Our New Car

Today we got a new car because our old one died. It was a head gasket problem and even a temporary fix our mechanic tried didn't work. It even broke down on the way to the car lot and got stranded at Walmart!

The new car is a Nissan Versa Note and I hate it. Not because it's a bad car, but because of what it represents. All our embryo adoption money gone. I doubt we will be able to afford to cycle next year because we had to buy a stupid car.

I mean it could have happened after a successful cycle when we wouldn't have been able to afford it at all, so I guess I'm glad it happened now. But I'm facing the real possibility of never being a parent and that sucks! I see other people get new cars and they are so excited, but I'm just sad. Had a big cry afterwards but now I'm crying again writing this.

It just sucks.

There is more to this, I know.

It's been a long time since I've blogged. I mean really blogged, not just posted about books. Six months actually. I thought it was time I updated everyone on how I'm doing health wise.

Firstly, I still haven't made it back to the rheumatologist for my follow up regarding the $500 worth of blood work I had done way back when. We just couldn't afford it, unfortunately. I finally got insurance at the beginning of the month so that is my priority once I heal from my surgery (I'll get to that in a bit). So I still don't have a diagnosis regarding my full body pain and other various symptoms. This is still affecting my quality of life greatly.

My psychologist took one of my symptoms, feeling like I walked through a spider's web or a hair is stuck on me when there's not, and decided I was having tactile hallucinations. She diagnosed me with major depression with psychotic features. That basically means you get sooo depressed your mind has a break from reality and you become delusional and/or hallucinate. Since this is also associated with fibro and various autoimmune diseases I'm not convinced that is actually happening to me. It hasn't gotten much better with treatment so far even though my depression has improved drastically.

The treatment they have me on now is Abilify which is also used for just depression so I do think it is helping me with that. They also have me in resilience training which has been so helpful! It's a program called E.P.I.C (early psychosis intervention and care) and I wish it was offered to people who were depressed or anxious without psychotic symptoms as well. They have taught me a lot and I'm able to deal with my depression and social anxiety a lot better now. In that way I am thankful for the diagnosis even if I'm not 100% sure it is correct. One thing I've done is create a playlist for bad days which includes songs telling me I can do this. The above lyrics are from one of my favorites, You're Not Alone by Saosin. You can find it on Spotify under the oh so creative name Songs for a Bad Day. I'll also take suggestions for songs to add.

Did I ever mention my knee problems on here? If not around Thanksgiving my knee gave out and made this sickening cracking sound. My mom actually thought I broke something it was so loud. Every since then it has hurt when I have it bent or put weight on it for too long. It has given out and made the cracking sound a few more times since then. I've tried a brace and some simple therapy I can do myself at the suggestion of a doctor at a free clinic I went to without much improvement. Seeing my normal doctor was the first thing I did when my insurance kicked in and she put me on celebrex for it. That doesn't seem to be helping much either so she is probably going to refer me to a specialist after I recover from my surgery. I did get an x-ray and that came back fine so nothing was broken even if it sounded like it.

Over the last few months my endometriosis has gotten progressively worse so that is what I'm having surgery for. I can't afford to go see the specialist I wanted to in Atlanta since my out-of-network deductible is $11,500 and out-of-pocket max is $23,000. That was really disappointing since when I signed up it only told me my in-network deductible ($0) and out-of-pocket max ($2,000) so I thought it was going to be $2000 plus traveling expenses. I don't have a quote on my specific surgery but I have heard it is $6-7,000 just for the doctor alone not counting the hospital and anesthesiologist etc. That could easily run over $23,000! So instead I am having it done with Dr. E again like I did in 2011 for the affordable price of $300. My surgery is scheduled for July 9th as that's the soonest they had available.

We are hoping I will get another two good years out of it like I did the first one. We are going to see about getting a loan to pursue embryo adoption in August. Either I will cycle next year or I won't and that will be the end of TTC for us. Then whenever my endo comes back they can take everything out at the same time. Dr. E has already told me a hysterectomy is the next step after this surgery, she doesn't want to do one now since she knows our plans regarding embryo adoption. Hopefully soon we will officially be TTC again and I can start blogging about that!

From Left to Write: Dad is Fat by Jim Gaffigan

I'm white. Like, really white. We once went to Pensacola (which is about 2 hours away) and the side of my body next to the window got sunburned. When I bleached my hair every single one of my family members exclaimed "Wow, you look like an albino!" the first time they saw me. I thought it was coordinated but it wasn't. I have to put on sunscreen before walking the dogs. If we are going to some outdoor function I can put on sunscreen 5 times throughout and I'll still get sunburned. No one is surprised to find out I'm part Irish.

My husband is not white. We aren't sure what happened there because all of his family is, but somehow he turned out brown. Could be some recessive gene thing or maybe his mom cheated, but we don't know and probably never will. Obviously we don't know what he "is" so he gets to check the other box!

Since we in an interracial marriage this has had some consequences. One of my friend's husbands told him that in the LDS religion they believe his skin is brown because his ancestors were cursed. For real, not making that up. He's noticed he gets strange looks sometimes when we are out together. My grandparents weren't especially pleased about it. One of the reasons it's easy for me to be for marriage equality is because not long ago my own marriage wouldn't have been legal.

I love seeing us together though, especially our hands intertwined. It's like yin and yang. I used to daydream about how our kids would look, a beautiful combination of dark and light. Being genetically related to our children isn't super important to me, but I wanted that. There is a chance that we could adopt a biracial child or embryo but it's not a guarantee. We would probably have to wait longer for one to become available, especially since we don't even know what ancestry to ask for when it comes to Josh. Mexican? Polynesian? Middle Eastern? This is just one more thing infertility has taken from us.

This post was inspired by the novel Dad Is Fat by comedian Jim Gaffigan who riffs on his adventures co-parenting 5 kids in a two bedroom Manhattan apartment. Join From Left to Write on April 22 we discuss Dad Is Fat. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes

My New Diagnosis

I had my yearly physical on Thursday and there were a couple problems. I haven't been taking my supplements the past few months like I'm supposed to so I got a wrist slap for that. When you are taking six-seven medications a day, some of them more than once, it's easy to say I don't want to take any more pills so I'm going to stop these. They can't be as important since they aren't a prescription, right? Wrong. They are important they just won't do as much damage if you take them when you don't need them or something so they are available over the counter. One of them she said if my blood work doesn't improve in six months I'm going to have to go on a prescription so just take the supplement already. I got a pill reminder box so when I go to take my meds at night they are already there and I can't convince myself not to take them or conveniently forget.

The big news though is my thyroid. My TSH levels are 11.75 when normal range is 0.04 - 4.50. They have always been normal before but I think they may have been on the higher end of normal last year. What caused such a big jump? We don't know. After doing some research I may have developed Hashimoto's which is an autoimmune disease. Basically your immune system attacks your thyroid preventing it from doing what it's supposed to. I already have an autoimmune disease and if you have one there's a good chance you will have or get another. So I have to go on another prescription for that (which you have to take on an empty stomach at least 30 minutes before breakfast).

The worst part about this is how it affects TTC. We were hoping to do a donated embryo transfer around June after my lupron shot wore off. That has now been officially canceled. Hypothyroidism can cause the FET to fail or a lot of bad things to happen if it's successful. Miscarriage, pre-e, stillbirth, heart failure, anemia, low birth weight, or brain and nervous system birth defects. You can have a healthy pregnancy but you have to be very on top of it and have your levels checked every 6 weeks. Due to my other health problems I'd probably already be high risk and this just adds to it.

At the very least we have to wait until my levels are checked again at the end of May. If they come back normal I'll be cleared and we can start making arrangements for a cycle which would take another couple months. If they don't come back normal we'll adjust my meds and wait a few more months and check again. Going by my health history this is what I'm predicting will happen. Even if I'm cleared in May I'm not sure I feel comfortable moving forward with this being such a big deal. I think I would feel more comfortable having at least two normal blood tests under my belt so I know it's not a fluke and has leveled out. So now I'm thinking late fall/early winter transfer at the very earliest, if nothing else happens to push it back. We've had a couple quiet hurricane seasons so who knows we could take a direct hit or something.

The good news (if there is such a thing) is a lot of the problems I've been having lately could be because of this. Fatigue, joint and muscle pain, depression, weakness, weight gain, sensitivity to cold (seriously I'm normally always hot but the last few months I've been super cold! I'm bundled up in my Tardis blanket right now!), thinning eyebrows (weird symptom but Josh says I have that), paleness (Josh says my paleness is unrelated lol), memory problems and having trouble thinking, dry skin, constipation, all sorts of lovely things. I could start feeling better in as little as three weeks which is a lot better than the three months I thought it would be with lupron. Of course it could take like a year but hopefully it doesn't.

It really sucks having another diagnosis, another health problem, another medication. I've already been having a bad week partly due to the symptoms above and some personal problems so my mental health has definitely suffered. I just feel so terrible, you know? But I'm glad I know now so we can at least start treating it.

Endometriosis Awareness Month

Today is the first day of Endometriosis Awareness Month! Last year I posted an image for Endometriosis Awareness Week which was the first full week in March, but this year I am hoping to be a bit more involved. =] There is a daily photo challenge on Instagram I will be participating in (or at least attempting, I have a bad track record for actually completing month long challenges). I'll also be cross posting on Twitter but because of that pesky word limit you wouldn't be able to read the whole thing usually. I am hoping to do a few endo related posts on here, or at least including the topic in my regular Wednesday posts when my health allows. I hope to post articles about endo on my Facebook Page a few times a week but the last few weeks have shown I can't plan ahead too much. If anybody has any questions about endo or how it has affected me, I would love to answer them!

Last week I found out unexpectedly that I would need dental surgery which took place on Thursday. It's kind of funny actually, last Thursday I went to the dentist because of severe pain in my back right bottom tooth that started Wednesday afternoon. It was infected so they put me on antibiotics and scheduled surgery for this past Thursday (so a week later). The funny part is last Tuesday I had blood work done, and after I left the dentist they called letting me know my white blood cell count was elevated so I probably had an infection! If only they would have gotten the results sooner maybe I could have started the antibiotics before it had gotten so painful. So that's why I missed the past two Wednesday posts. I actually had a whole post written up in my head about my perfect plan for the next six months or so, and how I've recently realized it has no chance of happening, but the drugs they've put me on have kept me knocked out most of the time. I'm actually fighting sleep now. Yup, another post about how I should just stop bothering to plan things lol.

Anyway along with some other things not happening financially as I had hoped, we've now also had to pay out of pocket for this surgery. Since I was put under general anesthesia and everything and they ended up having to extract the infected tooth it won't be cheap. This throws a wrench into my plans to hopefully get everything worked out with the clinic to do a donated embryo transfer in June or July. I was really hoping to do it mid-June so we would find out around my old due date. That way the sting of that day would either be lessened or a failure would coincide with another hard time instead of adding another bad day to my calendar. Now I just don't know if we can afford it. I just don't know.

I feel like I'm going to start crying any minute so I'm going to wrap this up. Lord knows I've written enough already. My posts are always so long! My paracord bracelet promotion is still on going. I like making them, it's comforting. We could of course use the money now as much as ever. I haven't sold a ton of them but I appreciate each purchase more than I can say.

Endometriosis Awareness Coupon

Found out today shipping went up 25¢ so I'm starting this promotion early! All bracelets are on sale, not just the endo ones. Proceeds go towards my treatment and hopeful embryo adoption. If it's not something you're personally interested in it would mean a lot if you would share it with those who might be. Here's a link to my shop so you don't have to type it in. 

Good news for once!

I recently found out one of my very good friends is pregnant. Normally this would be bittersweet at best and soul crushing at worse, but not this time. I'm beyond happy for her (and her DH), and that's it. When she told me I didn't have any of those normal "I wish it was me" feelings. It put a smile on my face for the first time in well, a while. But I was also scared, and still am a little. Unfortunately their journey has included a few losses and I would be heartbroken if that happened again. If I would be heartbroken, if I already feel like I love this baby, how much worse it would be for them is unfathomable. But so far everything is good. HCG is rising appropriately and they should get their first ultrasound in a few days.

While I am still extremely happy for them, I am beginning to feel a bit off. Like it's wrong for me to be so excited for them when I feel so negative about my sister's pregnancy. My little sister's birthday is coming up and I know she will be there and I'm dreading it. The last time I saw her she wasn't even showing yet and it was a bad experience all around. I'm actually kind of grateful my endo hasn't improved yet so I can use that to get away for a bit if I need to.

On the other hand, I feel a renewed desire to get pregnant myself. That desire is such a double edged sword, as with it comes hope that is so easily crushed. I found myself looking up information on the embryo adoption program we planned to go through last year for the first time in months. Checking to see if the prices were still the same, if there was a longer wait time, stuff like that. I questioned whether I should call them and see if there was anything we can do now. I come off lupron in May, maybe if we started now we could transfer soon after! But then I had a reality check and realized I was definitely jumping the gun. I don't even know if this will work, and I can't try again until my endo gets better. I just want my baby to grow up with my friend's baby. I wanted the same thing with my other best friend when she got pregnant and now their son is three and a half. I'm scared the same thing will happen and I'll be left behind again.

Realistically I'm still feeling all around terrible and in quite a bit of pain and haven't even been calling the people I'm supposed to call. Like the doctor to push up my appointment after being in the hospital, or more lawyers to see if someone will represent me in court. So I doubt I'm up to organizing an embryo adoption either. And I'm not sure I want to try and do that while dealing with a disability hearing anyway. So right now the plan is to wait until I can come off my pain meds and reevaluate then. Maybe I can be pregnant or at least on my way there by the time her baby shower rolls around.

The Secret Really is the Support

Thank you everyone who stopped by yesterday for my SITS day! It was so amazing to wake up last night (yes night, I'm secretly a vampire. If you tell anyone I'll have to bite you.) and see all the supportive comments. I said yesterday that I wish this had come at a better time, but now I realize this was the better time. This is when I needed the support. It was very helpful to hear from everyone that a) it's okay to be negative when you're having a sucky time, b) they'll be thinking about me and praying for things to get better, and c) things will get better in time. It was all very uplifting and at least for today some of the emotional fog has lifted.

I'm also very thankful that I was able to create awareness about embryo donation. This is such an amazing option and I hope one day it will be as well known as IUI or IVF with your own embryos. On one hand I was saddened by how many people commented that they had never heard of this option, but on the other glad that now they have. I hope that through being featured some struggling couple will learn of the family building option that is perfect for them.

ETA: On my facebook page I try and post about any infertility, PCOS, Endo, etc news I find interesting or informative. However sometimes I just forget to even look at the news. I was thinking about starting to do a news recap here on Fridays which would encourage me to actually look on a regular basis rather than just when I remember. Would that be something you'd be interested in reading?

Darn my pale Irish skin!

Buy the t-shirt here.

Every year on May 25th we celebrate Towel Day in honor of Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy among other things. From the Hitchhiker's Guide:

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have. Partly it has great practical value -- you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can't see it, it can't see you -- daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

 This year in honor of Towel Day my mother, sisters, brother-in-law, and I spent the day at the local water park. DH didn't go because he doesn't swim.

Look at us hoopy froods. 

As you can see from the picture, all three of us sisters are pretty pale but me exceptionally so. I put sunscreen on my whole body twice, the top of my arms/shoulders three time, and my face four times. Yet where did I get sunburned? The top of my arms and face (and boobs)! This is why I don't go outside. The sunburn is still there so I can't say if those parts will tan or not, but the rest of me is just as pale as always. Not even a hint of color. My mother said if we had fun maybe we can get season passes, but I told her there was no way unless I can wear a wetsuit. =D

Besides having glow-under-black-light skin I also have a generally sucky immune system. I took a bunch of extra Vitamin C before going, but still ended up getting sick. For the past few days I've felt like I have food poisoning. I suppose it could be sun poisoning but I don't think the sunburn is quite that bad. I never heard back from Nan (FIRM's embryo donation coordinator), and after speaking to some other people who have used them that's not unheard of. Once you're a patient she's good about calling you back but not so much before then. I've just felt too sick to keep calling and hoping I get her this week so still no news on that front.

Even if the sun did try to kill me and I ended up sick, I still had a lot of fun hanging out with my family. I've had so many problems with my endo I haven't gone to the waterpark with them in several years. For once it was nice not to worry about it so much. I did start hurting at lunch but I had my pain medication with me and was fine by the time we were done eating. I call it a successful weekend. 

Happy May ICLW!

Welcome ICLW'ers! No idea what ICLW is? Learn all about it here! I normally would start my post out with a welcoming picture or gif but I'm a bit rushed today so you'll have to forgive me.

For those who are visiting for the first time, my name is Tasha but I pretty much exclusively go by the name FrozenOJ or Frozenorangejuice online (unless I'm gaming, where I use the character name Jaliyah). Why? Because I needed a screen name for something and it's the first thing that popped into my mind. It's been working for me for probably 15 years so no point in changing it now. I am a stay at home wife as my endometriosis is too bad for me to work. Josh, my DH, is a graphic designer who is currently going to and working at the local branch of FSU. He also did some work for a movie and he's supposed to be included in the credits when it comes out which is really cool! We don't have any live children, but we do have an adorable Yorkie.

Everybody say, "Awww!"

I have PCOS and Endo, and after my laparoscopy in 2011 was cautioned to try now if we wanted kids before it was too late. So we started trying in October, and by February I was on Clomid. I did not respond well. Finally in October 2012 after ovulating just three times we got our BFP only to miscarry three days later. I was on either Clomid or Femara until March of 2013 when we stopped trying to focus on my endo. Things had been getting worse and finally it got to the point I was in pain all the time and on too much pain medication for TTC to be safe.

Shortly before this we found out we were dealing with MFI as well due to low testosterone. We made the decision to go on testosterone therapy even though it would make Josh at least temporarily sterile as having bio kids doesn't seem to be in the cards for us anyway.

Now we are looking forward to trying out embryo donation/adoption. We are waiting until I can come off the pain medication, but are hopeful we can start that process in the next few months. I called the clinic today to find out some information and see what we needed to do when we are ready to get things started, but unfortunately the person who deals with that was off. So I'm waiting to hear back. People I've talked to who have used this clinic said you can start cycling within a month or two of contacting them, but I've also heard there's been a run on embryos lately so the wait time might be longer.

I have recently started selling 550 paracord awareness bracelets to fundraise for the embryo donation. I'm normally not a very crafty person but I've enjoyed making these. I'd love to eventually be able to turn it into a source of income and not just a fundraiser. Right now I'm selling them in colors representing infertility, miscarriage, infant loss, PCOS, and endo. The pink could also be potentially used for breast cancer and the yellow for the armed forces. I'm thinking of branching out into things other than bracelets, like ribbon shaped keychains or dog collars or something. If you like one you can go through Etsy (linked above) or just email me what you want since they do charge a transaction fee.

My endo is doing some better, but there hasn't been as much improvement as I'd like. I started out taking a tramadol about every four hours and now I'm down to about two a day. When I put it that way it seems like things are going quite well, but it doesn't feel like things have improved that much. I'm tired of being in pain. I have a little over a month before I'm estimated to be relatively pain free and that cannot come soon enough.

Taking my head out of the sand

For the past few weeks I've in kind of a mental lock down mode. I haven't posted here since last Monday, even though I should have four additional posts by now (well, this one is really only a day late). I haven't been using my G+ or Facebook. My Twitter apparently got hacked and I didn't even notice. I got the stuff to make the paracord awareness bracelets (more on that later) but wouldn't make them because the tutorial was online. I have 157 posts of yours waiting to be read in my reader. I've just been in total avoidance mode. My attitude was kind of like Sheldon's above, if Amy was replaced by every single person on the internet.

It wasn't until Saturday that it dawned on me what part of the problem was: Mother's Day. My first Mother's Day after my loss. I didn't want to see or hear anyone talk about it so I just stuck my fingers in my ears and ignored everything. Did that make things better? I don't know. Sunday I had a couple of minor breakdowns, mostly just in my head, but overall it was a good day. My mom, my older sister, her DH, my younger sister, my DH, and I all went out to eat at a nontraditional location - a sports bar/pub. Thankfully there weren't too many happy smiling pregnant women or families with small children so it wasn't too bad. Then we went to see Iron Man 3 and Oblivion, and there weren't any noisy children in attendance. My older sister posted something on her Facebook for me which I really appreciated. Overall I think it turned out as best as it could have. I hope by next May we have something to really celebrate.

My little sister, me, older sister, and mom.

It wasn't just that though, I've felt like I've been at a standstill regarding my recovery. I feel better than I did before starting the new treatment, but I don't think I feel better than I did around the one month mark. I'm nervous things won't get much better than they are now. I was going to call the clinic we would like to go through for the embryo adoption to find out some more information, but I'm scared we won't be able to do it. So that's been something I've been avoiding as well. Sigh.

I've heard from several people that exercise and smiling release endorphins that make you happy. I very much want to be happy. I've started a new exercise regimen where every other day I work out (well, at least do yoga) with my PS3 game Fit in Six as much as I can without hurting myself, and go for a walk on the other days. So far it's going well but I'm only on day four so we'll see where I am in a couple of weeks lol. Unfortunately my Appalachian Trail Virtual Walk app is stuck at 8.3 miles and I can't get it to register more than that no matter how long I walk, so those updates on Fridays are cancelled. I might find another app for walking but it won't be as cool as that one. I've tried to remind myself to smile anytime I notice I'm frowning even if I don't feel like it.

I think these new changes must be helping some, as here I am writing this instead of watching TV. Yesterday I finally finished my sample bracelets and set up my Etsy shop. They are $5 each plus $1 for shipping. I've already sold 5 and have a couple more people interested! Right now I only have pink, blue, black, and teal cord to make them with but I've ordered some yellow and hope that will be here next week. I need to sell at least 15 to make up what I've spent on materials, but I think that's doable. I have enough cord to make 40 or 50 of them. If you'd like one you can order through Etsy or just send me an email with what colors you want, your wrist size, and address and pay through the paypal button here on the blog. The money will of course be saved up to pay for whatever it takes to make us parents. My mom is trying to set up a local fundraiser for us as well to help sell some. I really like making them even if no one else buys them and I have to give them away for Christmas haha!

Well I think that's all the news here for the moment. I'm sure I'm forgetting something but I just can't be bothered to figure it out. Obviously I'm still dealing with some of the apathy that's plagued me recently. I hope by next week I'm feeling much closer to myself again.

Embryo Donation

source

I always try to open with a picture relevant to what I'm going to be talking about. This one was pretty difficult. I found a lot of pictures of embryos, of pregnant women, of families, political cartoons about stem cell research, personhood acts, how instead of using ART people should adopt disabled orphans, but not the kind of thing I was looking for. It actually made me really sad. But I'm not here to write about how sad I am, (for once) I'm here to talk about something great: embryo donation/adoption.

I had known for a while that this existed, but it was always brought up when someone didn't know what to do with left over embryos rather than as a solution to infertility. People who do believe embryos are tiny little people may be hesitant to try IVF, so mentioning embryo donation was a reassurance that they would be given a chance at life. Finally I came to the realization that the people using these snowbabies are probably struggling with IF themselves. They were like me. So I started doing some research.

Oh, if only I knew what I know now a year and a half ago! Embryo donation is by law not considered adoption. As such you don't have to go through the same steps (home studies etc) as you do with adoption. You are legally considered the birth parents. You can do it anonymously so you don't even know who the biological parents are, just information like eye color, hair color, and medical history. That's one of the things I was hesitant about when it comes to adoption. I want to be the mom as far as everyone is concerned. Also like I've mentioned in the past I really want to experience pregnancy longer than a few days, but my husband is reluctant to use our own genetic material.

The biggest surprise though was the cost. One of the reasons I didn't look into it sooner was because I thought it would be similar to IVF or adoption which we simply cannot afford. Nope, one of the clinics within driving distance has a price list on their website of about $4,000! This is why I wish we had done the research sooner. In January of this year we went on a 7 day cruise that ended up costing about that much. So if we had known this anytime before we booked last July we could have done this instead. Isn't that a kick to the face. Then if you factor in all we've spend on TTC during the last year and a half, we're already halfway to another one if the first didn't take. A lot closer than we are now.

Even if I'm kicking myself for not researching this earlier I am still feeling very optimistic. We can do this. Maybe not right now, but soon. This is within our reach whereas a fresh IVF or adoption are not. We can do the responsible thing of not breeding more children with our health problems while still carrying our children in my womb. This is very exciting. For the first time since my endo pain became constant I am looking forward to the future. There is always the chance that this new treatment won't work and I'll end up with a hysterectomy anyway but I'm choosing not to think about that now.

So just how close are we to making this a reality? Not really that close. I'm thinking probably a year at least. First I need my pain to subside. I am going probably tomorrow to talk to someone about re-enrolling to the local college. The degree I was working on before I can't count on being able to do. It's not guaranteed even with a hysterectomy that I'll be pain free. So I'm going to take a few classes in graphic design, web design, that kind of thing. Stuff I can do from home. My DH is a graphic designer so once I get some skills I could help him anytime I'm feeling well enough. It'll be a lot easier to take classes without a baby, so once I get the basics down we will begin saving up for embryo donation. It feels good to have a plan again even if our goal is so far away.