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!

Who doesn't love samples?

Holy moly! It has been an emotional couple of weeks. Garrett and I are so amazed at how much help we've received. In just three weeks we've been given over $4,000! It brings tears to my eyes every time I go into our GoFundMe. It's so humbling to know that there are so many wonderful people out there. I was talking to my mom this last week about how incredible it feels to know how many people care. We've had random friends from high school, Garrett's "sneakerhead" friends, extended family of in-laws, and so many more people donate! I've gotten messages of encouragement on Facebook from people I don't know who have seen the post be shared or who have seen the blog. It's incredible. We've also been approached by two wonderful people who would like to do fundraisers for us as well. We'll keep you posted on that! But seriously, we've been shown so much charity and love it's been overwhelming. It's such a testimony builder! There are so many Christ like people out there ready and willing to serve.

So we have good news! We almost have all the money we need to completely cover the PGD testing! We have enough now to move forward soo last week we ordered the sample kits they need for the PGD testing. As mentioned a couple of blog posts ago. This next stage, they're developing a test to test the embryos. They're doing this by getting DNA samples from Garrett, me, Chad and Debbie (Garrett's parents) and comparing it with the Marfan mutation Garrett has. It's a lot of mumbo jumbo lingo that I don't complete understand. Words like FBN1 mutation in chromosome 15! Lots of fun complicated things. To translate that, the FBN1 mutation is Garrett's Marfan gene, it is found on chromosome 15. So with the DNA samples they'll be developing a test by testing and observing our DNA.

 Yay for share our bodily samples! haha who doesn't love samples. Well... Today I think most people would make an exception. We gave our blood. Mine was taken not just for PGD but also for some blood tests that have to be done for the IVF part too.

 

Garrett on the other hand gave a little more than just blood ;) He wasn't very happy about giving up both of his samples (note the picture above).  Not to mention the hospital gave us quite the time with taking our blood home. Apparently you can't draw your own blood and take it home with you. Seriously, the nurse was like, "You'll need to talk to my supervisor, because this isn't normal." The whole time Garrett and I were thinking "Why can't I take my blood? It's MY blood!"

 

 Anyway, now that the kits have been sent we they should be starting testing and the PGD within the next couple of days. So we're looking at starting IVF in 8-10 weeks!

I just want to again, thank everyone for your help. This is quite the journey and we've been so touch by the generosity, love, and kindness everyone has shown us. It may sound silly but I really appreciate the messages, texts, and emails about how we're doing or even your own experiences. It's encouraging and enlightening to know that other people care. We love you all! Thanks again!!

There Comes a Point in Time...

There comes a point in time when you have to ask for help. Garrett and I have really been struggling to come to this decision for a long time. But we've come to a crossroad and we can't move forward in this process if we don't have the finances to keep going.

We're looking at a minimum $15,000 for the PGD and the IVF. So with that said we've started a "Go Fund Me" account for any size of donation. Really anything helps. We've put up a post on Facebook, so even sharing it would help.

We appreciate everything that everyone has done for us so far and thank you in advance for any more help. Words cannot express the gratitude we feel!

Here is the link for the GoFundMe: http://www.gofundme.com/8oxt8o

Keeping Up With The Jones'

Feels like it was only yesterday that I started this blog and now we're already almost 3 months into this process. It blows my mind. So I have a couple of things to update everyone on...

Natera (the lab), contacted us last week and gave us the run down of how the whole PGD thing works. When I say "run down" I really mean that they explained above and beyond everything I needed to know. They talked about "Snippets" and "52 to genotypes.".... I'm serious, it was like they were speaking another language! haha After our genetic counselor got done explaining everything, she ask if we had any questions. Obviously I had a thousand! haha So she proceeded to dumb it down to my level.

How the whole PGD process works is different for every case. It's dependent upon what kind of mutation of the gene, what type of gene, lots of things factor into PGD testing. Every PGD case is different. In our situation, what they're going to do is get a semen sample from Garrett and test all the sperm. Since they already know what his mutation looks like they'll be able to pick and choose which sperm don't have the Marfan mutation. Once they've found all the "golden sperm" (that's what Garrett and I are now call it haha) they'll ship that sperm back to Dr. Peterson and that will be when we'll start the IVF cycle. This is a pretty incredible thing. It ultimately means that all the good eggs they get from me will only be injected with the good sperm from Garrett. How cool is that?! Not only does it increase our chance of getting more viable embryo's it also increases the chance of having more children! Which means that we will only have to do this once! YAY!!!

Yesterday, we talked with the genetic counselor again and she gave us the billing information and the OK to start giving samples (blood, spit, the works!) . She also gave us the time line of how long the testing will take. At this point we're looking at 8 weeks till they are done with the tests. End of June should be when we start IVF. Fingers crossed it stays like that :)