Our Journey

After two long year of trying to conceive we are so excited to move towards a treatment that might actually work for us. Of course this would never be our choice but we will faithfully take the journey God has chosen for us. The past two years have been filled with much excitement and anticipation that eventually turned into frustration and a simple desire to understand why we are going through this. Not even sure until May of this year as to what the real issue was. I started feeling pretty foolish for separating from the Air Force after 12 years of service (maybe I should have waited until I actually had a child before making such a decision). But what's done is done, all we can do now is look forward. As the first year went by, I dismissed my fears as all the stats show that it can take up to a year even for those w/o fertility issues. Meanwhile we were flooded with one pregnancy announcement after another. At first it was really easy to find joy for others, believing that our turn was right around the corner, we just needed to be patient. We were constantly reminded that God's timing is perfect, and we wouldn't want it any other way. As the time went by it was harder and harder to hear other's good news, often for me it brought a new batch of tears and that ever nagging doubt and wondering why this seems to be so easy for others and is quickly turning into the greatest challenge of our lives. I will always remember sitting in the doctors office being told that IVF was our only option. We were in total disbelief. I was just thinking this man can not be telling me that I will never have children (at least not naturally). I truly thought that we were going to be told that everything was fine and he was going to put me back on Clomid (I had been on it for 2 previous cycles). All of our test up until this point came back normal and we were in the unexplained category, I thought for sure that we would continue to be "unexplained". Of all the things I thought could possibly be wrong with me I never dreamed it would come down to a blocked tube. Our diagnosis brought tremendous grief and very difficult decisions to be made. We had previously thought that we would not journey down the path of IVF, of course when we made that decision we thought we would have already been through several other treatments, we had no idea that this would be the only viable option for us. So we had to do some soul searching and figure out exactly what we wanted and what emotional roller coaster we wanted to hop on first, IVF or adoption. We decided that trying IVF first was what we needed to do. Those first few days were the most difficult. All I could do was thank God that I had Chad and for the wonderful man and husband he is. We did our best to comfort one another and gain some understanding of our situation. Only when we had begun to discuss the possibility of IVF did we find some new hope and found the strength to move on and accept it for what it is. I still struggle on a daily basis trying to find some meaning in this journey, still try to understand what seems to be such a disparity in life, knowing my only option is to accept it doesn't really make it any easier. Some days are better than others. I look forward to the day when they do our first embryo transfer as that will be the closest we have ever been to having a child. I know I will be a nervous wreck afterwards wondering if those little guys will implant and then if they will stick around for the 9 months that they are supposed to. I wonder if we will be one of the 35% that end up w/ twins or if it will be a single or at all. I wonder if we will be one of the couples that don't have any obvious problems but end up with poor quality embryo's. Poor quality embryo's = poor prognosis for pregnancy. Or will we have great embryo's and be able to take them to day 5 before transfer. Day 5 transfers have a 50% implantation rate vs. a day 3 transfer which has a 20% implantation rate. At this point only God knows the answers. In the mean time we will be praying very hard.

We feel very blessed to be able to share our journey with those we love and care about. Hopefully we will have a happy ending to share.

Love,
Gena (and Chad too) :-)