...a blog i didn't want to have to write...

Sooo... I knew it was coming. I just didn't, or rather refused, to want to accept it. James and I have now officially been trying to conceive for 3 whole years.

That's right... today is our 3 year Wedding Anniversary! Which of course I'm super ecstatic about! I love James with all of my heart. He's the best husband I could ever ask for. My very best friend, and my soul mate. He means more to me than life itself. And of course... he's been with me through thick and thin. Through all the negative pregnancy tests. The confusing ovulation predictor kits. The exams. The tests. The blood work. The ultrasounds (and not the fun tummy kind... YAY for me!). The needle sticks (in the belly! ouch!). The pills (oh Lord... the pills). All kinds of pills! The PCOS diagnosis. The "I think this is your best bet on getting pregnant" talks. The doctors. The nurses. The pharmacies. The office staff. The specimen cups (sorry James!). The tears. The heartaches. The disappointment. The "I'm sorry it didn't work" talks. The hugs. The kisses. The tender "I Love You's" he'd whisper in my ear, as I'm crying my eyes out for the 24th time that day. ...Yes James, you've been with me though a lot. And for all your support, I will be forever grateful!

One of the reasons I started blogging was because I felt so badly for always talking about pregnancy, or rather... infertility with my husband... I didn't want to push him away or make him feel like he had to have all the answers. No one has a good answer. No one but God, of course! He truly knows why. We don't. So there's no need in guessing. (anymore guessing that is... obviously I continually ask "why?") So to my blog I go... when I feel like I have to get it all out.

Today just happens to be one of those days. My anniversary. It's one of the most happiest days of the year. Yet it just brings me back to my infertility. Just because we started trying to have a family as soon as we got married. Good in a way because now we know it's gonna take a HUGE miracle to get pregnant and deliver a child. Bad in a way because now I will always associate our anniversary with how many years we've been trying to conceive. I hope to get one of the best anniversary gifts of a lifetime... a pregnancy... but I don't hold my breath anymore.

Just because you're a day or 10 days "late" around the Dixon household doesn't mean much anymore. We know that PCOS is crazy, and makes my cycle crazy. Whether it's a 'normal' 28 day cycle or a more 'Jennifer normal' PCOS cycle of 40 days... makes no difference. Eventually you get your gift from nature. I used to cry when that day came. I cried every month for 2-3 days straight for the first, probably 15 months of trying to conceive. Now... I want to cry, but I feel guilty for crying. If I cry, James knows immediately... we aren't pregnant yet again. And the disappointment on my best friend's face just kills me. He can't help it. I can't help it. Disappointment is just part of the game. So now a days... I don't cry. I just... I don't know what I do. Just go on with life I guess. I try to pretend like it's no big deal, in hopes that maybe it will 'just happen' some day. Crazy? Maybe. But what do I know?

So anyways... these are just some of my crazy infertility thoughts for this week. I'm yet again finding myself secretly praying for a missed period. Not even knowing what a missed period is. Just because my cycles have a tendency to be pretty lengthy anyways... I hear a lot of pregnant women complaining about the heat, the nausea, the heartburn, the stretch marks, the breast pain... Just know, any given day I'd trade all that I have for those feelings. Crazy or not crazy... I go back to the quote of one of my favorite songs ... "I would die for that, just to have one chance. To hold in my hands, what so many have. I would die for that."

That's all I've got today! Thank you, Thank you, Thank you to those of you who read my blog. And actually like to hear what I have to say! It really means a lot to me!!! Till next time... bring on the missed period, the nausea, the stretch marks, the positive pregnancy test! I'm ready...

It's been a while...

So I know it's been forever and a day since I've blogged, but overall... I haven't really felt the need to. But, since it seems like everyone around me is getting pregnant and having babies... I feel the need to blog.

The first thing I should update... Since March (which unfortunately is the last time I blogged...sorry!) I've had my gallbladder removed. For those closest to me... you knew it was just a matter of time. When my appendix ruptured in May 2007, I was diagnosed with gallstones. Per MD advice, they weren't bothering me... so we left my gallbladder alone. (Mainly because I was septic from my 3-day-old ruptured appendix...no need for another potential infection! PS~ I'm sure it had nothing to do with my right-out-of-RN school self diagnosed UTI~) ANYWAYS... early May 2010 I had my first, and thank God, last 'gallbladder attack.' I was miserable and finally my MD, myself, and my so-full-of-stones it had to go gallbladder decided it was time to have it removed. May 26th I had surgery and got rid of it! As painful as it was to get rid of, I'm very happy to report it was a WONDERFUL decision! ...so far, so good...

Second update... Since March my job title has changed some-what. I've been doing Baby Love and school nursing through the health department. Which I LOVE! But... the programs are being divided, and effective July 1st ... I am just a "School Nurse!" YAY~ I love the kiddos I work with and I think it'll be loads of fun... (get back to me, say... October and I'll let ya know for sure!) :)

As boring as my life is... those are the only two "updates" I feel the need to report at this time...

But, the main reason for blogging tonight... STRESS! I am very thrilled and happy for all the preggo's around me! I love each and every one of them with all my heart. :) HOWEVER~ Selfishly... I always wonder, when will it be me?!?! My hope is... since my gallbladder has come out (which tends to have the potential be some-what of an issue during pregnancy...) that God will bless us with that little bundle of joy we've longed for! I know I know... when the time is right, it will happen~ Right? Isn't that what you're thinking... haha~ it's easy to guess the thoughts of others now-a-days because no one really knows what to say to an infertile person. I wouldn't have known what to say three years ago... (I really can't believe I've been trying-to-conceive for three whole years... YIKES!) ...it's hard to put into words what to say to someone when you don't know what to say in the first place. Infertility is a hard topic... mainly because it's a silent disease. The world doesn't discuss it all that much. Carrying and having the baby is a much more pleasant topic... if we talked about the years people spent trying for that 9 month ECSTATIC & THRILLING period of time... I don't know what the real view of pregnancy would be? Oh well... I'm not supposed to have all the answers. :)

So I've decided a few things in the last few days...

First... I really need to win that 1075kzl Secret Sound cash... holy cow! What a GREAT start to my IVF fund! Any suggestions on how to get through to be caller 15 or what the sound may actually be... I'm all ears! :)

Second... To all of my closest friends... more specifically Stephanie Russell~ I'm gonna need you to have another baby... like ASAP! I need a baby fix majorly... so I'm thinking for Father's Day... you and Miss Madison need to talk Daddy into getting her a brother! :) haha...let me know how that goes, okay?!?!

Third... To my Sister-in-Law Joetta (who I know will read this ...cause she can't get enough of me!) :) LOVE YOU~ I'm gonna need you to make me an AuNtIe for the 3rd time! As previously said... I need a baby fix majorly... And since history tends to repeat itself (and yes... I'm about to spread your business all over the world-wide-web!) ... I know this is your fertile time of year! My precious niece and nephew both had February due dates...and now have February birthdays! Soooo... @ this Luau on Saturday, I'm gonna need to address this with you and Micheal so that we can get the ball rolling... so to speak! :) I LOVE YOU GUYS!

Fourth... I need the power of prayer! For those of you who have already added me to your prayer lists... THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! For those of you who haven't... PLEASE do so! The power of our Great Lord in Heaven has performed miracles before... and I'm hoping and PRAYING He will perform another. I'd love to conceive naturally, without the help of fertility treatments (long shot I know...but I can hope!)... and so I need LOTS and LOTS of prayer!

Thank you all for continuing to follow my blog even though I haven't posted in forever! This is a wonderful stress relief and I feel tons better already! My 3 Year Wedding Anniversary is June 23rd... maybe we'll get an extra special gift 9 months from then... Love to all!

...today, I give Thanks!

Today's blog post will not be nearly as long as my life story was yesterday. :) ... or at least that's what my husband said last night. "Geez Jennifer, did you tell the world everything about us?" My answer was simple... people need to know. They need to know that conceiving doesn't come naturally for some. And certainly not for us. Infertility is a silent disease. It attacks without notice and without concern. And most of all, it causes pain. The type of emotional pain no one can describe.

But today, I want to give thanks! Thanks to those of you who have read my post. Thanks for the uplifting comments you shared! I really do appreciate all the kind words of wisdom as I still deal with this unfortunate circumstance daily. It really helps me sort through things by getting all the feelings out. In return, I hope to help others dealing with some of my same issues.

I'll leave my blog today with a quote from one of my most FAV songs...

"I've been given so much, a husband that I love. So why do I feel incomplete? With every test and check-up, we're told not to give up. He wonders if it's him... I wonder if it's me. All I want is a family, like everyone else I see! And I won't understand it, if it's not meant to be. Cause I would die for that, just to have one chance... to hold in my hands, all that they have... I would die for that. And I want to know what it's like, to bring a dream to life! For that kind of love, what I'd give up... I would die for that." ~ Kellie Coffey's song I Would Die for That

We'll start with our infertility history...

... on June 23, 2007 I married the love of my life, James Randolph Dixon. Like I mentioned in my 'about me' section, we dated for a very long time before finally marrying. Waiting for me to graduate college before getting married, was my parents idea. At the time, we didn't think it was the greatest idea ever, but hind sight is 20/20 I suppose, and we have come to realize it was a really good idea after all. That gorgeous, but very HOT day in June, brought James and I to a place we had never been before... eternal faithfulness. We, whole-heartedly, shared vows that for us, were meant to be for a lifetime. That very day, a verse from I Corinthians 13:4-13 was shared with us; and in the end, was more powerful than we had yet to know. (I'll share the verse with you...)

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not
rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love
does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts,
always hopes, always preserves. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they
will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it
will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection
comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought
like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind
me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now
I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. And now these three
remain; faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love."

Love is patient... those are very powerful words. Even for an impatient woman like me. I like to plan. I live my life by a plan. It's not necessarily a written-out-on-paper plan, but more like... a mental check list. Fall in love...check. Finish high school...check. Graduate college...check. Marry the love of my life...check. Start trying to have a baby as soon as we are legally married...check. Have a baby a few short months of trying later...NO CHECK! In fact, almost three years of trying and we are still a, NO CHECK! So I'll begin with how our trying-to-conceive journey got started...

I have always wanted to have children. Anyone who knows me, knows I LOVE babies. And in fact, I am quite good with children. They love me... Just ask my niece and nephew... they will tell you they have the GREATEST auntie in the world! Anyways, a couple of weeks after our honeymoon, James (who was still WSPD officer at that time) sat me down in the living room of our ONE bedroom apartment and said... "Jennifer, I'm ready to have kids." Music to my ears... because selfishly... I had wanted a baby for a very long time. I knew it wasn't time though... trying to finish nursing school and all! (Never mind the fact that my parents would have literally died!) So from that moment on... practice makes perfect. Only in our case, practice meant practice for years! (if we had only known...) Soon after we decided to stop all forms of birth control, we found out that our sister-in-law was expecting our nephew. Added fuel to the fire... I wanted to be pregnant too! We always told our mother-in-law that the next go around, we'd be pregnant together and make her life a living hell. HA! Well luckily for Gail Dixon, that never happened. We welcomed our nephew with open arms in February 2008. I failed to mention earlier, that all the while... I was a labor and delivery nurse. ...I'd later find out that being an L&D nurse probably wasn't the best profession for me throughout our journey. That same February I started talking to one of the doctors that I worked with on a regular basis about what my husband and I were going through. He told me to call him around 10 months of trying and he'd see us for a consultation if we weren't pregnant yet.

10 months of trying arrived in May 2008. We went in for our consultation. I had a procedure to make sure my tubes weren't blocked from a ruptured appendix I had in May 2007. I had that procedure in June 2008. Tubes were not blocked... and that procedure was VERY painful. I was a bundle of emotions, because you don't want something to be blocking your tubes... but at the same time, you want some answers as to why you aren't pregnant yet! So later in the month of June, we started our first round of fertility 'treatments.' Clomid was our first line of defense. Well after three months of Clomid, I was done! NOPE... I wasn't pregnant, but Clomid hates me, and I hate Clomid. I was on the worst emotional roller coaster of my life. By the end of September 2008, we had switched to another 'infertility' pill called Femara. No emotional side effects, Thank God! But three months later... we still weren't pregnant. This brings us to December 2008. (I must mention that the whole time I was dealing with the horrible hormonal effect of all these meds, my best friend was pregnant. She was due in December, and I was so ready to be pregnant with her. It never happened that way though. And I must say the emotional effects were horrible, and because of my selfishness it almost ended our friendship. However, through the grace of God, she forgave me for being such a jerk... and we are now working at a broken friendship, that will soon be whole again. I thank God everyday for her friendship and the support she has shown me. I love you Stephanie!) Back to December 2008...At that point, our doctor wanted us to be seen by a fertility specialist at WFUBMC. Also at this point... James had become unemployed. We decided to take a few months off from the infertility world... and just see what would happen...

...well what happened? NOTHING! Of course we weren't pregnant, and I was super frustrated. In March 2009, I finally called the specialist to make an appointment. In April 2009, we had our first consultation with Dr. Yalcinkaya. He was so caring and got right to the point. He diagnosed me with PCOS and gave us a less than 1% chance of conceiving naturally (or without intervention...) Later that month we started multiple pills and a daily fertility injection (in the stomach... OUCH!) for 10 days; and had our first artificial insemination. Or IUI as it is technically called. We had the insemination in early May 2009. It happened to be the same day as my cousin's baby shower. Which was actually okay with me. It just gave me hope. I wasn't nearly as emotional about it as I had been about the birth of my best friend's baby the prior December (again... I'm sorry Steph!) ...needless to say, that insemination did not work. I was devastated! But not as much as James was... he had 150% of hope riding on the fact that this was our best chance at a pregnancy. I can't speak for him or his feelings, but the disappointment in my husband's face killed me. It hurt me so much that I didn't want to try again right away because I did not want to see the look on his face, if we did indeed have ANOTHER negative pregnancy test.

...After several months of 'rest.' Of course we still were not preventing pregnancy... and of course we still hadn't conceived... we decided to try one last insemination before my insurance changed. Why? ...because I was changing jobs! AHHHH~ I was really nervous, but I finally got the guts to leave labor and delivery. I say it like that, because I had gotten really comfortable there. I knew everyone, and felt like I was really good at what I did. However, I just couldn't do it much longer. I longed so badly for a baby...that bringing those little lives into the world hurt more than it helped. So... I got a new job. In November 2009, we tried our next insemination. Pills and injections, yet again! And yet again, another NEGATIVE pregnancy test. Only this time, we just got used to negatives. The disappointment was there, it just didn't hurt as bad. I guess that's a good thing... Dr. Yalcinkaya's nurse told us at our last visit, that we could try one or two more insemination's, but that it wasn't unreasonable for us to try IVF next. In fact, she could line up everything for us to get started in that direction right away. I was super ready for that next step... financially, no one is ever prepared for that next step. Unless of course you are a celebrity!

...IVF will be our next treatment, I think. We've tossed around the idea of adoption. I do believe fully, that adoption will someday be in our future. I just don't feel like I've given it all I've got, to conceive and deliver our own child. So we save... save every penny we can find... IVF is not covered by my insurance. I hope that once James gets hired full time, where he is working now as a temp... that the insurance there will cover something... ANY portion will be better than no portion! Until such time as we can have our own baby... I love my niece and nephew like they are my own! They both had birthdays in February. That was a blast... and they are the loves of my life right now!

I will continue to update my blog as a source of stress relief! Sometimes James doesn't always want to hear my rant and raves on my infertility. After all... he's been listening to it for almost three years! So to my blog I will turn... I hope that I haven't completely bore you with all my infertility details, but after all... I suppose you wouldn't be reading it if you weren't interested! I would love to talk to anyone about infertility if you are experiencing some of the same things I went through. And of course, I welcome any ideas for a way to feasibly afford IVF! ...but I must remember, in the end... the greatest of these, is LOVE!