ICLW #3

I cannot believe it is already towards the end of June!! This is my third month doing ICLW...thanks for stopping by if you are new! I'll introduce myself in a bit, but first, I must say that at this moment, we are pregnant. That wasn't the case when I signed up for ICLW, but since then we have had two positive, doubling betas. Our viability ultrasound is on tomorrow.

I have been married for 6 years to my wonderful husband who I met through my job almost 9 years ago. We started TTC one year after our wedding, so after 5 clomid cycles, 3 iui's, 2 ivf's, and 5 years (almost to the day), we found out we are pregnant! It has been quite the roller coaster of emotions, but it will all be worth it the day we are holding our miracle(s) from God! This journey has taught me so much, and I wouldn't want it any other way (although I hope this time we get to move on to much better things).

This blog is about everything from IF to our daily life. DH and I work full time and have wonderful friends and family including six nieces and nephews. We LOVE the Cubbies, relaxing in our pool, taking a ride on the motorcycle, and hanging with family and friends.

As I mentioned above, our first ultrasound is tomorrow and I will be 6 weeks 6 days so we are praying for proper growth and heartbeat(s)! We think it may be twins based on my hcg betas so that is why I say heartbeats. I'll be updating after our appointment tomorrow afternoon!!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great Sunday!

ICLW #2

This is my 2nd month participating in International Comment Leaving Week!! Last month, I found some great blogs to follow with stories similar to ours, and I'm sure I'll find the same this month! If you're new to this just click on the icon to the right of this post and see what it's all about. Here is the short version of our story:

In May 2003, I married my husband. After one year of marriage, we decided to stop the birth control with hopes of starting our family. I never imagine that we wouldn't get pregnant, but wanted to not worry about it. After all, we had gotten married, bought a new house, installed a pool and were traveling fools! After 2.5 years, I started tracking my cycles (everything seemed normal to me) so after a year of that, we ran some tests with my doctor. Again, everything was normal. We have completed 5 cycles on Clomid with timed intercourse, 3 IUIs, and 1 IVF. My transfer for IVF #2 is actually tomorrow!!

Even though infertility does take a stronghold on your life, I still live a "normal" life. We have continued to travel and plan activities with friends and family. I have a sister, BIL, brother, SIL, 2 nephews and a niece and Jason has a sister, 2 nephews, and a niece. We live closest to Jason's family but see my family on a regular basis, too. On this blog, you'll see posts from everything about infertility, to girls nights with my neighbors, to family events, and more.

Welcome!!

Welcome ICLWers!

This is my first time participating in the International Comment Leaving Week (ICLW). I thought this would be a great way to "meet" new people so I am looking forward to it.

For those of you who are visiting for the first time...THANKS! I am not a very witty or funny writer, but I hope you will stick around to see what life is like in the Patterson house. You'll see that I blog about pretty much anything - family, friends, activities, tv shows, and, of course, our infertility battle. You can find a timeline of our journey to the right, but I'll give you our info here, too.

As a teenager and young adult it was made very clear to me that having children before marriage would not get me my "big, white wedding" ... and, of course, who doesn't want their big wedding? So, naturally, I was on the bcp until we decided we were ready to start trying. I met my husband, Jason, in October of 2000, and we got married in May of 2003.

On our one year wedding anniversary, we decided we were ready to add to our family. I remember conversations about people who tried to have kids and when they quit trying they would get pregnant supposedly because "they just quit worrying about it" (at least that's what those people believed). I certainly didn't want to be categorized into that group, so I wasn't going to obsess over trying...and, I didn't. We were young, Jason was finishing his degree, we were traveling and enjoying life. After about two years, I began wondering what was going on, maybe we weren't really trying all that hard so I started tracking my cycles. (I didn't even know how long my cycles were before this!) They seemed to be okay, but a little irregular - ranged between 28 & 35 days.

After 29 months of BFNs (October 2007), I talked to my doctor about checking things out to see if there was something preventing us from getting pregnant. I had a blood test that day, and Jason had his semen analysis the next day. Lucky for us, everything came back normal. (FYI - my husband is a cancer survivor - so glad to know that the treatments didn't cause any problems) Their first recommendation was Clomid - the lowest dose (50mg). After 5 months of clomid with timed intercourse, an hsg (all clear), and 5 BFNs, we were referred on to our wonderful reproductive endocrinologist (RE)!

We met with Dr. J in April 2008 and instantly liked him. He was very knowledgable and had a genuine interest in helping us. Of course, he thought we would get pregnant right away. After 3 IUIs and 1 miscarriage, we moved on to IVF. Our first IVF was in January and resulted in a BFN, so we are on to round 2! We'll be starting stims at the beginning of May and are hoping and praying for our BFP!