Barker Party of Three

I have put this blog off for a week. Mostly, because I wasn't sure how much I wanted to share, partially because I didn't want to cry while writing the damn thing, and because I feel like writing it out solidifies it... even though it is pretty much as solid as things get right now.

As most of you know, we cancelled IVF. This was an incredibly hard decision for us to make. Probably the hardest decision ever. This isn't something that we will change our minds about again, this isn't a cancelled for now, this was the decision that solidified our family in it's current state, as without IVF, we found out we actually won't be able to get pregnant again at all, when you add in the Balanced Translocation into that... it just isn't going to happen.

So here is how we came to our decision. It isn't easy for me to share, so bear with me.

Basically, back in mid March, the ball was rolling. I went in on the 5th for an ultrasound. The ultrasound was a routine cyst check that everyone has before they start a cycle. I was scheduled to start stims (injections to stimulate my ovaries to overproduce follicles/eggs for the IVF process. This gives the best chance for the most amount of embryos) but at this appointment, they found a large cyst on my right ovary. I had left work to go to this appointment and had to come back right after and I remember crying the whole way back to work. They had told me to come back in 2 weeks to see if the cyst had gone away. They also drew a few vials of blood so that they could test the cyst for hormones.

I came back 2 weeks later, and the cyst was still there. After the ultrasound, I waited in a room for what seemed like an eternity and when the nurse (my IVF coordinator) walked in she had a new calendar in her hand and I knew then what she was about to say. My cycle had been cancelled. She told me that this happens and that more options would be explored if the cyst was still there.

I waited an entire month for the next appointment. Eric was able to go with me. As soon as they began to scan, I saw the cyst. Once again, I got dressed and waited across the hall. I was told then that my blood sample had never been sent in and that the doctor would get back to me in about 45 minutes if I wanted to leave. We left and I waited over 2 hours before messaging them through the patient portal app. About 45 minutes after that I was told simply that my cycle had been cancelled and to wait for further instructions.

At this point, I was in tears. For every IVF cycle, I would have to take a week of work off, as well as a week of late start shifts. I had to ask for these so far in advance that the schedule had to be done before I knew if my cycle was going to happen. I couldn't continue taking time off for appointments and possible egg retrievals that weren't happening, so I asked to have a follow-up with my doctor.

Seems like a good idea? Right? I definitely felt like after two cancelled cycles, being able to talk to the doctor should have been the next step. However, I was very wrong.

(At this point, I had no idea why my blood hadn't been run. I had no idea what the issue was with my cyst. I hadn't seen the doctor since February 1st. I was getting mixed answers through the grapevine. I had no idea what the plan was going forward and no idea what the issue was with the cyst when others who had visited the same clinic had been told other things.)

The office manager called me and told me that I could come in the next day for a follow up at 2:30. I told her this wasn't possible as that is the exact time I have to pick my son up from school. She told me if I couldn't make that happen, that it would be at least a month until they could get me in. I expressed my concerns and she finally agreed that I should speak to the doctor through the messaging app. So I did that, because at this point I was frustrated that I wasn't being given information about my care.

I expressed my concerns. My concerns about the cyst, my concerns about being told different things by different people, my concerns on not being able to see the doctor regarding my care.

He stressed that the cyst is too big to proceed. That if I wanted to sign a waiver, that I could do so, but it probably would not work.

I told him I couldn't afford to keep taking days off of work and having cycles cancelled. I asked to have my cyst removed and he told me that wasn't going to happen. That it will eventually go away and I just needed to wait.

He finally told me they would continue to do cyst checks to try and give me proper time to ask for time off. I agreed to this initially.

Meanwhile, while ALL of this is going on. I am on a high dose of birth control that is not agreeing with me. Not only is it not agreeing with me, but I am being taken on and off of it constantly. For those that haven't taken birth control before, here is how it usually works. You take one pill a day for 28 days. The first 21 pills contain hormones. The last 7 are basically sugar pills. You go on the sugar pills and a few days later, you will have your monthly cycle and after the sugar pills you start a new pack. Well in this case, to keep me on track for the clinic cycles, I was never finishing a pack. I would be on them for 2 weeks straight, off for four days, on for ten days, off for 5 days... and this went on and on.

This MESSED me up.

(Back in 2014, about 5 months after my 8th miscarriage in just over 2 years, I had a breakdown. Not one of those crying in the bathroom breakdowns but the kind of breakdown where you are sitting in a room with your therapist and she tells you that you probably need to be admitted to the hospital for a few days. That evening I checked myself into the ER, told them my symptoms, and spent 4 days in the hospital for safety reasons. The breakdown came suddenly and extremely severe. Everyone was baffled at first until they realized that my hormones had been SO screwed up for so long, that it literally rewired my brain. I had no control over the massive mood swings and feelings I was having. I spent about a year recovering from the episode. I did 3 months of intense therapy at the hospital, 3 days a week for 3 hours a day. I had my medication upped to the highest levels and needed medicine to help me sleep. I did finally get out of it and continued therapy ever since. It was a scary time in my life and to this day, it was the longest time I had been away from Collin, as he wasn't permitted to see me. I kept this very hush hush, as we all know the stigma surrounding these issues in society, but today, it is very pivotal to my story)

As soon as I learned that there could be 3-4 more months of the on again off again birth control, I started discussing things with Eric. He knew I was having a hard time mentally with all the hormone changes. He knew I was stressed about missing so much work for nothing. I felt myself declining rapidly. I spoke to my therapist who also agreed that I wasn't doing well. All of this together is what led to the decision last Wednesday. I cancelled IVF.

The doctor started messaging me. Telling me that this was all we needed to to and our problem would be fixed. That IVF was our hope. I finally explained to him that I couldn't do birth control anymore and why. He then told me that we didn't need to do birth control, that there were other options. (Options I was never given, because I didn't want to "take him away from his wife and kids" for a follow up after hours. Yep, that was said.) I remember crying so hard I shook. I was so angry.

We exchanged a few more messages after this until I finally asked for my deposit back, which was denied. So here I am... stim meds in my fridge and closet.... a hefty deposit that is nonrefundable. A couple of hundred in copays that were all for nothing.

After those finally messages with the doctor, I knew I could no longer continue my care with him. Unfortunately, this also meant I couldn't continue my care with anyone else, as the price difference is literally close to $8-10k.

I have felt like i have been grieving this loss all over again. We now know for 110% sure that our family is our family, the way it is. While it is beautiful and considering our odds, we are so lucky to have Collin, it still hurts. I grew up in a very broken family. I didn't have a relationship with my brother until I was 23 because when we were kids we didn't know we were siblings and then he was placed with a family for adoption and it wasn't until years after that I found out he was my brother. He luckily found us and we have a great bond, but I completely 110% missed out on having siblings growing up. On the other hand, Eric also wanted a few kids because he ALWAYS had siblings growing up, since he was 1 of 8 children. It was never in our grand plan to have less than 2 children. So this is a lot for us. We had this hope again, only to lose it again.

So I need time. We need time. We don't have any plans currently to tell Collin about all of this. Maybe when he is older, but not now. We also have no plans to grow our family by other means. We will not be seeking out fostering or adoption. We do not want to use donor sperm. We do not plan on adopting an embryo. At this point, I don't think my heart can take anymore devestating blows.

In the mean time, bear with me. I will be honest, I am not the best version of myself. Despite being off the birth control for a week and a half now, I am still crying at the drop of a hat. I am still dealing with being depressed. I am still having issues sleeping. I am still snapping at people over little things. If you find yourself in the position where I have snapped at you, please understand I don't mean it and I am trying to find my awareness and not be an asshole, but it still happens. Know that an hour later I will most likely feel like the biggest bitch ever and will likely cry and beg for forgiveness. If you notice I am crying, I probably don't know why but a hug would probably help.

I want to send a sincere thank you to all of you who supported us in this journey. Whether it was prayers, donating clothes for the yard sale, sending an extra $5 in Paypal for your order with a note saying "tip for the baby fund", buying a candle, GoFundMe doantions, sitting outside in the heat helping me run a yard sale, all of it. All of it didn't go unnoticed. All of it I am SO thankful for. I am sorry to anyone I let down in this. Unfortunately, at the end of the day, I needed to be here for my family and I do not know how months more of hormones were going to impact me and my well being for my family.

I love you all <3

Stress Level - Expert

So, this weekend Collin’s 8th Birthday patty happens. I took the week off due to early release, his birthday, his party, and the MLK holiday. Despite being off, my stress level is maxed out. My face looks like nothing short of a pepperoni pizza (can we have a moment of silence for all the times we thought we wouldn’t still have breakouts at 30?) and my house has never been cleaner.

Yes, I said it.

I’m a terrible housewife. Between working 25-30 hours a week at my “normal job” I run my Etsy shop and Facebook business as well, which is also at least 25 hours a week give or take. So most of the time, dishes in the sink and unmopped floors is just a reality. It drives me absolutely bonkers, but what else is new.

But lately, I am freaking out about every bit of clutter. I want it all gone. I want the flora mopped and the random home improvement projects wrapped up. I wanted the carpets shampooed and the broken freezer out of the backyard. I want the banisters scrubbed and the baseboards painted.

Also, i had 0 open orders in my Etsy shop yesterday and now I have 2 open and its killing me. I have other things I have to focus on so they will wait a few days but seriously! There were times I had 30-35 and there was no amount of fire under my butt that could motivate me.

So my therapist told me it sounded like early nesting. But it isn’t that. I know exactly what it is.

It’s control.

I have had control issues since I was a teenager. Being in a state of chaos growing up made me develop multiple habits that allowed to me to feel like I had control over something. Some minor, some major. Luckily all in my post now. However, that urge to get things in order truly is peaking right now because I know the next few months are going to be a huge ball of crap O can’t control. I can’t control how the medications will treat me. I can not control how many embryos we end up with. I can not control how many embryos come back normal. I can not force my uterus tonhappily accept these babies no matter how hard I try.

I can do everything right. No hot baths, no caffeine, no strenuous lifting, resting, keeping calm, acupuncture, injections at the same time everyday... but I can not control this. I have no idea what’s ahead. I can not control how many babies will come out of this. Our plan is to transfer 2 embryos, but that could land us anywhere from 0-4 babies! (3&4 are extremely rare, so I am definitely not too worried about that) but seriously! This is the most out of control I have ever felt.

So, if I turn down your invite for coffee or tell you I can’t manage a baby shower right now, please bear with me. I swear I am just going crazy and it’s definitely not you, it’s really me.

If I go a few days without talking or posting, I am probably ok, but reaching out wouldn’t be a bad thing. I know I need to slow down. I am exhausted.

15 days.

The First Post

So here we are. 30 days away from possibly one of the most important appointments of our lives.

I made this appointment 4 1/2 months ago. I remember feeling like it was so far way, yet here we are.

It's starting to feel real. I feel like even though we went through all these steps, that this wasn't really going to happen. It's happening. It's real.

I wanted to kind of use this first post as an explanation again of our issues and what we have been through, and how I plan to use this blog as time progresses.

Basically, in 2012 after our 3rd miscarriage in a row, we found out that Eric was a carrier of a Robertsonian Balanced Translocation. We saw a geneticist who gave us options, we went to a fertility specialist that gave us options, but after our 8 loss we took a small break and I haven't been able to get pregnant since.

Our biggest hope in all of this was always IVF with PGS. It was always our best option even when we were getting pregnant easily. What is IVF with PGS? Well, instead of the traditional protocol with IVF, there is an extra step involved. Once the embryos reach a certain stage, they are sent to a lab. The lab pulls a single cell from the embryo, places it under a microscope and counts the chromosomes. It checks for unbalanced translocations of all types. The ones that test positive are discarded (they aren't viable with life in our case) and they give us the count of "normal" embryos. We have the option to find out the sex and which ones we will insert for hopeful implantation.

It all sounds easy right? All wrapped up nice.

Well, you have to figure in a lot of things. First of all., most women drop one egg per cycle. We will be doing ONE cycle (as most women) so they will stimulate the hell out of my ovaries via a medication protocol. The meds for one cycle are THOUSANDS of dollars and must be done at a certain time every day. Most of these meds are done by injection at home. I do not know my protocol yet (of course) but some patients have to do up to 5 injections a day. Once the transfer embryos back into me, I will be on progesterone injections until I am 10 weeks pregnant. Those are the worst because it is an oil you have to inject so it's very thick. The reason you are on it so long, is because your body doesn't realize you're pregnant and will not make progesterone on it's own until the placenta starts making it.

For egg retrieval, I will be put under general anesthesia. There are risks associated with that as well as risks with stimulation my body so aggresively with meds. You can actually overstimulate and end up in the hospital. So we are obviously hoping that doesn't happen.

If I get pregnant, I will have a series of blood tests to make sure my HCG is increasing the way it should. I will have a few ultrasounds at my fertility clinic before I "graduate" to a regular OB.

If the transfer doesn't work but I still have embryos left, we can just do transfers again. If it fails and I have no embryos left, we are finished. If we retrieve and all embryos are unbalanced, we are done.


Because of the stress of all of this, as time goes on I may not share everything. My plan is to still blog but keep the entries private until we are ready to share. We still want the excitement of announcing. We still want time privately to grieve if it doesn't work. We still want the excitement of announcing gender.

I am unaware of how much I will want to share. I know for sure we will share up until I start meds.

We are so thankful for all of you that have stood by us. Please keep us in your prayers as we start on this journey. <3