Here I am again, just over a year later, still trying for what is starting to feel like an impossible dream.  The dream of another baby, the dream of carrying life inside of me, 10 tiny toes, and the dream of becoming a mommy again.

Friday morning I had my first of several ultrasounds over the next week and a half.  My lining looked great, my follicle numbers are high and by all accounts, my body is ready to start over.  Mentally I’m prepared for the shots, the pills, the patches and everything else that comes with starting over.  Emotionally.…I’m not sure yet.

Starting over is draining.  Realizing that I’ve now been through this procedure 5 times with only 1 success. Accepting the fact that statistically, I’m more likely to fail than succeed and knowing how badly failure hurts.  I have to be prepared for that failure and pain again and right now I don’t know if I am.

But right now, I’m choosing to be “high on life” {or maybe the excess hormones circulating my body} and excited about the chance of success!  The idea of “what if it does work?!” has me too encouraged to second guess what we’re doing and the report from Friday is motivation to move forward.

Starting over looks different than the last 3 attempts.  When I started this blog and sharing this walk in our lives, I was preparing for my 2nd frozen embryo transfer {FET}.  This is different {and honestly, much less work} than the “fresh” transfer.  This time, rather withdrawing an embryo from the freezer, we have to first create the embryos.  This starts with me shooting up twice a day with different hormones to induce the growth of several follicles.  The higher number of follicles correlates with a higher number of eggs to harvest and then fertilize.  Having more than 1 or 2 mature eggs in a single cycle is very unnatural for the body {but with IVF, very necessary} and also very uncomfortable.   As crazy as it may sound, I can already feel the drugs working after only 1 1/2 days.  The bloating is real and I can actually feel my ovaries stretching 😦 ! But I know this is a good sign and all part of the process.

I have another appointment on Tuesday and then another on Thursday this week.  They anticipate they’ll be harvesting the eggs next week and then depending on when that occurs, 5 days later would likely be the big transfer date.  Crazy to think I will be pregnant {even if only temporarily} in just a few weeks!

So we continue to pray that this time will be different, that God will bless us with another miracle.  I can look back on the last year and have anger and frustration with God {and some days I do}, or I can look back at it as another year to grow in my faith and dependence on him.  As we start over on this journey again, I’m trying to choose later and push forward with hope.

I love Fall.  I love the colors, the cooler weather, sweaters and boots, the break from the overwhelming heat and humidity of summer, and of course, FOOTBALL {even though the Vikes season may not be as good as I hoped in the early preseason 😦 }!!!  I’m beyond ready for this new season!

I’ve been MIA for the summer months.  After our 4th failed IVF, we needed a break.  Our embryos were all gone and we honestly weren’t positive when {and if} we would want to try again.  Work is busiest for me in the summer months, our son was in several activities, we had vacation plans, and we just needed a break from the consuming IVF lifestyle.

A part of me wondered if the time off would change our minds…..if I’m honest, a part of me hoped it would. Maybe I could again become content with the idea of a family of 3, of our son being an only child, and me never carrying another baby.  Over the course of these months, I prayed that God would take that desire away from me if it’s not His will because I don’t want to continue chasing something that isn’t meant for me.  I don’t want to continue with the weight gain, pokes and prods, and heartbreak.  I earnestly prayed for clarity and direction.

Throughout these months, I didn’t feel like we were consumed by the grief of the last year or anger over what we put ourselves through.  We were able to enjoy our summer and still have casual conversations about what each of us were thinking and feeling going forward.  Let me tell you, it was such a blessing.  A part of me had questioned if I could honestly turn off that drive to push forward at all costs, to achieve my goal of pregnancy.  But I did, with God’s grace, and I’m so glad I could!

Then, in early August, I was away from home for 2 weeks for work.  During that, I missed my boys like crazy!  But I was able to use some of that time for self reflection,  to dig into myself and time with God to ask, “What’s next? Are we supposed to keep trying? Are we supposed to give up?” I again pleaded that if growing our family wasn’t in our future, that God would take that strong desire away.  I could focus more efforts on my career, my relationships, my son and my marriage.  These would all be great things and it would be so much easier to not want another child!

But the opposite happened.

Eric and I discussed how we were both feeling.  I shared that I was ready to try again when summer was over and work and other activities slowed back down.  We decided to buckle back down with our budget and ensure that financially we would be prepared for the additional expenses again.  We then just had to decide if we wanted to wait until October or get going right away.  After some back and forth and other things coming up, we decided we would start again as soon as we could.

And here we are now.  A new season, nearly a year from when we started our last fresh round, and preparing for this trying journey of unknowns yet again.  I would have expected us to feel more jaded about starting over, to have more anxiety and pessimism, but we don’t.  We feel peace with the decision to move forward and dare I say, even some refreshing hope that it could be different this time!

Prayers welcomed!