as 26 percent per cycle. The low statistics are with one follicle, while multiple follicles resulted in as high 26 percent success. Another influencing factor is sperm count. Higher sperm counts increase the odds of success; however, there was little difference between success with good-average counts and those with high counts. The overall success rate seems to be between 15-20 percent per cycle.

Q: What is an IUI and how is it done?

A: An IUI -- intrauterine insemination -- is performed by threading a very thin flexible catheter through the cervix and injecting washed sperm directly into the uterus. The whole process doesn't take very long — it usually only requires the insertion of a speculum and then the catheter, a process that maybe takes a couple of minutes (60-90 seconds to introduce the catheter, then sperm injection, and another 60 seconds or so to remove the catheter — going slowly helps reduce discomfort). Sometimes when the cervix is hard to reach a tenaculum is used to hold the cervix, which makes the process a bit more uncomfortable.

Q: What does an IUI feel like?

A: Most women consider IUI to be fairly painless -- along the same lines as having a pap smear. There can be some cramping afterward, but often what is felt is ovulation-related rather than from the IUI. The catheter usually doesn't feel like much since the cervix is already slightly open for ovulation -- a poorly timed IUI might cause more discomfort at the cervix.


So there we go. In summary (for my lovely cousin Sarah), I'm taking some medication to help my body ovulate. I'll test for ovulation and if I ovulate, I get inseminated. If not, I go back to the doctor and he'll do an ultrasound to look at my ovaries and take some blood to see what's going on. He'll probably then up my meds and we'll start the process over. If I have to go through 2-3 cycles of this without ovulating, he'll change my medication (probably to a daily shot) and we'll continue as we have been until I ovulate. If the insemination doesn't work after 2-3 times, we will probably progress to in vitro (PLEASE pray we don't have to go there...we may be living in a cardboard box by that time!).

I've read that success rates are as low as 6% and as high as 26% per cycle of IUI so keep those prayers coming. This is going to get expensive, so we would love this to work out quickly so we'll have more to spend on baby mcknight!

I love you all!

I FINALLY have an appointment with Dr. B to discuss starting fertility drugs! Woo hoo! It has been a stressful couple of weeks for me. Apparently, Dr. J's office (the endocrinologist) is terrible about getting lab results to other doctors. After multiple unanswered phone calls from Dr. J's office and Dr. B's office never getting my labs, I decided to go down to Little Rock Tuesday. I picked up my results from Dr. J's office (the nurse never mailed the results like he said he would because I was handed my results in an envelope with a freaking stamp on it) and drove the 1/2 mile to Dr. B's office to hand deliver my results.

Yesterday I talked to Dr. B's nurse and I have a consult with Dr. B on Thursday, April 22 at 12:30 to discuss my next step in treatment. Please, please pray that I get to start the fertility drugs next week. I did not ovulate this month which got Neil and I pretty down. I picked up a basal thermometer to try and document my basal (waking) body temperature as another method of predicting ovulation. However, my body temperature is supposed to be around 97 degrees in the morning and mine has been as low as 94.6 degrees and as high as 96.4 degrees...in other words, no where near normal. Maybe this explains why I'm so cold all the time! ;)

Not sure what is going on there or if my body temperature has anything to do with the lack of ovulation but it's just another thing to talk to Dr. B about.

Please pray that I get to start treatment soon and that it doesn't break the bank! Thank you SO much for your support and I hope you have a super wonderful day!

I have been waiting and waiting and waiting for my results from the endocrinologist. My appointment was around March 6, so my results should have been in at least a week ago, if not before. I started calling last week to find out if my results were in. I left message after message requesting that they call me and let me know IF the results were in and if they were, to fax them over to Dr. B (the fertility specialist). Low and behold, no one would ever call me back. I finally called Dr. B and his nurse told me that she called them and the results should be faxed over in 10 minutes. Needless to say, she called me back the next day and guess what? No results. So I called again and left a nice message. Monday of this week I still hadn't even gotten a call back to acknowledge my many messages. The next time I called, I left a not-so-nice message. I was beyond hacked!!

Wednesday I STILL had not heard anything. I called Dr. B's office in practical tears and left a message saying I didn't know what else to do. Not an hour later the endocrinologist herself (yes, the actual doctor) called me to tell me that someone had filed my results without showing them to her. That still doesn't explain my many messages that were left unanswered. My mom (a nurse) thinks that they either lost my results or filed them in someone's chart and couldn't find them so they had to reorder them from the lab and this is why they didn't call me back.

Anyway, I digress. My results came back pretty much normal. All my hormone levels that were once high or low are now normal except my DHEA sulfate. DHEA, is a steroid hormone produced by the adrenal glands, testes in men or ovaries in women, and the brain. It is called a precursor hormone or foundation hormone because it is produced in large amounts in the body and because other steroid hormones are made from DHEA, including esterogen and testosterone. Apparently, low levels of DHEA sulfate have also been implicated in the aging process. Mine is elevated so that must be why I look like a teenager still! =) LOL! My DHEA level is still elevated more than normal women my age.

The endocrinologist is supposed to be calling Dr. B to discuss the results with him. She said that they are still "baffled" as to what is wrong with me. I have a diagnosis of polycystic ovaries, but that is only because they don't know what else to diagnosis me with. I am not overweight, don't have any cysts they they can see, and I don't have excessive hair growth which are the three main symptoms of PCOS. So we really didn't find out anything useful. Big surprise. I didn't have high hopes of getting any useful information, so at least I wasn't disappointed!

In other news, I could have, might have, possibly ovulated earlier in the month. Fingers crossed everyone! I have been taking over the counter ovulation tests for months and months. I should have invested in stock because I bet we've spent over $200 on the dang things! So I took one around March 9th and the two lines looked the same color (which means a positive ovulation test and you should ovulate within 24 hours). I dug an old one out of the trash (gross I know!) to compare and indeed they looked completely different. I took another one the next day with the same result. On the third day I took another one and it was back to looking like the many previous negative tests. I'm hoping it is not just a coincidence and I'm really actually ovulating now. I've already started the ovulation testing again for this month although it's a little early to be doing so. I just don't want to miss anything just in case.

Oh, and I'm still waiting to hear to see if Dr. B actually received the lab results from the endocrinologist. Once Dr. B gets those, he'll determine where we go from here. I'm praying that I am now ovulating on my own and I won't need any assistance, but I'll gladly take it if needed. Have a great Good Friday everyone! I have to work tomorrow due to all the snow days my school had. Oh well, Neil is off and will be dealing with tax stuff, so I'll gladly stay out of the way of that!

Love you guys,
Lauren