Trying again...

Well my SIL had another round of insemination's this past week. We got a little more aggressive with our regimen this cycle. When she had her positive LH surge to indicate ovulation she went into the specialist for an ultrasound. There was a big ol' follicle just about ready to burst. Ovulation was eminent! YAY! The follicle was so big in fact, the doctor thought that it may burst that very day. So, they went ahead & did the first of the two insemination's. She also took the HCG shot on that day as well just for a little added insurance. It didn't look like she needed it, but it can't hurt, so we did that as well. (The HCG just ensures that the follicle will rupture within approximately the next 48 hours.) 24 hours later she went in for the second insemination. Now we wait...she will use Progesterone supplementation as well to ensure that her Luteal Phase is plenty long to provide adequate time for implantation. At her first appointment when she had the ultrasound the doctor measured her lining as well. The doctor indicated that conditions couldn't be better apparently. Everything looked just as it should. It appeared that her body was preparing to be pregnant. So, we find ourselves in the dreaded two week wait yet again. I hate this part. The specialist told us that it is very common for a woman on certain months to not ovulate. Since we did no interventions last cycle; no test or ultrasounda we have no idea what we were dealing with. The doctor said that it is likely that ovulation never even occurred last cycle. So, again we are cautiously optimistic as we wait out the next couple of weeks.

Thomas & I will be traveling to Chicago next week. Well, right outside of Chicago actually. Thomas sailed thru two telephone interviews for another potential store of his own & has been invited to do a walk thru interview for this particular store next week. He has also been asked to begin the interview process for two other stores in different regions. One is in Iowa & one is in Arkansas. He hasn't even done the telephone interviews for those stores yet though. Actually, for those two particular stores I think he just "opted in". I am not even sure they have decided out of all of the candidates that opted in which ones will actually receive the telephone interviews. It will be a short trip for us. Only two to three days depending on our schedules here at home. We are hoping to leave in the evening a day earlier than necessary just to give us a little more traveling time & time there. It will be nice too not to be in such a rush. We are very excited at the possibility of living that close to such a big city. We really enjoy small town America, but love the city & the culture & ethnic diversity that it offers. However, this is still very far from a done deal, so we are not getting to amped up. Thomas may go through this process many, many times before he is finally chosen for a store in an area that will be best for our family. My SIL lives only about an hour from where we will be. So, we are in hopes that we might get to see her while we are there too. Hopefully our visit will somehow fit into her work schedule. That would be great!

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Onto the next round...

As of today it appears that we are not pregnant this month. (Sister in law called this AM) That's okay...Onto the next month. It would have been great, but the specialist tells us on average that it takes about three months with this process & that there is a learning curve that comes every month that is most often helpful. So, with that we move on. We have talked at length & are in the process of coming up with our game plan for our next cycle. We have a pretty good idea of what might have happened & are gathering our plan as to what we will do differently this time. We will speak with the doctor, get her input & decide for sure the best way to proceed. We will do this tomorrow as it will be time before we know it to try again, probably in about nine-twelve days. So, it won't be long.

For now, that is about it really here at our place. My niece Maddie will start 4th grade on Wednesday. How exciting! Good luck Madison! We know you will do so wonderful! You are a super star & Uncle Thomas & I are so, so proud of you!

Okay, more later.

We're home...

We are home from St. Louis. We arrived back home this past Sunday. We had a great time. Can you believe that we didn't take one single photo! Crazy, huh? We were just too involved & having to much fun. To be honest, I just didn't want to be bothered with it. Let's see, where to start? We just really had a good time. Our hotel was amazing. It was more like a suite. It had not one, but three flat screen televisions...one of which was in the bathroom so you could watch while you were in the tub! Go figure?!?!? It had a little living room area with a couch & some chairs & then you turned & went up a few stairs to get to the bedroom. It was beautiful & certainly it spoiled us for a few days! The place had the most awesome indoor/outdoor pool & hot tubs, all of which we enjoyed most everyday that we were there. One evening my Aunt & Uncle came down to see us. They only live about an hour away from St. Charles (which is actually where we stayed). We had a lot of fun with them. We hit one of the casinos for a little while & then ate a wonderful dinner while they were there & just really enjoyed our visit with them. On another evening we went to the Maryland Plaza area & ate at this place called "The Drunken Fish". WOW! Wonderful Sushi! We sat outside & enjoyed our meal. It was the neatest little area of town. There was such a great mix of people & it was a beautiful evening out...perfect weather! Then, from there we drove & met a friend of ours for an evening of fun & had a great time with him. Another night we met another friend who lives in Warrenton. We met her, her boyfriend & her kids for dinner & then went to her new house & visited for a while. We did some shopping, at some great food, swam, RELAXED, worked out everyday, visited with family & friends, watched movies together & just basically immersed ourselves in all things "Thomas & Jen" when & how it suited us. Oh & speaking of the working out...if I may brag on myself a little. (For those of you that run, you will understand this...) I made six miles while we were away. The gym where we stayed had the most awesome Precor equipment. It was so smooth! Anyway, the machines had these t.v.'s hooked to the front of them. I plugged my Mp3 player headphones into it & took off. After a while I almost forgot what I was doing. I just kept going. The next day I only did four miles. None the less, I am getting there! Still not confident enough to officially call myself a "runner", but I am learning the ropes & getting better at it everyday.

From St. Louis we headed to my parents home at the Lake of the Ozarks. We stayed with them through Sunday. We had a nice visit. My brother & his family came over one evening for a really yummy dinner. Madison; my niece, & I went shopping & basically the rest of the time we just hung out. It was great to be with our family!

We are settling back in at home now. Back to work schedules, household chores & commitments...that's okay though, for the most part life is good.

When I last posted I had told you that my SIL was having her insemination's. Well, she had one on that Monday & the second one the next day on Tuesday. They both went well. Now we are just waiting. Today is day nine post insemination. So, it won't be long now until we now if we are pregnant or not. She is in fact having a symptom or two that could lead us to believe that maybe this worked the first time around, but we are trying not to over analyze every little detail. Most of you know how difficult that is, not to ponder & over think every single little twinge, ache or pain during the two week wait to find out, but we are trying very hard to keep our feet on the ground & to remain hopeful, but to be very cautiously optimistic at the same time. We don't have any expectations really. It is what it is & is done & over at this point...all but the finding out. They tell us that there is a 40-70% chance that it worked. So, for now we just continue to wait.

The Olympics have been pretty amazing, huh? Go Michael Phelps! (Like he needs any cheering on!) That guy is a phenom! I read an article today where he says that he eats on average 12,000 calories a day & he can't keep weight on! He burns so many carbs training that he is still burning more than he takes in! http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/beijing/blog/fourth_place_medal/post/Michael-Phelps?urn=oly,100671
The above is the link to the article where he talks about it. He list his normal daily menu...you won't believe it!

Well, referrals did in fact come in while we were away. It looks like even though technically more days were referred as you would calculate on a calendar, that the CCAA only got through two actual log in dates. Well, all I can say is at least they are through January 06, right? Now, with the Olympics in full swing, it will be interesting to see where we go from here. Congrats to all of you families who have just seen their babies faces for the very first time! What a moment that must have been! It won't be long until he or she will be in your arms!

Well, I am off to call my SIL before she heads into work for the day. I want to see how she is today. I know if there was anything to tell she would have already called us, but I can't resist checking in with her! :o)

Exciting Times...

We are leaving in the morning for St. Louis for a few days. Thomas & I had some time to take off & since we only just got back from the Dominican not too long ago & are headed to Wisconsin in early October, we just wanted to get away for a few days, but not too far. When we leave there, we will head to my parents home about three hours from there to stay for a few days. We are really looking forward to our time away & our visit with our family. We really don't have any big plans while in St.Louis. We might enjoy walking around the Zoo IF it is not too hot or maybe the Botanical Gardens. However, really the only things we are planning is to sleep in, enjoy hotel life with some room service, get up & work out everyday in the awesome gym at the hotel, get ready at our leisure & then maybe do some shopping. We will likely check out the Babies-R-Us to do some window shopping too. (We don't have one in the town where we live.) The other thing that we have planned is to find a really good Sushi place one night for dinner. We really like Sushi & in order to get good Sushi, the city is our best option. We might go see a comedy show or a band somewhere too. We know this Karaoke place too that Thomas has sang at before & we will probably go there too. We have some friends that live in St. Louis, so hopefully we will get to see them while we are there. We are really looking forward to it.

We have kind of big news. Well, today was cycle day 10 for SIL. She had spoken to her Reproductive Endocrinologist on Friday who told her to start testing twice daily that day watching for her LH surge. So, that was on CD8. She had already tested for baseline on CD4, due to the fact that we know that woman her age can sometimes just have higher levels of LH all month long, so if & when we got the surge we wanted to make sure that it was a true surge. Thankfully her baseline was totally negative. The LH surge apparently is indicative that you will ovulate in the next 12-48 hours from everything that we have read. Well, guess what? SHE SURGED TODAY! She called us a little bit ago & said, "This is your surging sister in law calling!". I was so surprised as we didn't expect it for a few days yet. She called the clinic & her RE was on call. I guess the docs have Blackberry's. So, the operator asked SIL what she wanted in the message line to RE to say & she would send her a message. So, SIL told her to just put, "LH surge now." . Within about forty five seconds the RE herself called SIL back. SIL said that she is just blown away by the personal service that she has been receiving from the clinic. RE personally called SIL on Friday & said, "Your vials have arrived!". And then they proceeded to talk for twenty minutes! I think that maybe the RE is a little excited to be working with a very reproductively healthy female & perfect male sperm/specimen. I think probably she is so used to dealing with so much infertility that she is enjoying this run at this with a situation that is not her norm at the clinic. Anyway, SIL is to be there at 8AM tomorrow morning for the first insemination & at 8AM on Tuesday morning for the second. We are cautiously excited. We are just excited for now that thus far things are going so well. RE said that CD10 is perfect as that would indicate that SIL will ovulate likely around CD12 or 13 as last month she was a 27 day cycle. She is usually 27-28 days. So, "this all totally makes perfect sense"...those are the RE's words. So, anyway~potentially our baby could be conceived in the next couple of days. Wow, huh? And then...the wait for the next couple of weeks to see if this first round results in conception. Ugh...the waiting! Considering what we have been through, we have fairly low expectations that it will happen the first month, but statistically the RE says the chance is about 40-70%...so, those are pretty good odds really.

Well, gotta continue working on some cleaning & household chores. You know, laundry & such. Want it all done prior to being away for a bit. The neighbors take care of things for us while we are away, but just like things to be in order when we get home.

Take care. Have a good week. I will likely not have Internet access all week. I hope referrals show up or at the very least some great rumors regarding referrals start to surface. Thomas & I have been watching the Olympic trials & are planning to watch the Opening Ceremonies on the 8th. We will be glad when they are done & over...the Olympics I mean. We are more interested in seeing what will come of the CCAA's progress after they end than we are interested in the Olympics. I must say though, that the trials have been exciting & we have enjoyed watching them together the last few days. Our fingerprints expire in September. Our agency tells us to let them expire. Oh my...I don't know what I think about that. Guess we will dive into all of that when we get home. Our I-171H expires 12/22/08. According to our agency that is the one that we need to stay on top of . It all confuses us to be totally honest. At this point I am not sure the right hand knows what the left is doing. You know? (All of this is for anyone involved in a China adoption right now. For the rest of you, most of that will mean nothing to you.) A lot of agencies I guess are now saying 31-48 months for a total wait time. We are about a year in. We have to admit that for the very first time we have pondered the thought that if this situation with our SIL works out, what will we do? If she would have twins, would we consider pulling out of China? I don't know. We doubt that we would, but anymore we just almost feel like we just want our babies & want to live our lives. We are tired of this being the focus of our lives & feeling so consumed by it all. I know that you understand. Actually, SIL surprised us again the other day by saying that IF this works out & goes off without a hitch that she would likely do it again for us as soon as she safely could. Wow, huh? We will just see. One day at a time. Let's get pregnant the first time first! :o)

Like I said, have a good week. I will be thinking of you & hoping to come home to a new date posted that the CCAA referred to that is way far into the future & to a RQ post with lots of gorgeous little faces that will soon be coming home!