Today's Ultrasounds

I had my baseline and water ultrasounds and it looks like we wont be starting our injections tomorrow. When it comes to our fertility Jeremy and I are always a hit and miss, its like if one thing is going right there's one thing that's not. Its never smooth sailing so I guess we should have expected a tiny speed bump so here it is.

On the baseline ultrasound they checked my ovaries and the outer part of the uterus. My right ovary already had 12 follicles forming on its own which is good. My left ovary had a least two cysts on it. "Funny thing is all through treatment last year I never had one cyst and now boom two like I said road bump" and then the outer part of the uterus (the lining) was measuring a 6 which isn't to bad needs to be below a 4 which it would have gotten to within the cycle. 

On the water ultrasound they fill the uterus with water to check for any abnormalities in doing this they did find two masses that they are calling fibroid's (meaning)- its around "knot" of uterine muscle growing on the uterine wall. Which makes its very difficult for an embryo to grow in the uterus. So in order to move forward with treatment we will need to have them removed through a procedure called Hysteroscopy where they will thread a small camera though the cervix up into the uterus for the the Doctor to observe the growths and then remove them by something they call scrapping the uterus. This will help remove the growths and thin the lining making it a little easier for the embryos to stick to the uterus for implantation. 

So after all that said here's the good news. We are doing a freeze all cycle. Where they are just growing the follicles/eggs and then fertilizing them like I've stated in past posts and since we wont be transferring the embryos into the uterus right away we will do the hysteroscopy sometime after the retrieval  date and before transfer date. I'll go in for another ultrasound on Monday August 1st to recheck the lining of the uterus and draw blood to check my estrogen levels to see where we stand with the two cysts and we'll go from there .

All of our dates will change from what we thought they were going to be. The thing with infertility is that its totally unpredictable and can change on a day to day week to week bases. We'll keep you all updated as we continue down the bumpy road of journey this is just one road block. There are sure to be more we still have a long winding road ahead of us but we are staying optimistic. 

Thank You for all your continued love and support 

A little quote I found to get me through hearing this today.

Medication Arrived Today

We finally have all of our medication, all of our fertility injections arrived today in that big box below. Oh my we're so ready for this. I just wanted to do a quick post to show everyone
whats ahead of us for the next couple weeks.

This is all the medication we are both on

All the injections are for me (Shalamar)

The second picture shows all the medications Jeremy and I are on (Orally & Injections). The calendar on the left side of the picture is our treatment plan. Its use is to help us to know when to start and stop medications. The other paper on the right has all of my doctors visits for the next three weeks.

So to go over the medications real quick in the third picture. 

• Top left side is the Gonal F its the FSH hormone that stimulates the ovaries to grow follicles/eggs. I will take this medication for 10 days straight. 
• Next to the gonal going right is a medication called Catrotide its the ovulation suppressant
• Next to that is all the syringes to be used 
• Bottom Left side starts with Lupron and next to that is the HCG injection they are used together to induce ovulation 24-48 hrs before egg retrieval.
• Next is just the alcohol swabs, gauze, the sharps container, and the needles
• last on the row is Menapor which will be used with the Gonal for 10-11 days 

All these medications are on top of all the oral meds we are already taking. except the birth control that ended today and the z-packs that end tomorrow. 

We are due to start the injections on Saturday. Woooohoooo bring on the shots and the hormonal roller coaster. My poor hubby!!! I do love him so!!! He is so strong!!! He will be the one who gets to endure the brunt of this wind of emotions he is my rock and although he doesn't have to go through all the shots, doctors visits and pain he is going to go through his own wave of emotions. This treatment is going to be an amazing journey and I am happy to be going through it with this wonderful man. 

I have my first official IVF appointment on Friday. Where I will meet with the anesthesiologist to hopeful get cleared for egg retrieval. Then I'll have the baseline ultrasound to check for cysts on the ovaries and check the lining of the uterus. As well as a water ultrasound that will check the uterus for its shape and if there are any polyps and they'll draw some blood. If all goes well we'll start injections. 

HERE WE GO!!!

Here We GO!!!
On Friday we turned in all of our consent forms and received our final calendar. It's official we start treatment now... So from this day on I'll start taking a prenatal vitamin (which I've been on forever now), Baby Aspirin 81mg low dose, & CoQ10 to help with healthy egg quality. These medication along with the Metformin, and two other medications will continue all the way through treatment. Below is roughly how our calendar will play out.

• July 20-27 I'll start the birth control
• July 24-28 Jeremy and I will both start a z-pack to clear any infection that may or may not be in our systems.
• July 29 I will go in for a baseline ultrasound & water ultrasound along with blood work
• July 30 MY BIRTHDAY!!! :)- August 8 I'll start two separate inject-able medications  
• Blood work days will be Aug 1 & 4 
• Ultrasound days to count and measure follicles Aug 4-6-7-8
• by Aug 4th We should have mulitple follicles and they say by Aug 6th my ovaries will reach the size of oranges. So by this day its pretty much try and stay as comfortable as possible and take it super easy.
• On Aug 4th we could possibly start a new medication to stop early ovulation like I stated in a past post we don't want my body to start ovulation early it will mess up the whole treatment plan. So this medication will stop it and then when all the follicles are ready they will do a shot of HCG and that will trigger ovulation.
• Aug 8 is the day we mostly will use the HCG to trigger 
• Aug 9 Jeremy will take another antibiotic 
• Aug 10 RETRIEVAL DAY-  on this day we will go to the our Dr. office and they will put me under lite anesthesia and go in and retrieve all the follicles surgically. Its about 45 mins or so then I'll be sent home to rest. on this day Jeremy will give his sample and they say about 4 hours after the retrieval they will inject each egg with a sperm through a procedure called ICSI Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection. 
• Aug 11 We will receive a fertilization report on how many eggs were fertilized.
• Aug 13 they will call us with a day 3 embryo report to let us know how our little embryos are growing and what their cell counts are.
• Aug 15 One last embryo report on how many made it through the 5 day incubation period in the lab and then they will be frozen. 
• Here is a link to our clinics webpage about the IVF fertilization process if your interested https://www.utahfertility.com/infertility-diagnosis-treatment/in-vitro-fertilization-salt-lake-city-utah/

After the IVF process we will be doing a Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET) which will take place 4-6 weeks after the retrieval day which is Aug 10. At this time I will be put back on the birth control to control my hormones. When its time I will be taken off the birth control and it will start all over again with a cycle day 3 baseline ultrasound but instead of the medication to grow follicles we will start medication to get my body for the Transfer of the embryos back into my uterus (ideally we are wanting to transfer two embryos but that is all upon contingency that we are able to freeze mulitple embryos on Aug 15).

Oh My Gosh we are so excited for this but totally scared. We have been staying positive and staying completely stress free. After such a long wait we have so many conflicting emotions from "Yes!!! We're doing this" to "CRAP we're really doing this" to "What if this doesn't work" to "Oh My what if it does". We can't really describe all the emotions we are currently feeling but we can tell you this we feel your love & your prayers. Your support is making this journey so much easier then it would have been if we would have done it alone.

We are truly blessed and so grateful for every single one of you who keep sending your love, support, and prayers. Thank You We can't wait to keep you all updated on our progress and as always keep an eye out for updates they will be coming more often now.

Love Jeremy & Shalamar 

Please if you ever have any question about stuff that's going on feel free to ask us. We seriously don't mind answering them.

Exciting Update

So we know we said we would be starting treatment in September, But we are happy to announce that we are starting early. We have an appointment tomorrow with our IVF coordinator in Pleasant Grove. We will go and take all of our consent forms and talk to her about our IVF calendar which will map out our whole treatment plan from day one to transfer day. We will also be getting another semen analysis done to make sure we have no problems on that end since my body is giving us trouble already Cycle Day 1 for me suppose to be July 3 and I was suppose to start the birth control when I started, well here we are almost 2 weeks late "Nope we're not pregnant" my body is just being stubborn meaning I didn't ovulate last month so that means no cycle. So most likely tomorrow at our appointment our coordinator will prescribe me a medication called Provera which will force my body to start. Once I do, I will call her and start the birth control for about 3-4 weeks then once I stop taking it, cycle day 1 should come shortly after where I will call her again to set us a cycle day 3 baseline ultrasound which measures the lining of the uterus and makes sure there is no cyst's on the ovaries. They will also perform a water ultrasound which will measure the shape of the uterus and make sure there is no polyps any where within the uterus. On this day will start our fertility medication at this time I'm not sure what they will be or how many I'll be on until I get the calendar tomorrow.

But what I do know is that we are beyond so excited to start our first IVF. Its been such a long road   6 1/2 years and we are completely ready to go full force into this treatment. We have high hopes and are truly blessed to have so many of you praying for us and supporting us through what can a very stressful and rewarding experience. We know this treatment isn't 100% promised and know that no matter the outcome we have been blessed with such amazing families and friends. We are eternally grateful for everyone and everything you all have done with helping us with our fundraiser and continuing to help us with you love, support, and prayers

 Thank You With Love 

Shalamar & Jeremy 

Pre-order Your Tamales Now!!!

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 do delivery but we will only be dedicating two days out of the week to do so.
• Last day to get your order in is July 8, 2016

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.

ORDERS WILL BE READY SUNDAY JULY 10th If you'd like your order delivered please try to be available on this day the only next day that we will be doing delivery's will be July 15th after 5pm

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 accept Cash or Check
Checks payable to Shalamar Graham

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
Jeremy & Shalamar

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