It never really crossed my mind to ask HOW our embryos were frozen. It was just part of the deal. Go through IVF, have your embryos genetically tested, your embryos are frozen and stored, then do a frozen embryo transfer when you’re ready. It wasn’t until we moved home to NY that I NEEDED this information in order to ship our frozen embryos to our clinic here. I e-mailed the embryologist at our clinic in Kansas City. I felt silly not knowing this information, but she replied that they don’t usually go into great detail unless for medical purposes. The embryologist said that we have, “3 blasto ..read more

Remember my last post? You know, the one where we were so excited to fly our frozen embryos home to NY? Well, it didn’t pan out as we had hoped. We were ready to make the payment to Cryostork, and pick the date of their flight, when everything stopped. I received a call from the embryologist at our clinic here in NY, where she explained exactly why storing our embryos would not be an option after all. So… our maybe future someday babies will forever be cozy and chill at our clinic in Kansas City. We love our clinic there, and are completely happy that that’s where they will stay. We decided t ..read more

Flying Our Frozen Embryos Home – After much consideration, we have decided to fly our 3 beautiful frozen embryos from Kansas City, home to Buffalo, NY! We have been going back and forth… IF we decide to do another transfer, would we be flying to Kansas City together for the transfer, or find a new clinic here? Then the pandemic hit, and that went right out the window. We sat on this subject for quite some time. A whole year, actually. We had SO MANY QUESTIONS, like HOW do we even get our sweet embryos home? Is it SAFE? Is it something that a lot of people do? How much would this cost us? Some ..read more

Sometimes the Clouds Come Back – Find the one who will always be that hand on your shoulder, the one who deeply cares, the one who encourages you and fights for you and fights with you. Whoever that is, lean on them. Cry with them. Be angry with them. But most importantly, LISTEN TO THEM. If that person says, “Hey, something isn’t right here. Let’s work on finding you a therapist. Let’s talk with your doctor” LISTEN TO THEM.  You may feel direct anger towards your person. But DIG DEEP. Your person is the one who can’t live without you. SO LISTEN. DIG DEEPER. Because when you seek out hel ..read more

Pure Joy – I took one look at my sweet baby nephew, and I felt PURE JOY! It was the most incredible feeling. There he was, this precious little baby, and I FELT HAPPY. I FELT CALM! I FELT SO IN LOVE! And then I felt sad that I couldn’t have this with my baby. THIS IS WHAT IT WAS SUPPOSED TO FEEL LIKE. This is how I should have felt when I laid eyes on my own sweet baby girl 2 years ago. Instead, I felt electric nerves throughout my entire body. I felt so absolutely out of my mind. I felt like an absolute failure for not falling in love right when I saw her. After all, we had tried and tried a ..read more

Are You Going to Have Any More? My stomach was suddenly in knots. My brain started swirling through all of the horrible things we had been through just to get one. I was just bragging about my perfect 2 year old toddler and showed off her picture. Then she asked so innocently and with loads of excitement. First, I was mad. Why did she have to ask and throw me into a complete spiral of emotions?! I had to think fast about the answer I was going to give this complete stranger. I could have revealed that we had to go through IVF, but I wasn’t in the mood for a conversation about it. I panicked a ..read more

This is Your Brain When Trying to Conceive….It is such an extreme mind fuck. Anyone else feel like your brain was constantly running in overdrive when trying to conceive? This was me multiplied by 10 years plus. Talk about living with depression. It was this extreme torture every single month when it just didn’t happen. Then when we went through IVF and it actually DID HAPPEN…BUT THEN MISCARRIED. Then the frozen embryo transfer just DIDN’T WORK. Then we transferred two embryos…It DID HAPPEN AGAIN….BUT WE MISCARRIED HER TWIN. Now we have the most incredible and beautiful 2 year old! My brain i ..read more

Ovarian Stimulation Phase… What a strange feeling this was. Everyone talks about the injections and being scared of the needles. I had NO PROBLEMS AT ALL with this. I did most of the shots myself while my husband stood by my side. I liked being in control and knowing exactly when I would feel the pinch. It was actually EASY! No one really talks about HOW those injections will make you feel…besides crazy and emotional. (Yeah… like crying at commercials emotional!) I had never felt so extremely bloated and full for so long! I could barely get off of the couch! When I did, I felt like I was 8 mo ..read more

What to Expect During IVF…. Overwhelming much?! You can read more about our first official office visit here. It was IVF time! I so clearly remember hearing everything the nurse was saying, but then panicking…it went right in one ear and out of the other. I remember nodding my head and saying “yes, ok, uh huh” a lot. I remember feeling excited and nervous. I remember squeezing my amazing husband’s hand so hard through it all. I remember him squeezing my hand right back. I remember cringing when she was talking about the semen collection and feeling so weird about everything. I remember feelin ..read more

Find Your Escape, Find Your Distraction… It’s easy to get wrapped up in the negativity of all things IVF. It’s easy to think that the universe is against you in every way. For me, it seemed like it was one bad thing after another. We were on this insane emotional rollercoaster. We couldn’t catch a break. I had to find an escape. I had to find a distraction. I had to find the pockets of feeling alright. What worked for me was blasting Dave Matthews and singing my heart out while walking our dog or cleaning. It felt great to only concentrate on the lyrics and feel the happiness. You need to rem ..read more