Nerves Nerves and More Nerves!

Tomorrow is my first appointment with my new doctor. I find myself lying in bed wondering what she will be like and if we will get along. I worry about what we will talk about and how long we will wait to be able to try again. I am anxious to get the show on the road as far as a new doctor and that sort of thing goes. I am also SUPER nervous to be pregnant again for fear that we will have to go through what we have already been through 3 times. Please keep us in your prayers tomorrow as we head off to the doctor. Pray that God will guide our new doctor in the right path for us.

New Doctor & New Beginnings

Well, I am glad to see that I am not the only person who has not updated their blog in months! I haven't heard from any of you all either! We have just been trucking right along here in the Hasler family. School has started at my job and so that means the quiet productive working time from this summer is now back to its usual ciaos! I got a new promotion and a new position and a new office! It was busy week trying to re-arrange our office areas. We also got two new people in our office. Both are under 30 and guys! It add a nice mix to me and the two over 60 ladies!

We have gone round and round with Cherokee Nation and have decided to throw up our white flag! We are done... with them at least! We have an appointment at an area fertility clinic on August 31. I was very impressed so far. I have spoken with 3 different people on the phone and all of them have been very kind and courteous. Also another plus is I was able to log in and fill out all of my forms online as well. I was very impressed with that. It is a female doctor as well! So far so good! We will be starting from scratch with a new doctor and new beginnings! Hope all is well with you all and I can't wait to hear from you!

Doctor's Appointment

So as I mentioned in my last post, I had my first doctor's appointment since my third miscarriage on Friday. I went alone because really it wasn't a big appointment. We were just talking about our next steps. I am not sure that I have ever mentioned that I go to an Indian Clinic for my pregnancies and miscarriages. The first one I did not and had to pay for my D&C with my own money (whatever my insurance didn't cover, which was a lot since I had not even touched my deductible!). When I had my second I decided to go to the clinic since I was still paying for the first. Anyway. If you are not familiar with how that works, if you are Indian, then your health care is billed to your insurance and then they pick up the rest. It is kind of like the Health Department. I will have to say that I have had pretty good experiences with the doctors and nurses there at the hospital, but there have certainly been some bad ones!

If you are special like me (not in a good way!) then they refer you to a high-risk doctor at OU medical center. They also pick up the tab for you when they refer you, however, you have to go through them every time which can be a hassle. I tell you all of this with a disclaimer. I am NOT cheating the system or trying to get a handout by no means! I am going through Indian Health Services because my insurance does not cover infertility. Which sucks.... That means for the rounds of tests that I have already have done, I would have had to pay almost $7,000 out of pocket. That's almost half of the cost of adoption! I plan to save my money just in case that becomes our next plan of action.

Ok, now that you are up to speed, let me tell you about how my appointment when. It was pretty good, however, I was a complete and total basket case. I had a pretty bad experience being passed between the clinic's OBs, ER doctors, and my high-risk doctor with my third pregnancy and I had not really had a chance to vent my frustrations to my case worker. She is a Nurse Practitioner and handles all of the referral paperwork. Anyway, let's just say the poor woman ended up holding my hand and hugging me because I was so upset. I know that it is easy to blame other people than to accept God's plan, but I feel like there was something else that they could have done besides pushing me off onto someone else.

I am rambling, so I will rap it up! :) Long story short, she is working to make sure I never "fall through the cracks" again. She gave me direct lines, and cell phone numbers for herself, the Chief of OB, and my high-risk doctor at OU. She is working on getting me another appointment set up at OU, but there is a ton of red-tape right now. I have decided that if by the end of next month she is unable to get me all straightened out I will be looking for a new High-Risk OB in the Tulsa area. So if you have any suggestions or recommendations, feel free to throw them my way! I have already had so many tests run that there may not be as much out of pocket expenses if I do decide to find a new doctor. Either way I need a doctor that is fully devoted to helping me! I promise to not call unless I think it is an emergency, but by George if I call you, you had better call me back!

Journey #4

I have been trying to figure out what the purpose of my blog is. I know it is just to update everyone on life and yadda yadda. But I mean all the really good blogs have a purpose. How to find the cheapest groceries, how to make the best meals, all about their children, and so on and so forth. My blog, as Megan and I have spoke about many times, is boorrring. It is just dull. It's usually poor poor pitiful me and I am sad. If you know me in real life, that is the complete opposite of who I really am. I am usually over the top in conversations, and a pretty optimistic person. So that leads me to the same question... what is the purpose of my blog?

Drum roll please.........

The purpose of my blog is.......

Hopefully you are drum rolling on that keyboard with me!.......

If not you better get to rollin!.........

The purpose of my blog is to share my life story of infertility and encourage those who have struggled, are currently struggling, or will ever struggle on their journey to become a mom. I also want to inform those that have never struggled with infertility on ways they can be there and support their friends and family members were are currently on their journey.

I want you guys with me every step of our journey to becoming parents. So in telling you that I must tell you that I have an appointment with my OB on Friday to discuss our next step. This OB is not the same as my High-Risk-OB because I have to coordinate with my regular OB to see my High-Risk-OB. I am going to attempt to cut out the middleman Friday at my appointment. If they are not agreeable, then I will be seeking a brand new doctor and in a sense starting all over again :(. However, I am willing to do whatever it takes to not lose another precious baby.

I hear it all the time that, "The third time's the charm!" Well we all know how that worked out for us last time! So here's to hoping, "The FOURTH time is the charm!" :) Our current plan is to start trying after the birth of John's neice/nephew in January. Since his sister and I told each other on the same day we were both pregnant, I really want to respect and honor her by waiting until she is through her pregnancy before we try again. However, you never know! We may sneak it in a little early! :)

What do you want to do?

This has been an emotionally draining week! Our Superintendent's son was killed Friday night in a car accident. He was only 31. that has weighed on my heart all week. My father-in-law filmed the funeral for the family since his sons are only 3 and 5 and won't have any memories of the the day. That was hard. You would have thought he was my best fried the way I was boo-hooing. It just reminds me of how precious and short our time here on earth is.

One of the things they kept saying was that he had such big plans for his family. That is where John and I find ourselves. We have such big plans but aren't making many strides in making our plans come true. We have had a long chat each night this week and we are determined to not let each day pass with being grateful and working towards making a difference in the lives of others.

Before I die, I want to be a mother! To at least 4 children. Granted who knows if any of them will be biological, but either way I will have 4 children!

Before I die, I want to go to Africa and put in a water well for a village.

Before I die, I want to know all I can about my Cherokee hertiage. I am 1/8th Cherokee and since my grandparents have passed I feel like we are losing touch with our heritage.

Before I die, I want to buy a car and give it away.

Before I die, I want to work somewhere that I feel makes a big difference in peoples' lives.

Before I die, I want to take beauty pictures for women with cancer, facial deformaities, or other ailments that would make them feel less then beatiful.

What sorts of things do you want to do before you die? I don't mean own a classic car! I mean the big, real, important stuff?

A Day of Blogging for Sweet Baby Cohen!

Yucky Home improvement Projects!

Ok I have to admit I love home improvement projects! It is in my blood! We are really trying hard to get our house done before Christmas and so we have been working very diligently towards that goal. We recently discovered that we have beautiful hardwood floors under our carpets so we yanked them out and have been trying to re stain the floors darker than what they are. The first room we started in is the nursery. Let me just give you a little summary of what we have been through.

First I sanded them. Then John and I put on a coat of stain with a paint brush. It was probably 2 o'clock in the morning when we got finished and then I heard it thundering. I was worried that it would rain in the open windows and so I tried to "tip-toe" around the corners of the room and close the windows. This didn't work. So then until 3:30 in the morning I tried to fix my foot prints. It looked terrible. But before we could re-do it they had to dry. This took seriously a week to dry in this humidity. Then I re-sanded the floors. Then I got pregnant and John decided he could handle staining the floors. I bought this nifty floor staining mop that DID NOT WORK! It left the floors streaky and I was ready hire someone to finish them!

After the miscarriage I decided I would try to put on a second coat by hand to even things out. This actually seemed to work. Again it takes 3-4 days to dry! Then I put a third coat of stain and I am very pleased with the results! They finally dried last night and tonight I put the first coat of polyurethane tonight! So hopefully they will dry over the next day (fingers crossed!) and then we can put the final coat on them in time for them to dry before my in-laws stay with us this weekend! If not they are going to have to stay in a RV in our drive way! How very Griswald Family Christmas of us I know!

Here is what the nursery looks like tonight! Granted now I will have to re-paint because John got a little wild and crazy when I left him alone with the stain! And also note that we will have to put up new baseboards when we are finished!

Notice the Footprint on the wall!

They aren't as dark as they look in the first picture!

We have also pulled up the carpet in our bedroom.

So now here is where we are sleeping... in the office.... with the xbox.... and the desk.... and the couch..... and all of the furniture from our bedroom!

And Here is where our shoes are.... in the living room by the front door since we are stain the closets too!

Our house is a crazy crazy place to be! But boy will it be pretty when it is done!!!!

This weekend while my in-laws are visiting I plan to finish some projects outside!