Revelations

The revelations just continue to poor out of me this week. Last night, I was reading a post from Baby Boy Bakery. She has been sharing about dealing with the grief of the sudden loss of their son. It is such a sad story of loss, yet such a beautiful story of faith in God. In all honestly, I think their story sort of fast tracked mine into where I have arrived to today.

In grieving there is sadness. Per one of Google's definitions, to grieve is to feel grief for or because of. Baby Boy Bakery feels grief for the loss of her son. I have come to the realization that over the last 3+ years I have been grieving the loss of a life I might not ever have. I've said multiple times here that I always knew I was put here to be a mother. To rock babies to sleep, to love my children unconditionally and to raise a family with my husband. And so that has been the plan all along. But I've come to the part of my plan, that isn't quite going...to plan. This isn't like I wanted a cheese pizza and they accidentally brought me pepperoni. This is I have been waiting and anticipating to fulfill my life's calling in becoming a mother to children of my own and it turns out that just might not be what God has planned for me. And it hurts. It is painful. It is devastating. It is earth shattering. And so I've been grieving.

I've been grieving because I may never get to carry my sweet baby in my belly for 9 months. I've been grieving because I may never have that moment of meeting my son or my daughter for the first time and sharing that indescribable moment with Vance. I've been grieving because I may never know the joy of taking him or her home from the hospital. I've been grieving because I may never be able to sing him or her to sleep at night, kiss their eyes and nose and bellies and toes. I'm grieving because I may never be able to nurse them when their sick or share a hug when they have a boo-boo. I've been grieving because I may never watch Vance teach him or her how to dance or play soccer. I've been grieving because I may never send him or her to school for the first time, watch them graduate or have babies of their own. I've been grieving because I may never have the chance to be a Grandmother. These things are truly losses for me. I know I may never have them and so it may be hard to understand why I would need to grieve them, but I do. And it may have taken me 3+ years, but I honestly feel like my grieving process has come to a close. Hell, I even was able to write this post without tears streaming down my face! (Okay, okay, I teared up, but they didn't stream down!) I think as of this past couple weeks I have entered my healing phase and I know it was because I've reached out to God to help me. I am ready to leave the grief behind and enjoy the JOY that is here today and the JOY that he has in store for me in the future.

It feels good to have a better understanding of what I have been going through for the past few years. And as much as I thought my plan was good, was great in fact, can you imagine how much better of a plan God has waiting for me, for us...

Bye for now.

Choosing Joy

I met with my counselor today. I am not sure If I've mentioned that before, but I've been seeing a counselor since September of last year. Since January, a lot of our sessions have been focused around our infertility. She has really helped me on so many different levels. Today, I started to feel like our time might be coming to an end. She told me on day one that her goal for all her patients is to not have to see her anymore. And I'm sad to say, I think this may be me. As a side note, I am hoping that not being her patient might open the door for us to actually be friends in the future. Is that creepy??? I have found myself in a really good place in this journey. I didn't see myself EVER getting here. In fact I remember specifically saying aloud, "I don't see myself ever being OKAY with not being a mother,". And in writing that statement just now, I might never be okay with that fact still, but I think I have decided to chose JOY.

I think we have been living in a sad chapter of our story, a story that I am living and telling, but that has already been written by God. (Thanks Michelle!) When I think back on the last 3+ years of our lives, yes we've had some great moments, buying new houses, going to the Caymans, Boston, new jobs, the list could go on, but overall I feel like it's had this shadow of hurt and disappoint lingering over our my head. What I am starting to realize is even though that shadow is there, doesn't mean I have to stay under it. I have the choice to walk away at anytime. And now, I am choosing to walk out from underneath the pain, the hurt, the disappointment, the anger, the questioning and know that this is part of my story, but not the end. I have become who I am because of what I've been through. I wouldn't know the importance of my faith in God or the importance of relying on HIM in EVERYTHING I do, if I haven't been through the trenches. I might have reached out for HIM a little late, but in the end, I reached out none the less. And HE pulled me from the shadows and today I stand in HIS light. Today I am overcome with JOY at what my life is and what my life will be.

I'm not saying there won't be bad days or hard moments. Hell, I'm awaiting a possible bad day/moment come test day, this Friday. But what I will no longer allow is those days/moments to define who I am or lessen what my amazing life is. Whew! Feel like I just got done testifying! Can a sister get an AMEN!?

Vance's Aunt gave me a daily devotional for Christmas this year and I have found it to be such a source of reminding. Even on a good day, when I don't need the reminding, it has such encouragement. I am not the best at keeping up on a daily basis, so last night I spent some time back reading. As I read I came across verse after verse that just struck a chord in my soul. I thought I would share some of them with you.

Bye for now.

Memorial Day Weekend

Our Memorial Day Weekend was awesome! We spent the weekend at Vance's family lake house in Seguin, Texas for his family reunion. There was nothing but food, family and food and MORE family. A totally winning combination. I have been so blessed to not only have been born in to an amazing family, but now have married into one! How does a girl get so lucky??? I thought I would share a few photos from the weekend.

The kiddos were obsessed with Uncle Vance this weekend. Man talks.

Mumsy's beautiful birthday cake! At the age of 90, does she deserve anything less????

Two of the three sister, our matriarchs.

Kayak This!

We be flossy.

Vance, Michael and Mumsy!

It meant a great deal to spend time with family we don't get to see very offend due to distance. It meant even more to know the distance has done nothing but make our hearts grow fonder. I was able to do a fair share of relaxing and loving on some pretty cute cousins. All in all, it doesn't get much better than that!

How did you spend your Memorial Day?

Bye for now.

Update!

I am back at work and doing my best to remember to not be my overactive, hyper self. That part is so hard. Especially when dealing with someone who likes to bust into song and dance at any given moment. oh, me...

Yesterday went really well. We transferred in 2 beautiful blastocytes. One was already hatching at time of transfer. Everything went according to plan and I spent the rest of the day eating and curled up in bed watching tv. There is something so awesome about being in bed, mid-day, during the work week. I make a point to take an obligatory transfer day picture, so here we are, all in our glory!

Transfer Day May 21, 2014

We leave tomorrow for the family reunion, so plan to hear from me next week with some more pictures from the weekend to share. Please keep us in your prayers over the next 9 days.

Bye for now.

Smurfing

In full disclosure, this will be a TMI post. If you aren't really into hearing the nitty gritty of infertility treatment, I would probably bypass this post.

Last Tuesday, the 13th, I went in for my lining check for this upcoming transfer. Obviously there are a ton of things in the fertility world that I don't do well, medically speaking, but one thing I have always been good at is producing a beautiful thick lining. I've actually been complimented on the thickness of my lining by my Dr. Hahah, you have to cling to the good things. But on Tuesday my lining wasn't measuring where it should have been. For this current transfer the meds look like this, Estradiol (little blue pill) three times a day, orally and then Crinone twice a day vaginally. Sorry for having to write the word vaginally. After my appt, my Dr. decided to change my Estradiol to vaginally in the morning and evening. I assumed I would get something similar to the Crinone, which has a handy dandy applicator, but I was quickly disappointed. After a little clarification, I was informed I would be shoving the little blue pill I've been taking orally into my hoo-ha until further instructed! WHAAAAAAT!!!!!!! You know there have been several instances in this process that have sent my head spinning. The fact that Vance and I really aren't making a baby in the "natural" sense of the term, the injections and the realization that our future Ackers are literally chillin' in a freezer somewhere off Mopac. But for some reason, the act of pill poppin' in my VAG, just doesn't bring warm fuzzies flooding my heart.

The silver lining here is that after the couple days of blue pill poppin', my lining is back up to speed. That was Friday. Unfortunately, I will have to stay the course on the meds until told other wise, but at the end of the day, at least it was worth it. (Said with inflection.) I have since coined this action, Smurfing.

We are awaiting our scheduling call for arrival time on Wednesday. So far I've been pretty even keel about this transfer. I have found myself thinking about it a little more and more as we get closer to transfer day. So I've been praying a little harder for my nerves and mind to be calmed down a little and just reminding myself that all the worry is unnecessary. Whether I worry a little or worry a lot, it won't change the outcome, so why even bother worrying at all. :) Easier said than done, but it's what I am working through.

In other news, I passed my Tier 1 test this weekend in my boxing class. For those of you who are new, I talked about Pink Gloves Boxing in this post. You can read more about the program here. It was so fun and I got to see the other Tiers, 2 and 3, test as well. It was good to see what's to come. I also was given an award for being an inspiring member of my class, how cool is that! I think the best part of getting that award is realizing that I am now responsible for pushing myself to stay positive and keep going when I don't want to, because I know that people look to me for that inspiration. What an awesome motivator that is!!!!

In other, other news, we head to the lake house this upcoming weekend for Vance's family reunion. I will be making a tons of treats to share, maybe I'll share a few yumminess with you this week!

Hope everyone had a great weekend.

Bye for now!

My Version of Death & Taxes ( Insurance & Weight Loss)

I owe you lovely readers two very boring, but important posts. In my update post yesterday I promised to bring you up to speed on our insurance situation as well as my weight loss situation. I was going to break these strictly educational posts into two posts for you, but figured why not knock the not so fun stuff out all in one post. How many times can I use the word post in one sentence!!??? So buckle your seat belts, your in for a bumpy and informative ride!

Let's start with the insurance. So for a bit of a recap, we are lucky enough to have discovered, at the start of this journey, that we had fertility coverage. This is a rarity, especially here in Texas. The reason we have this amazing coverage is my company happens to be based out of New Jersey and there they have an AWESOME state mandate that fertility coverage is a must. How cool are New Jerseyans!??? And I'm not just saying that because I know a pretty good group of them. :) In full disclosure we were covered by Blue Cross Blue Shield. The one catch we did have was once we entered the realm of IVF, a good chunk of the procedures we had to pay for out of pocket and then file for reimbursement. It was nice to even have the reimbursement option, but was difficult to scrounge up the loot time after time to prepay for the procedures. In January my company changed providers and now we are covered by Aetna. With Aetna we faced the same situation about having to pay out of pocket and then submit for reimbursement. However, they dropped a bomb on us when they informed us we only have 4 attempts, IN A LIFETIME, to try our hand in the fertility treatment world. Talk about a deadline! And at the time it felt like such a death sentence. All I could focus on was if we don't get pregnant in these next 4 attempts, that's it, we are done and how could that be!!!??? But if you read yesterday's post you can imagine I'm in a much better place now. And I am deciding to just be grateful at the insurance coverage we've been given thus far. There are so many folks that aren't that blessed. Also, as I mentioned yesterday, insurance or no insurance, won't change our outcome here. This is still so completely out of our hands it's silly to dwell on what could be. So in January we used our 1st attempt and were unsuccessful. We were left with 6 frozen embryos and deciding when to do our next transfer. While talking things through with our Dr. we were further educated on just how these 4 attempts work.

The breakdown goes a bit like this. There is no differentiation, as far as insurance goes, between a full blown IVF and a FET (frozen embryo transfer). But there is a differentiation, a HUGE differentiation, like a $17,600 differentiation! Please don't quote me on this, but I believe the out of pocket costs for the IVF can run approx. $20K. A FET runs about $2400. Long story short, we don't want to use our insurance coverage on the $2400 FETs when we would prefer to use those attempts to cover the $20K IVF. Additionally, the insurance won't cover another IVF until you are down to 2 frozen embryos. If you'll remember, we currently have 6!!!!!  So what does that mean for us??? It means we will be paying out of pocket for the next 2 FETs in order to get our frozen embryo counts down to 2 and be able to have insurance pay for the next IVF. WHEW, are you still with me????? Essentially the 4 attempt run gets stretched into way more attempts, which is good news. However, we are coming out of pocket WAY more money than anticipated. Now don't get me wrong, if I had to select a way to spend my money, trying to have a family would be a great reason. But at the end of the day, there is no guarantee that any of these attempts will work. CLEARLY. So at what point are we just wasting, for lack of a better word, our time and money on something that might not be in the cards for us? That is the question and what I continue to pray on. I am definitely not ready to give up on my dream of having a family with Vance, but I have come to a place of realization that life will be okay if a family doesn't happen for us. Actually, life will be more than okay, I have absolute faith in that. So for now we give this next cycle (next week) a go and just keep praying that His will be done. In the mean time I keep praying and working through the process of figuring out just when enough is enough. And who knows how long that will take, but I have faith He is showing us the way...

Ready for something a little lighter????? No pun intended. In one of my last posts from last year I talked about giving Gluten free living a whirl. I had gotten blood work done and the results showed I actually didn't have a Gluten allergy at all. The two weeks I did spend eating Gluten free were difficult, but I did feel better. But lets be honest, if I don't have to give up things like bread and pasta, I'm not going to voluntarily! At the ripe age of 30, I think I know me pretty well and bread and pasta are just part of who I am. I've talked about my struggle with weight here before and it's been a long one. In February I came across a Groupon for a boxing class. The place was called Pink Glove Boxing. A friend had bought the Groupon and had attended the class and loved it, so I thought what the heck, why not! After one class I was hooked!!! The class is fun, empowering, a great workout and did I mention FUN!? It's all ladies and I have made some great new friends! On several occasions I have showed up when I didn't want to just to not let them down. Talk about a built in motivation team! A couple weeks in, our trainer mentioned she was going to start the Advocare 24 day challenge. I knew nothing about Advocare, nothing about what the challenge entailed, but I knew I was on board to challenge myself and maybe jump start some weight loss. And that's exactly what it did. Unfortunately I came down with a major bug last week and had to head to the Dr. In true fashion, the first thing they asked me to do was step on the scale. I didn't really even pay attention to the number as I was focusing on just trying to breathe (sinus infection, etc). However, once the Dr. walked in and started reading through the nurses notes, she yelled, "Hey!!! You lost 16lbs!". The celebration was brief due to feeling like I was dying, but I was so proud and that's something I haven't felt in regards to weight loss in a LONG time. More importantly, it has pushed me to do more. I've noticed me making better eating decisions and just being overall my aware of what I am putting into my mouth. For instance, last night we grabbed dinner at Pluckers for Vance's birthday. So I made sure I had a meal replacement shake for breakfast and fairly healthy lunch and snacks. That is something I never concerned myself with before. It may seem small, but this is a BIG step forward for me.

So there you have it. You have officially been brought up to speed in the whole story. The 16 lbs allowed me to hit my first weight loss goal and I have already started working on my next one, another 15 lbs. I will keep you updated on that front as well. Thanks again for lending me your ears and your hearts.

Bye for now!

A New Found Outlook on Fertility

I just spent the last hour or so re-reading my blog posts from start to finish. I'm a rather wordy little not so little lady. My last post was about 10 months ago. A lot has happened in those 10 months. To pick up where we left off, we are now in the new not so new house and settling in all too well. I think our story will come full circle back to this hear shortly. I can honestly tell you I am not able to recall the events that went on between July 23, 2013 and September 01, 2013, but can tell that since September life took an unexpected change of events. In September my husband and I came to a place where we did some soul searching in our marriage. And while searching for our souls...in our marriage, we found a man called Jesus. Now I have always been a woman of faith, and Vance a man of faith, but through this journey I would say we found a new relationship with God. And through that new relationship and a new relationship with a counselor we have opened a whole new door to our marriage and a new perspective on our infertility journey. In January I was baptized into the Baptist faith and Vance and I joined Milwood Baptist Church. Our lives and marriage have forever been changed. And that statement could not be more confirmed after re-reading through my posts.

What I have been struggling with these past 3 years is the WHY. Why am I not able to get pregnant? What are we doing that is wrong? Why aren't the treatments working? WHY's filled my head, my heart, my life. I was focusing so much on what we didn't have, what wasn't working that I completely lost touch of what we did have and what was working. What we do have is each other and a beautiful marriage and life. And what is working is God, in our lives and in our hearts. Those few previous statements were not easy to come by. I have been doing some serious work to arrive here at this new destination. And the destination is called, I have ZERO control over this. They are 100 things I could try and do to get pregnant. I do be baptized and become a baptist, I could start going to church every Sunday and join a bible study. I could do acupuncture or have sex backwards with one leg facing due North while drinking an Arnold Palmer through a pink straw while listening to Baby Got Back. I could rub every essential oil known to man on my hips, lower back and temples. I could take the most expensive pre-natal vitamin on the market and never eat a piece of bread again in my life. I could take hormone pills and injections, have my Dr. remove 25 mature follicles, just to fertilize them in his special lab and turn right back around and plant right back in my uterus. All of these things I can do and some I have done, but at the end of it all, these things have no real impact on the outcome...I have no real impact on the outcome. And the more and more I realize this, the more and more my heart has hurt less and less. God has a plan. God has our plan, the Acker plan. No plan that Vance or I could ever dream up would come close to the plan God has in store for us. And who are we to think we could do better, know better. God is working in us, through this journey, for good. It is all for good. I know this, I trust in this, I place my entire faith in this fact and I find myself somewhere that I haven't been in the last 3 years...at peace.

My desire to be a Mom, to have a family with Vance hasn't gone away. But it has found a better fit in my heart. It used to be 99.9% of what I desired and now it's making its way down the priority list. WHY you may be asking???? Because if I don't focus on living the life I have now, I will wake up one day and regret not living in this moment. This moment with Vance, with puppies, with friends and family. I will regret not being thankful and humbled by the incredible life I am living right now, in this exact moment. I will regret missing it, while I was wishing and praying so desperately for something else. Something I thought would be better. So I have decided to give it to God. Because who could know better than He. He will show us our path, he will show us our purpose. So where does this leave us with all the fertility treatments????

In January we did another full blown IVF. We had 7 fertilized eggs and transferred one in, which did not take. In February we went back in for another exploratory surgery. We found more endometriosos, which was removed and few more lesions, which were also removed. Since then we've been on hiatus. And it has been so nice. You quickly forget what your normal, non hormonal self feels like. And it is a bit of a sigh of relief when you realize you aren't normally that big of a B@TCH. :) I've taken up a boxing class, which I love and have just been able to live our normal routine for the last several months. I've even lost 16 lbs since December!!! I will update you guys on my eating habits etc in another post. We took a trip to the awesome city of Boston in April and loved every minute of it. It's amazing how great life is when you sit back and enjoy it! And now we are at our favorite fork in the road, to continue the hiatus or give it another go.

The breaks from cycles has been refreshing. And the fact that I've been able to work on my health and lose some weight has been so exciting and motivating! That being said, having just did a good old fashion uterus clean out, we are in prime mode for a transfer. So after much deliberation and prayer, we have decided to do one more transfer before taking some extended time off to give ourselves a mental/emotional rest and to continue focusing on our health. As of right now we are scheduled for a transfer on the 21st of this month, as in next week. The plan is to transfer two blastocytes this round. We've had an insurance change since last we talked, so that has forced us to make a few tweaks to our approach. 

Although my uterus has never been more ready for a transfer, I am standing by my new found belief that this whole process is utterly up to God. I will be praying this round, not for a positive pregnancy test, but simply that His will be done. I honestly feel through prayer he has led us to the decision to move forward with one more transfer at this time and that He will continue to lead us down the path he has laid before us. More importantly, I find peace in that realization and that's a great place to finally be.

So that's where we are. I've missed sharing with you guys and hope a few of you are still out there. I will be back soon with updates on this transfer and to give you the skinny on the new insurance situation and the weight loss.

Bye for now!