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A Serene Touch to Our Master Bathroom

March 18, 2020 By: Jessicomment

Today’s post is sponsored by Photowall. They provide custom wallpaper and prints with free U.S. shipping, and products ship in 1–4 days. They are offering YOU 25% off their complete selection for a month! See more info at the end of this post.

I can’t believe it has been EXACTLY two years since our master bathroom renovation was completed. You can see the complete INSANE before/after here, but here is a little reminder:

It was a major job with a complete gut, including the removal of a bathtub and an entire closet, and most of the walls were taken down to the studs. After the master bathroom was “done”, we moved on to our hall bathroom and then our basement. We were in renovation mode for literally all of 2018 between those three rooms. That said, we finished our master bathroom, but we never decorated it, other than changing out a few cute items on the vanity each season and putting a picture of us from our honeymoon on a shelf above the toilet. So even though the bathroom has been “done”, it has also remained very simple and undecorated.

[Read more…]
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Embryo Adoption: Our Failed Transfer Follow-up and Change to Protocol

February 19, 2020 By: Jessi1 Comment

On Monday, February 17, we had our “what the heck just happened?!” follow-up appointment with our fertility clinic after our first transfer via embryo adoption failed. Our clinic offers this appointment for free after a failed transfer, which is incredibly generous and obviously very helpful in a time like this. The whole drive down, I was a ball of nerves. Gone are the days of having peace about anything. We went with many questions and bruised hearts.

Oh, and we only have one embryo left, so we went feeling super defeated upfront. I know it only takes one embryo to have a baby, but our track record really stinks so it’s not very encouraging.

But can I be truthful for a second? I am incredibly thankful that we didn’t transfer both at the same time, because knowing our new plan, we could have lost both of them at the same time and that would have been even more devastating.

Also, before someone says “why are you still trying to grow your family this way when it failed the first time and you’ve already been through so much loss?” Listen to me. It’s up to us and God how we grow our family… thank goodness it’s not up to someone else. We adopted TWO embryos and both deserve a chance at life. We love them both. And statistically, your chance of success goes up with more transfers. That’s not super encouraging when you first start this journey, but it is encouraging when you’ve already had one failed transfer. Truthfully, statistics are in favor of your third transfer. It’s most likely to take, and I don’t know why other than changes in protocol, but that’s the science.

So back to our follow-up appointment…

[Read more…]
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Embryo Adoption: Our Beta Test Results

February 10, 2020 By: Jessicomment

A beta test is a blood test that checks for the actual level of HCG (the pregnancy hormone) in the blood to determine whether someone is pregnant and whether it is a viable pregnancy or a chemical pregnancy. People don’t carry HCG above 5 in their bodies unless they are pregnant or put it there with a hormone injection (like a trigger shot to induce ovulation). In my case, I did not have a trigger shot so any HCG in my body is 100% created by a pregnancy, nothing artificial.

Unfortunately, our beta @ 9dp5dt on 2/7/20 was negative. It came back at 0. I am not pregnant, not even remotely close.

We plan to go back for the next embryo immediately. We already have over half the money we need for it, so as soon as I get a period, we’re diving right back in. It’ll be our last chance with these embryos that were donated to us. There is only one left. If this one doesn’t stay with us… well… then I don’t know what is next for our family.

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Embryo Adoption: 1 Week After Transfer (7dp5dt)

February 5, 2020 By: Jessi2 Comments

One week ago today, we officially became PUPO with one of the two embryos that were donated to us thanks to the amazing miracle of embryo adoption! I still can’t believe that this is our story. 2019 was a crazy year filled with so many emotions and changes to our journey. We started the year pursuing domestic infant adoption, and before we knew it, the tables were turned to embryo adoption. Now here we are! It’s 2020 and we are one week after the transfer (or in IVF talk: 7dp5dt) and just TWO days from finding out if the baby decided to stick around.

[Read more…]
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Embryo Adoption: Our FET Is Done! I am PUPO!

February 1, 2020 By: Jessicomment

I AM OFFICIALLY PUPO (Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise) after an FET!

I can’t even begin to explain the emotions I am feeling after our transfer. Knowing that there is an embryo in my womb looking for his/her place to call home for the next 9 months is just so exciting. I never want to forget the magic of FET day so I want to take a moment to document the event and what is to come.

[Read more…]
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How Our Embryo Adoption Was Fully Funded Within 7 Months

January 15, 2020 By: Jessicomment

When you have zero infertility insurance coverage, you have to be really creative when it comes to funding the growth of your family. This has always been our story. Today I want to share how (without creating more debt) we fully funded an embryo adoption that cost us nearly $10,000, between the doctor visits, medical testing to make sure I can carry, legal fees, required third-party counseling, ultrasounds, blood tests, acupuncture, travel expenses (multiple 6-hour round trips!), medications, and the most expensive part: the frozen embryo transfer procedure itself.

Counting Pennies and Saving

We took what we used to set aside for our vacation fund (we went to Disney in May 2019 so this started in June) and applied it to the embryo adoption off the top of each paycheck just like any other bill. It came out first.

[Read more…]
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Embryo Adoption: My FET Protocol Medication

January 9, 2020 By: Jessicomment

Part of preparing for a successful frozen embryo cycle means being on a lot of medications, supplements, and hormones. When people get pregnant naturally, everything aligns perfectly in their bodies for that pregnancy to happen. For those of us who struggle with diseases that cause infertility and miscarriage, we have to medically force our bodies into submission.

One thing I have learned about infertility treatment is that everyone has a different protocol and a different journey. So please know that what I’ve been prescribed for my FET protocol may look very different from what you’ll be prescribed. This journey comes with a lot of trial and error and adjustments along the way. I want to share what my FET protocol looks like because I’ve found it super helpful to see what others’ journeys look like! It helped me understand possible scenarios to expect so I want to do the same.

This is my FET protocol medication list from the clinic:

[Read more…]
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Embryo Adoption: How I Am Preparing My Body For The Frozen Embryo Transfer

January 3, 2020 By: Jessicomment

For years, I’ve written about preparing my body for various fertility treatments, for natural cycles, and natural ways to control my PCOS. Never in a million years would I have guessed that I’d get to write about preparing for a frozen embryo transfer via embryo adoption. But here I am!

Today I’m going to share some of the natural ways that I’m preparing my body to be more receptive to this frozen embryo transfer. In 2015, I shared natural ways that I was encouraging my body to (hopefully) receive an embryo following an IUI, and while I have picked up those same principles, a lot more is involved this time! I’m going to break it down by phase.

And believe me, I know that doing these things aren’t guaranteed to make the embryo stick or survive. We can’t 100% control whether this frozen embryo transfer is successful. There are so many factors outside of my control. All I can do is be a good steward of the body God gave me and that’s my plan.

Before Transfer

Anti-Inflammatory Diet. Oh, this one is so hard. Going gluten-free wasn’t that hard, but going dairy-free is. I love cheese, ya’ll. Like, LOVE IT. It’s a very common snack for me when I work from home so cutting it out is difficult, but it’s worth it to lower inflammation in my body. I’m basically on a low-carb (similar to Keto), no gluten/dairy/sugar diet right now. Healthy fats, good meats, veggies, berries, etc.

[Read more…]
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Embryo Adoption: Our FET Schedule

December 30, 2019 By: Jessicomment

I finally have our schedule for our FET (Frozen Embryo Transfer)! I feel like this was taking forever to happen considering we first started this process in June and had our first consultation in September, but here we are. I want to document as much of this process as possible, knowing this FET schedule is loose and will adjust as ultrasound results and blood work comes back. For now, here is the schedule from the clinic!

  • Birth Control Pills: December 27 – January 4
  • Baseline Ultrasound: January 7 or 8
  • Labs: Week of January 13
  • Uterine Lining Check & Labs: Week of January 20 (this can change everything about the actual the transfer date)
  • Transfer: Week of January 27

As far as a pregnancy test, I don’t know yet. I haven’t decided if I will test at home at all, or just wait for the official blood test. It’s going to take a lot of will power to wait but part of me wants to cherish being “PUPO” (Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise) as long as possible.

I also don’t want to go through the stress of comparing lines and whether they are getting darker like I did with my last miscarriage. We’ll see. My husband’s 36th birthday is February 8 so I feel like it would be such an amazing way to celebrate, but at the same time, I don’t know if we want to risk bad timing and potentially ruining a special day. It depends on how I feel. We’ve had negative pregnancy tests for both of our birthdays in the past due to failed infertility treatments. I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to test before then, but we’ll see how the dates line up.

So that’s the tentative FET schedule! As it moves along, I’ll share details on Instagram primarily, but some Facebook, too. Follow over there for more frequent updates!

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Embryo Adoption: Legal Documents SIGNED

December 4, 2019 By: Jessicomment

As of November 27, 2019, we are the parents of TWO FROZEN EMBRYOS! This is one of the most crucial steps in the embryo adoption process!

I shared about it on Facebook and Instagram, but for my own records, I had to make sure it appeared on the blog, too. 🙂 The legal documents are officially signed and notarized. Now to get the transfer date set! I absolutely cannot wait! I’ll share as soon as I have more info on the actual transfer, but in the meantime, we’re celebrating the addition of TWO snowflake babies to our family name. They are already loved so much!

^ Our amazing legal team!

2020 is looking bright!

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