A let down & set back, but God is still good.

  Most of you have heard, but in case you haven't, this past Saturday was supposed to be our embryo transfer. However, late last week I was showing signs of hyperstimulation and so they decided to do an ultrasound just to make sure this wasn't occurring. Many of you prayed for us, and unfortunately they found I was hyperstimulating. They found "extremely enlarged" ovaries, and at least 5 decent sized pockets of fluid, 3 in my lower abdomen, and 2 near my ribs.

  The doctor decided to cancel the transfer, because what they believe triggered my hyperstimulation was the dose of HCG (the pregnancy hormone) I received through an IV during my egg retrieval. If they were to continue with the transfer, they are certain that since my body would continue to produce HCG that my hyperstimulation would just continue to worsen, and in some cases can lead to a stroke. They decided that for my safety and the safety of our future baby, we need to post-pone the transfer and do a frozen transfer next month.

  This was quite the let down. I, of coarse, tried my best to prepare myself for the worst (hyperstimulation) but was having faith that God would do as he saw best. My transfer was scheduled for just a half hour later when we found out they were cancelling it, and the drive home was not as exciting and hope filled as I originally planned. Some tears were shed, but God is still good. He see's us through our difficult moments and remains faithful even when I don't.

  So where are we? Currently, I am trying to take it easy. I am extremely uncomfortable due to the extreme bloating (I look like I could be pregnant, and someone has already asked if I was :) )and have moments of unbearably sharp pains. We are praying the Lord eases of me this, and that the fluid reduces quickly. We also are in a waiting game now for a few weeks until my body gets back to normal, before we begin the injections that it will take to do the frozen cycle. If our plans align with the Lords, we will be able to do the transfer next month.

  I know I say it all the time, but I am so truly thankful for you and your diligence in lifting us up in your prayers. Jeremy and I have been so encouraged and this process has been a little less difficult knowing we have people walking this road with us. We feel blessed!

An Urgent Request

Over the past week, ever since my retrieval on Monday, I have had swelling and lower abdominal pains. Yesterday, it hadn't really gotten any better or worse since the surgery and it started to concern me that I might be experiencing what they call hyper stimulation. I left a message with my nurse explaining what I was experiencing and she relayed this to my doctor. My doctor then called me and told me that I am a high risk patient for hyper stimulation and she is very concerned that this is what I might be experiencing. However, she also said that it may just be that my ovaries have swelled from the surgery, which would not be as big of a deal.

So, today is the scheduled day of our embryo transfer. This is when they will transfer the embryos that have been growing into my uterus. However, due to my bloating and pain, I first will be having an ultrasound to determine if I am hyper stimulating. Dear friends, I am asking that you pray alongside of us that this is not the case. If I am hyper stimulating, they will not be able to do the transfer and will freeze the embryos we have, and we will have to wait another few weeks to transfer them. I know this is a very last minute request as my ultrasound is scheduled for 10am this morning, and my transfer is scheduled for 11:30am but I am confident God is still in control. Ultimately, pray that no matter what the outcome for today is, that God will be glorified.

A little request

  Can I just start off by saying how wonderful you guys truly are? I mean it! I have been so incredibly blessed by an outpouring of support and encouragement over the past few weeks, and it just warms my heart so much to know that Jeremy and I are not walking through this process alone.

  We got a call from our nurse, yesterday and today. Our 24 embryo's are still doing well and are growing very nicely. The doctor's are pleased with how smoothly things are going, and will continue to update us daily on their progress. I also got a call from my doctor today. This was really nice, because seriously, how often does our doctor actually call and check up on us? Anyways, she was calling to see how I was feeling, since I have so many eggs retrieved, she knew that I would still be feeling pretty sore and also to make sure I didn't have any symptoms of hyper stimulation. So we had a nice little chat, and then at the end she told me something that I have been dreading hearing from her. She feels as though with having 24 embryo's we will likely have many "perfect" embryo's to choose from, and therefore, only wants to transfer one. At the time I just let her talk, and figured I would chat with her about this on transfer day, but in the back of my mind I was saying "No way!"

  Here is where we could use some prayer. It is very hard for me to want to transfer only 1. I know that there are high risks of multiples if we transfer two, therefore making it a high risk pregnancy. However, last time we went through IVF, we transferred two, and neither one of them took. I am praying for wisdom for what to do, and also to handle the situation in a God honoring way. I know that if I transfer one, and we have another failed IVF attempt, I will be thinking to myself, we should have transferred two. However, I also want to be able to trust the doctor's opinion. So, I'm just not sure what really to do, and I'm asking that you pray alongside of us, that we will make the wisest decision.

  Our embryo transfer will take place this coming Saturday and so I have a few days to pray through all of this. I really appreciate you guys being so willing to pray alongside of us, and having you guys to turn to when we have these requests!

Just a Quick little update

My nurse gave me a call this morning to update me on the status of our embryos. She told me that out of the 31 eggs they retrieved yesterday, 26 were considered mature, and 24 fertilized! Praise the Lord!! This is 6 times more than what we had last time! It's so wonderful to watch God continue to pour our His blessings. She said she is pretty sure we will have a day 5 transfer, which would be Saturday, but that she will let us know for sure tomorrow! We are so excited, and we continue to pray for God to continue blessing this process, and for a positive outcome in the end. Thanks for praying!


" Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.^{"    
                                                                                               James 1:17}

Retrieval Process

     Before I jump in and tell you guys about the egg retrieval today, let me first catch you guys up on what has happened since my last post. I had to continue going to monitoring everyday, which meant blood work and an ultrasound every morning around 7am before work. Most people only have to go every few days, but because of my past history with IVF and also my "incredible response" to the medications, they wanted to watch me extremely closely. This week was utterly exhausting getting up at 5:45am giving myself my morning injection and then traveling a half hour to the doctor, then heading straight to work. I would come home, work on school and head to youth group with Jeremy (on the nights we had it) before giving myself my nightly injections and heading to bed. This is on top of Jeremy working two part time jobs and doing school too. This week, we really were able to draw our strength from the Lord and rely fully on him to get us through.

    Saturday, we found out that my follicles were just about ready and so they had us meet with a nurse to go over our trigger instructions. Basically all that means, is that they stop the injections I have been on to escalate my estrogen level, and to grow my follicles and instead give my shot of another medication that tells my ovaries to prepare to release all the eggs I have been building up, so that the doctor can go in surgically and retrieve them. Last year when we went through this, the trigger shot was a difficult thing for us. Its an intramuscular injection which is painful, but also Jeremy has to administer it. Last time, the fertility clinic kind of scared Jeremy and told him if he gave it too high, he would paralyze me, and if it was too low, it would cause me insane pain. So when it came time for him to give me the shot last time, it didn't go so well because of his nervousness and I ended up giving it to myself. So this year, he was a bit nervous about doing it again. As we were talking to our nurse about this, she began to tell us some tips to help this go more smoothly. All of a sudden, she stopped and then remembered something. She proceeded to tell us that since they were triggering me with a different medication than they do with most patients because of my history that my injection would be subcutaneous instead. This was a huge blessing, because this is how I have been giving myself daily injections and its a much MUCH smaller needle, and a ton less painful. It was so neat to see how God provided even just that small comfort, when I have been asking you guys to pray alongside of us for my physical comfort. So once again, I just thank you for being so diligent in lifting us up in your prayers. God is so good!

   So onto today. When I arrived to the center, they took my vitals, and hooked me up on the IV. I was a little nervous, because I really wanted them to have a good number of eggs to be able to fertilize and choose from. Last year when we went through IVF I had 6 eggs that were retrieved which is a great number, and of those 4 had  fertilized so I was hoping for at least the same results this time. But I wasn't sure since I have been on different meds this time around. So long story short, Jeremy and I prayed together and then they took me to get all settled in the O.R. Before I knew it I was sleeping. The next thing I remember is hearing the nurse in the recovery room telling me that they retrieved 18 eggs! I remember thinking, this sounds great!...but then quickly falling back to sleep. I woke up to find my loving husband standing right by my side and he asked me if they told me how many eggs I had retrieved. I told him the nurse told me 18, and he said "No Kia, She said you had 31!" Praise the Lord!

   Because I had so many, I was in a good amount of pain when I woke up and currently am still sore. They told me its going to take a few days for my swelling to go down and to feel 100%, but still Praise the Lord for his goodness! We were so blessed to have such a large amount of eggs, and Lord willing this will give us the best possible choice for perfect embryo's. It is so amazing to see him answer our prayers in ways we never expected. It excites Jeremy and I to see all the glory God is already getting through this process. That has been our prayer from day 1. That God would use our lives to give himself glory, and even through our infertility that is happening. That encourages our hearts so much. We appreciate the texts, phone calls, and messages that we have received today. You are such an encouragement to us and we are so grateful for you. You have made the process of us becoming vulnerable and letting you guys in very easy. Tomorrow, we will find out how many eggs have fertilized and then in the next 3-5 days they will transfer them in depending on how the embryos develop. We will update again once we find this information out. Below you will find a few pictures from today. Just excuse the way I look! :)

                       This is right after they put the IV in. Just anxiously waiting for the retrieval.

 Me and my most favorite person in the whole wide world. I am so thankful for a loving, supportive husband!

Right after I came out of surgery. I get so drowsy from the anesthesia, plus they had pumped me with a lot of pain medication, so I was very sleepy!

Jeremy's Perspective

  Hello everyone, this is Jeremy. We wanted to share with you another perspective of the IVF process for you to get a clearer picture of what is really going on.

As someone who does not have to get injections and daily monitoring appointments, (which consist of blood work and an ultrasound) IVF is a little different for me as the husband. I think one of the biggest issues I struggle with is guilt. Kia is having to give her self nightly and morning injections, go to this appointment and that appointment, get blood work done and I just kind of watch as it all happens. I feel that I am the majority of the reason of our infertility (even though Kia does not agree with me) and wish that I could take the brunt force of the hardships that Kia endures. I do believe her to be a strong woman, a wonderful wife and I believe in my heart that she will make a terrific mother. I see Proverbs 31 written all over her. If she is willing to do what she is doing now for just a mere possibility at conceiving a child, I can not imagine what this godly woman will do for the blessing that God will prayerfully give us. To God be the glory forever and ever.

I sometimes feel like I am not able to relate to Kia as she is going through this because I don't know what it's like to have a childbearing desire or a female reproductive system. I do appreciate all the women who are showing their support to Kia because I feel you are able to give her something that I am unable to. For the men who pray for us, I thank you too, just for different reasons. I am extremely encouraged to see the prayer support and friendship that is being shown to us through this process. I am looking forward to the upcoming weeks in which we will start to know whether or not IVF was successful. It sounds like the ball will be really rolling here in the next few days. Kia is going for another appointment Saturday and it may be her last day for the needle injections. What this means is that her follicles (eggss) are close to being ready to be surgically retrieved and fertilized most likely on Monday. I got to see one of her monitoring appointments today and the excitement is growing for sure. We hope to give you great news as we get it ourselves.

Update from Monitoring Appointments

    We just wanted to take a moment and update those of you who are praying so fervently for us during our IVF treatment. On Friday morning I had my first monitoring appointment since beginning my medications. As usual they did blood work and an ultrasound. On my ultrasound, they found that I was already responding extremely well to the meds. I had 15 follicles (potential eggs) on my right ovary, and 17 on my left. As the nurse so lovingly put it, I am a "follicle factory!" This has it's positives as well as it's negatives.
    On my last IVF treatment, by the egg retrieval, I had over 60 follicles. My doctor believes this is one of the reasons we did not have a successful ivf treatment. The eggs were not able to grow to their full potential because then I ran the risk of hyper stimulating. However, with having a large amount, this also means more eggs to retrieve and fertilize which is a great plus. So, one thing you can pray for is that my response to the meds slow down, and that the follicles I have now are able to grow.
   They also decided to see me again today, so I went for another monitoring appointment. I had my blood drawn and another ultrasound. The doctors don't begin to measure the follicles until they reach 10mm. Today they began to measure them and found that I had over 14 follicles that were over 10mm, so that means I'm starting to get close to retrieval. They will retrieve my eggs after they reach over the 15mm mark. By their estimates, my retrieval should be by Saturday!
    My blood work showed that my estrogen levels haven't changed much since they lowered my meds, and they are a little high, so once again today they altered my dosage and they want to see me again tomorrow. So, in the meantime, here's a list of what you can be praying for:

1. We continue to glorify God, and others come to know Him through this process.
2. My levels come down, and my response to the meds continue to slow down a bit.
3. Comfort. I am very uncomfortable with my ovaries growing so rapidly. Also the daily blood work on my arms, and injections on my abdomen are becoming painful. I know this is just something you take on with this process, but any relief I could get would help!


I will do my best to keep everyone updated to the best of my ability. Thank you for your prayers, concern, and encouragement. Although I feel extremely vulnerable opening up and letting everyone in this time with our treatment, a word of encouragement here and there, or simply letting us know you are praying for us goes a long way, and helps bring us the peace we need to get through the day-to-day. Our hearts are very grateful for you all!