Lost

Lost is about the only word that comes to mind as I write this post today. I know that it has been a while since our last post. I have not been able to find the words to write.

Not only did we lose all of our embryos by transfer day over month ago, but we also lost the donor embryos. My pregnancy test was negative and we were once again faced with tremendous heartache.

The last month has been pretty rough. I am fighting depression, we are trying to recover from the tremendous expenses we have had due to all of the medical treatments, and we face a future with no children.

I am trying to find faith in God right now, but even it is lost right now. I can have all the faith in the world for others, but not for myself. I don't understand why He will not bring us a child.

We are taking a break right now. Our options are so small right now. We are going to concentrate on our health right now and try again to get our weight down. I gained almost 20 pounds over the summer from all of the fertility medications and loss of activity over the summer. That made all of this even more frustrating for me. I am having a very difficult time getting the weight to come off as well.

We are thinking about trying embryo adoption again in the future, but not for a while. Traditional adoption is also an option, but it will take a financial miracle. It typically costs around $20-25,000 and our resources are exhausted right now. This option may not be possible until several years from now.

All I can see right now is a grim future without children. For that I need your prayers. Every time I turn around I see pregnancy and babies; on television, in books, in stores, etc. I cannot escape it...I feel so bitter and angry and I am afraid I will feel this way forever. I desperately need to have some hope again...

I wish I had happier news for all. I wish I could write that post that talks about my strong faith in the Lord and how he will sustain me, but I just cannot find it inside of me right now. I need to grieve this loss first and then maybe I will see His Joy again...

Seeking where God Leads

Yesterday was embryo transfer day. Sadly, we received a call yesterday morning from the embryologist telling us that the last of our embryos had stopped developing. It is so hard to comprehend how we went from having twice as many embryos as last time to none on transfer day. It has been a very heartwrenching week for both us. After talking to the doctor yesterday afternoon, it seems that it will not be possible for us to have our own biological children.

Over the past couple of months, we have been thinking and praying about embryo adoption. When we started losing our embryos this week, we decided to pursue this option. We had looked at some profiles for some donor embryos about a month ago, but did not feel a strong pull towards adopting them yet. This week some new embryos became available and after reading through the profiles, they seemed to be a very good match for us. When we still had one embryo left, we decided that we would transfer the adopted embryos along with our remaining embryo.

By mid afternoon, things looked very poor. We had lost our last embryo and the three donor embryos had not survived the thaw. Richard and I began to feel lost and hurt, wondering why God was saying no to us. About 1:30 pm a second vial of the donor embryos were thawed and all seemed to be doing well. At least one of them was thriving and recovering from the thaw very well. The other two were responding and seemed the would also make it. About 3:30 pm we transferred three adopted embryos into my womb where we hope that at least one of them will attach and grow.

While we are mourning the loss of the opportunity to have children naturally, we are also thrilled at the prospect of becoming parents to these dear little ones that were left behind. It is a gift from God.

We continue to ask for your prayers as we potentially embark on a brand new journey in our lives. I am home on bedrest right now and it will be at least a week or so before we can test to find out if we are pregnant.

What an adventure is ahead of us!

IVF Update

Our egg retrieval was last Friday and things looked really good. Here are the basics:

• 9 eggs were retrieved and 7 of those were mature.
• 6 of the 7 actually fertilized
• On Day two, 3 of those eggs stopped growing. The three remaining eggs were progressing, two of them were below average quality and one looked to be good quality.
• On day three we have two below average embryos that are 8-cell and 5 cell. They should be a 6-8 cell embryo on day three. The third embryo that was our good one was still a 2 cell and the embryologist said it may not continue to day four.

Everything looked so good into egg retrieval...our best cycle numbers yet, but today we don't even know if these embyos will make it to transfer at all.

We are trying to understand what God is doing here and what direction he wants us to take. We certainly continue to ask for your prayers...

Episode III: A Schunke Hope

Wow! Time has flown since my last post. School started which is probably all I need to say to explain why I have not posted in a while. Classes are going well though, I have some great kids this year. The days just fly by though! It is busy!!

Despite our past IVF failure, we decided to try another cycle. We are just not ready to give up yet! We started IVF #3 the first week of september. I was very worried about going through a cycle while in school. Surprisingly, it was much easier than I thought it would be. I think it has been a blessing in disquise. I have been so busy, I don't have time to worry about my numbers and think about how cruddy the medicine makes me feel. I have just been plugging away, trying to put my energy into my kids in school and let God take care of the rest. We have been praying and hoping as always and waiting to see what God is going to do!

So far things are going great! We just gave the HcG shot which induces ovulation. Here is where we stand less than 35 hours before egg retrieval. Today during the ultrasound, we measured 13 follicles! They all looked really good. Most of them were betwen 17 and 20 mm which is great. One was a little small, and will probably not be ready by Friday, but that is still 12 potential eggs. My estrogen levels look fabulous too. They hope for 200 per mature follicle. We have never hit that, until now! My levels today were 2432, so we are looking great!

Our egg retrieval is scheduled for Friday morning at 7:00 am so we will be up bright and early.

Please pray for this procedure for us. The last retrieval was really rough on both of us between the pain and trauma of the procedure and the loss of 50% of our eggs right off the bat. We feel really good that things are going to go much better this time...we appreciate you agreeing in prayer with us on this issue.

This past week, I have seen God's love in so many ways. There are two things that really spoke to me this week. All summer I was really into potting plants for around the house and outside on the porch. It became a kind of therapy for me. I rescued plants on the clearance rack at the home and garden stores and grew them into beautiful plants again. I thought if I cannot grow babies right now, at least I can grow plants! Well, I had two planters with Mexican heather on the front porch. On a really hot day, that got absolutely parched after I was not able to water them the night before. Over the next couple of days, one whole side just turned brown and died. That was about a month ago. The other day I decided to cut the dried off branched out of the planter so that it would look better. I was very surprised to find that on all the dead stems, new growth had started and was flourishing! I was totally surprised! I also have a cyclomen that I rescued from Wal-mart's clearance rack. It had flowered a little when I bought it and then quit. Over a month ago, the leaves started to yellow and die. I read about them on the internet and found out that when that happens most people just through them out because they rarely flower again. They grow from a tuber and if they yellow, some say you can let the dry out and then plant them again in the spring and they might flower. Well, just as I was ready to think about drying it out, it stopped turning yellow. Stayed green. So I decided to keep watering it for a while and it has been green and beautiful. This week, lo and behold, it started blooming again...in the beginning of fall!!! I just think these are little love notes from God, showing how His power is made awesome through weakness.

Negative

Sadly, the pregnancy test was negative today.

We don't understand what God is doing, we don't know what lies in our future and we are hurting immensely right now.

We are also mourning the loss of the two children we will never get to see grow up.

I know that God is in control, but I am also thankful that we have a God that will allow us to feel...to be sad, angry, hurt, lost...holding us in His arms all along.

Thank you to our friends and family who have supported us and will continue to support us through these trials.

Waiting and more waiting...

Well, after daily visits to the doctor for about the past two weeks (including some weekends!) we are now having to just wait it out. I made it through the bedrest. I was getting a little stir crazy, but I managed to keep myself busy. I did a lot of knitting, worked on a scrapbook in bed, and watched lots of television and DVD's. Saturday rolled around and I could actually get out some. Funny thing was, I was so tired and started to feel like I was getting a cold or something...finally free and now did not want to do much but take a nap. Go figure...

Of course, the next thing that ran through my mind was "are these pregnancy symptoms?" We are now in the two week wait. This really is the hardest part. Waiting to take that official pregnancy test. I ran across an article today while doing some surfing that tickled my funny bone. It was describing things to keep you busy during the TWW. Here is the link if your would like to read the entire list:
http://bellybelly.com.au/articles/conception/two-week-wait-activity-list

It suggested things from walking around the neighborhood, making up your own fertility dance, and making a folic acid feast. You really shoud read #9...it is hysterical. I may do that tomorrow.

Number 13 involves audience participation. I am posting it below. Post your comments if you would like to participate and what day you will be taking. We need to fill though Friday folks...so here is your shot:

"13. Delegate the burden of the two-week wait. Clearly someone has to worry constantly during this time, but does it have to be you? Divide the days up among your best friends and closest family. On their assigned day they are required to think, wonder, and worry all day about whether you are pregnant or not. At the end of the day they have to call or send you email describing how agonizing it was. Also they have to report to you if they had any “symptoms,” such as sore breasts, excessive urination, nausea, bleeding, fatigue… "

Ready for the challenge? This is not limited to just women, men you are welcome to participate as well! You can email or post comments to the blog with your reports...looking forward to see how your day goes!

Transfer Day!!

Today was our big transfer day!

Here are our little embryos! The two embryos on the right labeled with the small T in a circle above are the ones that were transferred. The remaining one in the upper left side is the one that has been progressing poorly. It arrested and is no longer growing. You can't tell much from the photo, but it was getting more dark patches which indicated it had truly stopped developing.

The embryos that were transferred today are still a little slow developing. He said they had not made it to the blastocyst stage. He did see some progression, but they are just a little slower in developing. This might lower the chances they will attach to the uterine wall, so that will be one thing to be praying about this week! Embryos have been transferred at early stages and have made it, so these certainly can too with God's help! On another note, the embryologist said he has read some research (which I was reading just last night as well) that ICSI embryos that are female seem to develop slower than male embryos. Maybe we will have girls?????

The transfer was easy and pretty quick once we got into the room. They use a small catheter to transfer the embryos in and then I sit back and relax in the chair, reclining for about an hour.

Richard and I prayed and then took some goofy pictures, telling our little embryos to hang on because we think we will be fun parents!

I am home now and confined to rest for the next several days.

Here are our prayer requests: 1. That these two little embryos continue to grow and develop in God's time. 2. That these two little ones attach and grow (did I just say I wanted twins????!!!!)