And I Took the Road Less Traveled.....But Not by Choice

In high school, one of my favorite poems was "The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost.

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I loved the whole concept and almost romanticized the idea of being the bold one that was willing to take the less explored path....to not just do what was easy, but to choose what would be the most life altering... 

I have learned though, that sometimes taking the road less traveled is not a choice.  Sometimes, you look at the one less traveled by, admire the brave that have chosen it, and start walking toward the nice, clean cut, worn out path.  And just as your're about to start on your way, God picks you up and tosses you into the brush of the overgrown, barely traveled path. 

For me, I didn't have a choice.  The road less traveled by is the one that God decided I needed to take.  It has not been an easy trail to walk down thus far, but I have no doubt that I'm traveling in the direction that God is leading.

I genuinely believe that God has destined me for beautiful things, and for these beautiful things to come about, that means that I sometimes must suffer, and I sometimes must walk the path that brings great struggle and pain.  So, even though it was with a great deal of kicking and screaming along the way, I am taking the road less traveled by.

 

 

 

And So It Begins....

Today I spent $13,500........WOW!  I even had to call the bank to get them to allow to charge my debit card for that much at one time.  I'm so grateful to my A-M-A-Z-I-N-G parents for helping us out and loaning us $18,000 of the money we need for this process.  We LITERALLY would not be able to be doing this with out their help.  I'm so very blessed to have two wonderful parents that have always supported me/us and are always willing to help us whenever we've needed it.  I hope that I'm able to do that for Tenley (my almost 3 year old little girl) and whatever other sweet babies this whole scary process may bring along. 

I paid our deposit today so that we could officially begin the IVF process.  (It a little bit makes my stomach sick that that huge amount is just the deposit! EEK!)  Our deposit is paid, our preliminary blood work and testing is all done, and now we're ready to get started!  Next week we go in for our financial consult and our "training" session to show me how to use the medicine, give myself the injections, etc.  I'm sure that will take every bit of the hour long appointment that we have since I have SO MANY questions still!  I hate that I still feel so ignorant about all this.  I really need to get to researching!

The journey to this point, when you take what we went through with Tenley, and what we've already been through and will still go through with hopefully our soon-to-be baby(ies) has been tough to say the least, but I have no doubt that it is all for the greater good of God's plan.

Soon-to-be Member of the IVF Club

After a second failed round of a very high dosage of Clomid (failed as in I didn't even produce 1 mature follicle), and a few more rounds of testing, it looks like our best option is going to be IVF (in-vitro fertilization).  It seems like a HUGE jump going from Clomid all the way to IVF, but unfortunately for me, my body is just extra screwed up.  While my ovaries seem to refuse to mature any follicles, let alone allow me to ovulate, my egg quality and supply is huge and healthy!  My AMH (Anti-Mullerian Homorne) levels were a 7.9, with a normal level being between 1.0-3.0.  This means that I have a VERY large and VERY healthy supply of eggs in my reserve...  I can't help but notice the irony in the fact that I have more than enough quality eggs, but my body refuses to let me use them.

When we were heading into this last consultation with our RE, we were anticipating discussing moving to injectible drugs and IUIs (interuterine insemination).  That just naturally seemed like the next step in this incredibly arduous process.  Much to our surprise, this didn't seem to be a very probable option for us.  Since I am as young as I am (27) and my egg reserve as large and healthy as it is, I am at a great risk of producing far TOO many follicles to proceed with an IUI cycle....again, the irony...  This would mean that we would have a high chance of spending thousands of dollars on our injectible medications, ultrasounds, and bloodwork, only to have to stop treatment within the first week or so of the cycle.  :(  (And, even if I didn't produce far too many follicles and I was able to proceed with the IUI, we would only have a 15-20% of actually conceiving.  With each cycle costing 4-5K dollars, those aren't good odds.)

So, that left us with pretty much 3 options:
1. Adoption- something I've always wanted to do, but for some reason, it just doesn't feel like now is the time that I'm supposed to do that.
2. Be content with just having 1 child----NOT an option to me...not just because I want a large family, but because I want Tenley to have other siblings.
3. IVF

And here we are.....after crying, talking, crying, talking, and more crying & talking, we've decided that IVF is our next step.  This path we're about to travel down is daunting in SO many ways: financially, mentally, emotionally....Now, we're looking at a $20,000+ treatment, and MANY difficult factors to consider....

How many eggs do we actually fertilize? How many will actually fertilize? Do we transfer on Day 3 or on Day 5? Since we're not willing to donate or dispose unused embryos, do we reduce the amount of eggs we fertilize and then risk not having any success?????  So many things to think about. 

This is definitely one of the most stressful things we've ever had to go through.  What's scary is that we're only 5 days into this and will be starting treatment next month at the very earliest.

While we apparently missed the "Welcome to the Club" banner, I feel like we are officially joining the IVF Club.  I can't say that this is a membership that I'm excited to have (I'm terrified), but surprisingly, I do feel blessed. 

I can always tell when people have been praying for me.  Two weeks ago (before we even found out we were headed for IVF) I was at the stage where I was frustrated with God.  Was He REALLY going to put me through all this AGAIN?? (It took us 3 years to conceive Tenley) A week later, we receive the blow that IVF is our best option and while still feeling overwhelmed and terrified, I also felt alarmingly calm and blessed (if that even makes sense).  This is going to be an incredibly difficult journey, but God chose me for it (and Chris of course).  Nothing about this is going to be easy, but I can only imagine the blessings that will come from this, and the ways that God will be able to use me after making it through this current storm.

Learning to Count

Learning to count....this can be a difficult task for children at times.  My beautiful 2 1/2 year old little girl is pretty good at counting to 10 now, and sometimes a little bit higher.  About 6 months ago though, we were still hearing the 1, 2, 4, 7, 9, 4, 5, 10 routine.  She was trying, but it was just a challenge for her still. 

As an adult, learning to count is still a challenge for me...yet, in a slightly different way.  Learning to count my blessings in place of mourning what I don't have is sometimes difficult for me.  I have always admired people who have pure joy----no matter what tragedies they are faced with, they are still joyful.  It is my hope to one day be one of these amazing people. For right now, I'm taking one step at a time and trying to learn to count. 

I am in the middle of a fertility battle for the second time in my life...  While I'm SO grateful to say that battling fertility is the most difficult struggle I've had in my life, I will say that it is not an easy thing to face.  We are 7 months into our journey of trying to grow our family with baby #2 and I just got a huge "NOT PREGNANT" on my test this morning.  This was the first month I even produced an egg, so that was progress, but I still feel sad that the month didn't result in a pregnancy. 

I've cried my tears, and now I want to try to search for the blessing in this.  I know that God's timing is always perfect, and that He uses struggles to teach us new things.  So, this time, I want to learn, or choose, to count my blessings instead of just mourning my losses.