A daring endeavor

Yesterday was treatment number 4 for us. Mayo is so very different on a weekday. There were people everywhere, Mayo staff, doctors, nurses, patients…everywhere. We saw a line of people very long waiting to check in for their appointment. We did not have to wait.

In between appointments we wandered, inside and out.

We stopped to look at the first daffodil sighting of the season, for us anyways.

We stopped to admire the play, dance and imagine sculptures in one of the hallways. They were beautiful and inspiring. Oh if we could have kids to play, dance and imagine with.

We sat on a bench outside in the sunshine and we read the bible and prayed together. We marveled at the beauty of the day, it was sort of like our wedding day, almost 5 years ago (on Friday).

We checked out the Barnes and Noble across the street because a nice lady recommended it. It was once a theater, now a Barnes and Noble. It was cool.

We saw the same couple we’ve seen the last 2 times. Pure sadness. We still didn’t talk to them. We did learn one of their names, but only by overhearing it. We didn’t even make eye contact. It’s awkward.

We had a little trepidation going into this appointment because we knew we needed to talk to them about our busy May and pending move to Montana in June. We didn’t know what this would mean. I was all set to ask, nervous, but ready to ask. But I didn’t have to! The first thing the nurse said was that if this round did not work the doctor would like us to see her again so we could schedule the appointment before we left! Of course we don’t like to think about it not working…but that’s part of the journey. They are always planning ahead for us at desk 3-A.
The numbers were off the charts good! Like 14 times what they want them to be. That’s good! That’s all I’ll say about that. And I asked about my follicles because on the lab line Friday they did not say how many there were. First the nurse did the insemination, then she pulled up my follicle chart on the computer and she counted…1…2…3…4. Then she turned with a smile and said “you have a lot to work with here, I counted 4”! She went on to say, also with a smile, that we are daring to do this with that many follicles! Oh, but of course we are Actually, we didn’t even know how many follicles there were until the procedure was done! And at that point all we can do is pray that it works, pray that life is created, as we type, as we walk, think, talk, nap, wait. Nurse Nancy was nice and supportive, like they always are there. This was our first time meeting her. They may plan ahead but they always hope for the best and they hope the appointment we have scheduled (for if this doesn’t work) is canceled. So do we, so do we.

A Perfect Storm

On our walk to church this morning we had this conversation:

M: Are you ok?
J: No
M: What’s wrong?
J: Life is a perfect storm right now
M: All of senior year has been a perfect storm

It’s true. Life is a perfect storm right now. In the next 2 weeks we will have rode the train 1,800 miles (round trip), interviewed at a 2 pt parish in Montana miles and miles away from seminary friends, but closer to family than we are right now, be one week away from finishing a four year seminary career, and take another pregnancy test (2 weeks from tomorrow). Could we have any more life events happening? We sure hope not. Is it too much? Almost. We’re hanging in there and we’re talking and laughing and singing and dancing and making memories with friends and eating and breathing and trying with all of our might to make it through! Successfully! In the next 6 weeks we will have finished with graduation, at which Joel is speaking at (nominated by his classmates and selected by the Office of Student Affairs at Luther), hopefully packed a few boxes, and sadly finished senior week and started to say goodbye. Wait, we might be getting ahead of ourselves. Right now we will focus on our journey to Mayo tomorrow morning, our waiting the 2 weeks til test day, papers, papers, papers, play, play, play!

It was the best of days, it was the worst of days

Ok, maybe worst of days is a bit extreme but we did have a pretty good day yesterday, mixed in with what I would call some clomid moments, the worst part of the day. We started the morning out by conquering Lemon pullapart bread…a recipe found on pinterest and it came recommend by our friend Lindsay. I think when she pinned it she wrote something like best ever or most delicious! (If you’re wondering what pinterest is let me know and I can send you the link to my page, and even invite you to join if you’d like). So, over coffee with Lindsay on Thursday she mentioned that while home for Easter break she would be making said bread…Joel loves all things lemon, me to, so I was quick to look up the recipe and create! It took us nearly 3 hours and 2 cups of coffee, a morning news show, a phone chat with Elizabeth, and lots o’ dish washing but we finally partook of the deliciously amazing and wonderful lemon bread! What a treat! Then we went for a lemon induced run, and headed off to a coffee shop.
Next stop was Rainbow Foods, a local grocery store here, and then began the first major clomid moment of the day…we were after Easter jelly beans. I was set on making an Easter Bunny cake the next day for Easter (just like the ones Jenn and Sarah and I made growing up) and I wanted to decorate it a certain way. All I wanted was some Easter candy. We’d looked the day before at Target and they were sold out. We looked at Rainbow and they were…sold out? Not an Easter jelly bean to be found? What? Come on Roseville, MN, open another target or something. Unbelievable. We finally found, tucked way back on the shelf, a package of Hawaiian punch jelly beans…not in the Easter isle, and not Easter candy, but at this point I was set on having any kind of jelly bean, I just wanted a jelly bean.
The next clomid moment came later that night when we tried the internet again at our apartment only to have it fail. Why was this a big deal? Who really knows! It shouldn’t be. But I honestly think that when you are hormone induced sometimes it’s the little things…like the shirt I wanted to wear this morning but could not find, anywhere, oh boy, that was not good. The shirt is still missing. But the girl is much more calm!

Our superstar pharmacist!

We have found a superstar on this journey. Ok, we've found many of them. But yesterday we went to see our pharmacist and were reminded what a great person he is. We don't really know him of course, but as our pharmacist he is great. I always get anxious going to pick up the meds, or even calling Mayo. I always assume the worst. I always think people will look at us funny or tell us they don't have the information we need or the prescriptions we are picking up, that we can't do a treatment, that nothing is wrong, that something is wrong, etc. I have a history of doctors telling me nothing is wrong, when I think something is wrong. My broken elbow on internship, first the doc said nothing was wrong, my swollen and painful finger I couldn't use, the doctor told me nothing was wrong. I have more stories like this that I won't go on about! Our pharmacist is always so so nice to us. Yesterday we went to pick up the final three prescriptions for this round of treatment and I thought for sure I was going to have to explain that I needed 3 of them and that 2 were probably in the refrigerator, etc. But nope. We walked in, told the lady who we were picking up for and just as I was getting ready to explain more our pharmacist looked over, told her what we were there for and where they were at and sent us on our way! He knows us. He knows we are the Skindlovs, he knows what meds we take each month, the fertility ones. During round 2 when we broke the first shot and had to go back to pick up a new one he spent time with us to make sure it didn't happen again. He's a superstar and on this journey we'll take any and every superstar we can get. Any person or opportunity to help put our minds at ease, yes please! So, he's a blessing! As is the Mayo clinic. We might get frustrated and mad and sad but today we chose to look at the good things about this journey and how we really have felt the hand of Jesus on us. We really hope that it will work this 4th time.

God is in our story...

God is immersed in our story. He is right in the middle of it. He cares. He listens. He might not take our pain away, but maybe without him our pain would be unbearable. I like to think he's immersed in the every day, the seminary journey, the infertility and every little detail, relationship, and journey of our lives. Today we went to Lake Nokomis Presbyterian church with a friend, sort of as part of an independent study class him and Joel and some others are taking this semester. Part of the worship service included passing around a small bowl of ashes from Ash Wednesday, dipping your finger in, and marking a spot of ashes on your palm. I thought of nail scarred hands. You can imagine ashes on the hand have the potential to be messy...and in situations like this I tend to make a mess! I had them on my palm, my jeans, every finger of my other hand! Oh goodness. But afterward, and after visiting with a few people, I looked down at the ashes and I noticed that they had filled in the lines of my palm and accented them. I instantly thought of the cross in this moment. And how Jesus fills every crevasse. This journey of infertility has so often found us deep in the midst of hopelessness, pain and brokenness. Jesus meets us in those moments. He surrounds us and fills every bit of the space that these things take up. It does get messy, and it does hurt, but it is also a journey we don't walk alone. God is part of this story.

All pumped up

With hormones that is. Yep, it's time for Round 4...it starts tomorrow. Round 4? Bleh, uck, boo...we really never thought we would come to this place, round 4. We thought rounds 1-3 would work. But I suppose that's part of this process. When you sign up to do fertility treatments you sign up for the roller coaster ride of your life (sort of like seminary, hehehe)! We didn't think the doctors were going to let us do round 4 this month. But yesterday the nurse gave us the go ahead and the prescriptions landed in our mail box just in time for a clomid sort of day tomorrow! So, we're all pumped up! With emotions, tears, joy, apprehension...but we're ready to run this race one last time! May will be quite the month for us, another test, a trip to Michigan, GRADUATION, celebrating with family and friends! Oh yea and we'll kick it off with Joel preaching at potential churches May 1. Wow, what a roller coaster ride!
We're praying these things:
That the meds would work perfectly...what that means can be up to God, but we do know that if there are 5 or more eggs this time that are mature enough then we will not be going down for the procedure, the doctors will say no, pretty sure anyways. So, we think that perfectly would mean 1, 2, 3, or even 4 perfectly mature eggs.

That our bodies will respond the way they need to for this to work

That we will be filled with grace abundantly to walk this road...it is not easy being all pumped up with hormones. But...we're gonna do it! One last time, at least while in MN.

And that we would have peace when administering the meds...that gets so intense.

We're always asking for your prayers, we're always asking you to be there for us. And we can't say enough what that means to us...really, you are so much a part of this. Please know that we pray for all of you to.

love & laughter...

Yesterday we were surrounded in love...by family and friends afar who sent their love to us over email, phone, text. And we were surrounded by love from friends here...and laughter. Last night was the first of a 2 part celebration of October half birthdays (Mine yesterday, Joel's today). We laughed a lot last night. And we were surrounded by dear friends who we know love us and laugh with us. And that is so amazing. Inside we were enveloped in a layer of sadness and we even shed some visible tears intermittently during the day, and I'm sure more will come. But laughing with friends rose above the sadness last night and was like a welcome break. Sometimes we don't laugh enough. Laughter is good for the soul and Joel and I feel blessed to have people, near and far, who care enough to be there for us, laugh with us, cry with us, hug us and most importantly walk this painful journey along side of us.

Another excitement is that the weather is getting nice enough for us to be outside. Joel and I love to play at the park and be outside when the sun is shining. We may even run a 5k sometime, most likely during senior week!

Thank you family, thank you friends. Often times when we dream about kids you are so much a part of it...we want to be mommy and daddy, but we also want to provide you with new cousins, nieces, nephew, grand-kids, little friends...As we walk through the next steps of this journey (which we are unsure of what that will look like at this point...I'll call Mayo soon) we will look for hope and grace from our God to sustain us and you to walk with us. Again, thank you.

Mr. Bear

We have a bear that's up for grabs. The first person to respond can have it! Priority mailed right to your door.
We want to kick that bear to kingdom come. We look at it and we remember the excitement of the night before our first treatment. One of three that has failed.

I get lost in thought of being a kid in a small town with a youth group that spent a lot of time together. In the summer months we played a lot of kick the can...either in Ash Court or on the road in front of the church. We played it for hours and hours. No one wanted to be the one to guard the can, but someone always had to. The goal was to kick the can before the guard tagged you! What fun we had. If we weren't playing kick the can we were often in the woods playing capture the flag or taking the new guy snipe hunting. We had good times. The connection here? I want to kick the bear just like we kicked the can! Back then when we successfully kicked the can it was joyful! Maybe kicking the bear would feel joyful. I'm not sure if we'll actually kick it, we might, there is a big playing field here on campus! Or we might hide it or give it away. We'll see how we feel tomorrow, or even in a couple of hours. Maybe then we'll want to keep the bear.

Our angry God

We imagine today that God is angry along side of us. Not a raging anger. Not as bad as our anger. But an anger that makes him feel like we do today. I bet he is crying with us also. And I bet he is deeply sad. Those are the pictures I get when I think about him being there for us today. It doesn't really feel like he is there. In fact, a lot of our anger is directed at him. Maybe that makes him a little angry and hurt also. But he also knows that we need him. And he knows the plans he has for us.
I've been dwelling on this...what if we are all praying the wrong thing? We pray for babies. We ask, we plead, we beg and we talk to God about babies. We think we would be good parents. We love to play with kids. We don't understand why we have to go through this. But the scariest part? Maybe God doesn't intend to give us children. How do we really know? We can read his word, we can trust, but after 3 and a half years what if we're all praying the wrong thing? So many people are praying for us...you included. And we know for certain we couldn't walk this journey without your prayers, listening, talking and silence when we need it. We need you, we need God, we need each other. And we hope, most hours, most days, that we are not all praying the wrong thing. That God does want babies for us. But in the midst of this Mayo journey, when the timing lined up so perfectly, and we felt God was there with us, but we still didn't get babies, what's the point? Was he really there? What's he thinking? What's going on here? It's oh so hard to keep the hope. We'll try, maybe not today, but another day, another moment, we will try to keep the hope and believe that he does want to give us babies.

Those stupid sticks...

We took the test for our third round of Mayo treatments early this morning. After seeing the result I probably wrote a thousand different blog entries in my head as I lay awake in bed...the test was negative. I wanted to throw that stick, or kick it, or hit something...those stupid tests. I've heard many many times about people who get a positive on one of those little sticks and then take 2 more or 3 more or 4 more, just to be sure. You know, we've often stared at a negative one wanting to take more and more...not to be sure, but to change the result. If I had more here I would be taking them right now. We've grown to hate those things. It's like they are out to get us. Sounds silly I know, but we've lost count of the number of times in the past 3 and a half years that we've been told no by one of those stupid little sticks. It really is to the point where we think that they will never ever tell us yes. Those stupid little sticks. To give up on them is crushing. To hate them makes us even more angry. To love them makes us scared. We haven't had enough, because we're not ready to give up...that is too scary. But we are mad, sad, washed in a layer of confusion and doubt. We're hopeless and ticked, with a few tears thrown in.

Pretending...

It is easier to pretend. Pretend we are pregnant. It is easier to pretend....easier than taking a test on Sunday that will either bring us tears of joy or tears of sorrow. We're scared. We're thinking about avoiding the test...then we can go on pretending. Then we don't have to feel anything more than what we are feeling right now. We're so positive this time, but so scared as the day draws near. We remember the pain of the last two times...and we wonder, why would this Sunday be any different than the last? We're really really scared. We know, without a doubt, that God will be there present with us when we take the test. But we have a little lack of trust in Him that He will make this happen for us. So, while we need Him, we're scared. We'll probably take the test Sunday night this time because we're going to Northern MN to visit a friend this weekend and hear him preach. Or we might wait til Monday because that gives us one more day for pretending. And when you pretend you can find a happy place, but along wit that comes a deep fear of it coming to a crashing halt. Here is our prayer, words from a song..."Oh Lord I beg of you, just this one thing..."

Help!

We had visitors this time when we were going through our treatment...cousins and sisters! Friday morning we went to the ultra sound, which I now refer to as a scan in hopes that it makes more sense to people (we are not going for an ultra sound because we are pregnant, we are going for a scan to see if there are any eggs mature enough to be fertilized). Then sitting on the floor of the MN Science Museum, after having just went through the King Tut Exhibit, surrounded by Linda, Heather, and Jenn, I called my lab line to find out what the doctors had to say about our scan. I had a feeling of what they were going to say...simply because I have to write numbers down at the scan, and this time they were way higher, even than the second time when they were a lot higher than the first time. The doctors had to conference...there were 4 mature eggs (one of them at a 21, that's 3.5 points more mature that any of them have been the previous two times). Is 4 too many they asked? Then they decided no! Then on the lab line they said over and over again that there were 4 and we had to decide if we wanted to go through with it...if we did, don't call, if we didn't call soon! We didn't call! I hung up and started crying. I was so overwhelmed at the thought of 4 possibilities...those are good odds...right? We'll see in a few days. I called Joel who wasn't with us and his reaction was one full of overwhelmingness...but ready to say yes! Lets do it!
So the instructions were the same...take the last shot Friday night at 10:30pm, be at Mayo on Sunday at 8am. At dinner that night Cousin Linda, who is trained in giving shots, offered to give me the shot later that night...I asked Joel what he thought and I saw relief wash over his face. HELP! We had help! Yes, yes, yes! Please cousin Linda, help! At 10:30 I layed on the couch with my head in Joel's lap and he held my hand while with skill and calmness cousin Linda injected me. It was so nice to have the moment of help. Joel appreciated it, I appreciated it. We were peaceful.
Our next task...find a taxi for our company to get to target and barnes and noble the next morning while we went to Mayo...they were so good to us, being independent and supportive of our need to be gone all morning! They were a blessing! We didn't have to stress, because we knew they would be ok without us! Small town girls pros at the city!

Sadness...

When we went for our 3rd treatment it was the same drill as the second one because we were there on a Sunday...meet the lab personell at 8am, go through the secret passage to the lab, wait your turn to check in. It was the same guy in the lab...we've always had someone different, so I was surprised to see the same guy. But the sad part...the same other couple was there also. That means it didn't work for them either:( Sadness. I was overwhelmed with it. Two couples, the same disappointment and pain. Two failed treatments. Two Sunday trips to Mayo. Two tries again. Two sets of hope that this will be the month. We don't talk to each other. The walk is silent, the wait in the waiting rooms is silent. It's almost embarrassing. It makes you feel a little self concious...this couple that we have so much in common with, yet we don't want to know. It's weird and it's sad. Oh and she was dressed up...wait, I'm supposed to dress up for a fertility treatment? I thought the point was to relax and wear lounge yoga type pants...right? Haha, who knows, who cares! I was comfortable! She probably was too. We don't know their names but we know their faces, and we really really hope that neither them nor us are back next month, except for an ultra sound 3 weeks later to see the health of success!

It will happen when....

Many times we have had people say to us..."it will happen when"...you get settled, you don't have as much going on in life, you are finished with school, and so on and so on. We hate it when they say this...it scares us. Just last week I had a person tell me she had a feeling it would happen once we get settled in Montana. I wanted to SCREAM NO! We don't want to wait until then to get pregnant, we want to be pregnant now. We are running out of time for fertility treatments. We feel like God led us down this path...maybe it worked this month. We are living like it worked. Which will make the pain even worse if it didn't but at least we have 2 weeks of living in the moment, living in excitment. Ok, really? We're scared. When people say things like this to us it really scares us. What if they are right? And what makes them "know". What if I have a feeling it will happen now, does that have more weight than her feeling that it will happen later? We hate, hate, hate when people try to tell us when it will happen. They don't know, we don't know. Ok, let me back up, it's different when close friends and family give us their opinion...but this person last week doesn't even know that we're in the two weeks of "it could have happened, we'll know in a few days". This person doesn't really know about our mayo treatments, just a little, but she didn't know we had one a little over a week ago. So, I could cut her some slack!
Ok...vent over! We really do hope and pray it worked this time. We hoped and prayed it worked last time though. But this time we really are staying postive which we hope will carry over into a little stick giving us permission to be happy. But if is doesn't? We'll crumble, we'll cry, we'll hurt...and we'll be faced to deal with our future and it's options. Then we'll dance or run our pain away, or at least try to.