No Turning Back Now--IVF Here We Come

We had a very fun, busy weekend. I headed with the kids to Bear Lake on Wednesday, but then I had to head down to SLC for a doctor's appointment on Thursday. I left my kids at the lake with my mom and cousins, and they had a blast. Jer and I ran in the Freedom Run Friday morning. I was sweating bullets about this one because it was a 15K and my running has been sporadic at best. Fortunately about 7 of those 9.3 miles were mostly downhill. At mile 7 there was a good uphill and then mostly flat to the finish. I wanted to stay around 9-minute-miles and I did, so it turned out fine. I really need to get out and train and then enter a race so I can actually do my best. We decided to do this last minute, so I went out on two 5.5 mile runs this past week--just enough to make me stiff for the race! Oh well, it was fun. There were a lot of people we knew there. Jer finished in 1:17 and me in 1:25. We both decided we've got to bite the bullet and just get out and put in some pounding road miles. That's not either of our favorite things to do. People talk about that runner's high. I think I have yet to feel that. I feel mostly runner's misery. One other highlight of the race was when I desperately needed to pee about mile 4.5. I finally had to head off into the bushes and even peed my pants some. Awesome! My bladder and running are not good partners. That was a good minute of my time taking care of that little fiasco and then running back out onto the road to surprise the runners that were passing at the time! I actually needed to go before but the line for the port-a-potties was huge and then the race started. We headed back up to Bear Lake right after that and had a great time until Saturday. I'll post the pics soon.

The real point of this post is about IVF. Jer and I have started our in vitro fertilization cycle--if you have no idea what I'm talking about--this is the big one as far as fertility treatments go. We have put a lot of thought into what our next move should be to grow our family. We would really love for Luke and Seth to have at least one more sibling. I feel like there is supposed to be another addition (or two) to our family. We have considered the adoption option a lot. Adopting Seth was an amazing experience that I wouldn't trade for anything. I am thankful everyday that he is a part of our family. I guess I just want to give one last try to getting pregnant. I know it may sound weird, but I want to have the experience of being pregnant and giving birth one more time if it's possible. I'm not getting any younger here, so we are going for it. If it doesn't work, Jer and I are both very open to the idea of putting our adoption papers in again.

This process takes forever. We won't be done until the second week in August, and we won't know if we're pregnant for another two weeks. I'll keep you updated. In a nutshell, IVF involves getting your body to produce lots of eggs and then retrieving them, fertilizing them in the lab, and then transferring embryos (we will do two) back to the womb. Our docs give us about a 60% chance of success. If we do get pregnant, our clinic has about a 50% twin rate. It is quite the rigorous and expensive process, so I am so hopeful that it will work. I'm just trying to take it one step at a time and not get too ahead of myself.

When I went down Thursday I learned how to give myself the first set of injections. It's called Lupron and it keeps me from ovulating, so that they can control my ovulation with other injections instead. I've done two so far and it's not bad. The needle is small and it goes into your belly. Luckily I am not squeamish about stuff like that. We've paid the money and started so this is it. When I think about it too much I feel incredibly nervous and sick to my stomach so I try not to. What we won't do to get some more little munchkins in our life! They are worth it though.