Hand Dyed Fabric

One thing I've wanted to do for the last 2 years is to hand dye fabric. It is really important when you quilt that you have some solid fabrics. Solids at the store are super boring and its hard to get the color you really want. But hand dyed fabric adds a nice touch with just a little variation to make solids much more interesting.
So I took some birthday money and bought some dyes. And had a blast last night doing it. I think I could get addicted to this. I already want to try some more colors. So I spent several hours last night dying and then this morning I rinsed and washed the fabrics. Pretty cool, huh?

Philanthropic Searches

Several times I've wanted to post about certain nonprofits that have either appealed to us, or that we have supported at one time or another. For instance, we have talked about supporting Shaohannah's Hope - which provides support to families wishing to adopt from overseas. This particular business was founded by popular Christian music artist Steven Curtis Chapman and provides adoption grants to families.

Now that we are looking more seriously at adoption, we've found even more resources for families. In Washington State there is Antioch Adoption, a nonprofit dedicated to helping Christian families adopt with absolutely no fee. They are also hoping to get churches involved in every state so that they can expand across the nation. I also ran across the ABBA Fund which provides interest-free loans to help families adopt. This group also encourages churches to start their own ABBA Fund to help members in their congregation adopt. It looks like the down side to this is that if you use this interest-free loan you can't apply for the $10K federal tax credit allowed when adopting.

I don't feel like any of these fit perfectly with what we need at this time, but it is inspiring to see so many entities helping families grow. And I hope that as Thomas and I move forward in life, we will be able to support other families expand and grow.

Finding the Silver Lining

Too often I have to try and remind myself to be more positive and more optimistic. I feel like I don't recognize the blessings in my life and I try to correct my behavior. I've been trying to keep a steady list as a way to help me recognize our blessings. I can't count the number of times someone has asked me if I see the glass half full or half empty ... and I never knew how to answer. So, I've been making a list of things to be thankful about our recent events.

1. I will be able to exercise for the next year
2. I can try to lose weight
3. I'm less worried about wanting to be a stay at home mom in the immediate future and missing more work
4. I don't have to get any more shots or weird medicines for the year
5. I won't have to make regular visits to the doctor
6. I can eat sushi
7. I can drink coffee and wine
8. We won't be spending thousands of dollars
9. I will have more time to quilt
10. We can move towards adoption, and I will still be able to lose weight and eat sushi

I guess you are wondering

Well, I thought about making everyone wait for a while for the news. I even thought about waiting until the end of the first trimester, but I just figured that would be mean ... since there is no news. We are once again not pregnant. How are we doing you may be asking yourself. We are OK. I think I took the news a little worse than my dear husband, but I am definitely dealing and planning.

We won't be moving forward with any fertility treatment for a while. We just don't have the money. I honestly feel like something isn't right with me. The doctor chalks it up to bad embryos, but I just can't see that all four were bad. So, I've checked out a few other docs and there are some that check for immune issues. Basically, something in your body could say "this is a foreign object" and it would prevent the baby from attaching. AND that is a very real possibility with endometriosis. I called one of the best of these docs. They have about 6 locations across the nation, the closest to us is NY City. So before we go any further, I want to make sure we have this checked. Plus they can do a DNA test on sperm and make sure there are no problems there. The immune test runs about $2K; I forgot to ask about the other. Plus, the doctor consultation and the plane trip, hotel, etc. If I do have an immune issue, it can possible be treated, but that will run around $3-8K. In addition to the transfer cost. So basically, its getting very expensive to move forward at all. To start a whole new cycle with this clinic would be anywhere from $23K to $32K, depending on medicine needed.

So we are stopping with fertility treatments for now. It is a big relief. I need a break from the heartache and the pain and the needles. And we will pick it up at some other point. I am not able to give up on the idea of never having biological children - I'm definitely not able to do that at this point. And we also just don't have the money to continue. So it has to wait. We need to pay off the $15K we have spent to get us this far ... which sadly ... is really nowhere. We haven't decided when we will start again, and we will wait until we think it is the right time. I'm guessing it will be years. Some states require insurance to cover IVF, and we may decided to move to such a state when we leave Florida.

So in the meantime, we would love to adopt. But that also costs quite a bit. We've been leaning toward domestic adoptions, but they run around $15K. I think one of the places here in town may do for it $7,500, I need to call them. But that is still much more than we have, so that is probably going to either have to wait for a miracle or for some time to pass so we can save and pay off debt. (And for anyone wondering, international adoptions are even more expensive) I'm just hoping a miracle happens and we find a wonderful child that we are able to adopt for no fee or a very small fee.

And that is where we are.

The waiting continues

I know some of you are wondering what is happening at the Croom household this week. Well, there were a few rough patches for me this week. I had a meltdown on Wednesday ... and a smaller one on Thursday. Today, I'm doing better.
The bottom line is that the waiting period has got to be the hardest part of infertility treatment ... well, it might run a close second to the cost. It probably wouldn't be nearly as hard if it wasn't so pricey. But the bottom line is that if it doesn't work, we can't keep going back to try again. We have one more FET after this, and that will be it for a long while. And we will only be getting older.

And I know many of you are wondering, just like us, did it work. If it was based on how many prayers there has been for the birth of these children, we would definitely be having twins next year. We probably have 50-100 people praying for us. But more than that matters, I've already learned that the path I want to take is not always the one God has planned for me.

Of if you want to go on my dreams for the week, then I'm probably pregnant. Every night this week, I dreamed I either had a child, or was pregnant. It switched back and forth each night between girl and boy. One night, I dreamed we had fair skinned, red haired, blue-eyed daughter.

But so far, I don't feel pregnant at all. I've heard you aren't really suppose to feel anything this early, so I'm trying not to let it bother me. I was hoping I would have some type of intuition about this - I don't. I have nothing. I have no idea. NOTHING. And I am scared to death to find out. Wednesday I had a breakdown, not because I thought I wasn't pregnant, but the idea of getting a negative this time was just more than I could handle. I needed to know that if it didn't work, we had a plan.

So we came up with a plan. We talked about all sorts of options .... and we have more praying and thinking to do about this plan B. But it probably involves adoption; which really shouldn't be a shock to anyone. We have already decided we want to adopt regardless of having a biological child. We believe it is part of the life God has planned for us. And I'm starting to think, he doesn't want us distracted from that plan.

Does anyone have any good vibes that this worked for us?

Our babies at transfer

We had some other good news that I didn't directly mention earlier.
The transfer was of two embryos - that were a little bit more advanced than the two that were transfered back in January. I think this means we have possibly higher quality embryos with a better chance of success. Or that is at least what I want to think.

We decided early on that we wanted to wait the 5-days before transfer for the embryos to make it to the blaystocyst stage. It means the best quality embryos with the best chance.

There are approximately 4 stages of a blastocyst - 1 is the least advanced, and 4 the most. This website has some great photos. Basically, when you get to stage 4, the next expansion should be hatching and implantation. We had a stage 3 and a stage 4 transferred this time; last time they were both stage 2. The doctor didn't give me any further breakdown in quality. They can be graded based on quality. But as I have mentioned before, our clinic does not do this.

We also weren't able to get a photo like we had wanted. But above is a photo from the internet of a stage 4 blastocyst.

The 2 week wait

The commonly referred to 2 week wait (2ww) is well underway. I actually have a shorter wait since the embryos were already 6-days old when transfered.

There is a lot of good news. I am not anxious. I am definitely looking forward to some positive news. But I'm not unsettled, not worried, not stressed. I am really at peace. Which I can only thank God for. Don't get me wrong, if the news comes back negative, I am sure I will be upset. But that isn't something I can even imagine at this moment.

More good news. The drugs don't seem to be effecting me the same way this time. Maybe because its a cryocycle rather than a complete IVF cycle. I'm not sure. I wanted to know what type of symptoms I was having last time, if I felt anything, etc. So I looked back at this nice handy blog and discovered that the progesterone was making me hungry and cranky, and giving me insomnia. That is definitely not happening. I am not extra hungry this time around, I am sleeping really well. In fact, every time I play the meditation music I drift off to sleep, regardless of how many hours I've already slept that day.

I do have a few symptoms, and I decided I wanted to post them because if I needed to look back, I would want to know what they are. There are two things that are different since the transfer - 1) I am more bloated and my stomach feels tighter possibly or different in some way; and 2) I've had ever slight pains, not really cramps, but like I might start spotting, but I haven't. So I'm hoping that's the babies implanting. If not, then I have no idea what it is. I remember vividly having some cramping last time ... and I know that is not really a good thing. So I am trying to keep that far at bay. The acupuncture really helps with that part - one needle specifically equates to no cramps for me. My next appointment is Tuesday morning.