News

A few days ago the doctor called with a positive pregnancy test and today we went back to confirm that the baby was progressing and growing, unfortunately, the numbers showed that we were losing the baby and in a few days I will be having a miscarriage.

I don’t have much to say at this point. I’m devastated and my heart is broken. I wonder how I can do this whole process again, how my body and heart can stand it. But we will, we just don’t know when or how exactly.

I would have waited to share until I could process this a little more, but with the holidays we will be seeing lots of family and friends, whom I know will want to know and ask us. At this point, we’re not up for talking about it or answering any questions, but we truly value all of your love and support throughout this process and during this time.

Much love and Merry Christmas,

Team Scott

The 2ww

We're in what's known as the two week wait, or 2ww in the infertility world. It's been no picnic. I can barely form a coherent thought, so who knows what this post will turn out like. During this time I continue to flood myself with hormones to help the embryos stick and grow, and I'm finding there's a whole slew of unpleasant side effects that go with that.

#1. I'm constantly overly fatigued and barely able to keep my eyes open, yet when I head to bed, I can't fall asleep (and once I do, I toss and turn all night). 

#2. With each day I find myself getting more and more depressed. Not just hormonal, silly crying, but deep sadness, unhappiness, and melancholy. I just want Matt home and nothing else seems to help, although I love those dearly who have tried and been SO encouraging. 

#3. I get agitated very easily. Everything annoys me or frustrates me. I can't stand any TV show or song on the radio. Nothing sounds good to eat and I don't want to bother making anything. I thankfully haven't bitten anyone's head off, except for a few other drivers out there who didn't know they were getting my road-rage. 

#4. I constantly have a raging headache, which Tylenol doesn't help, and I can't take anything else. 

#5. I have a fever of 99.5, which is apparently normal, but still makes me feel like poo on top of everything else. 

#6. Let's just clump together dizziness, confusion, forgetfulness, nausea, bloating, cramps, acne, hair growth (only females will understand the annoyance of constant waxing and roots that seem to never go away), bruises from injections, and anxiety and panic like I haven't had in years.

Finally, my back pain is coming back and there's nothing to be done about it. 

There's still several days until we know if the transplant took, but until then, and especially as each day draws nearer, all I can think about is, "Did it work? Will this all be worth it? Or will I be starting from scratch and doing this again???" 

Step 2: Making a Nest

I'm writing this post in bed, laying down, wearing my heating pad Antonio (he's muy caliente), a dachshund on my legs, and sipping Gatorade (which is supposed to help prevent severe OHSS- ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome), while attemping to type...there's bound to be endless typos to correct at the end.

Now, I understand everyone may not want to know the nitty-gritty of this whole process, but there are also some people who want to understand more and I want to be open to that. Therefore, I am about to walk a fine line between the two worlds of TMI (too much information) and being completely vague. Here goes! (If you don't want to read this next part then please skip down to the bold area!)

So the first step was making a plethora of eggs. We anticipated about 25 but only ended up with 15 mature ones, which I still feel blessed to have because some women go through all the same steps and may only end up with 1 or 2. The lab (next to the surgery center) creates the embryos immediately upon retrieving the eggs, and they are then left in an incubator to develop. For education purposes, I will add this: There is a natural way to create an embryo (despite being in a petri dish, and I'm sure you can imagine how) and the assumed way where the lab technician actually creates it. Our doctor had the lab create them because that gave us our best chance since I've never been able to become pregnant. After waiting a full day, the lab did its first check and found 11 of the 15 embryos had taken off and were doing well. They then continue to incubate them until the day of the transfer.

While the bitty-babies are growing, my next job is to build them a little nest. On to new meds and hormonal side effects! The day after the retrieval I began a new round of deep muscle injections and patch medications. These hormones make me extremely nauseous, give me a constant horrible headache, keep me feeling very fat (normal cycle hormones make us ladies plump up and these are the same hormones at drastically higher levels), and make me tired. Then there's the shot sites- my stomach and hips hurt (especially to the touch) because of so many injections, and are not going to get better any time soon. The new shots are an oil and have to be injected with an 1.5 inch needle- that has to go all the way in- and then you have to rub the site to discourage the oil from becoming a knot, so to speak. All of these side effects keep me from sleeping. I'm exhausted but can't get comfortable because I can't lay on my hips or stomach due to the shot sites, along with the nausea, and if I lay on my back it kills my spine since I had to get off my nerve medication (which you can't take if you're pregnant). So I suppose the conclusion is that I need to learn how to sleep standing or sitting up...or learn to not need sleep, which seems essential to parenting anyhow!

Three days after creating the embryos, we had 5-6 of good quality, while most of the others are usable but not as good. Tomorrow will be five days since they've been created and is the day our doctor will choose, and transplant, two of the best (we get a choice of 1 or 2 but decided on 2 after doing so much work to get here and to improve our chance of success). I can't even tell you how bizarre it is to think that tomorrow I will be pregnant....most families start with a surprise, but for us it will be scheduled down to the date and time. So weird.

If you've skimmed through the previous, that's cool, but PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH:
One of the major parts of a successful transfer is being totally stress-free, so I'm going to be very personal and clear and lay this out so that there's (hopefully!) no upsetting questions or comments. Matt and I believe that life starts at conception (which would be when our embryos were created), therefore, these are our babies- not blobs of flesh or cells. If this transfer doesn't work, then this is considered a miscarriage and we will mourn it as such. I know that by putting this all out there I open myself up to others' thoughts, but it would KILL my heart to hear someone say, "Don't worry. It's not like you lost a real baby." So please, know and respect where we stand. With that, we will not know the results for several weeks. Please do not ask if I'm pregnant or not. I've shared with you so far and I will share with you when we know and feel ready. Along with that, with IVF you get a positive pregnancy result much sooner than a typical pregnancy and is extremely susceptible to being lost, therefore, even if it is positive at first it may not last. While I need to be hopeful, I also need to be realistic, and that's a very hard line to balance.

So for those of you who are praying for us in our journey, please pray for the following:

• Calming all anxieties as we go into the transfer and wait for the results
• The doctor to choose the best candidates and the procedure to go smoothly
• Reassurance that His hand is on this process and its outcome
• Endurance through side effects
• Rest and being able to sleep
• Remaining thankful and positive (which is most important to me, no matter what)

So that's all you'll be hearing about this subject for now. Thank you so much for your continued love and support! It means more than I could say!

Step 1: Becoming a Chicken

The first phase of IVF is growing massive amounts of eggs and retrieving them in order to make the embryos (an embryo is the stage between a zygote and fetus). To begin this process you need a large pharmacy's worth of medications and injections:

Meds

Every morning and night you'll need several hormone injections. Some of the medications burn like Hades so I find that it's helpful to have something to squeeze so you don't end up wanting to swat the kind person giving you the injection. My medicine-friend:

Mr. Puff

The medications will begin rapidly growing your eggs, which will in turn rapidly increase your waist size. Then you'll need a sweet husband to buy you new stretchy pants, and a sister to buy you new pj pants for when even the stretchy pants no longer stretch enough to fit your middle. And she'll also send you a card to remind you she knows what you're going through and is here for you.

Lululemon

"Sending you a hug..."

When your hubby isn't available to give you the shots, you'll need another volunteer. And since some of the shots are time sensitive, that volunteer will need to be willing to wake up even at midnight to inject you. Thankfully for me, my mom is a great shot-giver (even at the wee hours of the morning or night) and was willing to help.

[I'll spare the pictures of what two sleep-deprived women (one of which is fat and hormonal...and wasn't my mom) look like during these moments.]

Throughout this process you'll be visiting your doctor often, if not daily, for testing and monitoring. When he deems you are plump like a chicken with lots of eggs ready for hatching, he will schedule your retrieval procedure. The day before you'll want to be on the couch, with a heating pad, nauseous from loads of hormones, feeling like you're so full it's hard to even breathe, and thankful no one has to see you looking like a hippo.

Me out on a walk today

So in short, that's the first phase of IVF. Where a typical woman ovulates 1 small egg per month, I am about ready to pop out at least 20, if not more, monster ones (which is the reason for such a big midsection). Although highly uncomfortable, this is great news in the IVF world. So I'll take my pj pants and heating pad and be thankful for my abundance of blessings!

Please be praying and wishing us well as we go into this procedure tomorrow. Our main concerns are my level of pain (before and after), side effects of anesthesia, and quality of embryos made. I'll be back to post more as I know and am ready. Thank you so much for your continued support!

How We Got Here

I think the most common question we've received since the last post is, "So, how come you decided to do IVF?"I kind of thought the answer was obvious- you know, wanting to have a baby- but I suppose most people are looking for the more detailed explanation of how we got here. Well, that makes sense.

In April, Matt and I decided that I would get off birth control pills, which I had also been using to control the growth of my endometriosis. We figured it would take time to work back into my normal cycle and I would track things to gain a better understanding and plan for the future. During this time we thought we would try the "old fashioned way" (as some of our friends have referred to it) and see what happened.

Then in June I thought we'd had success and I made a doctor appointment to get a blood pregnancy test, but it came back negative, which wasn't making any sense since I was so late. That's what led to the beginning of tests to investigate if I had PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) as well as my endometriosis. One doctor appointment led to another, and then one set of tests led to another.

In September we found ourselves at a fertility specialist (or at least that's what she called herself) in San Jose, and she put me on Clomid even though we felt in our gut that it wasn't going to work. Working with her was a mess- we couldn't understand her accent, she didn't seem to listen to us, got defensive over our questions, and would skip around the truth. After a series of test results came back she diagnosed me as having PCOS and endometriosis, and then prescribed the Clomid, reassuring me that it would work just fine. But a few appointments and weeks later, she told me that it would actually take a few months of using Clomid before we possibly saw any benefits.

At this point I called my sister, asking if this is how infertility doctors worked or if this lady was as cracked up as I was beginning to think she was. After a long conversation my sister made a very significant and insightful suggestion. She told me that if she could go back in time and could do it again, she would go straight to IVF and skip all of the pain, emotional ups and downs, and money wasted on procedures with a lower chance of success. Matt and I knew we were in a fortunate and rare position where our health insurance would cover the amount of about one round of IVF. So my sister made some calls and was able to connect us with the fertility specialist she saw in Thousand Oaks. He recommended a specialist in San Francisco but that doctor was an out-of-network provider and the doctor down south was in-network, meaning our benefits would go farther with him despite the distance we'd need to travel to get there.

So here we were in November, finally meeting with a doctor who knew what he was talking about, welcomed questions, made things easy to understand, and had numerous success cases. He presented us with a wealth of information and two options. First, I had a cyst on an ovary that was 6cm, or about the size of a lemon. If we wanted to move forward with this doctor then we needed to do so now (to be done before they close their office in December for the holidays) or wait until January to begin (which really means doing the transfer in February, so more like a 4 month wait). The trouble is that a cyst basically feeds on the eggs, and the less eggs you have the poorer the quality of the remaining ones, plus a cyst can continue to grow the longer you leave it. So if we waited four months we ran the risk of less success due to quality and number of eggs, and a chance that the cyst could grow and even rupture. Plus, a cyst of this size indicated that my endometriosis was at Stage 4, which is the worst stage. This combination was the factor that steamrolled us into our fertility treatment options.

Option 1 had a 20% chance of success and was to do everything like IVF- meds, tests, etc.- but the doctor inserts the sample directly at the prime moment. Option 2 had a 60% chance of working and was IVF, where after lots of meds and tests, the doctor removes the eggs, creates embryos, and inserts the embryos at the prime moment. Knowing that we only had one shot to do this, and insurance would only cover so much, we chose our stronger option. And we chose to do so now due to the cyst and the chance that my egg quality/quantity had been compromised due to my long history of cysts (and having them rupture, which is what first alerted us to my endometriosis in 2005).

So here we are. Starting injections today and planning for IVF. We didn't plan on going this route, we certainly hoped we wouldn't have to, but we're thankful that we have the opportunity, as most couples can't afford to. At this point, we're really only able to take things day-by-day and dose-by-dose. Matt is giving me my morning and evening shots and luckily for me, my husband was a vet tech assistant in high school and is familiar with giving them. We'll just be sure that as these hormones kick in, we don't compare me to any animals. ;)

A New Diagnosis

**I would like to note that I have written, deleted, and rewritten different versions of this post numerous times over the past month. As things have progressed I have kept silent, unsure what to say and how it would be received. So please, read this knowing that I am opening up and sharing with you from the very most personal part of my heart. Thank you.**

The other day I was rummaging through a desk drawer, on the hunt for the packing tape, when I ran across this old pair of Nathan’s socks. Months ago, my sister gave them to me so we could put them on Hunter’s feet as a fun joke after seeing similar (and hilarious!) stunts on YouTube. Now, looking at these tiny socks, a whole new flood of emotions washed over me.

There are some things you just know about yourself from a very young age. For me, I’ve always known this:

• I’m crazy over long dogs with short, stubby legs, and big, floppy ears.
• I could spend all day lost in a good book, curled up with a warm cup of tea beside me.
• I’m quiet until I feel secure, and only then can I feel free to be myself.
• I may act resilient but really even the quietest criticism is embedded in my heart.
• I’m meant to be a mother, snuggling little ones, teaching them about life, and watching them grow with pride in my eyes.

While I’ve known in my heart that I was designed to love little ones, I’ve also known for the last seven years that my biology did not agree with creating with this truth. So when Matt and I started talking about the time when we would have a family, I decided to head to the doctor for a checkup and some tests. But I wasn’t prepared for what she would tell me- that I had not one infertility disease to battle, but two. With that news, I cried. A lot- some with Matt and some by myself- feeling like nobody understood what this meant: giving up the “normal” progression of life, finding out in a secret moment by myself and planning how to keep and share the incredible news, the feeling of excitement with a little bit of fear of the unknown mixed in, and the lighthearted banter with other expecting friends.

Instead these facts meant that I would be headed down a path I had seen several others struggle down, full of pain and heartbreak, judgment and unneeded advice thought to be “helpful” by those who offered it, and trials of faith and heart. While it’s not uncommon for the average mother to have at least one miscarriage in her lifetime, for a mother fighting infertility, it is practically promised that she will have several. Somehow it seems so wrong that the women who work the hardest to gain their children lose them the easiest.

Taking the advice and help of my sister, I made an appointment for a second opinion with a specialist in Southern California. I gathered the last seven years of information from my medical files- exams, tests, surgeries, and results- and headed to my meeting hoping to learn my fate as a mother. As I sat in that office chair, on the opposite side of the desk from the doctor who would either crush my heart or stir my dreams, my hands shook and I tried desperately to hide the betrayal of my nerves by clutching them tightly together in my lap. When he overturned the diagnosis made several weeks before, stating evidence and facts that I had never heard before but now made perfect sense, my heartbeat quickened and hope slowly grew within. While I was still dealing with one infertility disease- my endometriosis, which now appeared to be at the most severe stage possible- I was not dealing with a second. And for that I could take a breath and praise God. And then face my future.

The doctor laid out several paths we could take if we wanted to move forward and we then said goodbye. I took my folders of information home with me and discussed them over the weekend with Matt, and on Monday we called the doctor to hire him onto our team. I needed someone in my corner who knew what I faced, knew how to handle it, and had faith that it could be done. I am so blessed to have found that! He calls me personally on the phone to check in, to ask if I have questions, to explain what steps are next, and he keeps it all simple despite an overwhelming process.

You see, I know now that sometimes when you know something is meant to be, it doesn’t mean that it will come easily. It means that you will FIGHT to gain your dreams. You will become RELENTLESS in your pursuit. And you will fall at each defeat but you will RISE AGAIN to overcome. This is my path to becoming a mom. It doesn’t look like everyone else’s but that’s okay. I know I am not alone as I walk this path in front of me, but am surrounded by a husband and family who love me and are committed to praying for our journey.

So tomorrow I will begin my IVF cycle. It begins with several weeks of medications and injections, moves on to surgery, several days of recovery, and then a procedure which will hopefully take and become the start of our new family. Several people have told me that I shouldn’t put this information out there for everyone to know, and I know that by doing so I am opening myself up for unintended hurtful comments and opinions, but I strongly feel that no woman should have to go through this process alone. If I put my story out there and can help even one woman through it down the road, then it will be worth it. I also know that if I keep this to myself then others won’t know how deeply it hurts to hear the often-said phrases of, “You don’t know because you’re not a mom”, “It’s your turn next”, or “You don’t want to wait too long because you’re only getting older.” And most importantly, by keeping this information hidden, I would be blocking you out of the opportunity to pray with us and see His answers unfold.

Suddenly looking at this little pair of socks, I was reminded of why I’m embarking on this difficult path and that it will be worth it in the end, as we have little feet to once again fill them. When I first started this blog I invited you to come along with us on our journey, and this is an important part of that. So I ask that you join us with your support and prayers for safety, wisdom, recovery, health, trust, and courage. Please stand by us with love and encouragement, as we’ll need that more than ever in the upcoming weeks.

Thank you!

Team Scott- Staci and Matt

Pumpkin Patch 2012

This last weekend Matt and I went for our annual Pumpkin Patch outing and I thought I would share a few snapshots from the day!

Trying out the new camera!

Oh you know, just a couple of turkeys over here...

The winning pumpkin!

Our second annual Pumpkin Patch adventure