It's almost July! What? Only 2 months left!!! Oh Yeah & Tamales

It's so crazy to think that these past three months have flown by, I can't believe it's already July in two days which means at the end of August we will be contacting our fertility center to get medication started in September for our first ever IVF. We are getting super nervous and very excited at the same time. This next step in our treatment is scary its new territory for us everything from the finances and the medications that I will have to take daily (numerous injections and oral medications). All the doctor visits I will have to attend almost everyday for monitoring to well what if this doesn't work to oh my gosh what if it does work!!

No matter how scary this is for us, we are beyond grateful that this is even an option for us, we can not express enough how extremely thankful we are to everyone who has helped us with donations, the tamale fundraiser, and the donations to our yard sale. Without you this wouldn't be possible for us.

Our hearts are filled with so much love from all the support we have received from our families, friends and complete strangers. During both of our fundraiser we have had the pleasure of meeting so many wonderful people who either are or know someone who has or is struggling with infertility in all its different types. We have be blessed by all their hugs, prayers, best wishes, and their stories of their personal journeys. We also made a new friendship with an amazing couple we met during our yard sale who is also struggling with infertility. We have been truly blessed to be loved by so many even those who barley know us and if anything we have learned that there is still so much goodness in this world even when sometimes it feels that there is more bad.

We ended up taking a couple weeks off from fundraising and spending some much needed time together.

As we have promised we will be doing a couple more rounds of tamales. We are thinking of starting back up after the holiday around July 10th and throughout the month of July only.

We will be doing ordering a little different, by having you place a pre-order first that way we are not over making and having to many left over.

• Orders will be first come first serve, your name and number will go on the order list and we will let you know where your order falls on that list and we will contact you with a date and time for delivery when your order is ready. 
• Tamales are a minimum of $12.00 a dozen and are only sold by the dozen
• You can order how many orders you'd like. Please keep in mind that you will be pre-ordering so please make every effort to keep your order once its placed.
• Our Tamales are bomb.com, all the reviews we have received from people who have order them Love them! on that tiny note we are by no means professionals and our tamales do vary in size, we try to keep them within a certain amount of oz.'s but again we're not professionals.
• Tamales are homemade with Pork & California red chili they are mild so everyone can enjoy them 
•  We will only be doing delivery's twice a week but you can come pick up your order if it is ready. 

We'd also like everyone to know that this is for a fundraising cause all proceeds raised are going solely to helping us have a baby through In-Vitro Fertilization. It will help with all doctors visits, medications, blood work, ultrasounds, and the IVF procedure its self. This procedure is NOT covered by our medical insurance and Its very expensive for our first round we are looking at around 13k or more depending on how my body responds to the medication. 

If your interested in pre-ordering your tamales now you can do so. Please keep in mind that delivery will be somewhere in the middle of the second week of July. We will only be doing delivery's twice a week but you can come pick up your order if it is ready.

Ordering is easy Text us 385-313-4365 or private message us on facebook 

You do not have to pre-pay only pre-order

We are super excited to start making more tamales because they are so yummy and we love sharing a little piece of our family with yours. 

Thank You so much again to everyone, we know these next two months are going to fly by quick and can't wait to start treatment to help grow our family.

Our First Appointment with the IVF Coordinator

We had our plan of care appointment May 25th  and met with our IVF coordinator for the first time. We we're super nervous because we didn't know what to expect, but as always as we walked through the door of our clinic we felt so much love and support from our amazing team of  healthcare providers who are all working so hard to help us achieve our main goal of having a baby.

We sat in the waiting room for 15 mins and then our coordinator came out to greet us and took us back to her office. We sat down in the office, on the desk there was a white folder. She sat down and opened the folder we started with the consent forms.

• Consent for In-Vitro Fertilization and Embryo Transfer-

 -We went over what will happen, she went on to explain the procedure and all the medications I would need to be on from Oral meds to Injections (oh my to many to count). We discussed that there will be tons of blood work, ultrasounds that will be preformed almost on a daily bases when the medications are started. How the egg retrieval will happen and when they will be fertilized with the sperm. We talked about ICSI- Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection- The process of inserting a single sperm into a mature egg, to optimize its ability to fertilize an egg.
-We also went over what might not happen which range from the development of eggs, that no eggs will be obtained (less than 1% probability), that once an embryo is transferred back into the uterus that it could fail to implant which no pregnancy will occur.
-That there could be complications like bad reactions to medications, problems during retrieval, if I get pregnant I could miscarry (20% of pregnancies) as with any normal pregnancy, and risk of more than one gestation's.

• Consent for Cryopreservation (Freezing) of Embryo(S) 
• Consent for injection of sperm into human egg (ICSI) its risks and benefits
• Consent to Cyropreservation (Freezing) of the Sperm - for back up sperm 
• Consent to administration of Gonadotropins*, HCG*, or Clominphene 

Just saying we understand that in the course of our infertility therapy, ovulation inducing drugs will be prescribed in order to stimulate the growth and maturation of eggs and follicles. That we understand the side effects of the medications from abdominal discomfort, production of very large numbers of follicles, that with Gonadotropins there is a 20-25% chance of multiple pregnancy, mood swings, and pain at the injection site.

• Consent for Administration of Lupron which stops premature ovulation. They don't want me ovulating early because of the mulitple eggs/follicles it will ruin the whole cycle and they need complete control of the cycle 
• Consent for low dose Aspirin
• Consent for Administration of Birth Control  

After all the consent forms we talked about how our plan of care would go once we started treatment. We went over an example calendar from start to finish. We're looking at about two/three months of meds and doctors appointments.

I found out that my egg reserve is high mine is around a 8 where most women my age are between 1-3 meaning I have a lot of eggs to grow, Its possible we could end up with 20-30 eggs which not all will fertilize, out of the ones that do fertilized they will grow them in the lab for 5 days. The day after retrieval we will get a fertilization report letting us know how many lived past day one and what their status is. Two days after that we will get a day 3 assessment of the embryos by this day (about 60% will have died off) then by day 5 we will get another report (about 40% more will have died off) and the rest will go in for freezing.

We are doing IVF w/ICSI and a Freeze all cycle- Meaning normally we would do the transfer of an embryo on day 5-6 after fertilization but since my high number of egg reserve and high chance of estrogen levels there is a possibility that I may get (OHSS) Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome which can be really serious. (I'll post a link below about this) So after day five of growing we are freezing all the embryos that survived and will do a transfer 4-6 weeks after CD1 of my next cycle which will include more injections to get my body ready for transfer day. After the transfer its a waiting game to see if the embryos will implant and stick.

https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/007294.htm

So where do we go from here, we are planning to start our treatment late August first of September and are shooting for the transfer late October beginning of November. All of our funds will be due on the day of our baseline ultrasound which will be around the first of September. We are really looking forward to doing this treatment to have our first baby but we are still a long ways away from having enough money for this procedure. We are looking at $7000 for the procedure $4,500 for Meds and $2000 for the freeze all and transfer. We have sold so many tamales and are so thankful to everyone who helped in with the fundraiser. We are also doing a Yard sale to raise money but even with doing all we have done already that barley covers the cost of the medications. So we are asking from the bottom of our hearts that if anyone can please help and donate to our Go Fund Me fundraiser or to our Mountain America Donation account even in just a small amount it will help out tremendously. Our medical insurance doesn't cover any of the treatment. Jeremy and I work full time with Jeremy getting a part-time job on top of his full-time in hopes of getting a little extra money for treatment.

We are eternally grateful to everyone. Our families, friends, and even strangers who have helped and has kept us in your thoughts and prayers. We love all of you so very much can can't wait to one day share our miracle baby with all of you who believed in us and helped us have him/her.

Thank You with Love - Jeremy & Shalamar Graham

Small Update

We have our first appointment with the IVF coordinator coming up Wednesday the 25th. We're super excited, we'll be finally finding out what medications I'll be on and get a plan of care from here on out. 


TAMALE FUNDRAISER:
We're now taking orders
minimum $12.00 a dozen 
Pork with California red chili 
they are mild so everyone can enjoy them


YARD SALE: we are doing a yard sale June 11, 2016 
If you have done some spring cleaning or just find that you have treasures you no longer want would you please consider donating them to our cause. We will be more than happy to come pick up anything you might want to donate.

If you'd like to donate for the yard sale or get some Tamales 

Please call or text 

Shalamar 385-313-4365 

Jeremy 385-242-5219

Tamale IVF Fundraiser

Ready! Set! Finally More Homemade Tamales!!!

If your new to our fundraiser here is a little about us... 
We are raising money to help with the medical and medication cost of IVF. We have been trying to have a child for 6 years now and In-vitro Fertilization is our last option in having a child of our own. You can read our full journey on this blog.

Our Tamale Fundraiser is getting ready for its second round of orders. We will be making them within the week and they will be available this weekend 5-20-2016 for delivery or pick-up. 

We've had nothing but great reviews!! 

We hope if you haven't try'd them yet, that you'll get to this time.
If you have try'd them and enjoyed them and want to order more this is your chance.

• Tamales are sold by the dozen 
• Minimum $12.00 a dozen 
• there is no limit to how many dozens you can order
• They will be on a first come first serve bases, If we run out we will put you on a waiting list and you'll be contacted as soon as the next batch is done.
• When you order you will set up a pick up or delivery date
• Orders will be held up to 24 hours after scheduled pick up or delivery date after that we will message you to see if you still want your order, if not or we can't get ahold of you the order will go to the next person in line. Please if you change your mind just let us know that way we can get take your order off the list.
• You can also pre-order by putting your name on the list now and we will contact you as soon as your order is ready. We will give you 24 hours to reply back if you still want your order then it will go to the next person on the list. 
• Don't worry... If your order gets pushed for a reason stated above you can always reorder.

Here's how to order

Text or email is the fastest way to order

Shalamar 385-313-4365

Jeremy 385-242-5219

ivfbabygraham@gmail.com

you can also Facebook message us we have our messaging set to receive messages from people not on our friends list.
Shalamar Delgado-Graham
Jeremy J. Graham

We are also doing a IVF Fundraiser Yard Sale on June 11, 2016 
We are asking if you have any treasures you don't want any longer and want to donate them please would you consider donating to our cause. We are willing to come pick up or meet up to take them off your hands you can contact us with the information above.

Thank you everyone who has supported our cause by donating, ordering tamales, and donated items for our yard sale. As well to everyone who continues to keep us in your thoughts and prayers. We are externally grateful for all your love, support, and kindness.

All proceeds are solely going towards the 

IVF procedure and medication costs

Love The Graham Family 

Childless Mother's Day

Mother's Day for myself and other infertile one day mommy's can be really hard. I'm not one to be saddened on a day like this, I usually make it through this day without jealousy but this year it was hard. As I scrolled through my Facebook wall, I saw many wonderful mothers getting Mothers day wishes and I myself have sent some out. But not once did anyone wish me a happy mothers day and it's probably because no one wanted to offend me or think because I haven't had a child of my own that I'm not a mother.

I'd like to say that even though I may not be a mother in the sence of the word, that I haven't given birth or been pregnant. I became a step-mom in 2010 and remained a legal parent up until 2014, when we made a decision that was in the best interest of the children but in my heart I still love our kids and always will, Just because we can't see them doesn't make our love any less valid. I'm also a mother in my heart to my future children. I have dreamed, wished, prayed, and longed for my child everyday for 6 1/2 years. Many people have told us "not try so hard that it will come naturally" "that if it is in Gods plans for us we will be parents" Or maybe "It's not just meant to be".

Let me ask you this, say your child was never born, say you never became pregnant. Would you have just given up on trying? Could you imagine not having your child? What if you heard over and over the above statements or got left out on these special days.

I understand that for some people what we are going through is taboo and may seem like we are overreacting or that we are seeking pity which is by far the last thing we want, we want to educate others and help people better understand that infertility is real and has many many ways of affecting a couple. That no matter how calm we may be, or how patient we are. Becoming parents wont be as easy as relaxing and waiting for it to happen, That without medical and sciences help it just wont happen for us.

I believe that Gods plan for how a couple conceives a child is different for everyone. You may have just try'd once or didn't try at all and got your beautiful child or you try'd for years and conceived naturally. But for us God gave us doctors to help assist him with helping us through science to conceive that if we didn't try so hard by going to multiple doctors visits and doing painful fertility treatments that the possibility to become parents wouldn't even be an option.

So I just want to remind everyone that on days like mothers day, fathers day, and grandparents day or holidays in general. There are many who struggle on these days with infertility, loss of a parent, and loss of a child/grandchild ect... and just because you can't see how hard it may be for those who struggle. Try and remember they may be grieving and not to forget them

Yard Sale Fundraiser

Hi everyone, So we started going through some of our stuff kinda like a small spring cleaning project, since we moved in February and thought hey we should put some of this stuff in a yard sale to help with our treatment. So in June we are planning a yard sale fundraiser to also help raise money for our up and coming IVF.

If your doing some spring cleaning, and find treasures you don't want, please consider donating them to our cause!!

Text or email us
If you'd like to schedule a pick up of any items you would like to donate.

385-313-4365
ivfbabygraham@gmail.com

Thank You - The Graham Family

Tamale Meal Ideas

Need some ideas on how to prep your tamales or meal ideas for the whole family. We have just the post for you.

Just so everyone knows the Tamales are already fully cooked and frozen right after they cool to keep their freshness. We usually will take one dozen out of the freezer and it will stay good in the fridge for at least a week. But if yours is still frozen when you get home you can put them straight in the freezer and then take out what you need to make your meal.

Heating them up-- you can do it multiple ways

1. Simply place how many tamales you want into a sandwich bag with the husks on and heat in the microwave for 1-2 mins or until heated all the way through. Then remove from husk and serve
2. You can also place them in the oven until desired temperature 
3. You can fry them in a frying pan to desired heat (remove husk before heating)

Meal Ideas

Breakfast

1. Simply heat them up, remove husk smother with Enchilada sauce (you can get this at any store down the Hispanic food aisle or you can make your own), Top with cheese.Then serve with fired eggs and enjoy

Lunch/Dinner

1. Heat up, Remove husk, smother with Enchilada sauce or Chili Verde top with cheese and any other toppings you might desire. examples- onions, jalapenos, sour cream, gacamole or salsa. Serve with Rice and beans

Other

1. We also just like to heat them up, take the husk off and just eat them just like that

Please if you have any ideas on how you like to eat and serve them up feel free to share in the comments to help others try something new.

Tamale Update!

We are beyond grateful for all the support that went into our first round of fundraiser tamales.

They came out amazing and it seems that everyone who has ordered them is enjoying them. 

If you wanted to get some of your own and just haven't had a chance to, we still have some. Ordering them is super easy just send me or Jeremy a text and we can usually get them out to you the same day or the next. We will continue to make the tamales as long as we keep getting orders. We want to make sure that everyone gets to try them that wants to. If you'd like to try them but just can't yet let us know.

Again thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone for your help and continued love, prayers, and support 

Please Share our story we still have a long ways to go but are very optimistic that we'll reach our goal

Love- Jeremy and Shalamar Graham

385-313-4365 Shalamar

385-242-5219 Jeremy
https://www.gofundme.com/ivfgraham