At some point, you just have to air it all out. It's a long one, folks.

So. Never in my life would I have imagined I (queen of babysitting and lover of all things children) would be battling with infertility. A few facts about myself before I jump into our story. 

• I turn 28 this year (yikes.) My husband is younger than me (only by 9 months ;) ) 
• We have been married for 4 years. We grew up together, always being friends by association, but only started dating when we were both away at FSU. (GO NOLES)
• I'm a nurse, so I spend every day taking care of other people (and I love it. I have the best job, ever.)
• I am the best aunt to the two most precious little girls our good Lord has ever put on this earth (No, i'm not biased at all.)
• I have the most supportive family, and in-laws, anyone could ever dream of having.
• I decided to write a blog because I've always been better at writing things out, and I just really needed to let go of all that's been happening this year. Holding it all in just gives me indigestion.

Now, on to the really interesting stuff. Be forewarned, you might need to head over to google to figure out some of the words i'm about to use. Eric and I had been "not trying" to get pregnant for almost 2 years when we finally stopped and said "hey. something isn't right here. Maybe we should see the doctor." So on we went, blood and semen tests were taken, and we found out we had what our doctor referred to as "impaired fertility." He referred us to our (wonderful) fertility specialist at New Life Fertility Center in Pensacola. Off we went for our first meeting, and more blood tests, and more semen analysis tests (sorry hubs), more in office procedures (i've gotten over the fear of people seeing my hindquarters..there is no room for shyness in IVF treatments), and finally a laparoscopy and hysterosalpingogram (google it), for me to "clean out" my endometriosis, and check to make sure my tubes were nice and open. Everything went perfectly, I went home with clean bill of health and a uterus ready to house a little nugget. Our doctor told us our chances of conceiving naturally were virtually non-existent, roughly 6% chance of success if we did IUI (intra-uterine insemination, for those not familiar with any of this), and roughly 60% for an IVF cycle (still low, but better than nothing.) We had a lot to digest, and had a to figure a way to pay for the cycle (to the sweet tune of $10,000 plus about $2500 for medications, yikes.)

 After all of this (which took roughly a year), we decided to waited another year for me to finish nursing school and get a job, and all those important grown up things that are necessary to fund said nugget. We went back in January 2015, and everything spun into motion. With money saved and a generous amount of help from our parents, we were able to fully fund our cycle..Our first IVF cycle was to be in March (Yay, finally!) We started praying harder than we ever had, before the cycle would begin. I had never been so excited to poke needles into my abdomen every night. The cycle flew by, everything was picture perfect. We received 17 eggs on retrieval day, 13 of which fertilized and made it to day 3. By day 5, we only had 3 eggs that matured into blastocysts (little balls of perfect cells.) We opted to transfer only 1 egg, since my cycle had gone so well, I was young, and everything seemed to be in our favor. The 10 days following were the longest 10 days OF MY LIFE. We went in with hopes high for my beta test on April 8th. [Side note, my family was having an amazing week, as we had just welcomed my second beautiful niecey into this world April 7th, everything seemed perfect.] I waited with my phone in my hand for 5 hours..Then at 1:00, my phone rang. "Hey Colleen, Do you have a minute to talk?" My heart instantly sank, I could hear the pity in her voice. "Your test was negative. Not even a little bit positive. Just negative. The embryo didn't implant at all. I'm so sorry, honey." I tried to hold it together until I hung up the phone, but I couldn't. We were at Eric's parents house so we could relax by the pool, and as soon as Eric walked outside and saw me, all I could get out was "Oh, No" and just collapsed into him. Luckily (silver lining) the test was on a Wednesday, and my boss is the MOST amazing boss (ever), so I was able to take those next 4 days to be a recluse and get my shit crap together. I cried a lot, Eric was absolutely amazing and strong and wonderful, and just held me together (literally and figuratively.) I had to remind myself that it was okay not to be okay for a while. (I still don't think i'm okay, but i'm working on it.) 

SO. Flash forward to June. We reset, and got ready for our first frozen embryo cycle. We have TWO blastocysts currently sitting in a special freezer in Pensacola, which both have to "survive" the de-thawing process to transfer when the time comes..I only had to take one medication this time. I'll just go ahead and skip all the details and get straight to it. We had to cancel our cycle yesterday (06/01/15) because the ONE medication I had to take caused my estrogen level to reach >500 (it was supposed to be <50), I had a big ole' cyst on my right ovary, and my lining "wasn't where it needed to be." Another blow to my already fragile heart and soul. I am handling it as well as I can, I am trying to remind myself there is a bigger plan in place for us, but some days it is hard not to be angry and upset, and ask why this is happening to me. I'm not sure what I would do if I didn't have my husband and my family to turn to. I would probably be in a room with padded white walls by now (not really..but really.) 

I've decided to take this extra month that we've been handed and get my body in order. My sister and I have started P90X (well, we she did one day, got cellulitis from doing too many banana rolls and staph got into a cut on her elbow, and hasn't been able to do anything since..so it's just been me for a week now.) I'm eating better and trying to get myself into a better place mentally. I'm considering acupuncture, but that's yet to be determined. I've also considered dropping everything and taking a vacation to somewhere tropical where we would be surrounded by coconuts and palm trees and no needles (but that would involve leaving work and well, that's hard to do when you're a grown up and need to pay bills and stuff. dangit.) That's all for now, folks. #weltonout