I Said No

The last five years have really taught me the value of a dollar. I mean, ever since my parents' divorce I've been slowly learning this lesson, but getting married and plunging head first into grad school will give you a crash course really quickly. Sam and I lived comfortably, but we regularly said no to fun things that first year of marriage. We would hear about a party with friends or a night out for dinner and a movie with another couple and we would say to one another, "I don't know how they do it!" We were makings ends meet... no ramen noodles on our menu, but we were certainly learning to cut corners and the easiest corners to cut for us have always been entertainment and eating out.

And then, after that first 18 months of marriage, infertility treatments smashed like a freight train right into our lives. It seemed like I couldn't possibly cut the budget anymore. But as time went on, I just simply learned to do without. I never ordered Mary Kay makeup again. When it ran out, I went to Target and bought the cheapest thing I could find. My shampoo was whatever was on sale, plus a coupon. I learned to color my own hair if I wanted a color change. Dinner and a movie changed to Redbox and a five dollar pizza from Little Caesar. Slowly, I began to become a person who says "no" to all "extras." I would say my only real splurge at this time is Starbucks coffee... I'm an espresso drink fan and I literally work 50 feet from Starbucks, but for the most part, I stick to whatever we agree to reload to the card each month. 

My husband is not a fan of the "no" me. There have been so many times that he's wanted to go play golf, or go bowling, or go to dinner. While I'm certainly not the decision maker in this family, I have a way of shining a light on the budget. "Oh, how great babe, I didn't know you found an extra $70 on the ground last week... how perfect for your golf game," It's really an art form. 70% of the time, I successfully guilt lovingly suggest that we should once again skip this activity. The 30% of the time I fail to convince him, I'm really awesome at providing the silent treatment or playing the guilt game over his failure to commit to whatever we're saving for. "I'm so glad you enjoyed your breakfast with friends, love! That's really awesome that you got waffles and hashbrowns, foods you can make for a buck fifty, while our IVF savings account sits about half full"... I wish I could say that those words never came out of my mouth, but they have, more times than I'd like to admit.

Truly, I feel guilty about spending money on things we don't "need." Dinner with my husband just doesn't fall in the necessary column. I've been struggling the last few years to recognize the value in doing things together. Or with friends. The concept of date night is 100% foreign to me at this point. We haven't been to a movie together in over a year, and before that maybe two or more. The last time we went out for a nice dinner was for our anniversary almost two years ago, and that was because we had a gift card which covered 100% of the meal.

While I definitely see the benefits of being thrifty, living below our means, choosing to make sacrifices, etc. I can also say that there are certain losses with that type of life. The loss of friendship opportunities is certainly there. Say no to manicures and karaoke nights enough and eventually your friends will give up on you. I've been fortunate to have FANTASTIC friends who never give up on me, and regularly extend the offer, but I imagine I'm pretty much the lamest friend ever. The answer is always no.

I can also see how the long term presence of "no" within the marriage begins to take effect too. Once upon a time, we thought of little ways to surprise each other... even if it was totally lame like "hey babe, I bought you 64 ounces of diet coke" (swoon). So much of that kind of "I thought of you, so I..." and "I love you, so lets..." has died. Now I'm sure part of that is because hello, we've been married for almost 5 years. The honeymoon is o-ver. But our financial struggles with infertility and now adoption have certainly only added to the problem. so many well-meaning people over the years have suggested that I use this time to "be married." What they mean by that is celebrate our marriage and the good things we have with date nights and vacations and special things. I've literally been told to let Sam "lavish" me multiple times. I've yet to laugh or fire back at that comment but really, things are so far from lavish around here. And that's okay. I'm not looking at my husband thinking why "why haven't you planned a secret getaway?" We live this way because I want to, because I want more for us than date nights and vacations.

I've been thinking lately how much of this attitude has simply become who I am. I don't even think, "well, I'd love to, but..." I don't check the accounts for margin. It takes me less than two seconds to answer because the answer is always no. I sometimes think that once we complete this adoption, I'll loosen up and live a little more. But the honest truth is, I probably won't. At least not willingly. I'll have diapers and formula and daycare to add to the budget. And I'll have those four embryos in Florida to worry about. I can think of 10,000 excuses to stay exactly as I am. But I also think about the child we're hoping to bring home, the one we've waited for for so long. And I wonder if this is the kind of mother I want to be. I'm not talking about blowing the budget, going into debt, that sort of thing... I know that's not the lifestyle I want to live. But do I want to be a mom who feels guilty about spending gas money to drive my kid to the park? I see moms who enroll their kids in swim class and music lessons and gymnastics and all that kind of stuff and I wonder, if we ever get there, to that point in life, will I recognize those expenses for what they are or will I just say no? Has the need to constantly save altered who I am down to my very core so that all if know how to do is say no? Will I ever learn to say yes again?

One Year to Decide

Today marks one year since my IVF transfer in Jacksonville. It's not a particularly special moment, not like a due date or anything, but as this day has approached, I've been thinking a lot about next year. January 12, 2016 will mark two years since our first transfer, and more importantly two years since our remaining embryos were frozen for storage. FIRM, the clinic we used for IVF, requires an upfront payment as part of IVF for storage of any unused embryos or eggs. That payment covers two years, so you can see how this time next year becomes important... we're already halfway there (how can that be?!?). Essentially, we will need to either use our remaining embryos by this time next year, pay another storage fee, donate our embryos to another couple, or agree to discard our embryos.

Many couples face this decision at one time or another. It's often once a child (or more) comes home that the couple is faced with this decision. The decision is really personal, and as many posts have been written on this topic, I take it that it's a pretty hard decision for everyone. For us, the decision is already made (in part). We're using our embryos. We simply cannot discard them for moral and ethical reasons. And I also don't think we could donate our embryos, not because we are against embryos donation (we are strongly FOR), but because our embryos are of poor quality. I know if I was going through an organization like Snowflake Embryo Adoption and read our profile, I would scroll right past us. "Four embryos frozen on day 3, all grade 3, and 8, 6, 4, and 3 cells with no live births from the cycle" does not read like a winning profile. These embryos are our responsibility and we take that very seriously.

However, if I'm being honest, I don't really want to shell out another $800 to keep these embryos in storage, so I'm feeling the burden to transfer all of them before this time next year. For one, the embryos aren't a source of hope for me. For some, the thought of having embryos frozen is a source of hope either for another chance at the first bring home baby or a future sibling. But for me, these embryos feel more like a weight, like a duty, like something I have to get back to. And truthfully, the embryos don't feel like a real possibility of a child. I mean day 3, grade 3, and four cells??? That embryo is a full day behind in growth (embryos should reach four cells by day 2) and the cells are also unequal. If you google day 3 embryo grading, you'll find that, transfers are far more successful, no matter what the grade, if the embryo has between 6-10 cells at 72 hours after fertilization. I've got two that fall in that category (frozen in different groups), the other two are very, very, very unlikely to even make it to the blastocyst stage, let alone implant and become a viable pregnancy. But truthfully, none of them feel like a real shot because we've already transferred better embryos, both in grade and cell division, but all have (obviously) failed.

I say all of that to explain, paying for another year of storage doesn't really feel like a wise investment of money. Truthfully, it feels like delaying the inevitable. I'd really like to just bite the bullet and move forward with the FET(s) within the next 365 days. However, as always, finances play a big, big part in the decision making process. A single FET will cost approximately $1,500 not including medications or travel... so it's really more like $2,300. As I mentioned above, our two best chances (which still aren't great) are frozen in separate straws and there's no way to thaw one embryo within a straw... it's all or nothing.

In light of the odds, the costs, and the way in which our embryos are paired, I want to transfer all four at one time. I know that sounds scary, and maybe I'm crazy, but at this moment, it feels right. Dr. Duffy has agreed to it, mostly, I believe, because he's not really all that confident that the three cell embryo even fertilized correctly. He started yammering about meiosis and mitosis and lost me completely during that phone call (biology was so not my thing), but basically, he really feels like it would be a three embryo transfer, which he wanted to do on the original transfer. However, he also wants to do the Endometrial Function Test, before transferring the last of our embryos to ensure that we're providing the best possible environment for implantation. The test costs about $600 by itself, and then there are the additional costs of performing a mock cycle, the biopsy, and the overnight shipment of the sample. I'm guessing it'll round out at about $1,000. If I'm going to go through the expense and trouble of the EFT and the biopsy, I figure I might as well do the E-tegrity test (the one CCRM requires) at the same time if possible. That test is another $600, but if I could get the biopsy in the same cycle, I'd save some money in the long run.

I'll be honest and say I don't know exactly what the future holds for us in terms of family building (who's shocked?). If I had to make a plan today, I'd say that we'd complete this domestic adoption (please God), then we'd transfer our four embryos. If that fails, which it likely will (just being real), I think I'll be ready to jump back into TTC. I don't know which way we'll go though: IVF with my own eggs, IVF with donor eggs, or donor embryos. My hunch is that due to financial circumstances, we'll go the donor embryo route.

When I think about the expense of the tests in terms of the future, be that another round with my own eggs, donor eggs, or donor embryos, the tests don't seem to be so extreme. While I don't know that the outcome one way or another will change the chances for these four embryos, it will certainly be good information to have going forward... and I'm still confident that there will be a forward. I still believe that we will pursue a pregnancy in one way or another, even after adoption. And I imagine if we went the donor embryo route, the donors would probably be pleased to hear that my uterus is nice and cushy and full of the appropriate proteins. Maybe they'd be more likely to pick us and take a risk on us even though we haven't achieved a pregnancy.

All of that to say that, best case scenario appears to be that we complete one final Hail Mary transfer with our remaining embryos in Jacksonville before officially closing the door on that chapter forever. However, I'm completely stumped where the $4,000 will come from between now and then. I mean, it's not like we're shoveling all available money towards an adoption or anything like that, right? Oh well, I guess we've got a year to decide and figure it out.

The Leap

The truth of the matter is this: my broken reproductive system has not been the largest bump in the road towards building a family. The real pothole for us has been money. In 28 months, we've completed only six cycles of treatment (4 IUIs, 1 IVF, 1 FET). Six cycles... it's not a lot. I have friends who have completed six fresh IVF cycles in less time than that. But for us, money (or the lack of) has created long pauses in the process as every step along the way has seemed insurmountable. And the costs we have covered so far, though large, is still only a fraction of the cost of our adoption. Over the years, anytime one of us brought up adoption, I would quickly become overwhelmed by the dollar signs and string of zeros and shelve the thought once more.

When Sam and I first heard that fertility treatments were recommended for us, it was May 2012. Sam was entering his final semester of classroom hours before his clinical rotations began. I was working full time, carrying our health insurance, and paying as many bills as I possibly could with my tiny, little paycheck. We were getting by, but we were in no way prepared to spend $1,500 on ONE chance at pregnancy. It was mind boggling: "I'm sorry, you want us to pay how much to take a few pills and shove some washed sperm inside me?" I couldn't fathom how we could come up with that kind of cash. At the time, with an unexplained infertility diagnosis, an IUI gave us about a 20% chance of success... we were shocked and overwhelmed by the numbers. We would need to pay approximately $1,500 for ONE SHOT at conception and the odds would only be the same as a normal fertile couple our age.

It was overwhelming and incredibly difficult to come up with the funds, but we did it... three times because we knew the other option was truly HUGE. Imagine our dismay when November 2012 rolled around... we were still living with my mom, with no income, and a bank account that had been decimated by three back to back IUI cycles... and we were still not pregnant. We then had an exceptionally special conversation with our Reproductive Endocrinologist where really fun things like IVF were discussed at the low-low price tag of $15,000. $1,500 had seemed like an impossible feat just a few months ago... $15,000 might as well have been 15 million to us. We couldn't imagine a time when we would have that sort of money. For us, we slammed straight into a brick wall after those three IUIs. Where many couples proceed straight onto IVF, we were forced to stop and wait for fourteen months.

At every step along the way, we have discussed adoption, but the price tag has always seemed impossible. If IUIs proved daunting at $1,500 a piece, how could we ever afford an adoption? If it took us 14 months to pay for IVF, how long would it take to fund an adoption? Fertility treatments, though incredibly expensive, have proven the faster and cheaper route for us to build our family at every intersection along this road, so we have continuously chosen that route. For the longest time, I believed that adoption was the final chapter to our family building story, not only because that is what I have seen modeled, but also because I assumed (and hoped) that adoption would be easier financially in a different season of life. And that is probably true... in five years we will have gone from $160,000 in student loan debt to less than $75,000, even if we only make minimum payments until then. There is no doubt that life will look vastly different when we can stop paying $1,700 a month in student loans. We certainly hope to return to adoption again in several years to add to our family, but we also don't want our current financial situation to limit our potential for a family right now. 

My head has feared adoption for the numbers. My pride has kept me from asking for help throughout our family building journey. I admittedly have issues accepting gifts (even though gifts are my love language) and I hate feeling like I owe people. But countless friends have reminded me that our faith has the most potential to grow when we leap and trust that God will provide. It is our inability to complete the task on our own that allows the Lord the room to show up in a mighty way. So that's exactly what we're doing... we're leaping and asking the Lord to provide.

The truth is we absolutely cannot fund this adoption on our own... not in the time frame we've been given.  We can certainly contribute, and we intend to do so on a monthly basis just like we did with IVF, but we can't do this alone. So we are squashing our pride, saying our prayers, and leaping with eyes wide open asking for assistance to bring home Baby Greavu.

If you would like to support Operation: Bring Home Baby Greavu, please look for tomorrow's post on donation opportunities and other ways you can help.

Drops in the Bucket

This post has been sitting in my drafts for almost a year... seriously. I never got around to finishing it like I wanted and then it just sat sad and forgotten and grew dusty. But dusty blog posts are about as good as it gets around here these days. Kidding... except not really. Actually, I drug this old thing out because my friend Amie was discussing IVF and the price tag and it reminded me of this old thing. I decided to dust it off and post it in case anyone else out there is debating between saving for treatment, emptying out your savings, or swiping the credit card. I'll say what I said to her: absolutely zero guilt with whatever decision you make. IVF is EXPENSIVE and Sam and I are proof that it doesn't always work... you've got to find the solution for your family in your season of life that you can life with no matter the outcome of the procedure.

So after my Debt Free (sort of) post and the announcement that we're expecting to paying for IVF 100% out of pocket AND out of savings, I got several messages from people wondering how we did it. As I stated before, I am not the person you want to ask for money advice. We fail, and fail, and fail in terms of our finances. It is literally by God's grace that we were able to do this. It's kind of one of those "the stars aligned" type of deals. However, I do want to share what worked for us in case it helps someone else. Many couples pay for fertility treatments through various methods: parents, donors, grants, but for many the options are to save or take out a loan. Here's how we came to our decision and what we did about it:

First of all, let me just say that I'm honestly not emphasizing saving for IVF over taking out a loan. The saving thing sort of just happened. And by that I mean, we VERY intentionally saved, but we also never felt like a loan was an option until we were already close to the number we needed. Why? Well, we were first told to pursue IVF in November 2012 after three failed IUI cycles. The cost was quoted to us at $13,200 for one cycle (plus meds of course), but we were told our best bet was a refund program coming in at over $30,000. At the time, I was jobless and Sam was in physical therapy school... I really never thought too seriously about the potential to receive a medical loan. It seemed super unlikely, so I didn't look into it. Who would give two unemployed twenty somethings with zero assets a loan for 15-30K? What I was tempted to do was max out Sam's school loans (shh, don't tell the government), but he was so adverse to the idea that it led to the longest, ugliest fight of our marriage. I mean BIG people... I'm sort of surprised me moved past that one. With time, I forgot about loans... it wasn't worth it to continuously think about it and wish for it if we weren't going to do it. So again, we came to the decision to save not because we think a loan is a terrible idea, but because of our circumstances. If we had had the ability to take out the loan in December of 2012 AND if we'd both been on the same page, I'm pretty sure I'd have gone for it. So yeah, if you're leaning towards a loan or swiping the credit card, you're in good company here.

Another point to make is this: there are no shortcuts here. Saving takes time. It took us about fourteen months from the time we heard "IVF is next" until we were ready. Now, less than half of that time was spent actively saving for IVF, first we were unemployed and then we were paying off debt, but my point is just saving is a longer road, no matter what (unless of course you have wealthy in-laws or a heck of a savings account at your disposal). There were times when I felt so worried over the delay I was fighting off panic attacks and there were other times when I felt confident in our plan. It just takes time. Patience is a virtue, right? But if you've been told you are running out of time, I'd honestly recommend the loan. In fact, even Dave Ramsey, "Mr. No Debt, Ever," would. He said so here and here and here. So if I'm ever in this situation again (which we probably will be), at say 35 years old, I'm taking Dave's advice and getting the loan.

With that said, here's what we did.

• First, we transferred a portion ($2,500) of Sam's mutual fund into a CD so that we couldn't touch it. This was a starting place. I still didn't have a job, Sam was still in school, but it allowed me to feel like we had started. It wasn't necessarily the wisest financial decision, but it helped my anxiety while we waited to really get started. You've got to be able to live with yourself.
• Secondly, we got jobs (hopefully, you would be starting from this place). Once we both had jobs, we began to pay off our credit card debt. It made zero sense to me to save for one thing, while paying 10-18% interest on another. I'm proud of the decision, but I second guessed myself A LOT. If we'd held onto the debt, we could have saved the same amount significantly faster.
• Third thing was a budget. We are bad at budgets. You know those people who love them? Who track every dollar? We are not those people. We broke the budget monthly. But guilt is a powerful motivator and we needed something to keep us on track. If last month sucked, we could move on the 1st of each month... start fresh.

An important thing to note is that we were not perfect in anyway... we weren't even good. Our budget lacked a lot of "necessities". We sliced and diced until we were down to actual living expenses (i.e. bills). Our out to eat budget $40 for the month... and if you didn't buy it in the grocery store it came out of that amount, so this wasn't date night, this was Chick-fil-A. We went over EVERY MONTH in one place or another. There was no "new coffee pot" budget, not even an "OPK budget", so yeah as you can imagine, we went over a lot. It was not a sustainable, live the rest of your life budget by any means. This was for two reasons. One, our salaries, living situation, the whole thing was super new to us, we didn't know how much gas we would need or how much the power bill would be. We had to guess, and sometimes we went over (hello, Georgia summers). The second reason is this: I literally wanted to feel the pain every time I bought something that wasn't budgeted. I wanted to think to myself every. single. time. that I bought something outside of the budget, "this is less money for IVF". It's a bad budgeting system and not one that we have continued to use, but for our situation at the time, it worked.

An example: clothes. Even Dave Ramsey is an advocate of buying clothes. I figure if it's on Dave's list, it can be on mine too. Except when we created out budget, it was with NECESSITIES in mind. Are clothes a necessity? Yes, most certainly. But are new clothes a necessity in this season of life? Our answer was no. We had enough clothes to last six months or more, so there was absolutely no clothing budget. That is, until my husband ripped belt loops off his pants leaving giant holes... suddenly pants were more of a necessity. I waited for a sale, used coupons, and got the best deal I could, but as there was not a "clothes budget" it came out of the IVF fund.

Another important thing to note. We already knew before we signed a lease on our apartment that we were gearing up to live well below our means. It is always easier to make one decision that saves a big chunk of money, rather than a hundred small decisions. In my opinion, the single most significant thing we did was choose to rent a cheap place. Dave Ramsey recommends that you spend 25% or less of your monthly income on your rent or mortgage. Well we spent, 6.6% of our gross income and just under 10% of our bring home salary on housing. If we had been in a situation where we could not lower our rent or mortgage payment, it would have been very difficult to save as quickly as we did. The housing was a huge monthly savings for us and it has taught me that I never want to be house poor. Margin is always good.

And lastly, if budgeting, saving, or getting out of debt is difficult for you, I highly recommend an app (assuming you haven't ditched your smart phone in your saving frenzy). We used MINT... a free app (because $2 apps are not in the budget) that allows you to see exactly how much you have to spend at any given moment in a particular area. This was HUGE for us. It removes the "I didn't know" from the conversation (err argument). Our out to eat budget was forty dollars a month. So if we wanted to run to Dairy Queen for a blizzard, we checked the app. If $39.60 was staring us in the face on the 8th day of the month (which happened all too often), well then we had our answer. Forty cents does not pay for a blizzard. If we chose to go get the blizzard anyway, it was with the knowledge that we were blowing the budget, and even more importantly, that the extra three dollars was three dollars that was intended for IVF... ice cream starts to lose its appeal. With an app, there is no excuse; you can always know EXACTLY where you stand. And it removes a lot of math and data entry from my life. Praise the Lord.

So that's essentially it. I'm not a money guru by any stretch of the imagination, but with a lot of mistakes, we were able to pay for IVF out of pocket with zero insurance coverage! And we learned a lot in the process. Sam and I are far more money conscious now  than we ever were before. I am pro a debt-free life 97% of the time... clothes, food, furniture, pets... those things don't belong on credit cards in my opinion. But that 3% of the time... well that includes air conditioning units, because let's get real, I was not about to live through a Georgia summer without AC.... and so we have been using all of the knowledge we gained last year and doing the hard work all over again to get out of debt (again) and pay off all of the unforeseen  moving and new home expenses. That 3% also includes fertility disasters. No one grows up intending to need $30,000 to start a family, so don't blame yourself if you don't have the funds lying around. But do recognize that you are the master of your finances if you choose (either you're the master of your finances, or they'll be the master of you). One way or another, you're going to pay for it, either before the treatment or after, so either way, I encourage you to find places you can trim the fat. Save up faster, or pay it off earlier... you'll be glad you did. Some days, most days in fact, it will feel like you're hard work is only drops in a bucket, but persistence pays off. Your bucket will overflow eventually.

Four for Four

Way back when, before we were married, I made Sam agree to always celebrate our anniversary. Like a legit celebration, not a card or flowers from the grocery store on the way home from work. No, I want an actual break in the regular day-to-day stuff, a pause to reflect and look forward. I totally recognize that this is a hard commitment to make, particularly if there are several little ones running around. As we still do not have said little ones, are excuses typically center around a lack of funds (because said funds were spent in the process of procuring said little ones). Our anniversaries have simplified and simplified year after year... we started off big and slowly made less and less of a celebration out of it. This year, despite not having ample funds I really wanted to do something. I'm thankful to say that, thus far, we are four for four in our commitment.

Year One: Caribbean Cruise

Year Two: Atlanta

Year Three: Lake House

and...

Year Four: Myrtle Beach

I didn't set out to go to Myrtle Beach, but rather I just wanted some place warm. I think pretty much the entire country would agree that this winter has been looonnngggg and cooolllldd. And for our family, this winter has been about as depressing as I can handle, so I really felt the need to feel warm sun and see bright skies. Not to mention I'm fairly sure if the clinic checked my Vitamin D level these days I'd be back at the "chronically low" stage. It seemed like the beach was just calling my name. I started off researching glamorous things like Mexico... scratch that idea. I downgraded to Key West... mmm, no. Vacation wasn't looking too glamorous after crunching the numbers. Thankfully, just a few weeks ago, I found a Groupon Getaway for a hotel in Myrtle Beach. After a little TripAdvisor research I decided this was a nice spot and a good deal... we booked it. I'm so glad we did!

The hotel, Marina Inn at Grande Dunes, was kind of ridiculous... as in ridiculously nice (so don't go look it up and assume we paid that... umm, no) Definitely a vacation destination for people in a different tax bracket than us, so thank you Groupon. We walked into the lobby and I thought we were lost. Needless to say, we looked slightly out of place in our travel gear after a six plus hour drive at check-in where everyone else was in resort wear or business attire. But whatever, my clearance bathing suit from White House Black Market and Rainbow sandals served me just fine. 

We were super nervous about the weather. All week we'd been checking and it was getting worse and worse. When you're only staying two nights, that one full day becomes REALLY crucial to the success of the trip. Luckily, we woke up Saturday to clear, blue skies and warm sunshine. We had a glorious day on the beach! The beach was practically empty! The hotel has a small "private" section, and randomly none of the other hotel guests decided to utilize it that day. It was so nice and quiet... just a really lovely day to relax with my husband. 

My only complaint is that our trip wasn't long enough... I could have used another day or two. But time off of work and money are hot commodities these days. Regardless, I'm so thankful we got away, had time to rest, and time to remember how blessed we are to have each other.

Top Left, clockwise: Fish N' Chips for Anniversary dinner, Coldstone (eek),
the beach,  view from hotel room, awkward photo on the beach, my monogrammed towel
and not so tan legs, Sam and his Double Pig dinner on our Anniversary,
lovely hotel room for less than half the price

Here's to year number five!

The Trifecta

I'm in search of The Trifecta. What is that, you ask? Oh well it's essentially my pursuit of happiness: a good job, a home, and a kid. I'm knocking on the door of 28.5 years and I'm still in search of The Trifecta. I know it's become the sad, sad, sad story of my generation that we're reaching milestones later, and later than we (or our parents) ever imagined. Sam and I appear to be particularly stunted... thanks infertility.

Suddenly it feels as if there is potential, potential to achieve The Trifecta. Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable. I won't get in to the employment thing because that just seems dumb to talk about on a public blog, but I'm EXCEPTIONALLY pleased to announce that the Greavus are house hunting! Eeekkkkk! I know, I know. Probably not that exciting, but to us, we're beyond pumped. The reason we're finally pulling the trigger on a house is probably a little premature and maybe the strangest reason ever to start the search. Essentially, if we decide adoption is our next step, we will have to move. No one, and I really mean that, absolutely no social worker would approve us for a home study in our current setup... we don't even have smoke detectors. When we started thinking about moving, we realized (once again) that rent is not cheap. We started crunching numbers and well, to get into a nice(r) place that will accept our 80 lb Weimeraner, our cat, and would pass a home inspection.... well it's not pretty. I exclaimed, "we could own a house for less than that!" And do you know what? We actually can!

Regardless of the decision to adopt, we would never feel comfortable bringing our child home to our current place, so moving is a must at some time. And now that we've started looking, we're both full three quarters steam ahead. We are trying to be EXTRA cautious with our choices. While we fully realize that the third part of our trifecta could come in the form of the two little embryos we transferred, we also realize that it might not. We could be years and thousands upon THOUSANDS of dollars away from a bring home baby. In order to save thousands, we need enough margin in our monthly budget. Which means the house of our dreams is not in the works, nor is the house we thought we'd buy when we got married... no this is the house of reality. The reality that says any child may cost $30,000+... literally. Dream homes are for later... much, much later. This will be a true "starter home"... and not like the starter homes my generation and those proceeding us thought were starters homes, no this will be a true starter home. But the cool thing is, we're still so excited about it. It probably won't even have five of our top ten wants, but it's still INCREDIBLE that we're even doing this.

As to the whole baby thing... I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought of the potential we have right now. The potential for a positive pregnancy test on Friday and a bring home baby in 36 weeks. I've certainly thought of how ASTONISHINGLY different out lives would look if we weren't expecting to spend the next few years saving for a chance at a baby. I mean obviously, our lives would look waayyy different just because we have a baby... that in and of itself would be ridiculously different. But in terms of finances, things would radically change if we weren't up against IVF or adoption.

The potential for big things, for life altering change is definitely there... as to how significant the potential is, I have no idea. What are the odds we actually achieve ALL THREE?!?!? Probably slim... our lives simply do not seem to work that way. But two out of three? Still amazing. One out of three? I'd still be thrilled with ANY positive thing right now. Particularly if that one is a BABY... literally, I'll live in a hovel and work for minimum wage for a baby.

Speaking of baby... test day is Friday. I'm giving myself about a 5% chance of a positive beta which is low even for me. My doubts are at an all time high because I had period-ish cramps on and off all day Sunday, all day Monday and most of Tuesday. They are gone now, but I still don't think this bodes well. But one way or another, we'll find out on Friday.

And even if all three fall through, our anniversary is next week... I'm reminded that we are abundantly blessed to have four years of marriage behind us. We have a small trip planned to get away and relax together over a long weekend and I'm ridiculously excited! Other than Florida for IVF (which was too stressful and sad to even consider a vacation) this will be the first getaway since our last anniversary. We're ready.

So Another Year, Huh?

The years just seem to melt away now. I mean, I can literally remember sitting with Sam on the couch in Augusta on New Year's Eve in 2010... it doesn't seem that long ago. And yet, in some ways, it was a lifetime ago. In a lot of ways, I feel like I've aged a decade since then.

2013 was actually a pretty good year for Sam and I... much better than 2011 (miscarriage) and 2012 (jobless and failed IUIs). In 2013, Sam graduated from MCG with his Doctorate in Physical Therapy. I can't even really comprehend how huge this was for our family. Graduation was the fulfillment of a fifteen year dream for Sam and a lot of hard work and dedication for both of us. We certainly wouldn't be where we are today if not for Sam.

We both got jobs in 2013 which allowed us to really get our finances under control. We paid off all of our debt (minus student loans). And once we were free from credit card debt, we tackled saving for IVF. Those were two huge accomplishments for us and I honestly can't even put into words how thankful I am for the Lord's provision this year. We have been insanely blessed and our sacrifices have led to abundant multiplication time and time again.

2013 brought greater friendships both through the blog and in real life. Sam and I have both felt so supported in our journey by our friends in our small group, through our church, our work... friendships have simply blossomed this past year.

For me personally, this past year brought a quiet peace in the midst of my infertility. The days of feeling an absolute desperation; a frantic need to do more, try more; a desire to hurry everything along just seemed to melt away. The Lord slowly and quietly worked in my heart until I've finally come to a place where I recognize that the Lord is in complete control. It's been a year of subtle changes on an emotional and spiritual level, and I am in a much better place because of them.

And of course, 2013 brought us here: to IVF in Jacksonville. It's still pretty surreal. Last night I was filling in my medication chart when I realized that I've already done 5 days of shots... if I stim for 10 days, I'm already half way there. It just doesn't seem like this could be it, that we could be here.

So 2013 has come to a close. Obviously for Sam and I, 2014 holds a lot of potential. We could be three to four weeks away from a positive pregnancy test. And if the Lord does bless us with a bring home baby from this IVF, we would actually deliver in 2014 too... that kind of blows my mind. So yeah, 2014 has a lot of potential. And not just in terms of building our family but for other things too like paying off more debt and saving for our first home. We are incredibly hopeful for the year ahead and praying that the Lord will continue to bless our little family.

Wishing all of you the best in 2014! May 2014 bring good news and greater blessings to us all!

A Few Steps Closer

Believe it or not, I start IVF in TEN DAYS! It's absolutely mind-boggling to me! People have been constantly asking me how I feel... I think my reaction is kind of glazed-eyes, confused sort of stare, before I realize "Oh, you're supposed to be EXCITED or SCARED or something". I don't know if I'm repressing it, avoiding it, or if it just hasn't sunk in yet, but I'm not really anything right now. I'm sure things will change when I'm faced with day one of the injections.

Speaking of injections, I finally got my list of medications. I don't actually know how much I'm taking, but I know what they are. I haven't mentioned this on the blog yet, but my clinic recommended that I apply for the EMD Serreno Compassionate Care Program. We had never heard anything about it before, but I thought, "why the heck not?". The application process was fairly simple and within about six hours we had been granted 75% off of the medications produced by EMD Serreno which include Gonal-F, Cetrotide, and Ovidrel. Yeah, I know! It was pretty much the most exciting news of the year. We have zero insurance coverage for infertility treatments or medications, so despite the fact that we are going to a lower cost clinic, this is a big help!

I think we're going to order with Freedom Fertility Pharmacy. I priced my medications there yesterday and these were my costs:

Cetrotide (6 syringes): $141.75
Menopur (10 vials): $719.90
Gonal-F (3 vials of 450iu): $333
hCG (1 vial): $89.50

Grand Total: $1280.55

I almost cried! It's kind of ridiculous, to be so excited about spending $1000+ on medication, but I know how bad it could have been: A LOT WORSE!

The appointment on Friday in Jacksonville was fine. It was kind of hectic as it was their office Christmas party that afternoon and I was the last patient, but we got all of the major things accomplished. I also went to an acupuncture consultation. I like the acupuncturist, but unfortunately, she is closed for two weeks at Christmas and won't reopen until January 6th. She recommended that I look for another clinic as she felt it was important to get started earlier. I really respected that, and she didn't charge me for the consult, so all around it was a successful visit. I have a call into one of her recommendations (which ironically was the other acupuncturist I had been considering), so I'm just waiting to hear back.

All that's left is to order medications, book the hotel room, get tires changed on the 4Runner, and pack! Oh and go to work, eat food, remember to take my birth control pill... Speaking of eating food, The Prohibition of All Things Yummy, is still going strong. I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but I'm still eating fruit, so I guess there are still some carbs and some yummy things in my life. Essentially fruit helps me to eat not so yummy things like lettuce, so it's kind of necessary. But for the most part, I'm doing well(ish). I will admit to a few cheats such as a Chick-fil-A Asian Salad (without wontons, but WITH fried chicken) and a sip of a Starbucks Peppermint Hot Chocolate. In both situations I thought I had died and gone to heaven, so as far as the "changing taste buds" or "switching to a less sweet state of mind" I'd say I'm failing. If you placed an entire pan of brownies in front of me and guaranteed me it would not affect any future babies, I'd eat the whole pan and then wash it down with a massive Diet Coke. But as I haven't actually done either of those things, we will call this adventure successful thus far! I am confident that I'm not failing too terribly because I weighed this morning and I've lost four pounds since last Sunday! Winning!!! We won't mention that Sam has already lost six pounds and he's been CHEATING at work... men! What can you do?

That's about it though! I'll be back soon I'm sure! The impending IVF lends itself to lots of blogging, I'm sure. Almost in the single digits!

Debt Free (sort of)

Hold your horses. Don't celebrate too much, too fast. The "sort of" in the title is kind of a big deal. We are still currently the not so proud owners of over $100,000 in student loan debt... we're a long way from calling into Dave Ramsey's radio show.

So how then, are we debt free at all? We are credit card debt free, and I have to admit, it feels pretty nice. Sam and I will be the first to admit that we are really, really bad at money. I'm fairly sure that I grew up in the worst home ever in terms of modeling money well. I had no idea that people actually saved for things... in my world, we went out to look at fishing boats, or fancy cars, or expensive jewelry and if we liked it, we bought it. Done deal. The fact that we had no money in the bank was never a consideration (I mean, I didn't know we didn't, but still)... that's what credit cards are for. I have a lot of really, really bad habits and ways of thinking about money to unlearn as an adult.

Sam did not grow up in such a family... I don't know what his excuse is (kidding, sort of). His family modeled thrift and savings really well. And this carried over in a lot of ways to Sam. But essentially, Sam and I look at money very differently. The little stuff, the five dollars here, ten dollars there stuff is pretty easy for me to say no to. That stuff trips Sam up all the time. If I let him, he'd spend five hundred dollars on food every month and never think twice about it. Big purchases give Sam the heeby jeebies though... furniture, vacations, vet bills. He's not a fan. I on the other hand am totally fine with the big purchases. Those things have value to me, where as a Big Mac and fries just don't. So yea, we're different. We knew this going into marriage and we've sought as much wise counsel as we can in our early years. We've done Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University and we've met with and talked through things with some really wise people.

However, despite all of our good intentions, we still fail... a lot. The truth of the matter is that while Sam was in school, I was making a meager salary. We were paying my student loan bills with Sam's student loan. Talk about a return on your investments: let's trade 6% interest rates for 8% interest rates. And then we moved, I quit my job, and started infertility treatments. We lived the last few months in Augusta on an uber budget and we felt adequately prepared for treatment. However, we learned quickly that the quoted cost and the actual cost is NEVER the same thing. We blew through our allotted funds in the blink of an eye. $6,000... just gone. And then I had no job, Sam had no income besides the reduced student loan we chose, and well, it was Christmas. I'm a giver... and well, even me on a budget tends to leak onto the credit cards. I was out of work for nine months... nine months without income can do some damage even when you live at home with your parents. So yea, I'm sad to say that we had accrued a nice little pile of debt.

If you've been wondering why the IVF/Adoption Fund hasn't been growing super impressively, this is why. Other than my mom's gracious gifts, we've been stalled out in terms of IVF. We decided to pay off all of our credit card debt before moving funds into our savings account. It has been TORTURE, I tell you. The minimum payment has been something barely noticeable like forty dollars, and yet we've been paying more than a thousand dollars each month. And as always, when you've made a promise to yourself, the world seems to want to tempt you and ruin your plan. The original goal was to pay off cards in August, but life happened along with fun things like eight hundred dollars on emergency vet bills in one month. I've seen my IVF hopes move further and further away. But the day has arrived. We've paid off the cards and made our first significant transfer into the savings account. BEST NEWS EVER!

The sad news is that Sam's first gargantuan student loan payment is due in just a few short weeks, but in the mean time, we're going to capitalize off of our no credit card or student loan payment time of freedom and shove as much as humanly possible at IVF. If you ask us to go to dinner, the answer is "no, with love"; our eyes are on the prize. We currently believe, as long as life doesn't throw a major wrench in the plan, that we can pay for IVF and all or almost all or our medications 100% based on our savings. And we're excited!

Decorating on a Dime

I mentioned a while ago that I was crafting. It's not something that I regularly do, because lets be honest, the more fashionable it becomes to craft, the pricier it all becomes. Sure, if I had greater resources, I might accomplish more of my Pinterest dreams, but well, there are more important things most days. However, we recently moved into a super small duplex in Athens. It's not cute. It has zero charm and lots of flaws, so I decided to try to hide some of it's less desirable traits with some inexpensive craft projects. Obviously, I found all of these on Pinterest. If there is another way of finding crafts (I'm sure there is... but I can't remember. What did we do before Pinterest, again? The Martha Stewart show?) it is far too difficult. And I actually didn't even go looking for any of these. Almost all of these finds have been sitting on my board for years just waiting. So without further ado, I present to you the finished pieces.

Item 1: Shipping Pallett Wall Decor

I'm big on efficiency. It would not be efficient, but rather a giant waste of time for me to type up a how-to when I followed the instructions off of someone else's blog. I will however explain the interesting issues that I discovered in this process. First of all, my pallet looked nothing like this. It was FREE, so that was awesome, but aesthetically, it wasn't a great design. So I took it apart. Yes it took time. Yes it probably would have "worked" just fine had I left it, but my purpose wasn't just for it to "work" but rather to look cool while being functional. So I took out all of the nails, sanded the boards (no one wants splinters during the staining process), and stained them. We're on a strict budget, and as you'll see, we purchased stain for another project, so I decided to utilize the same stain. However, with the super cheap wood, the stain absorbs crazy fast, so we diluted it with mineral spirits. That seemed to work really well. However, just a word of advice, use the no/low odor stuff, otherwise your house will stink for DAYS! Once it had been stained and a coat of polyurethane had been added, we put it back together in a more attractive manor. I say we, I mean Sam. I want him to feel involved, you know?

So here it is:

Item 2: Shipping Pallet + Mason Jars= Bathroom Storage Solution

Again, I'm totally not typing up a how-to. You can read all about it. The only real difference here is that I did not have a perfectly sized pallet thing from IKEA, so my sweet husband cut a full size pallet down.. The rest is the same. It definitely solves our bathroom problems. Our bathroom has a sink with VERY little counter space and NO drawer space. So this little guy is great for things we use every day like toothbrushes, Q-tips, cottonballs, etc. It would be great to hold make-up brushes too, but I've been relegated to a different room to get ready in the morning as our bathroom is too small for us to both stand in at the same time. The only expenses were the mason jars, and the pipe fitting thingies. We used the same stain again, and as I mentioned before the pallet was FREE!

What do you think?

Item 3: Wall Art

This, I'll shamefully admit, is a copy of some girl's etsy product. I will say that I didn't realize it was a work of art someone was selling until after I'd already recreated it... oops! It was also a relatively inexpensive project (unlike her paintings). As  I was an art student once upon a time, I've got way too many blank canvases and tubes of paint lying around, so I put them to good use. I did run out of white paint, and my black was as dry as a rock, so there was minimal expense there. Bummer.

Take a look:

Item 4: Cage for the Demon Dog

A little back story: When we bought Sterling, I had some rose-colored glasses on for sure. We crate trained him, and he actually learned to sleep very peacefully in his crate after seveeral months. Sleep being the operative word. Leave him in it during waking hours, and he goes BONKERS!!! The wire crate had lost the fight by the time he was ten months old. For weeks I came home to him with wires pointed in at him all over the cage. It was basically a death trap. Needless to say, we bought him a new crate. But it's HUGE and really loud, so we didn't put it in our bedroom. We wondered, as he's SUCH a good sleeper, if he might sleep on his bed in the corner. That lasted for about a week. He went to sleep sweetly, but about 1AM he would come to MY side of the bed and nose me with his FREEZING cold nose asking, "mom, can we snuggle?". And thus began the "Sterling, on your bed." then "mom, can we snuggle?" war for the next five hours. So we hauled back out the old wire crate and he has slept in it ever since. But ughhhhh.... it's so UGLY!!! It has holes in it. It's rusty. You can see his ratty, shredded bed. I was not loving the idea of having that in our bedroom for the rest of his life. And then I found this lady, Ana White, via Pinterest. She makes the coolest things… but one was AWESOME. Her dog crate is stylish and functional. So after much begging, my husband set out to make one. Now obviously ours has to be a little larger all around… actually much taller, but we used the initial design. I think it turned out really well! It will look even better once it's painted!

Item 5: Cereal Box Monogram

Monograms are all the rage… is that a Southern thing? Do people out west or up north monogram kid's backpacks and lunch boxes? Do they slap monograms on their front door wreath or welcome mat? Anyway, I saw this and thought it was pretty cool. And it was FREE (except for the spray paint).  I learned that I am quite possible the worst at paper mache; even Sam was better at it than me! I made it significantly harder on myself than is necessary by choosing the lowercase "g"… all those curls and the weak midpoint joint made for a more frustrating project than I anticipated, but I'm semi-pleased with the final result.

Item 6: Shoebox Decor

This one was another budget friendly choice… the only cost was scrapbooking paper and I made sure I bought clearance and sale items. Again, super simple. No real explanation needed. I changed it up and used shoe boxes rather than wood as it is A-free and B- requires zero effort. The only hiccough I ran into was selecting extra large shoeboxes (I'm surrounded by big feet). It becomes a headache to piece the paper together to cover if the box is too big. If I had it do over, I'd purchase all of the paper at one time; paper seems to change with the seasons, and as I'm the slowest crafter ever, I spanned the seasons. It looks a little disjointed to me, I'd like some more cohesion, but ultimately it serves it's purpose by filling a horribly ugly wall.

Ta Da-

Item 7: Table & Chairs 

This I stole from my good friend Lesley Anne. We've wanted a table with matching chairs for a while… plus a set that was ours, not borrowed from several different sources. I figured if I didn't find something super cheap that I liked, we'd find something ugly and refinish it like the Fenton's. Well, believe it or not, the cheapest set we found was JUST like the Fenton's, so now we are breakfast table twins! I'll be honest and say that we did not use all of the products Lesley Anne and her husband Kyle did. We took several shortcuts, and our table and chairs certainly suffered for it, but they turned out fairly nice, just don't look too closely!

Item 8: Coffee Table

This is actually ALL Sam. I found two ideas for potential, cheap coffee tables, here and here, but he didn't love either. He found this design and completed it himself over the Labor Day weekend. Go Sam! The table cost us a whopping $65, and yes, we used the same stain. Glad we found a color we liked! I stained the table different colors by applying multiple coats to some boards and wiping the stain off super quickly to the others.

So there you have it, slowly but surely, we'll make this house half a house a home! And the good news is that I like everything enough to implement it in some way into our next place.

It took a major kick in the pants by way of the realization that I was about to have a house full of non-family members on a regular basis in my home to get motivated enough to finish these projects. Crafting always sounds WAY more fun than it is... 800 trips to Michaels later and we are all done!

Almost There

We are one week away from two consultations. To refresh your memory, we're meeting with two Reproductive Endocrinologists in the Atlanta area next Monday. These two guys and their clinics are basically polar opposites. One clinic (our current clinic) is big, flashy, and touts the highest number of IVFs each year in Georgia. They have doctors consistently listed as the best doctors in Atlanta and the clinic itself is constantly in the news. Dr. Slayden (my current doctor) is younger, extremely nice, very optimistic and generally my favorite doctor. However, this clinic is the most expensive in Georgia and all of the surrounding states, and their success rates took a tumble from 2011 to 2012. So with than it mind, we are looking into Servy-Massey Fertility Institute and meeting with Dr. Massey as well. This clinic's claim to fame is low cost, and by low cost I mean literally half of the cost at RBA. We're not sure exactly what we'd be sacrificing though. We know the practice is much smaller, the office is much less state-of-the-art, they perform a tenth of the number of IVF procedures annually, etc, but we don't know exactly how much any of that will affect success. So we are meeting with both. I'm going in with the attitude of "woo me", meaning I'm looking for each of them to convince us why we should shell out thousands and thousands of dollars and give them the honor of impregnating me.

I'm also looking at this as a fact finding mission. I have lots and lots of questions: moral questions, ethical questions, health questions, patient contact questions, long-term questions, short-term questions... I have lots of questions!

I put this out there before and Suzanne came through in a big way, so I'm probably pretty set. But I thought I'd put my current question list on the blog and see if anyone can think of anything else we should ask.

1. SART data- Can you explain your SART data? Why are _____ clinics so much lower/higher than others? Do you limit IVF candidates by AMH levels or BMI? 
2. Under what circumstances would you cancel an IVF cycle?
3. Are there any additional tests we should run before IVF? Beta-3 integrin biopsy? Natural killer cells? Autoimmune disease? Why/why not? 
4. Which protocol would you recommend?
5. Do you recommend ICSI, Assisted Hatching, or other means of improving our odds? Why/why not?
6. What will my contact be with the office? Will I have a direct way to speak with someone? Email? Cell phone?
7. Do you do Day3 transfers? Why? Under what circumstances?
8. Do you do Day5 transfers? Why? Under what circumstances?
9. What are your post-transfer instructions? Do you advocate bed rest?
10. Do you encourage acupuncture? 
11. What medicines can I expect to be on?
12. Do you perform doppler ultrasounds to determine uterine blood flow?
13. What supplements do you recommend in preparation for IVF? Why?
14. How many mature eggs do you think we can retrieve?
15. Do you think we should “pay as we go” or invest in a “refund program”?
16. How do you determine recommendations for embryo transfers? How much say do we have?
17. Does your clinic facilitate embryo donation?
18. Will you allow us to transfer any embryo? Any quality?
19. How do you/ your embryologist determine what to freeze and what to discard?
20. What is your thaw success rate
21. Are there any practices Sam or I should put in place NOW while we wait? Is there anything we can do in the months leading up to improve our chances?
22. Would you recommend a mini IVF? Why or why not?

After meeting with these two doctors, our plan is to discuss and see if one of them clearly won us over. If we feel really, really good about one, we'll begin making our plan of action, looking at the financial situation (still bleak, but have you noticed it's growing?!), and checking out the calendar. If however, neither doctor effectively woos us, we will discuss setting up some additional consultations. Front runners on the list currently are ACRM (slightly lower cost, higher success rates, local), FIRM (significantly lower cost, good success rates, large clinic) and PREG (low cost, great success rates). Hopefully, we can set these up fairly quickly, within a month or so. Then we'll go from there. I'm really, really hoping I get a warm and fuzzy feeling, or some kind of sign that this is the clinic for us. Most days I feel the exact opposite of the way I felt the day before. Today, I think this is all a waste of time and money and we should just move forward with RBA because we're happy there. Yesterday, the cost was so overwhelming and their success rates so underwhelming, that I was thinking about scratching RBA all together. It's safe to say that I have not made up my mind... at all.

So leave me a message if you've got any great questions or advice and wish us luck next Monday!