Happy ICLW!

Welcome to my blog. I haven't participated in ICLW for quite a few months, but it will be nice to be back and meet some new bloggers.

A little about me and Tidy:

We started trying to conceive almost 5 years ago. In fact, it will be 5 years next month. We've tried everything under the sun: 5 IUIs, 4 IVF (6 total transfers: 4 fresh, 2 frozen). And tons and tons of diet changes, yoga, acupuncture, Chinese herbs, meditation, you name it...

Finally last spring, after our 4th failed IVF cycle with my body, I drew a line in the sand, jumped across it and never looked back. That line in the sand represented my own genetics. We made the decision to try one IVF cycle using donor eggs, from our gracious anonymous donor, Dotty 2.0

And it worked... well...

And we are SOOO grateful...

I am currently pregnant, just over 17 weeks, with twins, thanks to some amazing donor eggs, my husbands swimmers, an amazing team of doctors, and oh I guess my body gets some credit too! I'm so thankful to know that my body can hold a pregnancy.

So please have a look around my blog, leave a comment and join me as we get ready to welcome our twins into our lives.

ICLW AND Beta Day!!!

Happy ICLW and welcome to my little corner of the web and of the ALI community!

Today is a big day for Tidy and me. It's beta day of our very first Anonymous Donor Egg IVF cycle.  We are 10dp5dt  (10 days past 5 day transfer) of 2 beautiful blasts. And, we are blessed enough to have 6 more blasts in the freezer (which takes just a little pressure off this cycle... kind of). It was truly a perfect cycle on the embryo front and I am so very very thankful for that. Dotty 2.0 (the name we have for our SECOND anonymous donor ... you can read more about that saga here) did amazing. I can't thank this woman enough (and I literally can't because she's anonymous). I hope that she feels the gratitude that we have for her taking the time out of our her life to give us this opportunity.

Before you read further, I will say that this post does NOT contain results of my beta. I will post late tonight or early tomorrow with those results... So please keep reading further and later today!!!

Here's the quick play by play: In the last almost 5 years, Tidy and I have been through 5 IUIs, 6 embryo transfers (4 fresh IVF, 2 FETs) with my own eggs, 1 laparoscopy and countless natural cycles with acupuncture, herbs, diet changes and yoga. It's been a long unexplained road...

I never imagined we would be here, not in my wildest dreams, but here we are and for the first time in quite a few years, I feel more hopeful that ever. Hopeful, but of course preparing for a negative, because, hey, that's what we've been accustomed to. Or a chemical... I've had about 3 of those.. FUN!

SO, for any new readers, please follow me and leave a comment and tell me more about you! I love new followers and I'm usually pretty good about commenting back.

Stay tuned for our beta results....

OH! and one more thing. Recently I posted about Tidy's Wisdom... and I have one more of our random evening conversations to share. This happened last night:

Tidy: "Should I have a beer or tea?"
Me: "Have a beer. We've got 6 frosties in the freezer, so ya know. I don't need your swimmers again for quite a while." (Cuz clearly I'm a total paranoid freak and would give him the evil eye for every beer that he had while we were going through this cycle).
Tidy:" Yeah, you're done with my junk. So now I'm on a slow train to toxic town!"

He's a funny one alright... a funny one indeed.

Quotes that Spoke to Me Today

"To lead a life that goes beyond pettiness and prejudice and always wanting to make sure that everything turns out on our own terms, to lead a more passionate, full, and delightful life than that, we must realize we can endure a lot of pain and pleasure for the sake of finding out who we are and what this world is."  ~Pema Chodron

"Let us cultivate love and compassion, both of which give life true meaning. This is the religion I preach. It is simple. Its temple is the heart. Its teaching is love and compassion. Its moral values are loving and respecting others, whoever they may be. Whether one is a lay person or a monastic, we have no other option if we wish to survive in this world" ~ Dalai Lama

P.S - IF you are new to my blog today because of ICLW, I welcome you! You can learn about me on my "TTC Timeline" tab at the top. Oh, and my previous post about Tidy's Wisdom seems to be a pretty funny one, so you can learn a bit more about us on that too :-) Please follow me! I love to have new followers. And know that I will come visit you this week as well.

It's ICLW time again!

(This is somewhat of a re-post of July's ICLW welcome that hardly anyone read because I goofed when I signed up for it, so forgive me if it might sound a bit familiar)

It's been a few months since I've participated in ICLW and I must admit, the last few months when I didn't participate, I felt a bit lonely in blog world! So I'm excited to be back and hopefully gain some new readership. And I did try to participate in it LAST month, but I made a mistake and put a link to my  OLD blog, so new readers couldn't find me. Silly me.

For those of you who are newer to the infertility blogging world, a bit of info on what ICLW is can be found here.

This is an exciting time for Tidy and I. We are right in the midst of our first DE IVF cycle. Dotty (the nick-name we have given to our anonymous egg donor, which stands for Donor for Tippy and Tidy) started her stims this past Friday. This is a whole new world for us. One that we are both scared and hopeful for. If any of you have happened along my blog specifically because of donor eggs, welcome! I hope to shed some light on this process and share my journey along this new and hopefully short path.
For those of you who have been with me for a while, I do cherish your readership and your comments. They mean so much to me!

So, without further ado, here's a quick get to know me from the fertility point of view if you are new here:

1. Tidy and I have been ttc for 4.5 years next month (that amounts to over 50 attempts to have a baby)
2. We've had all the testing there is to test: HSG, SHG, every hormone under the sun, Laparoscopy, Immune panels, blood clotting panels.. you name it, we've done it. I promise!
3. We've done 5 IUIs, 4 IVFs (4 Fresh transfers, 2 Frozen), TONS of herbs, acupuncture, diet changes (gluten free, vegan-ish, organic), yoga, guided meditation..
4. Of the above treatments, we've had only 2 confirmed chemical pregnancies.
5. We STILL really don't know if anything is technically wrong.

We needed some new hope, so we decided to buy a 26 yr old woman's eggs in order of having a much higher chance at a pregnancy. Yes, that is a fairly blunt way to describe our next steps, but in essence, that's what we are doing... And for the first time in my life, I have now become protective of some other woman's ovaries. It's a very strange feeling.

So please join me, Tidy and our anonymous donor, Dotty, and follow along as we venture into this new world of DE IVF.

Thanks for your comments in advance.

Happy ICLW!!!

Happy ICLW! Sorry it's taken me a few days to acknowledge it, but wow, has this week been a busy one at work.... which is a good thing, considering I'm in the middle of my 2ww. For those of you who are new to my blog, please look at the tabs up top to read about my story. Tidy and I have been ttc for 4+ years. We've met some wonderful people along the way that have helped us through this and I truly feel we are stronger people. But we're still not parents and we don't really have an end in site yet. We're still looking.

In short, we are in the 2ww of a frozen transfer and I'm up and down, like usual. This is possibly our last chance with our own genetics before moving on to donor eggs or adoption, but we're not really 100% sure yet. We don't have a solid plan B if this transfer fails and that scares me a bit, but I know we'll figure it out... eventually.

I used to blog with a more public profile at As Fast As My Baby Can. Feel free to go there and read my prior posts.

Happy ICLW and welcome to my blog if this is your first time. Please follow me and Tidy along on our "Tumultuous Trip" and leave a comment below to let me know a bit about you.