Another bust

I don't know if I am being too picky when it comes to agencies. But My biggest concern with agencies is cost. I contacted Catholic Charities about getting information and I specifically asked to send me info on their fees. They sent me a one page generic letter that answered absolutely not one question I asked them. We are only in the early stages and I am frustrated. They did say they only place a "handful" of children a year. So to me that equals long wait time.

I have a feeling we will be going with Children's Home Society. We were working with them to complete our homestudy for the international adoption. Our social worker was very very nice and very accomodating to our schedule. So I will be calling them on Friday to get more information and to see if they can use any of the info from our earlier start on the home study.

In other news I am a scatter brain and I'm exhausted. I have been working like crazy and doing schoolwork. I have my first lia sophia party tomorrow. I got my stuff ready for that tonight and it took me a bit since it is my first one.

We found out this past weekend that dear Harley needs surgery to remove a cyst on his neck...to the tune of $450. This is our child and with him comes the doctors bills...if only our insurance covered this child. :)

I also got a bill yesterday from the hospital where I had my surgery in June. The original amount was $12,880. Yup you read that right Twelve Thousand dollars. My portion after insurance is $1100. After I already paid my doctor $700 to do the surgery. This was definitely an unexpected expense. I thought when we paid the doctor that we were paying for the surgery. I had no idea the hospital was going to charge me. My doctor works out of this particular hospital. So either I'm dumb or they told me and I just forgot. Who knows. The joys of infertility.

First Reply

I sent emails to two agencies about getting info. I heard back from one (mrs. frig it is the one you found) yesterday. It's actually a law firm here in town. He sent me a info packet and paperwork to fill out. But here is were I'm hesitant...they want us to send the info packet back and then they will contact us about a consultation appt. At that appointment we bring $500 non-refundable for the consultation. Then they will tell us our fees. I'm not so sure about that. They don't make it clear anywhere on their website about "advertising" or if they have a website for birthmoms to look at. So I'm very weary of this.

I'm waiting to talk to two more agencies and then we'll decide which one to go with. We aren't in a real rush right now to proceed. I'm thinking we'll start the first of the year...or just start filling out paperwork in the Fall and then really start in January. The fall seems like it will be super busy for me (5 classes, 8hrs internship a week, working full time, lia sophia part time) and I don't want to stick Cart with all the responsibility of the paperwork and other stuff. So slowly but surely we will get there.

Ouchie

I've mentioned before that I now have a scraproom. Shortly after the failed FET, I felt that I needed something for me. We were saving this particular room for our kids one day. It is the bigger of the two spare rooms. Cart agreed to let me have a room just for my scrapbooking and crafts. AND he built me a massive scrapdesk. This desk has been in the same position since then.

Well last night I decided that I wanted to rearrange my room. So with the help of my wonderful husband we started moving things around. The top to this particular desk just comes off. We didn't secure it to the shelving. We moved the shelving to the new spot and went to put the top back on. It wasn't lining up right and then bam....and some rather vulgar explitives came out of my mouth. On my left hand index finger right by my nail I ripped off about a 1/4 inch of skin down to the meat and hit some nerves. This baby throbbed for hours. It hurt like crazy and this is what it looked like:

So I worked today one finger down. And everytime I hit it, the friggin thing hurt! Ouch!

ICLW

I joined in the ICLW this month. Actually I joined up today the last day to join. There is a button on my sidebar if you'd like to check it out. Since this is my first one I'd thought I would give a little back ground on us and our journey.

I'm Breen (this is my nickname a friend gave me in HS) and we call DH Cart. I'm 29 and he just turned 33. We've been married for 4 yrs but together for 6. Shortly after we got married I went to my OB for a check problem appt and he asked if we were TTC. I said well we aren't trying but haven't prevented for 2 yrs. He thought it was odd that we hadn't had an oopps so he sent DH for a SA since I had been PG before. We found out that he had 0% normal morphology and 99% abnormal. So off to the RE we went and did two IUIs that didn't work. Then we did one round of IVF. I was on the highest dosage of stims and stimmed longer than what they normally do. The only retrieved 4 eggs of which all fertilized but only 1 made it to a 3day transfer. Going into our beta I kept getting BFNs but my beta came back BFP. PREGNANT yay! Every two days I went in for more betas. Number's weren't good and on 2/14 they had me stop all meds. A month later I miscarried.

At a follow up appt our RE did a recurrent loss panel and basically said that we were most likely dealing with egg quality/reserve issues. The recurrent loss panel showed clotting issues.

In October 2008 we started the International Adoption process. First we started the Homestudy and in December sent in our application to the Agency. We were turned down by the agency for mental health reasons. So we continued TTC on our own.

In June 2009 my Best Friend suggested Embryo Adoption and we were in touch with a friend of a friend. In August 2009 we officially adopted two Embryo's from a wonderful couple. In September we started BCPs and in October were all set to do the transfer. Sadly they didn't survive the thaw.

I started seeing a therapist in February/March 2010 and during my sessions she suggested DH see a Urologist. He did and they had him do another SA but with 5day abstinance. His morphology improved to 50% normal....AMAZING! so he was put on 25mg of clomid for 3 months. It didn't help and his morphology went back to the original level. They wanted him to increase to 50mg of clomid but after he had gained 15lbs, had night sweats and was constantly hot we decided against it. The results weren't proving what they thought they should.

So here we are deciding on an Agency for Domestic Infant Adoption. When I don't post about infertility or adoption I post about our life.

Thanks for stopping by!

Infertility Article

This article was posted on the IVF board I am apart of and a fellow blogger also posted it. This is a very good article about how many women are affected by infertility and that most of them keep their silence. Many women avoid all things baby because they struggle to have one of their own.

In the past I've posted insensitive things to say to couples with fertility problems. I have also mentioned that I see a therapist to help cope with our infertility. There is one topic that really bothers me most about people who don't have fertility problems when they talk to me.

This has actually happened to me and I have been afraid to talk about this out of fear of losing a friend. But my happiness is important too. When we were going through IUIs, IVF, and the embryo adoption I had a friend who would say God didn't intend you to put those medications into your body. Yes my friend really said this. There are some women who are infertile who chose not to undergo treatments because of their beliefs. This is their right and if they said this to me I wouldn't be offended. Because they know what I am going through. But a friend who has a child and got pregnant easily saying this to me...it stings. I have taken a full session to talk about this friend and the way she judges me in regards to our treatments. But now I feel okay to talk about it and to address it with my friend. I do have one friend Sarah who is the bestest ever and I can talk to her anytime with out this fear. So at least I have one friend who hasn't experienced fertility problems but understands me :)

In the article above the woman hides her treatments from family. I don't want to hide any future treatments or adoption plans from anyone. But I don't want to be judged either. So I have learned who to have in our support group and who can be left out.

The article also talks about women who are afraid to talk to anyone about their infertility. As a bartender I have many many customers ask me if I have kids etc. I get the comment it will happen you just have to relax. My comeback for that is "I wish it was that easy". Many regulars know our problems and have support for us and pray for us. The new customers I'm vague but give a little detail. Just to let them know this isn't a conversation I want to have.

I do hope one day that insurance companies are required to cover all thing related to infertility to help couples have children. This includes coverage for IVF and the expensive medications. I think we all should do our part and contact our senators and congressreps and ask for their support in the Family Building Act.

A New Adventure

I have started a new Adventure. I decided to become a lia sophia advisor. There are several reasons why I decided to join.
1) we've been wanting to do some remodeling inside our house and could use the extra money
2) we'd like to pay off some cards
and 3) we need the money for the adoption (this should be the #1 reason but I'd love to not have to worry about work on the house when we have kids)

I've really imersed myself into the business this week as my starter show is tomorrow night. After my starter show I'll be booking and doing my own shows. I've learned a lot this week and I'm really excited to get this business going.

One of the great things about lia sophia is that I can do catalog shows for out of town friends. All my "hostesses" of catalog shows get 20% of sales in free jewelry which is an awesome benefit. If you may be interested or are curious feel free to email me. You can also visit my website at www.liasophia.com/kchapman if you are curious :)

BCS=no go

I contacted Bethany and we won't be going with them. They require all their parents to sign a statement of faith. While I have no problem declaring my faith or signing a faith statement. I do have an issue with signing a faith statement to adopt a child. I figured because Christian was in the name that something like this would be involved. So I'll move on to the next agency. I'll be checking out two which my therapist suggested. One is Children's Home Society, which was doing our home study for the international adoption. The other is Catholic Charities which is the agency my therapist worked at for years. I have requested information from both and we'll see which one we like.

Domestic Adoption Agencies

I have been doing some research on domestic agencies. We aren't looking to make any fast moves right now. Just gathering information and deciding which direction we'd like to go.

One option is to go through DCF (department of children and families). This option has some good benefits to go with it. Like the home study is free. Any children adopted from DCF receives a free college education to any University, community college or technical school in the state. Some of the not so good benefits is the wait. We could wait for years. The other thing to consider is we'd wait longer for a baby whose parents rights have already been terminated.

One agency that we've looked at is BCS (Bethany). I haven't gotten to the point of actually calling the agency for information or requesting information. But I've looked at the costs and info on the website.

I'm having trouble finding other agencies in our state or ones that are out of state willing to work in our state. Maybe I'm not googling right or finding the right information. Does anyone have any suggestions? Was your agency amazing in your adoption? Please share any experiences that you've had.

Repeat SA

For the last 3 months Cart has been on 25mg of Clomid daily. The reason for this was to increase counts. The last SA his morphology numbers increased by 50% which gave us so much hope.

What does 3 months of clomid do to Cart? Gains 10-15lbs (at least he understands how I feel) and slightly increases his count. But what happens to his morphology? The morphology numbers are low again.

The urologist wanted Cart to go to 50mg of Clomid daily for the next three months. But when we found out the morphology went down, it doesn't seem the Clomid will help any.

I have so many emotions that go with this. I'm disappointed but then I'm relieved at the same time. I'm relieved because now we know we have tried every fertility avenue available. Cart made a good point the other day...with all the meds we've taken how do we know that it won't effect us later. I think really we are both just tired of being "guinea pigs" since they don't really know how to help us. I'm tired of poking myself and we are both tired of gaining weight.

We are talking the next steps and hopefully we'll have a concrete decision soon.