My DNA

Dave's Christmas present to me was the Ancestry DNA test. I got the results Saturday. 

I was surprised that my Great Britain was only 35% because I thought it would be higher. I was also surprised that I had any Irish at all, but my dad was adopted, so who knows who his birth mom dna is. My dad's birth dad and my Grandma Riding were siblings, so that side dna is the same. I have always know my dad had a weird through the family adoption. I don't like mentioning the birth family because the dad was convicted of a major crime, but not until he was 80ish years old, he died last year. I can never thank my Grandparents enough for adopting my dad and preventing me from being one of his victims. 

My Grandpa Jensen's family is from Denmark and England, so I was hoping to find out if the British DNA was eventually Viking or Saxon. 

I wasn't surprised I had Europe West DNA. Recently someone has done some genealogy on my female line and they finally linked them to Germany. But the other trace regions were a surprise.

Finally, there were West Asia trace regions which was a serious surprise. Those ancestors must be pretty far back.

I have a weird life

I guess it started last week when my blood test came back and said my hCG level was still over 100. The last time my blood was tested during the miscarriage was over 140,000, so the hCG is lowering slowly. 

Then I had a phone interview with a Washington Post reporter about my opinion on Rep. Jason Chaffetz. The McMullin campaign gave him my phone number. 

Again this morning I had a blood test. The clinic called while I was volunteering at the elementary school around the corner for the book fair to say my hCG level was still 39. And we were put on the top of the embryo donation/adoption waiting list and there are embryos waiting for us. They are going to email us the profiles of the donors in the next couple of days. 

Before noon today I got a Facebook message that I am needed to testify before the Utah State Legislature Social Services Appropriations Subcommittee to fund infertility research tomorrow morning.

Insert my feeling that I have a weird life. A while ago, I would never have imagined these events would take place in my life. This is just so weird. Now I am getting nervous about tomorrow. Oh please pray I don't completely mess up in front of the subcommittee! 

Family Picture

I have been volunteering for the Utah Infertility Resource Center's Advocacy Committee. We have been preparing for the legislative session and we were told to have a family picture ready to show our Representative and Senator. I found this good picture of Dave and I then I added pictures of all our embryos on the side. One thing we did was name our embryos to help us with the healing process of all the failed treatments. 

Family picture, the embryos oldest to youngest, top to bottom, are named Darcy, Blair, Kyle, Abish (Baby A), and Jane (Baby B). 

Ultrasound picture of both Baby A (Abish) & B (Jane)

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.