Happy Injection... I mean... Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day!! We had a great weekend, spent with lots of family. My parents and my sister-in-law's parents came to Houston to visit. Good times, food, and wine were had by all!

Today is the day I start my IVF injections. While I am excited to get the ball rolling on this process, I am also very apprehensive. It is extremely difficult to continuously get your hopes up every month for almost 4 years that "this time might be different". I am a dreamer, so I tend to wear my feelings on my sleeve. Over the span of my 34 years on this earth, I have found that it is sometimes "safer" to hope for the best and expect the worst. I know that is a sad way to live, but sometimes you have to find ways to self-protect. Disappointment has always been a spirit-crusher for me, and I find it so hard to bounce back. I remember how openly excited I was when we put the "Kirby baby plan" in action back in 2008, hoping that it would quickly result in a family of three. Month after month, those hopes were dashed with each new cycle. It almost chips away at your soul, little by little, to feel your dreams get further and further out of reach. Years start to go by, and you realize that certain things in life are not as easily attainable as you had once imagined that they would be. However... I have also learned that it is the hardships in life that make us stronger and build our character. The harder we have to work at achieving something, the more we can appreciate it once we have it. So, maybe those little holes in my soul that have been chipped away by disappointment have been filled and replaced with wisdom, patience, appreciation, and determination. I think that Clairee Belcher, of Steel Magnolias, said it best: "That which does not kill us makes us stronger."

My sister-in-law, Melissa, reminded me that I will be starting injections on Mother's Day. She thinks that is a good sign, as she actually conceived Ruby & Mable from IUI on Mother's Day in 2010. It would be pretty cool if this works! I also googled the estimated due date, if I do conceive this month, which would be Valentine's Day! Honestly, I could care less about what day my children are conceived and born. But it would be pretty cool to be able to tell them that I had a "sign" to show me that I was on my way to becoming a mommy! You just never know...

Below is a photo of all the IVF meds that I will be taking over the next ten days. I will probably do a post one day this week explaining what each medication is for and a timeline of the anticipated events for the next two weeks. A lot of people do not know what is really involved in the IVF process. I actually did not find out until fairly recently myself what is entailed. So I will do my best to shed some light on the subject and the miracle of medical science!

IVF meds