Amazing development

    There is a fantastic website out there called The Bump. It is a place for women who are trying to get pregnant, are pregnant, or have kids. It is not only a resource, bit it is also a collection of message boards where ladies in different stages of their journey can get together and discuss what they're going through.
    I am a member of the Secondary Infertility board. This is for ladies who already have one or more kids and are having trouble conceiving another. I have been an active member for about 9 months now and these ladies have helped me through a lot. I have come to lean on these women and help them through some things, too.

  After dealing with insurance and pharmacy this week I posted this on the board:

So I thought ordering meds and getting our next cycle started would be easy. No such luck. Looks like we're going to have to pay oop for the meds and then our insurance MAY reimburse us. Wtf is that?! I have already spent hours on the phone with these people only to get a quote of almost 3k! We can't afford that! That's why we have insurance!I don't know what to do. I'm feeling so defeated:(

Today, I checked in with the ladies and found this response to my wining:

Hi. I have been holding on to my ivf meds this whole time, just in case. I got my miracle surprise bfp right before I was about to start my third ivf cycle. I would love to help you out if I can. I have 4 unopened boxes of follistim that you can have (it says 900 iu on each box). Let me know if you are interested. I'm not sure where you live but they do need to remain refrigerated. I've had them in the fridge since I got them in August.

Jaime ;)

     Upon reading this, I instantly started crying...in Jewel...while buying gluten-free beer for Jim. I couldn't believe that someone could be so generous. Just to clarify how much this fabulous woman is doing for us; the amount of meds she is sending me would cost roughly $5,000. This will not only help us to get our first cycle up and running, but it will allow us to do at least three, maybe even four cycles! Hopefully, of course, we won't need to get that far, but now I know that if need be there is a way. I feel so blessed and fortunate to be a part of such an amazing group of ladies. I KNOW that there is something that has been guiding me to this moment. This is exactly what we needed to push through.
     When I got back into the car, gluten-free beer in tow, I told Jim the good news. He was the most excited that I have seen him since I gave him the good news about being pregnant with Emmy. This has been an incredibly tough year for us. Dealing with infertility is tough, but adding a recession to the mix makes it almost insufferable. We needed this.
     I will be eternally grateful to this angel of a woman and know that this is the golden ticket that will lead us to our baby. God is good!

Intro

For those who don't know me, I am Lindsey. Lindsey Lou, as my family calls me. I have a two year old daughter, Emelia Gray, that took us awhile to conceive. By awhile, I mean 7 months of not avoiding and 8 months of hardcore trying. We were on the verge of treatments when we conceived her naturally and thought that all of our troubles were over. We were a fertile couple! WRONG!

We started TTC(Trying to Conceive) another baby when my sister joyfully announced her pregnancy. Emmy was 10 months old and we thought that having two kids about 2 years apart would be ideal. Well, my nephew is now 6 months old and Emmy just celebrated her second birthday without the prospect of a sibling in sight. So, here we are. 15 months into the TTC journey without a single positive pregnancy test. I think we single handily kept our local dollar store in business buying those tests. The garbage man must think I'm crazy!

I first went to the RE(Reproductive Endocrinologist) for a second time about 6 months into this process. The tests all came back slightly below average. My eggs are slightly below, as well as Jim's "soldiers". We tried 2 rounds of clomid(The first drug to usually be prescribed) around that time to no avail. It made me CRAZY and I gained seven pounds in two months. When talking to the RE about our next step, I mentioned that Clomid was a no-go. So,the next step in this bitch of a journey is injections with IUI(Intra-Uterine insemination).

I ordered the meds today and it looks like my first cycle's protocol will be 75IU's a day of Follistim for 7-12 days. I will then get what they call a "trigger" to make sure that the eggs I produce actually burst out of their shell. This means that for 7-12 days in a row I will stick myself in the belly with egg producing hormones. With any luck, this process will produce 2-4 eggs and we'll get at least one of them fertilized.

We do have insurance that will cover the first round and probably one more. However, that is it. After a lot of discussion, we have decided that two rounds of this will take us to the end of our journey. Either we'll have our baby, or we'll be happy with having one child. The only thing that has taken me this far is thinking of Emmy growing up without a brother or sister.

About 6 months ago, my previous statement would have sent me over the edge into a spiral of tears and sadness. Now, however, I feel very at peace. Emmy is old enough to avoid crapping in her pants and only wakes us up in the middle of the night when she's had a nightmare. Life is easy and rewarding. Adding another baby would be great, but it would be a lot harder. If the next few months go by without an implanting embryo, we are going on a well deserved vacation. It will be the first of many that we will get to go on because we won't be responsible for a second college education, clothes, food, etc.

I am set to start my next cycle on January 12th. I will update more as I see fit. Thanks for reading!