For awhile now our motto has been about "Having Hope" and "Never Give Up".

This morning the doorbell rang and a package was sitting on the doorstep. When we opened the package, this is what we found.

Thank you for such a special gift! (You know who you are.)

Our meeting with the new doctor went really well yesterday. We were very impressed and had a great overall feeling for the new doctor and clinic in general. We'll be seeing Dr Campbell at The Center for Reproductive Medicine in Minneapolis.

I'm about half-way through my cycle and when AF arrives, I'll call the clinic for a prescription for BCPs. I told him I ovulated through the one I was on before so he's gonna make sure I get on a higher dose one this time as quiet ovaries are crucial to starting an IVF cycle.

I'll be taking BCPs for about 3 weeks and then moving on to the stimulation drugs. It's too soon to have an actual calendar or protocol, but it sounds like ER (egg retrieval) will be early to mid May.

We have a few things that we need to verify through insurance and both of us have to get some blood work done and then there's a little more to do on my end, but it's mostly just pre-IVF stuff. Mock transfer, SIS (Saline infused sonogram) and the blood work. We've already had a lot of the required tests and they already know what the swimmers are capable of so we don't have to re-do any of those tests.

Doctor recommended IVF with ICSI (which we already knew based on the borderline normal hamster test). With ICSI you pay one additional flat fee and they'll do all the mature eggs, so you have a better chance of optimal fertilization rates.

It feels so good to know that we're just a few weeks away from getting another cycle started. While it's been so nice to not have the stress for the last few weeks, I'm ready to move on!

Here we are under a week to our IVF consultation appointment. I know I wouldn't be where I am today without the generous love and support from all of my friends both in real life and through the internet. And for that, I say Thank You.

I haven't been around a lot lately, and for that, I'm sorry. There really hasn't been much for me to say over the last six weeks. Surprisingly, the time has actually gone by pretty fast. I can only hope that after our appointment we find ourselves with some sort of a schedule or at least an outline of a plan for what's to come.