Third Trimester!

It's been quite a few months since my last post and figured it would be a good time to update everyone on the progress of Baby Jones as well as our family!

Baby Jones:

This week I'll be 28 weeks on Wednesday. My last appointment with Dr. Gatherum I had my Whooping Cough vaccination. My arm was sore for 3 days! haha This week I get to do my Glucose test as well as the Rh blood test as well because I'm O-. Yay! My next appointment is later this month and it's my last monthly appointment. After that I'll be going in every 2 weeks! Seriously, I feel like my pregnancy has flown by! Thank goodness! haha

Baby J is just a growing and growing in there. I've started to kind of get uncomfortable but for the most part I'm loving being pregnant and can't wait to meet this little kicker. The other night I was laying in bed having a conversation with Garrett and every time Garrett would talk, Baby J, had to kick me. It wasn't until Garrett got down and actually talked to him that he relaxed a little and I pretty sure went back to sleep. He already loves his daddy :) His movements are getting stronger every day! He's started moving my whole belly when he moves. It's incredible! I love it! I know not everyone loves it but it is one of the best feelings and experiences I've ever had.

School:

I graduated!! Yay!! After 4 years of school I finally have a Bachelor of Science in Family Life and Human Development, my emphasis in Family Services! I'll be taking what's call the NCFR later this summer so I'll be a certified family life educator and be able to teach people about families! I'm so excited that it's finally here.

Garrett will be taking summer classes and then this fall will be the start of his senior year of college! YAY! We are almost completely done with school! He's loving his major and also can't wait to be done haha. Depending on if he has a job next year will be whether or not he starts his Masters of Accountancy the fall of 2016... Fingers crossed he gets a job! :)

Everything Else:

Nothing. haha Other than working and trying to grow a baby... We're just boring folks :) I'll do better to update more recent events! No promises but I will try! haha

Breaking the Silence!

Let the silence be broken...

Yesterday was a very special birthday for me. Yes, I turned 22 and I'd like to quote Taylor Swift by saying, "I'm feeling 22..." but I'm not. I feel like this last year of my life has aged me another 22 years haha just kidding. I'll always be 18 in my eyes haha. But celebrating this birthday meant so much more knowing how much I've accomplished and been blessed this last year of my life. I've had 3 of my grandpa's pass away and my young cousin, on top of going through this whole process of IVF. I think I've been able to finally understand that God has a plan for everyone. Period. Not my plan but his. I've really reflected on this year and have to thank my Heavenly Father for the wonderful people, blessings and strength he's given me. It was around this time last year where we were meeting with Genetic Counselors and picking Dr. Peterson for this whole process and now it's almost come full circle. So in nut shell, I feel extremely blessed, loved and am so lucky to know so many wonderful people who have such big hearts!

Sooo we've had lots and lots of people ask us how everything was going and if we had any news.... Well we certainly do. We snuck up to Salt Lake on November 11th, where they transferred one embryo. On November 23rd we took our official beta test, which is just a blood test to show whether or not you're pregnant. Later that day we got the phone call annnnnnnd!!! {Drum roll}

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V

WE'RE PREGNANT! 

Our due date is July 29, 2015 :). So far I've been ok. Morning sickness is definitely in full swing and my emotions are insane... Sorry Garrett...  I've bitten his head off quite a few times. :) A week ago we had a viability ultra (because we did IVF they have you do an earlier ultra sound to get a heart beat and check on development). Our new doctor, Dr. Gatherum, said that everything looks great and we're right on track!

Yay!!!! We're so excited and feel so incredibly blessed! It seems so surreal that this is finally happening. For some reason I keep thinking someone needs to pinch me and usually when I do I have another wave of nausea come over me to remind me it's for real. ha But really thank you all! Everyone who donated and continuously shared our GoFundMe. We appreciated it all and you've answered so many of our prayers. God bless you all! 

{{An Attitude of Gratitude}}

I've said it before and I'll say it again and again and again. We are so grateful for everything everyone has done on our behalf. Prayers, thoughts, donations, shares. You name it. We're so grateful for it. We're still recovering from the shock, excitement and emotions from yesterday, but I think we've settled on the overwhelming amount of gratitude we feel. We don't want to over shadow everyone else who donated with Bryce Harper's because it wasn't just him. So many people pulled together and gave what they could. There is no way to express how that feels. But yes, Bryce's donation is incredible and brings about a whole other round of emotions for me. He was just the last piece to the puzzle of helping us out. It truly was everyone who has helped us get to where we are today. So Thank all of You and thank you Bryce Harper.

We also want to specially thank Abbey Kyhl. Had she not come forward and offered her talents, connections and time, we wouldn't be where we are today. Bryce Harper would've never seen the video Kim and Jesse Moore made. Our story wouldn't be reaching the amount of people it has reached. So Abbey, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. You are so amazing in every way! And even though I'm not an AK Bride, I feel like having worked so closely with you on this and sharing the hard and good times, I qualify as one! ;) haha We love you so much and are forever grateful for you!

Now, that the fundraiser is over, I'm sure you all will go back to your lives and back to your routine. But I will forever be changed by the generosity Abbey, Bryce, and everyone else has shown to us. This is a once in a life time kind of experience. It's truly been life altering. I can only hope that someday we'll be able to repay, or pay it forward to those who have helped us over this last year.

Abbey took the words right out of my mouth, "To the 639 people who shared [our] story…THANK YOU! To the 125 people who donated…THANK YOU!" We truly love you and are so amazed at the generosity, love and support everyone has given us.

Yesterdays Story:
We've had quite a few people ask what happened yesterday and how it all came about so I think it's fitting to give credit where credit is due.

As everyone knows who reads this blog, yesterday was the deadline for Abbey's give away. This meant that yesterday was the last day to donate and enter to win. So we were all sharing and re-sharing everything on Facebook. So yesterday at around 2:00 PM we got a message from Kylie, Garrett's sister, asking if we had looked at our GoFundMe recently. We're both working college students so we hadn't been really checking it. I had just got to work, logged on to my computer when I discovered we'd reach our goal of $20,000. I quickly scanned my screen,

"$11,000 Anonymous"

What people don't know is that when you log into your account on GoFundMe you can see the names of people who donate, anonymous or not. So I quickly log into our GoFundMe to figure out the mistake on our account! I see,

"Bryce Harper"

It was around this time Garrett called me and we're both bawling. "Bryce Harper the Major League Baseball player for the Washington Nationals. Yes, that Bryce Harper." When I realized who it was I become more hysterical! I thought, "Why would someone who has no idea who we are, who has never met us, give us THAT MUCH MONEY?" It really is a testament to who he is as a person. After this tear-filled phone call, students started coming into my office and I really had to try to pull myself together. But whenever I had a break of students I was on the phone with Kylie getting the rest of the details as to how he found our story.

I am so thankful for social media. Without those outlets, no one would have ever seen any of our story and we would have been left to bare this financial burden for years to come. Thank you all so much for sharing it once, or many, many times. I'm sure some of our friends were sick of seeing our story pop up again and again but it was ONLY because of that, that we accomplished our goal.

This has been such an incredible experience. Thank you all, so much.

It's Another Waiting Game

It's been quite the couple of weeks, with school starting, injections every morning, the egg retrieval, and the fundraiser! It's been so busy! However, we just want to again, thank everyone for the donations. We really can't say it enough! Thank you thank you! I still struggle with the fact that people have been so great throughout this whole process. We just want to again thank you! For those that don't know what's going on this is the last week of the fundraiser. It ends Sept. 30th. Abbey Kyhl is doing a $500 giving away for those that enter by giving money to our GoFundMe account. (abbeykyhl.com) She's been so amazing throughout this process. And even though we may not get to our full goal, the amount of money we've received has been so much more than we ever thought possible! So thank you all! :)

So as I mentioned, over the last couple of weeks I've been doing injections that have been progressing the maturation of my eggs.

 

Like crazy needle injections. No I'm just kidding they weren't that bad. 

WARNING: Kind of graphic???

Two weeks ago I had two ultra sounds and in just two days my eggs doubled in size. My ovaries were the size of a 50 cent piece then grew to the size of a tennis ball... It's incredible what medication can do! I took my HCG shot, which is a booster shot, Tuesday the 9th. And my egg retrieval was Thursday the 11th. That day they took 13 eggs. 9 out of the 13 were actually mature and ALL 9 fertilized! Yay! From there 5 out of the 9 grew to the blastocycst stage. And all 5 were biopsied. Biopsy means that they took a couple cells from each embryo, froze the cells and the embryos, then sent the cells they took from each embryo to be tested for the Marfan Gene. So the cells are in California, and the Embryos are in Salt Lake. Haha So now we wait. The testing takes about 7-10 days and then we should have the number of embryos that don't have the Marfan gene. Fingers crossed none of them  do :) Statically though, about half will have it because it's a 50/50 chance.  Hopefully though, none will have it!

Once we get the results we'll decide where we go from there. I'll either begin my next round of injections to prepare my uterus for the transfer, or if we end up not getting any viable embryos... Then we'll come to that bridge if we need to.

This will probably be one of my last blog post on this subject because from here on out things maybe needing to be a little more private. But I just wanted to say thank you to all of the people who have messaged me, texted me, or just left comments of encouragement. This really is such a difficult thing to go through and I would never wish it upon anyone. But to see and experience the kind of support and love people are willing to give amazes me. It really made the hard days not as hard and the happy days that much more happy. God worked through all of you to help me get through this. So thank you! :)

|| Counting My Blessings ||

 "There are a few select moments in my life that I can pinpoint and know for sure that God was looking out for me. Today was one of those moments. As I hydro-planed at 80 mph and lost control of my car the only thing I could think of to do was pray and so I did. I prayed for what felt like hours and seconds all at the same time. An impact of that strength in that location should've injured a regular person but should've done much worse to someone with my heart condition. I walked away with a sore leg, a blistered hand and a spilled Dr. Pepper. I'm certain this wasn't by chance and I know My Heavenly Father protected me. I'm happy to be alive and healthy. Life is a beautiful thing. I don't share my testimony enough, God lives and loves.

David's words from some of my favorite scriptures are resonating with me today:

The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer;
The God of my rock; in him will I trust: he is my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower, and my refuge, my saviour; thou savest me from violence."

          - Garrett

Wow, has it been one of those weeks! As many of you know, Garrett got in a little finder bender.... Well, that's kind of an understatement. Garrett got into a pretty serious accident. He's just fine though. He survive with only a burnt hand from the air bag and a deep tissue bruise from the door of the car. The car however... is totaled.

Right after accident

 

Couple of hours after accident

A week later

For those you who follow the blog know that Garrett has a serious heart condition that effects his aorta. He had to quit playing basketball in 8th grade because doctors said his aorta couldn't handle any hard blows to the chest or aggressive playing. He's been told his whole life that if he were to be in a serious accident and be hit with the air bag, he would most likely died because his chest can't handle that kind of a blow. So you can only imagine my anxiety and fear when he told me he totaled the car. He clearly shouldn't have made it out of there alive but here he is with only minor injuries.

It's experiences like this that remind you what your most grateful for. And I feel like I have so much to be grateful for right now! Not only for Garrett's protection in the accident (which I'm most grateful for) but for several other happenings in our life. At the beginning of July we moved across town to a new ward, new house, new area... Lots of new things. We now have wonderful land lords! A wonderful townhouse that we love. And a fantastic new ward. With everything that's happened with the accident we've able to upgrade to a better car for our family and we've been able to pay off our other car. On top of these great new things, we've received our cycle calendar for IVF and we continue to make progress with that! It's so incredible to see the Lord's hands in your life and just when you think you can't handle the load, the Lord reminds me how blessed we've been.

Over that last year we've had some trying times and I'll admit we're still going through trials, but the blessings that we've experience are exponentially better and continue to out weigh the weight of the trials. Really, the only way I can describe our situation is BLESSED!

FYI:

IVF Cycle Calendar (YAY!)-

Let the Hormones Begin!

LET THE HORMONES BEGIN! 

We officially have the green light to start our IVF cycle. I've been talking with our nursing for the last couple of days and I am now on the birth control regimen part of our cycle. Today or tomorrow we'll be getting the rest of our calendar together. Yay!! So excited! 

I've had a couple people ask me to go over the steps of how this will all work, so hopefully this list kind of clears up some of your questions.

Step 1: Birth control (30-? days)

I'll be doing this regimen for a month. Or until they want me to stop (I'll find out more Monday)

Step 2: Ovarian Stimulation (8-14 days)

This will be when I start to doing injections of hormones. These injections are meant to make eggs mature faster so that during the egg retrieval there will be lots of viable mature eggs.

Step 3: Trigger Shot and Egg Retrieval (1 day)

What's a trigger shot you say? Well the Trigger shot is a shot of HCG that kind of finalizes the maturation of the eggs. This is done about 36 hours before Egg Retrieval. After the shot is the egg retrieval. This is when they go in and harvest the eggs. It's also at this point where they'll get a semen sample from Garrett. 

Step 4: Embryo Development

It's at this point where they do the Invitro Fertilization... Where they fertilize the egg with the sperm. After that they grow for 5 days. 

Step 5: Embryo Testing

On day 5 the embryologist with take 3-5 cells of each embryo and send them to be tested by Natera. While the cells are being tested the embryos will be frozen for 2 months. 

Step 6: Embryo Transfer

After those long 2 months will be when they transfer 1 (maybe two... Garrett and  I have to decide) embryo(s). 

Step 7: Pregnancy Test

10-12 days after the embryo transfer they'll do a blood test to confirm pregnancy. 

Just a Waiting Game....

Everyone! We have some fun exciting news with the fundraiser coming in the next month, so stay tuned! Until then...

It's been over 8 weeks since we had our samples sent and they started the whole PGD process. This means that we should be getting the green light to start the IVF part of the this whole process any day now. It really has turned into a waiting game. We can't do anything until we get the "go" from Natera and we've done most of the preliminary test for the IVF so now we wait...

In the mean time, we just wanted to thank everyone again for the donations on our GoFundMe. We're at $4,995! Words really can't describe the feeling of gratitude we feel towards everyone who's donated and shared the link. It's extremely touching and such an incredible experience. So really thank you, thank you, thank you! God bless you all!