Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas spent with family, friends, and good food! Corey and I had a wonderful couple days spent with our families with four Christmas'. We spent the first one with Corey's family on at his parents home on Christmas Eve. Dinner, church, and a present exchange filled the evening. Great company with tons of laughter (from ugly sweaters to pizza sauce to finally a new cell phone for Darrell) made the evening fly by so fast that when we headed home it was almost 11:00 pm!

The next Christmas celebration was bright and early on Christmas day with Corey, Max, and myself! Corey said that Santa had plugged in and put gifts on the tree! Naturally Max and I were so excited, we had to run to see what Corey was talking about! Max received an edible rawhide Christmas card that said "Merry Christmas to the World's Best Dog," which turned out to be the best gift ever as it entertained him for about and hour and a half! He also received a rawhide wreath as well but he decided he better save that for later! While Max enjoyed his new card, I found a couple small boxes hidden in the tree. While their commercial is not always true this time it was - "Every kiss begins with Kay's!" Corey gave me a heart shaped necklace with matching earrings - which I love! I opened my jewelry from the boxes while Corey opened his gift which was a Keruig single cup coffee maker. He mentioned that this might be a good gift for me to give him as we didn't necessarily need a whole pot of regular coffee (which I don't drink anymore) or a whole pot of decaffeinated coffee (which he doesn't like to drink)! I cut myself off from coffee for not only the fact that I had jitters an entire day after divulging in a large vanilla iced coffee from McD's and had the shakes the entire day but also for that sheer fact that caffeine and pregnancy isn't' the best combination. Although it has been almost a year that I've not had coffee there isn't' a day that goes by when I smell coffee grounds or walk by a Starbucks that I really really really really want a MOCHA or an iced coffee, which makes me fee like an addict bahahaha! Also speaking of addicts it has been about 10+ months that Corey has not had any chewing tobacco - I am so proud of him for making the choice to quit all by himself!

Max and his card.
Corey & his coffee maker.

After we opened our gifts to each other we obviously had to make coffee and then after all that excitement it was time to take a little nap!! My boys must have been so super excited that they were all tuckered out like Randy on 'A Christmas Story' when he passed out at the end next to the tree. C must have needed a nap before heading out to go to my grandparents! Onto the grandparents for lunch and afternoon hang time. Once again food, company, and conversation was pretty good and we also filled the afternoon with tons of laughs! One laugh got pretty out of hand and mom ended up snorting her coffee! She had just taken a huge swig of coffee and Brett made a funny which made her laugh / snort her coffee back into her mug. Hilarious. (LOVE you mom :-) )

My parents and my brother then joined C and I in the evening for the last Christmas get together at our place. Max was super excited to see his grandparents as well as his uncle!! We had more laughs and good conversations as well as our last present exchange. The best gift by far was a picture calendar that mom made for C - each month has a different selection of max pictures!

Corey & the Calendar.

The weekend was a success! We enjoyed all of the company, ate delicious food, and had a great time! Corey, Max, and I can only hope that you all had the same amount of fun times, good food, and great company as we did! We don't have much to update you all on baby Jamison, but there is an appointment scheduled for Jan. 16th to meet with Dr. Young at the Mid-Iowa Fertility Clinic. After this appointment I am sure we will have more information and updates. Until then I may not have much to update you all on but if I do I will definitely create a new post!

Much Love,
ALJ

Long Overdue

Long... Overdue... What on earth is she talking about is probably what you all are thinking. As it turns out if you didn't already know this about me, I don't enjoy talking touchy feely subjects with others. However, this is long overdue for a conversation piece and holding all this in for so long has been pretty hard on me. I've found that talking about this new beginning has definitely been helpful. This new beginning I am talking about is the journey Corey and I have tried to start. We spent some time conversing / thinking if this is where we wanted to take our lives and add to our family with an additional Jamison (a brother or sister for Maximus). After careful thought and consideration and 110% from each party we decided it was time for me to quit taking birth control and try to start that family.

After a couple months, I finally became semi normal and started to have more regulated cycles which helps to figure out when I would be in ovulation. The first couple months were pretty hard not knowing when and if I would get my period... leaving me in limbo land wondering if maybe I was or was not pregnant. The next couple months were not as hard as I had already faced adversity before... I could handle this and when and if a little Jamison decided to come along it would be on their own time. However, the next couple months went by and I went back into semi depressed mode as there still was no sign of a little Jamison. I was doing what I could do by trying to track my temperature and tracking my cycles on the calendar. At this point I knew Corey was all in as there was a month in there that I had gone longer than the "normal" 28 day cycle. He asked me in a semi excited way if I knew that it had been longer than 4 weeks since the last time I put a small circle with a P in the middle on the calendar. After he asked me that... I felt like I had almost died and totally crushed inside... I knew he was always there 100% with me on the decision but this just totally made my heart melt knowing he was just as dedicated as I was on this journey.

Again a few months went by again and still no sign... At this point I was starting to get discouraged as my cycles were definitely not regulated, were off the wall, and not consistently occurring at the "normal" 28 day time frame. I decided that this was enough for this girl and took the leap to finally talk to someone about what was going on. The one and only person I knew that I could talk to (Besides Corey) was my mom. I went back and forth for quite some time whether or not to talk to her about what was going on or not?!? This was definitely tough as I always had envisioned that it would just happen and I could surprise mom and dad at the same time that they would be grandparents! I always held this special moment close to me and wanted things to work out this way but again I just couldn't handle all of the built up pressure and needed to talk to someone (liars - those who say you're going to have a baby if you even have sex once....bahahaha). I can't believe the pressure relief valve that opened up after I finally talked to her about what was going on. She gave me the reassurance that I may be a normal person and it does take a while for little ones to come along but I should consider talking to a Dr. She gave me a few recommendations for Dr.'s in the DSM area. With her excellent nursing background and recommendations from people she works with, I picked one out based on hospitals, insurance, and the Wellmark website which said the Dr. was taking new patients.... I hate picking out new Dr.'s as one really doesn't know what you're going to get until you go to a visit. I set up an appointment a month out as this was the next available date she had for a new patient.

Soooooo away I waited (still no progress in the little Jamison department) and went to the appointment. I set up a routine physical as I needed to have one as it had been over a year (0r 2) since my last one. I set up the physical and then made sure to tell the nurse that I also wanted to explore the options for a little Jamison. The nurse added the note to the computer and away she went and left me to put on that stupid little gown that was in the room. I hate putting that gown on... and I never know whether or not to leave my socks on, (ladies I'm sure you can agree with me on that one!!), fold my clothes, and / or if I should hide my underwear and bra underneath my other clothes or just leave it as it is and out in the open. Let's be real there isn't much to hiding anything during a physical so what's the point of hiding the clothing right? Bahah (well I did fold, hide, and remove my socks... :-) ). Dr. came in and she did her thing and then we chit chatted about little Jamison possibilities. I filled her in on the time frame of when I quit birth control, when my cycles were more regulated, and what all had been going on throughout the time frame.

Hands down Dr. Lehman is the best Dr. I have ever had. She was so very patient with me and so willing to help. She took extra time to discuss all aspects of fertility and she even drew a picture... bonus. She has all the right skills to be a facilitator... discussing the topics, making them visual, and writing down what she was talking about for me to take with for future reference. Again she took the time to do this and she was very patient and not in a rush... how many Dr.'s do you know that aren't in a rush to see the next victim? Basically for starters she wanted to do some lab tests to see if my ovaries were functioning and my progesterone levels as I was just past the 14 days in the cycle, therefore my progesterone should be slightly higher. She also wanted to check thyroid to make sure that was in good working order (family history of not functioning correctly). From there we set up an appointment a month and half away to do an ultrasound of my uterus and ovaries (She mentioned that if anything happened in between that appointment and this one then all the better but if not then we were set to go onto the next opportunities). Basically that appointment was just another check to see if things were in good working condition. Doc explained that there are 3 parts to making babies, with 2/3 being with the feminine reproduction parts and 1/3 being male. 1st for me is ovaries and functionality of them, and 2nd is uterus and shape / lining. I am pretty sure you all know what the last 1/3rd part being the male part would be.... She also mentioned that if all 3/3 parts are working then you have about a 16% chance everything will work out and here comes the baby in the baby chair. She mentioned that you don't usually get to talk to the folks that struggle and you only get to hear about those who have no problems - dang she's right!

So I went through and completed the labs and the nurse called me back saying that my ovaries were functioning well, my thyroid was A-okay, however, my progesterone levels were low. If I didn't start my cycle when expected that I should call back. As you can guess I called back about a week later. They had me come in for more labs to basically make sure I wasn't pregnant (negative - home tests done lie either) and they started me on 10 days of progesterone pills to basically induce a cycle. Six + weeks went by for that cycle and I finally had a period on the last day of taking the progesterone pills. In the mean time Corey did his 1/3 of the testing at the clinic.

Now the waiting game began again - I'm starting to get pretty good at that game at this point....

Fast forward to today..... a year and a half in the planning process of a little Jamison and embarking on a year of no birth control. Apparently after a year after no birth control this can officially be determined as infertility. Today is the DAY (said in the fun voice - ERICA) that I had the ultrasound of my parts. I watched on the screen as the sonographer buzzed around looking at my parts. I couldn't really tell wtf she was looking at as I could see the screen on the ceiling and it was the same thing as what she was looking at but she took a lot of pictures and made some pretty arrows and lines on the pictures. She briefly mentioned that she might know what the problem is... dun dun dun... well that's not what I wanted to hear from someone I just met 5 minutes ago.... I wanted the Doc to tell me... but the ultrasound lady said it looked like I had something called Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS). Thanks for that tid bit of information but no thanks for not explaining wtf you're talking about... other than now I've got this like sick feeling that I know something else is wrong with me other than non-consistent cycles. So I sat in the room waiting for the Doc to show up for about 20 minutes wondering If PCOS was some sort of nastiness... syndrome... what is that... could it be as bad as like a cancer or what? I would have been way better off not knowing anything was wrong after the ultrasound and finding out from the Doc. THANKS LADY....

Doc finally walks in as I had had about 30 minutes between ultrasound time and appointment time - NBD other than I now NEED to know WTF is PCOS. Again Doc was very courteous and drew another picture to explain what was going on... Basically the ultrasound showed pictures of my ovaries which have clusters of cysts or eggs lined up on the exterior of the ovary all in a nice order rather than naturally occurring throughout the ovary. I joking told her that this was just the story of my life as I really do like to have things in order.... bahaha :) Got to have a little humor to lighten the mood especially in a Doc office... and under stressful times. Any who, the ultrasound picture alone is not enough to diagnose, but the combination of the ultrasound and the irregular cycles is 2/3 big hitters which PCOS females have (FYI - the other 1/3 is too much testosterone). Apparently my uterus looks great, but my lining was really thin compared to where it should be as I am late once again (home test negative again) for my cycle meaning that my lining should be really thick - Doc didn't really know what to make of that... So next she said we needed to find out if C had any issues in the fertility department as we know that I'm not ovulating consistently (Strike 1 against baby Jamison). She mentioned that he would need to go to the clinic and I said well... he already did! And that really got her excited as she wanted to know the results to help plan for what would be the next course of action. She looked but didn't have the results back yet so she was going to have the clinic fax the report and she would call me later to solidify plans. Plan #1 - C's 1/3 part turns out okay, then induce cycle, and start taking fertility drugs to help ovulate and increase the chance of baby Jamison or Plan #2 - C's 1/3 part turns out not so good, then onward to fertility clinic for both of us. Once again she was so nice to have a plan and course of action either way. I left feeling semi good... other than the fact that I'm causing part of the "issue" keeping baby Jamison from the both of us.

Doc personally called me on the results from the clinic on C. Turns out we're our own best birth control ( a positive my mom pointed out baahahaha thanks mom) as his part was not good in count and motility. Guess we won't have to waste money on that any more - and if anything were to ever happen after this whole ordeal then what a blessing eh? Any who, another testing on C to be completely sure on his results and an appointment for I believe both of us or me at Mid-Iowa Fertility Clinic.

Things seem to be all peachy other than the results found out today and the continued struggles we've both encountered. I need to check on insurance and the coverage if any for what may come next in our journey, if this is something we can handle at this time, and how aggressive should we be in our decisions. Basically Doc said she didn't want to dink around with too many other options when we've got 2 out of 3 strikes against us (or baby Jamison). From here things are pretty much out of her hands and onto the 'experts' until a baby Jamison decides it's time. I cannot express how grateful I am to her as she has definitely been a big help in the 2 times I have met her. She has only been helpful and thinking of me first saying that she wants a successful baby Jamison as much as we do. She's never drug her feet and been open and honest in her advice. She said she would try to hook us up with a Doc at the clinic that she new and really liked. She knew him more than anyone else that the clinic and that he had good bedside manners - Bonus?!?!

Again, I always thought this would just happen and we would be sooooo excited to tell everyone that baby Jamison is on the way without anyone knowing we were even thinking about this... You spend your life hoping you would get your period and now I've spent time hoping I wouldn't... Life is funny some times... but for now you're up to speed on my life for the past year and a half... *whew* got that off my chest.... and onto this quote I found.... I'll end on that note... for now :)

"Every day is a new beginning. Treat it that way. Stay away from what might have been, and look at what can be." - Marsha Petrie Sue.