Faith requires us to trust God

"Faith requires us to trust God", Fr. John Ludanha (St Thomas More Catholic Church, Centennial, Colorado)

This month (August) makes 4 years. Four years on our infertility journey. Years of medicine & acupuncture, 1 round of IVF, 4 embryos transferred and 1 miscarriage. Those who have walked faithfully with us during this hard season, thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for every prayer, every "thinking of you" text, the gift baskets full of love (magazines, movies, chocolate, heat pads, cute/fuzzy socks, inspirational books, band aids & cotton swaps to help with the hundreds of shots, etc), flowers, sweet cards, catered dinners, casseroles, chicken salad, cookies and everything you each have done.

So where has this journey taken us .....Denver, CO!  We have an amazing new doctor, Dr Schoolcraft @ CCRM. Check him out here... https://www.ccrmivf.com/colorado/william-schoolcraft/ isn't he impressive?

We first visited CCRM back in May and had a 1 day "work up" (8 hours of appointments).  1 hour orientation (Nic & I felt that we learned more during this orientation than we knew after completing IVF once before), nurse consultation, financial consultation, genetic counselor consultation (probably our favorite consult...learned so, so much and put us both at ease), we had labs/bloodwork and genetic screening, I had a baseline/3D ultrasound and doppler (checked ovaries and blood flow), Nic had a semen analysis + male anti-sperm antibody testing+ chromatin assay and we ended the day with me having a hysteroscopy & HSG. Yes we had already done most of these test and procedures before and CCRM did have all of our previous medical records but they want to perform their own procedures, run their own test and see things with their own eyes so they can make our specific plan forward.

So our plan...
We are about to start the stimming process aka IVF round #2. Mom flew with me to Denver this past Friday and will stay the first week with me and then Nic will fly out here. We will be here 2-3 weeks (until retrieval). Hope to have plenty of healthy embryos to freeze and then we would return a few months later for a transfer!

This morning mom and I went to an early service at a local Catholic church. His sermon was JUST what I needed. I felt like he was preaching DIRECTLY to me. She even looked over at me once and asked "you ok, Bug?" I was stunned a little (not supposed to talk during mass, Ann😉) that she also was thinking of ME. Though we can't predict, control or demand the outcome of our circumstance, we can know with great certainty that we WILL be okay. I am better today than yesterday and truthfully, I am better than okay! Not to fool myself or anyone else, yes there are days that seem so far from "okay" and I just want to scream and beg for those good and happy days to come back! Its dangerous to stay quiet and pretend that I don't get exhausted by my disappointments so I'm constantly working on opening up more. I hope to keep you guys updated here as many of you continue to reach out and check on us.

I'm usually pretty willing to talk about our journey , however...sometimes (especially when I'm in the middle of taking/injecting hormones that make you feel just all kinds of crazy) it gets exhausting to repeat and explain the steps. I have found a girl that writes about the IVF process so well:
https://trialsbringjoy.com/what-to-expect-ivf-201/

And one thing she wrote that I just cling to: It is possible to live life FULLY while being in an unknown season.

Whatever your situation is, you probably feel like you can't change it, but you still have to live through the realities of what's happening right now. Sometimes you just have to walk in your "I don't know." The Lord makes it clear in His Word that things will not always go as we wish they would. None of our tears will be wasted.

"God loves me too much to answer my prayers at any other time than the right time and in any other way than the right way"

XOXO