The Story of Us - well so far

Our journey to now:

May 2007 - We met at a friend's 80s themed graduation party (check out my shirt - a Goodwill special at $1.25), spent all night talking - no phone # exchange



June 2007 - I met up at a bar with friends and there he was. We spent the whole night only talking to each other - talked until 9 am the next morning


Inseparable ever since.



Our first date - Aaron planned to take me to the zoo because I hadn't been before, but wanted it to be a surprise. We got lost on our way there since he was trying to keep it a secret.



May 2008 - I graduated from SIUE with my Master's degree in Instructional Design and Learning Technologies. We moved in together at the end of this month.



July 2008 - I came home from a trip to Omaha, Nebraska and Aaron proposed!





June 2009 - Wedding was a dream! Best day with our friends and family.



Amazing 6 day honeymoon to St. Maarten, we didn't want to come home.



September 2009 - Aaron tuns 30 and we start really talking about starting the TTC process.



April 2010 - Bought the house of our dreams!! Started Clomid 100 mg.


May 2010 - BFN. Clomid upped to 150 mg and the side effects kick in!

June 2010 - Clomid 150 mg and BFN. Helping a good friend as she prepared for the birth of her baby and it was tough.

July 2010 - Clomid 150 mg and BFN.

August 2010 - Clomid 150 mg and BFN

September 2010 - Clomid 150 mg and BFN

October 2010 - Last month on Clomid 150 mg and BFP followed closely by a BFN - otherwise known as a chemical pregnancy or early miscarriage. Referred to RE out of Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis - cried for 2 straight days.

November 2010 - RE appointment on 11/3 - tons of paperwork and bloodwork. 2 hour Glucose test to check for diabetes - normal. Found my Rubella antibodies were gone, had to get booster (MMR) and wait 30 days after that before trying IUI. HSG set for 11/16 - holy crud that was awful!! 11/20 -  I turned 30 and we hit 1 year of TTC


December 2010 - waiting to try until 30 days after MMR booster shot, blood work delayed due to holidays and had to wait for period to show up on its own before starting meds for IUI.

January 2011 - Had to wait until 35 days since last period, took Provera. Lots of waiting and anxiety over lack of doing anything productive for TTC.

February 2011 - Period finally shows up with Provera assistance. Started taking Femara 5mg to prep for first IUI in March

March 2011 - First IUI - Progesterone at 1 week post-IUI was 17.5, really strong. BFN, hugely disappointing and sad time in the Wright house. Start prepping with Femara 5 mg for next round of IUI.

April 2011 - Second IUI - No progesterone check since no meds had changed. BFN. Start prepping with Femara 5 mg for 3rd and final IUI before we will move onto IVF.

May 2011 - Third and final IUI on 5/4. BFN on 5/18 and period shows up. Taking Femara 5mg to keep a regular cycle until the IVF process can be started. Took a long weekend vacation to Las Vegas as a 2-year anniversary present to each other as well as a break before IVF starts up:



June 2011 - IVF appointment set for 6/1. AF showed up on 6/18. 6/24 - had a baseline ultrasound and uterus measuring (TET - trial embryo transfer)

July 2011 -  Started suppression: Lupron 20 units on 7/8, blood work/ultrasound on July 21 showed suppression. started stimulation meds: Follistim first 225 units, then down to 150 units on 7/22 and Menopur 75 units on 7/25, upped to 150 units on 7/29.

August 2011 - Got the green light for retrieval on 8/1. Egg retrieval on 8/3, went great 8 of 14 retrieved fertilized but hurt like hell! Day 3 transfer of 2 embryos on 8/6 - first blood work Beta scheduled for 8/19. No embryos made it to cryopreservation though, very disappointing. Beta on 8/19 was negative. IVF #1 was a failure - heartbreakingly difficult to deal with, lots of decisions to make about our future options.

September-November 2011 - we decide to take a break from trying to be a family. It was a needed break in everything. It was very difficult to do but we had to make sure we were in a good state of mind to get back on the roller coaster.

December 2011 - started Femara again to help with ovulation while we are waiting for the next IVF cycle (not until summer of 2012 at the earliest due to needing the time off work)

January 2012 - positive ovulation test on 1/2. Here we go again.

February-March 2012 - Nothing happens at all :-(

April 2012 - Back on the Provera bandwagon to get a plan in place for the next round of IVF hopefully in early summer. Period shows up on 4/30.

May 2012 - Start the insurance company hoops to prepare for IVF to start in June. Stupid amount of obstacles thrown in our way. Take vacation to Washington D.C. (starting to make this an annual trip on Memorial Day weekend!)


June 2012 - My mother passed away on 6/6/12 and my world changed forever. We spent 11 days in Chicagoland with everything. 3rd wedding anniversary on 6/20/12 and started IVF meds the same day. Different medical protocol this time: Follistem/Gonal-F, Menopur, and Cetrotide. More and more insurance company obstacles get thrown at us.

July 2012 - Egg retrieval on 7/1 - 18 eggs retrieved!!! WOOHOO! 14 of them fertilized. ER on 7/4 of 2 great looking 8-celled embryos. Beta on 7/19 and negative. Very frustrating given the positives of the cycle - trying to focus on the future options. RE gives the green light to do back-to-back cycles once blood work and scans came back clear. Started meds on 7/23 for IVF #3 - hoping for 3rd time's a charm.

August 2012 - Egg retrieval on 8/4 - 34 eggs retrieved, 15 fertilized (an insane amount of eggs for a back-to-back cycle and some serious soreness that followed this - had to be on strong pain meds for a little while). ER on 8/9 of 2 blastocysts (5 day embryo growth). Did receive great news that 4 of our embryos made it to cryopreservation!! This is phenomenal!!! Beta - positive on 8/21 but very low. Repeat bloodwork 2 days later - Beta was zero. Early miscarriage and completely devastated.

September 2012 - taking this cycle off to let the body rest for FET (frozen embryo transfer) hopefully in October.

October 2012 - started Estrace 3 times a day. 10/19 - Blood work and ultrasound tell us we are ready to go. FET went off well on 10/26 with 2 embryos that were called "beautiful."

November 2012 - 11/7, positive!!!!!! Holy cow!!!! We are officially pregnant!! Beta #1 came back at 340, which is well above what they are looking for to determine pregnant. This is just amazing after everything we have been through.





December 2012 - riding out the first trimester. Had a scary situation with a blood clot in the uterus that put me on bed rest for a weekend. The nausea was so intense and I had to get medicine to help me get through the day at school.



January 2013 - the end of the first trimester finally!!! We went for an ultrasound at 14w6d for an elective ultrasound to see our baby and check the gender - IT'S A GIRL!


February 2013 - Monthly check up are going well, blood pressure is good (well within the normal range), finally gained back the weight I had lost during 1st trimester. Had another ultrasound at 20w1d and confirmed baby is a GIRL! :-) Have to do a follow up in 5 weeks because stubborn little girl was upside down and refused to move for us to get all the pictures of the organs they wanted.