We had a wonderful Thanksgiving with my mother-in-law's side of the family, the LaVelles, down in Athens, Ohio. My mother-in-law is one of eight and all of her siblings were there - along with their parents, Grandma & Grandpa LaVelle. That side of the family doesn't always get together - so it was special that the original 10 were there. We did an early birthday celebration for Grandpa LaVelle who just turned 90 on New Year's Day.
We hit the road on the 23rd with our sleigh packed full of goodies. We were with my husband's family from the 23rd until mid-day on the 25th. We went to Granny's on Christmas Eve like we do every year - such a nice tradition. And the fact that she's 95 and still knows who we all are and can host us in her house - is just quite amazing! With a baby on the way, my hubby's sister and her husband couldn't make it up for the holidays - but we Skyped with them throughout our visit, which was nice! On the 25th we headed to my parent's house and did Christmas with my extended family on the 26th. So nice for everyone to be together again - though the time always goes by too fast! We headed back home on the 27th and I worked the rest of the week. There were a couple times when I was thinking about how it's yet another Christmas for us with no baby - but for the most part, I was really too busy to even think about it.
Crazy to believe that it's now 4 years and counting! With the new year there's always hope that this will be our year - but this year feels different from last year. When 2011 kicked off, I just remember feeling so hopeful with our IVF plans underway and really beleiving that 2011 was going to be our year. Saying that the first half of last year didn't turn out the way we woud've liked is probably the understatement of the year. Even though I know there's nothing we can do to change the outcome, it's still hard to believe that we had 18 eggs retrived which turned into 12 fertilized embryos which resulted in 8 beautiful embryos (2 attempted for our fresh IVF cycle, 4 that didn't survive the thawing process, & 2 attempted with the frozen embryo transfer) - that resulted in no baby. (When they were transferring the 2 for the IVF and we found out we had 6 frozen embryos - silly me was thinking we'd have to worry about what to do with all of those embryos.) I'm sure there was a reason that things happened the way they did - but it's still tough to understand. I know that we could do in-vitro again and it could result in a baby or two. But after going through all of it and dealing with the heartbreak after both of the big fat negative pregnancy tests, it's hard to think the outcome will be any different. Part of me knows that with my overpowering positive outlook that if we were to decide to try IVF again, I'm sure I would jump back on that positive thinking bandwagon. Just not sure we're quite there yet or ready to get back on that IVF horse.
Adventures in Acuptuncture: On December 12th, we actually went to talk to an acupuncturist. I had been thinking about giving acupuncture a try for awhile - but just never set-up the appointment. I ended up contacting Dr. Williams' office to see if they had any preferred acupuncturists in the area. They gave me two contacts and I contacted one and set-up an appointment. I think I had high hopes that giving acupuncture a try would make me feel like we were making progress again. But unfortunately, after the appointment I was feeling worse than before I had gone. I think I was expecting her to help explain it and make me believe in it all, but I didn't really get that from her. She gave me a lot of tips about what to do and not do when trying to get pregnant. She said the typical ones like no alcohol or caffeine. She said to stay away from spicy foods and fried foods. She also said to not do cardio workouts as that "scatters your energy." The most random one was when she said to stay away from cold water or cold foods - like salad. After she got done rattling off all of the do's and don'ts - I was like, "Okay, so I can eat grilled chicken and steamed veggies?" And she said, "Yes, that would be good." I appreciated all of the advice - but at the same time I kinda felt like she was telling me every old wive's tale about getting pregnant. You would think after 4 years that I would be willing to do whatever it takes to increase our chances - but I think following all of those rules all of the time would probably drive me crazy. Oh, and when I told her how old I was she said something about how I shouldn't think about age and told me that at 32 I still had 3 years left. So apparently she's counting me out after I'm 35. Awesome - thanks, lady!!! She did tell me that I should start taking Vitamin D and Vitamin C everyday - in addition to the prenatal vitamins. So we did go out and get me some vitamins - so that part of advice we are heeding!
That night she actually did do a treatment on me - so I had the little needles stuck in me. She put one in my forehead, one in the top of my head, one in my left ear, about 5 in my stomach and some in my feet/toes. It didn't hurt at all (though my ear kinda hurt aftewards). I had to lay there on the table with the needles in me for about 40 minutes. She told me not to think about babies and to just relax. FYI - it's REALLY hard to not think about babies when you're laying there with needles in you for the sole purpose of increasing your chances of getting pregnant. :) My hubby was there with me - so the poor guy just played on his phone. After the treatment, I asked her about the next steps and she recommended seeing me twice a week for a month and then said we'd move to maybe once a week. I scheduled my next appointment with her for that Saturday and we left. Even right after we left, I just wasn't excited about it at all. I was more upset that we're in this position where we have to debate/consider whether acupuncture is what we want to do. So that night turned into more of a pity party - which wasn't what I was expecting at all. I ended up crying myself to sleep a little bit that night - just frustrated and confused about what to do. The next day I ended up cancelling my Saturday appointment with her.
Part of me thinks that maybe it was just bad timing on my part - trying to squeeze it into a very busy month. And maybe it was my own fault for not doing my own homework ahead of time. She just seemed a little scatter-brained, but my sister pointed out that acupuncturists are typically "free spirts." The acupuncturist did say that acupuncture can help to get the body to focus on what needs to be done (making a baby in our case) and that doing treatments could help to decrease my cycle time - which would give us more chances per year to get pregnant. So I don't know that I can say that I won't do acupuncture again - it just wasn't the best first experience in the world. And even though I didn't enjoy my first experience - I'll be honest that part of me was hoping that the single treatment would've done the trikc and gotten me pregnant. But when my period showed up shortly after the new year, I knew that was unfortunately not the case. :(
The acupuncturist actually called me last week to let me know that my insurance will cover up to 26 treatments this year - I just have to pay a co-pay. I'm actually surprised my insurance would cover it - because when I checked last year it said that it would only be covered if "other methods of pain management" didn't work. Although I consider our infertlity quite painful - I wasn't sure that the insurance company would see it in that light. So I may have to look into that myself and then we'll have to decide if we want to pursue acupuncture and if so, maybe we can try another place just to see if it was the acupuncturist or not. Who knows! Wishing for that crystal ball to tell us what to do. For now our plan is to just keep trying the old-fashioned way and see if that will work. If nothing happens, then we're going to plan on going back to talk to Dr. Williams in March to see what he recommends.
So as you may recall, Oliver was born on May 20th and we found out the results of my negative pregnancy test from the frozen embryo transfer on May 23rd. On Oliver's birthday we were all still hopeful that I had a little baby growing in my belly. If things had turned out differently, I could've been REALLY pregnant watching the show this month! How nice that would've been!!
I'm actually in California for work this week - blogging from my hotel room. It's 12:42am PST, so maybe I should go to bed. Updating my blog always takes longer than I think it will - but it feels good to have it caught up again.
Thanks to Elphie & Hi Puppy for supplying my blogging music tonight - I had their mix CD playlists on shuffle while I blogged.
In closing, although 2011 didn't result in the baby (or two) that we would've liked - we know we wouldn't have made it through without the love and support from each other and our wonderfully supportive friends and family. We are EXTREMELY grateful for all of the love, hugs, and support we received from our friends and family this year. We definitely appreciated it more than you will ever know and I'm sure we'll need some more of it this year. Let's hope that 2012 is THE year. :)