Our New Blog

Everyone - for the time being you can find new posts at: http://blog.hopeforababy.org

All posts on the new site are guaranteed to be just as good as these ones were... and we're giving away even more prizes.

No workey.

For those of you who are unaware, we unfortunately caught the short end of the stick on our IVF cycle. No pregnancy and no babies - just a bunch of doctor visits, daily shots, and good ol' fashioned American cash down the tubes (no pun intended).


The truth is it's absolutely devastating. It's exhausting - physically and emotionally for both husband and wife. It consumes you - day in and day out - it's all you think about - both work schedules and intimate lives are governed by alarm clock reminders for shots and doctor visits. Money is no object - you shell it out daily like you own the US Mint, being a crack or meth addict would be far cheaper I'm sure.


I wish I could somehow describe it. Those of you who have been through it can understand. The good news is that we can temporarily take a break and lift our heads out of the drowning sea of infertility to briefly catch a breath of air. We'll likely begin our next IVF cycle in a few months, depending on how Kate's body recovers from the recent overload of medications and hormones.


Here's a quick rundown of how the whole thing played out: We started out with a 60%+ chance of getting pregnant (based on my sperm being awesome and Katie being a young skinny white girl). By the time the embryos were transferred we were looking at a 45% take home baby rate (due to the poor quality of the embryos). Wow. 45%. Seriously? That's not even good enough for an "F" in high school. I could flip a coin or blindly throw a dart at a wall full of balloons at the county fair and have better odds. I swear you should be able to buy a higher percentage than that - unfortunately, infertility is one thing that money cannot buy or fix. Anyway, we transferred two embryos then went on 4 days of bed rest and prayed for the best. Even though I looked at and talked to the embryos daily (through Kate's belly button) they didn't stick. And that's pretty much it.


Here are a couple of highlights from our first IVF cycle:


1. I got to draw awesome tatoos on Kate's behind a couple of times a week as a reminder of where to give her the shots.
2. Katie drew tattoos on my behind so we could match.
3. We got pictures of our embryos.
4. I fertilized 15 hamster eggs.
5. Kate got to take some Valium.
6. We got to eat at Cafe Rio after the bed rest.
7. I got to talk to our babies every day through Kate's belly button - apparently they weren't listening most of the time.
8. Katie was pregnant with twins for at least 15 minutes.
9. Kate got to experience hot flashes every night because of the meds - our house was like an igloo and she thought we were in the Sahara desert.
10. Our sharps container is nearly full.
11. We shared with the doctors a great view of Kate's uterus and other reproductive organs on a regular basis.


Thanks to all of our family and friends - we appreciate your prayers on our behalf. So, we'll keep our fingers crossed and hope for better results next time!

PS - If you comment and guess the exact answer to the poll on the right you will get an awesome prize. Jen Cheney - you are responsible to send the prize.

How would you like your eggs? Spermbled please.

Most of you are probably wondering where the heck we've been. Well, to be completely honest with you we've been mostly at the doctor. What would we be doing at the doctor you ask? We've been learning all about sperm, eggs, ovaries, follicles, tubes, and the reproductive system in general.

In fact, we have pretty much become experts on the subject. If any of you would like a free lesson on infertility feel free to come over to our house and I'll teach you all about it. In fact, I'll even fire up the grill, cook you up a steak, pour you a glass of lemonade, and we'll make an evening out of it.

You see, after trying to get pregnant for over 3 years we have started the process of invitro fertilization. For those of you who are wondering what the heck that means I'll briefly explain - you see, the doctors are going to take some eggs out of Kate, then they'll take my sperm (well, I'll give it to them), then they'll scramble the sperm and eggs in a lab (resulting in Spermbled Eggs*) then put the embryos inside of Kate and hope for the best.

A lot of you are probably thinking to yourselves "Wow. Isn't there something else they can do besides IVF**?" Well, over the past couple of years we've done all sorts of examinations, medications, inseminations***, shots, pokeys, prodees, testees (no pun intended), and everything else. So, here we are, riding the emotional roller coaster of IVF. We're excited and nervous - learning the true meaning of faith, hope and especially patience.

If all goes as planned, the embryos (or spermbled eggs) will be placed in Kate's uterus during the last week of August. Until then it's 3 shots a day for Kate and a few pills a day for me. I'll admit, it's not the most romantic way to make a baby, but at this point we've got no other choice.

Well, we know that we haven't really told anyone about this stuff, so a lot of you probably have questions for us. We also know that sometimes it seems awkward to ask questions for fear of becoming too personal. At this point nothing is too personal anymore, so if any of you have questions feel free to post them in the comments and we'll answer them. If you don't have questions and you want to comment on something else that's awesome, that's ok too (just make sure it's good - no stupid comments please). Or, if you just want to come over for some steak and a glass of lemonade, that's fine too.

Also, we will give you a prize if you answer the question on our poll correctly.****

*Spermbled Eggs is a completely fake term that I made up. If you actually thought it was a real term from the doctors then you really should take me up on that offer to come over and have a glass of lemonade and that free lesson on infertility.

**IVF stands for Invitro Fertilization for those of you who might not be very good at acronyms.

***Inseminations are awesome. For any of you guys out there who might be embarrassed about it I can tell you that after you do it a bunch of times it becomes second nature. I'm totally a pro at it - if you want details you're going to have to take me up on the offer for the steak and lemonade.

****We may or may not actually give you a prize, participate at your own risk.

The Best Summer Ever

After a nice long vacation from our blogging activities, we have decided to return and change our image for summer - one of our four favorite seasons.

So far this summer, we have made the most of our free time. We visited Moab with Brett and Whittney where we went on some awesome hikes, saw some really cool waterfalls, and ate some dang good food. Then we went to Logan Canyon with the Crockett parents. We hiked to the wind caves, had a few campfires, and ate dutch oven meals. Yesterday Justin and his band played at South Jordan's Country Fest and opened for Darryl Worley-who, in case you are wondering, is a great guy and he deserves your money. So go out and buy some of his compact discs - or download his music from itunes, or however the heck you purchase your music. It was a fun concert and we even got to see a fireworks show afterward. We have a ton of pictures and are going to post some for you to enjoy.

Also, here are a few things that we are going to do this summer. If you want to participate in any of the activities below you are welcome to do so...

1. Buy beach cruiser bicycles (with baskets on the front) and take them on picnics.
2. Buy peanuts at Wal-Mart and go to Salt Lake Bees games on Monday nights (admission: 3 bucks).
3. Hike Zion National Park.
4. Fix "Pearl Harbor" (our boat) and take it out on the lake every single weekend.
5. Go camping and/or hiking a bunch of times.

Finally, everyone is invited to attend the concerts this summer and hang out with Katie because she gets bored being the only girl that hangs out with the band. If you want to see when and where we will be playing you can check it out here: http://joshevertsen.com/events.php

Check the website often because it will get updated when new gigs are booked.

Volunteers Needed.

On Saturday, May 10 we are going to need a total of 21 volunteers. If you don’t volunteer we will pick you and you won’t have a choice (just like the prayers at church) so it’s in your best interest to volunteer. We will need a photographer, 2 bandagers, 10 water-bottle-hander-outers, 4 personal trainers, 2 massage therapists, and 2 people who can dump a big thing of Gatorade on us. Why all of the hoop-a-lah? Because we’re running the 5k Susan G. Komen “Race for the Cure.” That’s right, we’re racing for the cure. Not the English rock band “The Cure,” but the pink-bracelet-breast-cancer “The Cure.”

As some of you may already know, the 5k is the third longest race in the world (the first longest is the marathon, the second longest is the 10k)… so needless to say this is a big deal. However, we’ve already started training so you don’t need to worry.

Now, listen up you who are going to volunteer - here are your assignments:

Bandagers – you need to properly wrap us to prevent chaffing (refer to the ‘Fun Run’ episode of The Office).

Water-bottle-hander-outers – there are 10 of you, that’s 2 per k in the 5k… so do the math and figure out where you need to be to get us the water we will need. Also, you can fill some of the water bottles with coca-cola classic and we won’t get mad at you.

Personal Trainers – your job is to make sure we properly stretch our major muscle groups before the race… with that in mind, we’ll need you to show up a few hours early.

Massagers – self explanatory. We’re going to need massages after the race, so bring your portable massage tables and oils to the finish line.

Gatorade Dumpers – we need you to dump a big thing of Gatorade on us when we cross the finish line.

Photographer – we want pictures of everything, so whoever ends up volunteering for this better be experienced.

Finally, we have a race website… http://www.active.com/donate/komenslc2008/kslcJGOUGH so if you don’t volunteer to help us you are required to donate cold hard cash to the cure (via the website). Have a great week everyone, we’ll keep you posted as we continue our training and prepare for the race.

BAM! right in the face

Just when you all though we would never write in this blog again – SHAZAAAMMMM!!!! We knock you right in the face with another awesome entry. Now, let’s get down to business – first of all we would like to thank all of you for your heart-felt requests for us to update our blog. Since our last entry we’ve had 6,784,902 requests for a blog update (2 of those requests came from our dear friend Atom). For those of you who don’t know Atom you are missing out – Atom is president of the “Cool People Who Have Cool Cousins Club” (aka CPWHCCC).* Not only is he freaking awesome but he also won a sweet flat panel TV from a sweepstakes. Anyone who wins a sweepstakes automatically gets spotlighted on our blog.**

Ok now for our second item of business – a lot of you still owe us money. Several weeks ago we started charging people to read our blog and we only got payment from about half of you (you non-payers know who you are, so stop being wimps and pay up – everyone else is paying their fair share and so should you).

And now we will gracefully whop each and every one of you upside the head with this week’s mandatory blog-tivity:

Which one of these people did Katie have a crush on when she was in 2nd grade?

1. Neil Patrick Harris
2. Richard Dean Anderson
3. Dave Coulier
4. Jaleel White

We have a prize for anyone who gets the answer right (this is a medium-good prize).

For those of you who have been half-heartedly reading this entry and not really paying attention (in the same manner you read your scriptures when it’s late at night) now is the time to start paying attention. SUMMER IS STARTING AND WE ARE HAVING A SUMMERTIME-KICKOFF-ROCK-CONCERT-BBQ-SNOWCONE-OTTERPOP-SLIPNSLIDE PARTY TO KICK IT OFF. We will have a fire pit, marshmallow roasting, rotisserie pork, rock-n-roll music, and other cool stuff at the party. Everyone who is not a total dork will be there – so you better get ready. And you better pay attention because we might have it at your house.

Finally, we would like to comment on your comments. In our last blog entry, we thanked you for the comments you were about to leave (see the second-to-last sentence) – well, my peeps, 11 is not going to cut it. We demand more. So, with that in mind we are offering a special prize for everyone who leaves a comment if we get more than 20 comments. And the prizes are good – they’re not stupid waffle irons and other wedding junk like we’ve given out to past prize-winners. These prizes are dang awesome so you better get to commenting.***


* This club is fake – it doesn’t even exist. If it ever becomes a real club and you want to be a part of it then you have to ask Atom because he automatically gets to be President of it if he wants.

**You may or may not actually get spotlighted. If you win the Ed McMahon Publisher’s Clearinghouse sweepstakes you have a better chance of being spotlighted than if you win something dumb.

*** You’re probably only going to get one prize at a time, so don’t waste a bunch of time trying to win every single thing on our blog – you should focus on one prize and try your hardest until you win it. Then if you have time to try for another prize you can go ahead and try to get more than one prize.

Pesos and Vacations

For those of you who left comments on our last post and are still waiting for your five bucks, we have news for you. First of all, the processing time for your payment is 6 to 8 weeks - second, after returning from Mexico we have decided to pay each of you five pesos instead of five dollars. Because we realize most of you probably don't know what the heck you can do with five pesos, you can choose one of the options below:

1. You can team up with two other people (who also left comments and earned five pesos each) and you can split a double cheeseburger from McDonalds between the three of you.
2. If you don't like sharing, you can purchase approximately 8 Swedish Fish (and eat them up all by yourself).

Ok, here is this week's blog-tivity.

While we were on our cruise, we purchased a Breitling 'Bently Motors Special Edition' watch chuck full of bling that retails for approximately $6,500. Whoever leaves a comment and guesses the actual amount we spent on the watch (in pesos) will get a special prize.

If you didn't like that blog-tivity, you can choose to participate in this one:

When we went to Sea World, we purchased the following items:
1. a cab ride from the ship dock to Sea World (approximately 6 miles).
2. a Shamu souvenir cup full of watered down lemonade.
3. one bag of pink and blue cotton candy.
4. a small bottle of sunscreen.
5. a turkey sandwich, a mountain dew, and a gross pretzel from the Anheuser-Busch company for lunch.
6. one more cab ride back to the ship dock.

Whoever can guess the total cost of all of these items (in pesos) will win a prize.

We were going to bring you all back souvenirs from our cruise but we didn't.

It was a great trip-seven days of carefree (not cost-free) living. We flew to LA, boarded a ship, ate, walked, ate, slept, ate, spent money, ate, saw some animals, ate, went on a glass bottom boat tour, ate, got off the ship, drove, shopped, slept, and ate a little bit more. As you can tell, we are both in much need of a diet. Or two.

Now it's back to the grind-we've got to hurry to plan our next trip so we'll end this now. Thank you in advance for the wonderful comments you are about to leave.

See you later, Amigos!