How much money does infertility cost?

Dave and I did our taxes today. Last year we paid $17,223 in medical expenses. A massive amount of this is infertility treatments.

So, here's the cost of infertility:

• One of the car doors is broken.
• The kitchen faucet needs to be fixed. 
• The back bedrooms need to be connected to the heater. (We didn't realize they weren't connected when we bought the house.)
• We need air conditioning in the house. 
• The refrigerator is starting to make weird noises.
• I keep forgetting to get the cats updated on their shots.
• There is a leak in the roof in both back bedrooms, the ceilings also need to be fixed.

It feels like something is always on the verge of breaking.

One of our goals is for Dave to get his MBA. His job will reimburse him tuition, but after doing our taxes no wonder it felt like we couldn't afford it last year. This will be the year!

We have decided to try a embryo adoption/frozen embryo transfer one more time. This means we will have to be put on the waiting list for embryos again and who knows how long that will be. It was four months last time. After we get embryos, we plan to wait before doing the frozen embryo transfer to save up some money. The yard sale fundraiser was successful, so we will probably do that again, but will need to wait for the weather to get warmer.

Even though infertility costs an arm and a leg, it's worth it. All that money we spent last year was worth it to be pregnant for 8 weeks.

I miss being pregnant

I miss being pregnant. It was a new sensation, a new experience. Weird things were happening to my body. I didn't have any morning sickness, but my body felt different. After the doctor said there was no heartbeat I immediately didn't feel pregnant. I realized that I was being cautious with my body. I was trying to protect the babies. But now there is no reason to be cautious. When I was pregnant I wanted to eat healthy, I didn't like sugary things. I didn't want to do CrossFit (which I love), so we went swimming at the Provo Rec Center. They have this lazy river that is so fun to float around. 

It has been nine days since I took the medication for the miscarriage. The first day I was only in pain twice, I think it was when I was passing both babies sacs. The pain was so bad I threw up. I am still bleeding, but only a little. 

We have an appointment with the doctor next week. We decided we want to try embryo adoption one more time. We will ask her to put us on the waiting list again. Since I was able to get pregnant I think it will work again next time. 

Because we did two infertility treatments in one year our bank account was wiped out. We will have to do another yard sale fundraiser. That actually brought in a good amount of money. 

I love my husband!

Last week I could feel myself falling into depression after finding out the babies stopped growing. Nine years ago my life was falling apart, like everyone else's when the economy crashed, I went into a depressive state that took a while to get out of. Both of these situations felt the same. Last week, I could feel the depression coming on. I was just going to let it happen then deal with it because I figured that is what you do when you have a miscarriage. 

Dave took me to the beach over the long weekend. He made me eat, which made my body feel better physically. He drove me through a pretty canyon. He took me to church and then to the Mormon Battalion Museum in San Diego. He rented a car that had Sirius XM Satellite Radio and we listened to a really good devotional on KBYU radio by Scott Swofford. He drove most of the time so I could put the car seat down and sleep (yes, I can sleep in a car). He took me to the beach every morning and I got in the water even though people looked at me like I was crazy because they thought the water was cold. (On the last morning we saw a baby gray whale washed up on shore.) 

When we got home I felt so much better physically, spiritually, and mentally all because of Dave. I can feel the depression is gone. Anyone who has a husband like Dave, a husband who puts your needs above his is lucky. I am so grateful Heavenly Father sent me to England to find Dave. It gives me comfort that we are sealed together forever in the Jordan River Temple.

Hidden Figures!

Everyone must go see the movie Hidden Figures!!! 

I am appalled that the stories of these amazing women were never told before now. Does anyone remember if Kathryn Johnson was mentioned in Apollo 13 or any other movie/book/story about space or NASA? If this is the first time we are hearing about the lives of Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, who else has an amazing story that we have not heard?

I was never comfortable saying Dr Martin Luther King Jr day. I always wished we kept it as Civil Rights Day because I didn't want the stories of the women who contributed to the Civil Rights Movement to be diminished. Everyone has heard of Rosa Parks and Coretta Scott King, but what about the other women? There is no way only men were involved in the Civil Rights Movement! The director of the movie Selma, Ava DuVernay, received no screen writing credit, but claimed to have done a 90% rewrite of the original script because there were no women of the Civil Rights Movement in the script.

I found a list of women who contributed to the Civil Rights Movement:

Dorothy Height

Diane Nash

Amelia Boynton

Daisy Bates

Fannie Lou Hamer

Jo Ann Robinson

Yuri Kochiyama

Septima Clark

Victoria Gray Adams

Gwendolyn Elaine Armstrong

Ella Baker

Gloria Rackley Blackwell

Unita Blackwell

Joanne Bland

Ruby Bridges

Aurelia Browder

Colia Clark

Xernona Clayton

Kathleen Cleaver

Annie Lee Cooper

Dorothy Cotton

Claudette Colvin

Annie Devine

Patricia Stephens Due

Myrlie Evers-Williams

Marie Foster

Prathia Hall

Lola Hendricks

Zilphia Horton

Ruby Hurley

Barbara Rose Johns

Clara Luper

Mae Mallory

Vivian Malone

Irene Morgan

Fay Bellamy Powell

Bernice Johnson Reagon

Gloria Richardson

Modjeska Monteith Simkins

Mary Louise Smith

Maxine Smith

Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson

Dorothy Tillman

Is this what a zombie feels like?

Is this what a zombie feels like?
I stopped thinking and feeling so that I could function. Who am I kidding? I only had enough energy to do laundry, sweep the kitchen floor, and empty the litter box. I did fill out an extremely long job application.

I'm still not eating. I'm not surprised, this happened to my body when my Mom died. I do like drinking water.

My Visiting Teacher came over and we talked about tv shows we are currently watching. I did feel like a normal human being for a moment.

If you want to watch me cry on YouTube, here is the link.

It's official today

What do I do? What do I do now? I really miss my Mom on days like these. She had great hugs.

I've had 4 ultrasounds in the last 6 days. On Saturday and Sunday I was on bed rest and Dave basically did everything. We were constantly together for 4 days. I really like him. He's pretty awesome.

I tried to do a load of laundry and I burst into tears.
I wrote a to do list. I went to the grocery store. I'm not sure I'll be able to finish.
I bought some donettes and cookies because that is what you are suppose to do when something bad happens right? Eat junk food. But I'm not in the mood. I thought I was hungry. I'm not craving any food.

What do you do after a miscarriage? We have been trying for so long, 6 years in April, that we were so excited to have a baby in August. But now what do I do? For the past month I was doing everything to prepare for the baby. What do I do now? We usually give our embryos names (Darcy, Blair, & Kyle) to help with the grieving process. We already have baby names picked out, but we are waiting to use them for a baby.

What do I do? What do I do now? What do you do after a miscarriage? Especially after you emptied your bank account to pay for an IVF and FET in one year. Do we get back on the waiting list for embryo adoption again? Are we too old now? When do we decide it's time? We've been married for 5 years, what do we do now? I really like being married to Dave. He's goofy. I like holding hands with him.

What do we do? We need to go on vacation and decide.