It's been a rough couple of months since my last update. We have been pretty busy. Dom is still working lots of overtime every week and I've been working overtime for the last 3 months of so. I'm really tired and burned out, but I like the money, so I'm going to keep working it. After months and months of talking about it, Dom and I finally joined a gym. We drove around all afternoon on a Sunday because Dom wanted to see all the different gyms and find out how much it would be and whatnot. He finally decided on a gym that isn't too far from our house and along with joining the gym, we decided that we were going to get a personal trainer to help us with our weight loss goals. The gym also has a nutrionist who put together a meal plan for us so that we can lose even more weight and start to eat healthier. I'm prefectly fine with what we are supposed to be eating, but Dom has been struggling a bit, although it is getting better. We are both doing well with our workouts. I totally kick Dom's butt when we are working out with the trainer, it's kinda nice!
I was able to go to Idaho for a long weekend in August and it was a lot of fun. I flew into Boise and mom and Kailee picked me up. Then we had a bbq at D's house. Kai is just about the cutest little girl ever. I love her so much and she is so stinkin cute. She's also incredibly smart, it's amazing! Saturday morning we got up and drove over to Ririe for a Ririe family reunion. It was held at my great grandparents house that my aunt and uncle have recently finished restoring. They have done an AMAZING job on the house and it is just beautiful. It was really nice to be able to see a bunch of my family in Idaho. The last time that I was in Ririe and saw most of those family members was at my grandma's funeral 6 years ago. It was fun to stay up and talk with family and have my uncle Ron's fabulous pancakes on Sunday morning. Uncle Ron makes the absolute BEST pancakes ever! Hopefully I will get to go back to Idaho sometime soon and Dom can come with me. I really miss southeast Idaho, it will always feel like home to me. Mom, Andy, Amber, Austin and I were all flying out of Salt Lake City and so we stopped at Mrs. Cavanaugh's Chocolates before we got to the airport. I have been very good about the chocolate and I actually still have some in my freezer. I've learned that if I put chocolate in my fridge or frrezer I'm less likely to eat it!
Other then that, not much has been going on. I'm still working at home and just found out that I made the cut to stay home for at least another 3 months. Dom has been carpooling with a friend for work so we both wake up early. He gets up and gets ready and I make his breakfast. Then I usually go back to bed. We don't really have a lot going on in the coming weeks either. I've been struggling with some stuff the past week or so and am just throwing myself into work and working out...and hopefully that helps!

My Oh My

It's crazy how fast things in life change. So I went to Disneyland with Dom's family and it was fun for the most part. I got irritated with his mom, but that isn't anything new. The girls had a lot of fun going on all the crazy rides. Dom was very sad that he didn't get to go and told Serena and Aria we should all go next summer. Serena will be in either China or Italy with Dom's parents, so Dom told Aria we would take just her. I was not a huge fan of going since it was summer and it was way busier then when we usually go during the winter, but we'll see what ends up happening.
Over the last week, our plans to continue with fertility treatments has come to a streaking halt. We are no longer going to be doing 3 more fertility treatments. We aren't pregnant, since it's an impossibilty for us to get pregnant at this time. We are off the baby train for probably about 3 years, then hopefully we will be able to do an IVF cycle that will work, but who knows. So Dom and I are both feeling that we probably won't ever have any kids, and we are both coming to terms with it.
We are just working like crazy, Dom is going to a million doctor appointments, and our puppies continue to be spoiled rotten. It's been almost a year since we've been in our house and time sure has flown! I am going to Idaho for a long weekend in August for a family reunion. I'm very excited to get back to SE Idaho since I haven't been there since Sept 2005. I LOVE Idaho and I'm really excited to get to see my family, grandma's house, the Ririe house, and to go to the cemetary. I told Dom that I will also be stopping at Mrs. Cavanaugh's, which makes me a very happy girl!

Crazy Busy

Life the last few weeks have been kinda hectic, and it's not gonna slow down anytime soon. Over Memorial Day weekend, Dom went to the Indy 500 with my dad, 4 brothers and 2 brothers-in-law. He wasn't that excited about going, but he ended up having a good time. He has since decided that he is going to go every year and that auto racing is his new sport of choice since it doesn't look like football is going to be coming back this year. (I don't know if he's joking or being serious, and it's kinda scaring me!) While he was gone, D and Kailee came down from Boise and we spent the weekend at Amber's house floating in the pool. Kailee is such a cute little kid and she's so much fun.
We got to hang out with Desi again this past weekend, which is always fun. She and Dom had a couple of tea parties, we took her to see Pirates, and she cracked us up while we watched her play the Kinect. She and Dom also did some fighting with their light sabers, and she got a kick out of him letting her jump on him to wake him up from his nap. Then they kept 'fighting'. Dom called me yesterday to tell me that he finally realized why he was so sore...he got beat up by a 4 year old. It's adorable to see the two of them together, it just makes my heart melt.
This coming weekend, our nieces, Serena and Aria, are coming down from Seattle for a little over 2 weeks. We're excited to see them. We saw Serena last summer since she went on the Europe trip with Joe and spent a couple extra days here, but we haven't seen Aria in 3 1/2 years. Joe and Richard have a lot of activities planned while they are here, one of which is Disneyland. Joe asked Dom and I to come along, but Dom doesn't have anymore vacation time available, so just I'm going with them. I'm pretty excited about it cause I know I'll be spending a lot of time with Serena, Aria and Celine since Joe and Richard don't like the roller coaster rides. Plus I can run around with the girls if Joe and Richard need a break.
In 2 weeks my brother Rob and his wife Allison are coming to town for Allison's Dirty 30. I'm very excited to see them since I don't get to see them often enough. We get to stay at a resort here in town so it should be lots of fun.
Then it's 4th of July and the month of birthday's begins. We have 8 birthday's in July, it's crazy! David is the 4th; mom is the 7th; Benjamin, Randall and Pierre are all the 15th; Dom is the 19th; Amber is the 24th; and Andy is the 26th. I think even if we weren't doing fertility treatments, I would always try to plan on NOT having a kid in July.
We will be starting the 1st of our final 3 fertility treatments in July, so hopefully one of them works!

The fun never stops...

Dom cracks me up! Dom always likes to go bowling...and I suck at it! I think he likes to go because he knows that he can beat me. So we took Desi bowling on Saturday because there is a cheap bowling alley close to our house. I did really well for me the first game...I got my highest score ever of 112 AND I beat Dom. Which is a first...and will probably never happen again. Then everything crashed during the second game...I bowled a 68...and Dom bowled a 164. Desi even beat me, and she's only 4! Dom and I have often said that we should join a bowling league...but I don't want to until I'm a little better. I think instead we are just going to go bowling a few times a month. The alley by our house has really good summer specials so it's cheaper then us going to a movie!

Dom and Desi

So Dom and I had most of last week off since he has vacation time to burn. Desi came over on Thursday night and Dom planned for it to be a Star Wars night since Desi wanted to watch the movies with him. I have always refused to watch Star Wars but Desi asked me to watch with her, and I can't say no...so I've finally watched them. While we were watching, Desi crawled up on Dom's lap and told him that he's her favorite friend. It was so cute! We went bowling on Friday and it was hilarious that Desi wanted to bowl just like Dom. Dom seriously throws the ball down the lane, so Desi kept trying to throw the ball, so funny! Desi is coming over again on Friday and she's excited because the Justin Bieber movie comes out and Dom promised to buy it for her since he refused to go see it with her in the theater. He is all into it! It's hilarious becuase he's trying to make it something special for her. He is so adorable with her, I love it!

The Little Things

So yesterday Desi called me. I love that little girl. It's only the second time I've gotten to talk to her since she went up to Utah. She used to get so sidetracked when she was on the phone, and now she doesn't stop talking! After I got off the phone with her, I called Dom to tell him that I got to talk to the little one. He was incredibly jealous. When he got home last night he told me it wasn't fair that she calls me and not him, but it's not my fault. He misses her like crazy. She's going to come spend the weekend with us in 3 weeks and Dom can't wait.

So...I married a vampire...

Dom has always liked the dark...he hates having lights on and he's always wanted to have our room super dark. I think that it's because he spends all day outside in the bright sun. I like light and I like to have them on. Ever since we got our house, Dom has wanted to get blackout curtains for our room so it would be nice and dark. I've been wanting to get blinds for our sliding door just because there was nothing there. A few weeks ago, Dom started talking about how he wanted to get blinds and curtains soon before it started getting to hot. I started looking for curtains and found some really pretty chocolate brown ones that are supposed to help keep the heat out as well. Since we are in AZ and it's crazy hot, I figured that would be good. We also went and got blinds for our sliding door. We were looking at all the different blinds at Home Depot and they were all room darkening ones. Dom was so excited! We got home and I installed the blinds, not the easiest thing to do, but it got done. Then last weekend I went and got a curtain rod so that we could put up the curtains in our room. My house is now super dark! Dom is so happy about it. It is nice that Dom actually sleeps in on the weekends now, but still. I'll walk out of the office during the middle of the day and it's still pretty dark in the house. Dom now wants to replace all the vertical blinds that were already up with room darkening ones...I'd rather put in wood blinds, but Dom will probably win. I've always teased Dom that he was a vampire, but now I'm even more convinced about it!

It's gettin hot in here...

Summer is upon us in AZ. It's starting to get HOT! I hate the summer, I don't do well with heat. At least this summer I'm not going to be looking at houses that are blistering hot...so that's nice! Dom has started complaining about it being hot in the house, we haven't had the AC on in a long time and it was set a little high, we've just been turning the fans on to cool the rooms down. I ordered some blackout curtains for our room that are supposed to help keep the heat out, we'll see if they work. I'm very excited about getting them because then maybe I'll be able to figure out how to decorate my room. Now I just need to convince Dom to let me change the door knobs and handles on the kitchen cupboards! Dom and I just had our 6 year wedding anniversary. I can't believe we've been married for 6 years, it seems like it was just yesterday. He spoiled me, of course, and bought me a treadmill. I've been wanting one for a while. We used to walk when he got home from work, but then we ended up not eating until about 8:30 or 9, which isn't good. Plus with it getting hot, it makes me not want to be outside to walk. So now I walk when I'm done with work and then I make dinner. It's rather nice! I got Dom a Nintendo DS and a couple of games, and I'm trading his xbox in for a new one since his is broken. He has a bunch of games that he hasn't been able to play and he's looking forward to playing them. Dom is taking some time off the week of my birthday, and we need a vacation, so I'm trying to figure out where we are going to go. No clue yet, but I'm sure that I'll soon figure it out!

Decisions

So I was thinking about it this weekend and I just don't know how much more stress that infertility brings I can take. We are taking a 3 month break, and then we are going to try 3 more times. I can't bring myself to keep trying if after 6 procedures nothing has happened. Once we hit our 6th procedure, our chances of getting pregnant never increase anyways. So if we aren't pregnant by August, we're going to move onto something else, I just don't know what yet. Hopefully we won't have to move onto anything else, but who knows what will happen.

Once again, not pregnant. I haven't cried yet, but I doubt I will. I was expecting it because really, what else would the result be? We're taking a 3 month break from treatment because we are traveling at Christmas and I don't want to be in my 3rd trimester. So yea, kinda just numb right now and feeling down about the whole thing.

Boy oh Boy

So this month we moved to a new fertility treatment plan. Since I wasn't responding to just the hormone pills very well, my doctor decided to add injectable hormones to the mix and hope that would work. Because we are doing higher levels of hormones, I had to have an early ultrasound to make sure that I didn't have any cysts. That ultrasound came out clear, but the nurse did ask me how I felt about twins, I said twins would be great because then I'd be done having kids. Then she asked me about triplets...Triplets scare me! I think that I'd be okay with 2, but 3 is just too many, thankfully our chance or triplets is only like 6%. Since I checked out cyst free, I got to give myself 3 hormone shots. The needles are tiny, but they hurt!
I went into the Dr. office last Friday for an ultrasound to see how I was responding to the injectable hormones. Thankfully I responded a little better then on just the hormone pills. Instead of my normal 1 follicle, I had 3 that were growing nicely. They weren't that close to being big enough, but since we did an extra ultrasound last month, we knew how fast my follicles are growing. The nurse told me that I could trigger on Monday and catch 1 egg, or wait till Tuesday and hopefully catch all 3. So we decided that we were going to wait the extra day because 3 chances is better then 1, but she did make sure to ask me if I was okay with triplets.
I had the IUI done today and now I"m super crampy, more so then the past 2 months. When the doctor was leaving, he said to prepare myself for the possiblity of twins. He said that it's normally a 20% chance of twins with injectables, but since I have a family history or twins and I had 3 follicles, I have a 35% chance of twins. Now it's just time to sit back and wait for the next 2 weeks to find out if it worked or if we are taking a 3 month break. I really hope it works cause I'm so ready to be pregnant, AND I really want to have a baby this year!

Aside from baby stuff, Dom and I both have strep throat, and it's kicking my butt! He's responding really well to the anti-biotics, but I still feel pretty bad. I even missed 2 days of work this week which sucks cause I work from home, but Tuesday I couldn't even get out of bed and then yesterday and today I kept getting dizzy all day long. Hopefully I'll be able to work tomorrow. And hopefully I'll be feeling well enough to go on a date with Dom this weekend! We got to take Desi to the Renasaince Fair last Saturday and it was a lot of fun, until it started raining. But we did find pirate duckies for the pirate bathriim!

The little things

So about a week and a half ago, Marina asked if Dom and I could watch Desi for her. We love Desi to pieces and will take any chance we can to watch her. The plan was for her to spend the night and then just hang out around the house the next day while I worked. Last week, Dom called me one morening and asked what day Desi was going to be at our house, I told him and he informed me that he was going to take the day off so that he could spend the whole day with her. Then he kept telling me that I needed to take the day off so the 3 of us could spend it together. I haven't been wanting to take time off for anything so that I have time to use when/if we have a baby, but I gave in and said I would spend then day with them. Monday night when I picked Desi up, she informed me that she needed a baby at my house, and her baby needed to be a big dog. Dom has been wanting a big dog for a while. (He says it's so he can run with the dog, but it's really his way of dealing with not having a baby.) I don't really want another dog because I don't think Daisy and Patton would handle it well.
We took the puppies to the park on Tuesday morning and then we went to the pet store to get Desi her baby. She and Dom agreed to get a hamster or gerbil because they are easier to care for then another dog. Desi had a hard time deciding which hamster to get, but she ended up picking a Winter White Russian Dwarf Hamster who she decided to name Rocky. She picked out a fun cage for Rocky and then we made our way home. She was so excited about having a baby. She held Rocky the whole way home and wanted to put her in her ball as soon as we got home. Once Rocky was in her ball, Desi followed her around the house and made sure that the puppies didn't hit the ball and that Rocky didn't get stuck. We went out to do some grocery shopping and as soon as we got back, Desi ran inside and said she had to check on her baby. She did the same thing when she woke up from her nap. It was very cute. Dom and I can't wait till we get to do all the fun things we do with Desi with our own kids.

In baby news, we are starting another cycle this week. We are moving onto injections this month, which ups our chance of having multiples, but if I have twins, I'm done for good. I have to go in on Friday for an ultrasound to make sure that I don't have any cycts, and if I'm good to go, I'll start the hormone pills. I'm not sure what days I have to do the injections, but I'm really hoping I react well. Dom and I are beyond ready for me to be pregnant. I really need to find something to keep myself occupied this month so that I don't get my hopes up so much. I'm going to try and not think about it and analyze every little thing, I just don't know how well that will work!

Results are...

NOT pregnant. I'm not a happy camper.

And so it goes...

I'm not sure how I'm feeling about this cycle. Last month I started getting queasy the day after starting the progesterone, this month I didn't start getting queasy until yesterday, which I'm totally cool with. But I was crampy all last weekend...and I haven't been able to sleep through the night since last Thursday...I wake up about 3 or 3:30 because I have to pee and then I can't go back to sleep, I just kinda drift in and out of sleep. I'm super exhausted and feel like I could sleep all day, I just can't sleep at night. I also can't sleep on my side like I normally do because then I feel sick...and everytime Dom flips around in the night and shakes the bed I feel sick. I am always super hungry and thirsty, but I'm totally craving apples and salad. Plus I'm peeing every 2-3 hours which sucks. I've been getting headaches too, which is really uncommon for me. I'm totally over-analyzing every little thing and driving myself crazy...so hopefully I don't get disappointed on Sunday...or Saturday if I can convince Dom to give me my test (he hid them!)

On a non-baby note, Dom told me that he wants to go on a vacation since our last vacation with just the 2 of us was Paris in Feb 09. I'd say it's about time for a vacation, but I don't know if it's gonna work. He got sick earlier this month and ended up using 3 days of vacation. He also has 5 days planned in December and 2 in May, which only leaves him with 3 or 4 days which I want him to use when/if we have a baby. He has 8 float days available, but he can only use 3 in a row...so we are running into issues. I might have him switch some of the vacation days he already has scheduled to float days, but we'll see what happens. If we don't get pregnant this month or next, we won't need to worry about it, but I'm trying to be positive about being pregnant. Also, I don't know where to go on vacation. Dom wants to go to Hawaii, but plane tickets are so expensive. Plane tickets anywhere are expensive and so I've been thinking about going somewhere we can drive. I was thinking it'd be really fun to go to Colorado since I haven't been there since I was a kid and he's never been there, but he doesn't seem too excited about it. I just want to go someplace out of the way so that we can just chill and relax, but who knows what will happen...

And now we wait...

So I gave myself my trigger shot on Friday at 8:30 pm and went into the Dr for our IUI at 10:30 am on Sunday. Everything went good and it was super fast. I came home afterwards and laid down because I was already starting to cramp up. I was expecting cramping considering I had an incredible amount of cramping last month. I had to start progesterone last night and now we wait for 2 weeks to find out if this is the month we get lucky.

And now...

Went back to the doc today...I get to give myself a shot on Friday night! I'll only have 1 egg this month, but I'm totally fine with that! We have our IUI on Sunday morning, which is nice because that means that Dom can come with me. It also means that I will be spending the rest of the day in bed because I'll be cramping like crazy, but whatever...sometimes this is what you have to do to get a baby. I would laugh if this is the month we get preggo because this is probably the only month that Dom will be able to come to all my appointments. Fingers crossed for Sunday!

Boo

So I just went in for my follicle check to see when I'll be ready to give myself a shot. Apparently I didn't respond very well to the hormones this month. I only have 2 follicles, one is 12mm and one is 10.5mm. They need to be at least 20mm before I give myself the trigger shot. Since they are still small, I'm going in on Wednesday afternoon for another check to see how they are growing. Hopefully they are bigger and I can give myself the shot and then have my IUI next weekend, which means Dom would be able to come with me. If they still aren't very big, I don't know what they are gonna do.

I did find out some good news though. Since we changed insurance companies, they had to verify my benefits. I knew that I had a $2000 plan max for infertility, which I had assumed meant IUI and IVF. I was informed today that it is only IVF, I have unlimited IUI's! I still have to pay the specialist co-pay, which is $30, but it's nice to know that I have unlimited IUI's, cause thinking that we only had $2000 a year meant that we only got 4 tries a year without having to pay anything extra. Dom said that since we get unlimited tries, we should just try every month until we get pregnant, but we'll see because after attempt #6, our chances never go above 50%.

And so it starts...

So I had to start taking my hormones today to prepare my body to get pregnant. Let's hope that it works. If we don't get pregnant this cycle, my doctor wants to move to injectables next month, which is a month before we planned, but hopefully we won't have to and this will be our month! If we aren't pregnant after next month, we are going to take a 3 month break so that we can de-stress!

The results are in...

Today was testing day! I didn't sleep well last night (I had figured I wouldn't). Dominic woke me up at 5 when he got up and he went and got my box of prenancy tests (he hid them from me so I wouldn't take any early). I waited the required 3 minutes and found out that we aren't pregnant. I had kinda expected we wouldn't be as we only had a 14% chance of it working on the first try. Now we just have to wait for my cycle to start so that I can go back on the hormone pills and we can start all over again. I am rather excited to have a week without extra hormones coursing through me. I didn't get mean, but all the extra hormones make me queasy and tired, which I don't like. We are going to try the same treatment this month and we now have a 25% chance of getting pregnant. If my follicles aren't where the docs want them to be this month, we are moving to injections next month, provided I don't get pregnant.

So I've been doing a lot of reading about PCOS and trying to figure out what it is and what all it means and so forth. When I saw my doctor last week, he went over all my lab results which helped to explain part of why we've not been able to get pregnant. Two of my main hormone levels are backwards. My body also doesn't break down insulin, which causes fertility issues and puts me at an increased risk of getting adult onset diabetes...which I've been told since I was a teenager I would probably have, so no surprise there.

I wish that more doctors knew about PCOS. I've always had an irregular cycle and when I was a teenager and in my early 20's, the solution I was always given was to go on birth control to regulate my cycle, no one ever wanted to run tests to find out what the problem might be. It wasn't until we had been trying to have a baby for over 2 years before we even had any tests run to see what the problem might be, and even then, my doctor said that I didn't have PCOS, but they couldn't give me an answer as to what was going on. It wasn't until we started seeing a specialist that we got any answers. There would have been a lot less heartache and doubt had I found out when I was a lot younger that I would have an issue having kids someday.

Infertility is such a wide spread issue these days. Women are told to be so careful when they are pregnant, but it used to not be that way. Women were given all kinds of medications while they were pregnant that we now know contrbute to all kinds of health and medical problems. I wish that more insurance companies and employers would add more to their insurance plans to help with infertility. We're lucky that our insurance will pay for $2000 per year, but they will only cover hormone pills, absolutely no injections, because according to the insurance company, pills are all you need, injectables are elective. I can kinda see the point of that, but at the same time, our chances of getting pregnant are much better on injectables then on pills. Also, $2000 doesn't cover much. I'm trying to find out right now what all is considered Advanced Reproductive Technologies (ART). What is considered ART greatly affects how many tries we get each year. We can't afford to pay for very much out of pocket because I'm already paying for a number of things out of pocket...so we only get as many tries as insurance allows.

Infertility is very frustrating and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I'm doing my best to handle it all and I am lucky to have a great support system, but I know that isn't the case for everyone, which is sad.

Update

So apparently I got really lazy about updating my blog...I'm going to try and be better about it, but I don't promise anything!
Dominic graduated in November and it was very exciting! I of course cried like a little baby because I am so proud of him. He actually cried afterwards when he saw me and I was crying and told him I was proud of him, but he'll never admit it. Now he is considering getting his Masters since none of the criminal justice agencies are hiring. He's taking a little break, but I wouldn't be surprised if he starts soon. Dominic wanted to go to Disneyland for graduation, and he wanted to take the adorable Miss Desi with us. We had a lot of fun! Dominic will do anything for that little girl, including stand in line to see all the princesses (and take pictures with them!)
We were told about 2 years ago that we wouldn't be able to have kids, and we've been trying to figure out what to do ever since. We kept going back and forth between infertility treatment and adoption. We were pretty set on adoption when Dom changed his mind after finding out that we would most likely have an open adoption. He wasn't very comfortable with that, so we went and got all our tests done and started seeing a reproductive endocrinologist at the end of November. The RE mapped out a plan for us that is going to be most economical. My insurance covers a little bit of the cost, but not much. I was diagnosed with PCOS (Polycystic Ovary Syndrome), which means I don't ovulate correctly, which has been one of our major issues. PCOS has also caused a number of my hormones to be out of whack, so we are working to correct that. I started taking hormones while at Disneyland so that I would be ready to get knocked up! After we got back, I had to go in for an ultrasound to make sure that my body reacted correcly to the hormones, and thankfully it had. I then had to give myself a shot to trigger ovulation so that we could do an IUI (intra-uterine insemination). I was very proud of myself for giving myself the shot as I HATE needles and don't do very well with shots. We went in for the IUI 1 1/2 days after I gave myself the shot. That was December 22nd and so now we are just waiting to find out if it worked or if we are going to have to try again. It's frustrating because I am still on hormones, just in case it did work, and they make me not feel very well and give me all the early pregnancy symptoms. I think that I've been very good about not getting my hopes up, while still remaining positive.
We are both very excited to become parents and can't wait for it to happen. We would love for it to happen now, but considering nothing else in life is easy, we don't expect this to be either. I'm going to try and keep my blog updated with what is going on, but I'm not making any promises.