Hi everyone

Well after a few days off, I am back. JB, of course, has his Thai food post, so if he has that ready, you may actually get two posts today. I figure none of you will mind. I wasn't planning on blogging yet this morning, but I woke up feeling pretty refreshed and thought I would give it a go.

John is currently on call. He went in yesterday at 1:00 in the afternoon, I got an email at 1:00 in the morning that he was going to bed, and I haven't heard from him yet this morning (it's about 8:30). I think he is hoping to be home by 2:00 today but it could be as late as 5:00. I hope he at least got a few hours of sleep. Missing the whole night would really dampen our weekend fun.

Last night I was blessed to go to dinner at the Jones' house upstairs. Lesley made an awesome and refreshing dinner for an unusually warm Minnesota evening. I came home and worked on my story for Rochester Women while watching the last half of Mona Lisa Smile. I wouldn't waste your time on it. I wasn't impressed by it at all. I also started the book Tara gave me for my birthday: The Wedding. I realize it's connected to his other book The Notebook but it is indicating to me that the movie didn't end the way the last book did so I need to talk to Tara about that.

We are anxiously awaiting Josh & Sarah's arrival tomorrow! Excited to get to spend Memorial Day with them. We plan to go over to Ron & Ebby's house on Monday and hang with them for a bit so it should be a good time. Although, currently, I am just anxiously awaiting JB's return from being on call.

We found this online scrabble game that two people can play and after one person plays the other person gets an email to let them know it's their turn. Since JB gets a lot of breaks but can't often call, it's been a fun time. Of course, it goes very slow, but nonetheless, it's quite entertaining.

As for me, thank you for respecting my need for a little "verbal" privacy. This is one of the first times in my life that I just did not want to talk about out loud about something. I know that will change eventually but right now, that's how I feel.

We have been blessed by wonderful emails, comments on the blog, flowers, cards, etc. that we both sincerely appreciate and cherish. They have meant so much to us and each evening we've sat by our computers reading notes we have received to each other. My doctor is a very wonderful man. When he called to talk to me after the negative result he said, "If I could come through the phone and hug you I would." I wished he could. He seemed as dissapointed as I was.

I also need to say how blessed I am by the wonderful soul mate that the Lord gave me. JB has been the most amazing husband during the last eight years of our marriage, three years of our infertility struggle, five months of this IVF journey, and especially during the last 3-4 days. While his body isn't going through what mine is, he is monitoring my drugs, keeping track of our schedule, handling my good and bad days, and picking up a tremendous load around the house without (barely any) complaining. He is also facing the disappointment just like I am but attempting to be strong for me. I have heard of many couples where the husband is completely hands-off in the infertility journey, but since this all began, he has missed only 1 or 2 doctor's appointments, and made every step with me. I love him so much. Our marriage is so much stronger because of this. What was initially pulling us apart, has now pulled us completely side-by-side. Only the Lord can do that.

As for what is next, JB commented briefly on the blog he wrote the other day about that. We have decided that our FET (frozen embryo transfer) will be in September. June is too soon for my body, July the Clinic is closed, and August leaves JB out of town. We briefly contemplated doing it in August while he is gone, but both decided that the extra month was worth him being here to do this with me.

As JB also mentioned, we will only transfer 2 during the FET. As he also explained, while the odds go down slightly with frozen cycles (instead of fresh), they still work and the stats aren't that much lower. Actually, I pulled out my "stat" sheet at Mayo and found that:

In my age category (under 30), of the 42 FRESH RETRIEVALS that they did in 2003, 40% of women got pregnant and 31% delivered a baby making the implantation rate for each embryo 22%.

In the entire age category (24-44), of the 163 FROZEN TRANSFERS that they did, 41% of women got pregnant and 34% delivered making the implantation rate for each embryo 23%.
Actually, those stats indicate that frozen is slightly higher, however, with older women, they often transfer more embryos which is probably the reason for the slightly higher stats. However, as you can see, frozen is not that much different from fresh. And those stats actually indicate that they are better.
Of course, as JB constantly reminds me, each woman is an individual woman, not a population. Stats are actually very difficult because each woman is there for a different reason.
The sticky babies are currently stored with 2 together and 1 alone so that 1 will remain frozen for right now. We don't want to get too much ahead of ourselves with "what will happen if this next FET doesn't work" etc. so we are going to simply look at our FET in September and go from there. The question most people want to know is, if you do not have a delivery from the 3 remaining sticky babies will you go back for more sticky babies. At this point, we would, and we would even consider going back for more sticky babies before using the 1 we would still have frozen.
I also wanted to comment briefly on adoption which I know is on some of your minds. JB and I still feel the same way we felt a year ago. We plan to adopt. As far as we can tell, our family will definitely include adoption. However, right now, we feel total peace with continuing with IVF. We feel that we are in one of the best places in the country, I am at a great age, and our finances are in the perfect place to move in this direction. Adoption is a wonderful gift. However, there is a reason that people have their own biological children. They want a biological child. The Lord designed us to desire that. Adoption also carries with it it's own emotional and financial issues. Adoption losses occur just like pregnancy losses. However, I wanted to answer that because I know people do want to know.
Some people also tell me, "well if you adopt, maybe you'll get pregnant." I wanted to correct this nasty "rumor" that infertile women often hear on a weekly basis. Even my counselor said it the other day, and I had to correct her. Statistics indicate that less than 1% of couples who adopt, go on to have their own children. Because you hear about those stories, it seems like it happens more than it actually does. But it is the exception. Not the rule.
I hope this kind of lets you in on where we are since JB posted on Thursday. Don't worry. He still plans on providing his recipes for all you cookers out there! I have no interest in recipes ... But I am glad he does.