The nerves...

.....are getting to me!  Tomorrow we have our IVF consult with the RE.   It's such a huge step, and I am both anxious and terrified of beginning the process.   All week I have been writing down questions to ask and I feel like I have barely scratched the surface of all that I should know.  Anyone have anything that they wish that they had known before IVF? 

In other news, I am listening to Christmas music as much as I can while Mark is at work.   He won't let me listen to it until after Thanksgiving if he is around!  He is totally not a fan of Christmas creep! I am also preparing for Thanksgiving dinner.   Lots of shopping, ironing linens and such.   I may be crazy, but I decided to try out a bunch of new recipes this year.  We will only have a group of twelve, but it should still be fun!  I am almost finished with all my Christmas shopping as well, which should make the Holiday season a little less stressful, a good idea during an IVF cycle, right?

Today.......

Today I am thankful for a warm bed, the wonders of the internet and laptops, an amazing husband and a beautiful life.

28 Days

I have scheduled our IVF consult for November 20th.   That is 28 days a way.  It feels so close and so far away at the same time.  It just seems so surreal.  I halfway expect to wake up and find all of it to be a dream.  I feel like I should be in a major planning mode, but there is nothing to plan at this stage, it is just waiting.  I am filling the time with deep cleaning for the holiday season, crafting, and ever so slowly getting over the inner and outer ear infections that I have been battling.

In other news, Mark is no longer working out of town, and I actually get to see him each night.  The change has been so good for us.   We also finally finished putting in the new flooring on our main floor.  We just need to get the new base moulding in and that will be one thing crossed off the list. 

This is huge!

We have a fairy Godfather!  A dear, sweet, amazing man decided to make our dreams come true.   He is providing the much needed funds for IVF.  Yikes!   Come January, we will be in full blown IVF mode.   I am speechless, and in absolute awe that someone would care enough to do this for us.   I guess all I can say is THANK YOU! 

That gives me roughly two and a half months to get as healthy as I can.   The goal is to lose twenty pounds and kick the soda habit.   It also means starting the metformin again!  I have been researching the best nutritional approaches to PCOS, so hopefully, I will succeed with my goal!

Today's garden harvest!

Cucumbers, lemon cumbers, habanero peppers, watermelons, honeydew melons, corn, acorn squash, strawberries, basil, parsley and tomatoes galore!  

Today's Tomatoe Harvest!

Our poor, neglected garden has been good to us this year!   That bowl full of cherry and pear tomatoes are just from this morning's harvest.   Tomorrow, there will be even more to pick, including our first ripe romas. 
This morning, I also picked the last of the green beans, a few zucchini and a few cucumbers.  I even picked our first  ever lemon cucumber.  
The corn is as tall as I am, but is still not doing much, I think it is destined to simply be a fall porch decoration.  The storage onions will soon be ready to be picked and braided.  The potato plants are up to my waist and flowering prettily.  I have tons of winter squashes on the vines.   I even have soft ball sized cantaloupe  (more than we will ever be able to eat!) that are growing quickly and should be ready to harvest in a week or two.

Where We Are

I have been getting questions from many people as to where we currently are with the fertility treatments.  The above quote sort of says it all.   Right now we are taking a break from treatment for an undefined amount of time.   When our RE told us that IVF would be our last chance, we had already burned through all the money we had saved for treatment.  While the IUIs were fruitless, we are still glad that we tried them, because now we know how poorly I respond to the meds, which will increase our chances when we can do IVF.  Money was not our only reason for taking a break from treatment.
Treatment has been extremely difficult on me.  I simply reached a point where I was tired of injections and bruises, nausea and exhaustion.  I think the emotional aspect was the very hardest for both Mark and I.  So we let go.  We declared this the summer of fun!  We bought a boat, are planning lots of camping trips and plan to not live for the what ifs and possibilities.

We are not done forever, just for now.   We are talking about refinancing our house in order to pay for IVF, but we are unsure of the wisdom of that.  Interest rates are MUCH lower than our current rate, so we would be simply be trading interest payments for IVF.  On the surface, it seems like an okay plan, but I am cautious of it.  In the mean time, we are paying off debt as quickly as we can and loving life and each other!