Specks of Life

So much has happened since my last post, it's hard to believe that it's only been about a week!  We saw the doctor again on Tuesday the 12th where we were told that I had plenty of mature follicles.  Due to the size of my ovaries and the number of follices the doctor decided to have my estrogen level checked, which came back higher than what they would like.  These were all red flags that I could have some form of OHSS (Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome).  In some extreme cases of OHSS hospitalization can be required so they wanted to watch me closely over the next little while.  They sent us home and instructed us to do our HCG trigger shot that night promptly at 8pm, which I was deathly afraid of because it's done in the back.  This shot would stimulate the follicles for ovulation.  Luckily we have a great friend who was more than willing to come over and do the shot for us! They also gave us instructions to help reduce symptoms of OHSS: lots of rest, drink tons of Gatorade for the electrolytes, and weigh myself each morning as I should not gain more than 2 lbs from day to day, watch for difficulty breathing and blood clots.  Seriously??  They also let us know that we would be coming back to the clinic on Thursday for the egg retrieval.  So exciting!

Fast forward to Thursday, I was scared and nervous for this appointment, even though I had heard that the retrieval was a fairly easy procedure.  I was put under anesthesia for the process, and I was nervous because Jeff would not be allowed in the room since it's considered an operation.  Once I came out of recovery, we were shocked to learn that they were able to retrieve 27 eggs, when we were told that the average number is 6 - another indication of OHSS.  I do regret not being more prepared for what would come post-procedure, and not researching it more beforehand.  While the operation itself was not painful at all, it was the aftermath that I was not prepared for.  I wasn't warned about how bloated you would feel for about a week after the procedure.  It can be pretty painful.  I looked pregnant even though I wasn't (someone's idea of a cruel joke). I felt like I was on a roller coaster, one day I would feel on the ups, and the next I was weak and nauseous and couldn't get out of bed.  Some of the symptoms I was having were completely normal, while some could be contributed to the mild case of OHSS that I had.  Needless to say, I have spent most of the last week laying in bed trying to get my strength back.  I have really missed being able to go out in the warm weather with my kids this past week, being able to help them with homework, and just being able to do things to keep up around the house.  I know it is temporary and will hopefully pass soon, and thankfully I have a wonderful husband who has been so great to step up and do all of these things for me.

When we left the retrieval appointment we were told that we would get a call on Saturday from the embryologist to let us know how many of the eggs fertilized and how they were looking.  We couldn't wait to get this phone call!  We were so pleased to hear that of the 27 eggs they retrieved 21 were mature and all 21 had been fertilized.  For a couple having such a hard time conceiving, this seemed amazing to us!  From that point, the embryologist let us know that we were scheduled to have our transfer done on the following Tuesday.

Which brings us to today.  We were so excited and scared going into our appointment today.  For one, we still weren't positive they would do the transfer because of the OHSS.  And if the transfer didn't happen today, they would freeze as many of the embryos as they could, and we would have to start over again in a couple of months using the frozen embryos.  Sitting in the chair waiting for the doctor to come in took forever!  When he finally came into our room he explained to us that they had 13 embryos that had fertilized and divided beautifully to the blastocyst stage.  There were also 6 possible embryos that may get to that stage overnight, which we can end up freezing if we choose along with the other embryos that we would not use right now.  They gave us a picture of the 2 embryos that looked the best and asked us how many we had decided to transfer.  Before we could do the transfer though, the doctor did an ultrasound which showed that my ovaries are still pretty large, which is normal, and that there is some fluid in the ovaries, which contributes to the bloating, also normal.  The doctor informed us that if we proceed with the transfer and do become pregnant, there is a small chance that the OHSS symptoms can become worse...I believe his words were "It will be the worst 3 weeks of your life."  Very comforting.  But the chances of success are slightly greater when you are dealing with a fresh embryo as opposed to a frozen one.  So after discussing the pros and cons with Jeff, we decided to go ahead with the transfer, and we did transfer the 2 best looking embryos.  I remember lying in the chair watching the embryos being put into the catheter up on the screen and thinking "Oh my God, these are my babies. They are living, and they are ours."  It was an amazing experience to see something so new to creation, so vulnerable, so fragile, and at that moment I could not help but feel an instant attachment to these little specks of life that they were passing into my body.  I was speechless.

And now we play the waiting game.  I am on bed rest for at least 2-3 days, and then we go back on Easter to take our pregnancy test and see if this will have all been worth it.  We can't help but be hopeful and optimistic.

Love is a Battlefield

For some reason, this song keeps popping into my head lately, and I think it is a very fitting title to everything going on in our lives right now, and especially our road to IVF.  

Since my last post, we have had 2 more doctor visits.  The first was a week ago to make sure that the first round of shots were doing their job.  The doctor said everything looked great, and I had plenty of tiny follicles, which translates to plenty of eggs!  After that visit I had to up my shots to 3 different ones a day, all intended to stimulate my follicles to grow so that when they do my egg retrieval they can get as many eggs as possible.  It's been a tough week, emotionally and physically.  Giving myself 1 shot a day was one thing, but now 3???  Some days aren't too bad, but then there are those days where I just want to cry because they do hurt...and I do cry! Luckily for me, I have a friend of mine going through this same thing at the same time, and I have been able to bombard her with all of my questions.  She assured me that it's totally normal to feel emotional, she said it was like "PMS x 10,000"!  She also had me look at things a little differently: in a normal cycle, a woman gets ready to release 1 egg.  Going through IVF you are getting your body ready to release 10X that, or more!  I feel better knowing that the emotions, pressure, and anxiety are all a normal thing and that I am not going through this alone.

We went back for another appointment today, where they did another ultrasound to see how things were going.  At this point, they like to see that the follicles are measuring between 15-18mm before they have us take the next step.  The doctor told us that usually they send women home to do about 2 more days of shots, before giving them an HCG shot, which triggers the eggs to be released.  While I had some follicles measuring at 16-19 mm, most were measuring around 13-15 mm.  The doctor seems to think that 1 more day of injections should do the trick and hopefully mature the smaller follicles just a bit more.  That way there is a higher chance of more eggs at retrieval time.  More eggs = higher success rate!  So we will go back in the morning to see what today's round of shots have done for my follicles.  At that point, 1 of 2 things will happen: 1. We will be sent home for 1 more day of injections, or 2. They will have me do an HCG injection at home which will trigger the eggs to be released.  From there, they would be doing the egg retrieval either the end of this week or beginning of next.  Eek!!

We have tried for so long to have a baby of our own, and now things seem to be happening in fast-forward.  Through the ups and downs of this process, I have had to keep reminding myself that love is a battlefield, and it's not always easy.  We have to fight, and fight hard for the things we want sometimes.  My stomach at this point looks like a battlefield; bruises, bleeding and needle marks.  But we are doing this for LOVE.  The love my husband and I have for each other, and the love we wish to pass on to a little one.  The love we have for our children now, and our love for family.  When it comes down to it, family is all we really have.  So at the end of the day, it all becomes clear and the reason we are going through this "battlefield" is worth all of it!  XOXO

Shots, shots, & more shots

Time seems to be flying by.  We are 1 week into my first round of shots, and can I just say "ouch!"  The day Jeff brought home my prescription I started freaking out and wondering how it in the hell I was going to be able to shoot myself with a needle in the stomach every day.  I questioned myself more than once and had to keep asking myself if this was going to be worth it.  Every time I asked myself that question, the answer was always unequivocally YES!  The shots have become easier to handle and easier to give, so that's a plus!  But my bathroom has started to look like a drug lab, and as the needles have started to pile up each day, Dylan finally noticed and asked: "Mom, what are all of these for?"  Up until now we have decided to leave the kids in the dark, so to speak.  We were not exactly sure how we wanted to tell them, and how much to tell them, but here it was, the question I knew was coming eventually.  How do you explain to your kids that mommy and daddy are trying to have a baby but we can't?  We haven't really even had the official sex talk yet, so I wasn't sure how much to tell them.  My explanation went something like this:  "Well Dylan, remember how I told you that Mom and Jeff really want to have our own baby ever since we lost our little girl a few years ago?  Well sometimes mommies and daddies have a hard time getting a baby on their own, and they have to go to a baby doctor.  The doctor gave mommy these shots, and hopefully this medicine is going to help mom to get pregnant."  I pretty much left it at that and it seemed to satisfy his curiosity.  But then he asked me why we want to have another baby.  I tried to explain to him that we have been sad inside since we lost our baby girl and that I feel like our family is not complete yet.  I told him that I still think we have another little baby waiting in Heaven to come and be a part of our family.  This seemed to suffice and he said he was ok with it, as long as he gets a little sister.......I hope we can deliver!

Girl or boy, twins or not, we are just praying for a healthy happy babe to join our crazy life.  

We have another doctor appointment coming up in a couple of days where they will do an ultrasound to make sure these shots have been doing their job, which is basically to overstimulate my body into producing as many eggs as possible, and hopefully none of the eggs have been released early, in which case we will have to push things out about a week or so.  We will also get the rest of my medication, more shots, and they will also be expecting our payment.  It's weird to think that in a way you are paying for a chance to have a baby, but that's pretty much what we are doing.  You can't put a price on family, and we are just elated to have this opportunity.  We are so thankful for everyone's support and prayers in our journey to Baby Dreams!

xoxo

Decisions, Decisions

Today was a day for decision making!  Jeff and I had an appointment with our fertility doctor today, nothing too exciting.  Just a physical for myself to make sure that my body is ready for IVF.  You know, the usual height, weight, blood pressure, temperature, that sort of thing.  The doctor also performed an ultrasound to look at my ovaries and count my eggs, which apparently I have a lot of, so that's good news.  They also did what's called a "trial transfer", basically inserting a catheter into my uterus (I did tell you this was an open blog, right?) to establish the length and the path they will take on the day of the actual embryo transfer.  A pretty easy appointment, though I was so glad Jeff was there with me to make me laugh and help me when I couldn't get out of my skinny jeans!  (We've all been there girls!)

The decision making came when it was time to go over some paperwork.  We had to sign basically saying that we know there are certain complications and risks involved with IVF.  We also had to decide what we wanted to do with the embryos that would not be used on the day of the transfer.  Did we want to donate them? Did we want to freeze them for a possible future transfer if this first one is unsuccessful or if we want more kids? (At which point Jeff decided the name of that baby would be Sub-Zero, stupid Mortal Kombat humor.)  Or did we want to discard of the remaining embryos, which didn't seem right to either of us.  We decided freezing them was the option for us.  Then came the interesting part- what to do with the embryos should one of us die?  What to do with them if one of us were to enter into a new relationship- oddly enough we were given the option to transfer our embryos into Jeff's new wife if that were ever the case - weird & hell to the no!  What did we want to do with our frozen embryos if we were unable to pay the storage fee?  Yes, there is a storage fee!  All of these weird scenarios kept cropping up that we weren't totally prepared for.  These are all questions we wouldn't even have to think about if we could get pregnant the "traditional" way.  We made the decisions that were best for us and that is all we can do.

The next step for us at this point is for me to start daily injections around February 17th, which I am absolutely dreading.  I hope I can do it!  Until then, we are just enjoying our time together filled with coffee beans & baby dreams!

Jumping In....

Where do you start when you aren't exactly sure what you want to say?  I'm brand new to this blogging thing, so please be patient and bare with me.  I am 32, mother of 2 beautiful boys: Zack who is 11, and Dylan who is almost 9.  I have the best husband a girl could ask for.  He is a hard worker, he is patient, he loves his family and he is passionate about life.  I am healthy, I get to be a stay at home mom, we have a beautiful home, what more could you want, right??  Well, for almost 4 years now, my husband and I have dreamed of having a child of our own together (my boys are from a previous marriage).  In October of 2010 we were ecstatic to find out we were pregnant and that it had happened so easily.  Things were going along perfectly until my 18 week check up.  The doctor could not find the baby's heart beat.  We were devastated to learn that our sweet angel had passed away.  No, this wasn't happening.  Things like this don't happen to people like us.  Wrong! After a D&E where they removed the baby, I felt completely empty.  Like someone had stolen a part of my family from me.  It is an indescribable feeling to anyone who has not gone through it.  I wish it on no one.  

After many tests on the fetus, there were no answers.  No reason as to why this had happened.  Why our baby was gone.  We did find out that I was carrying a little girl.  We took that information as a blessing that nothing would happen the next time we got pregnant, which our doctor assumed would "happen quickly, as they do after these kinds of losses".  So with some optimism and the memory of our baby girl in our hearts, we got on with life again.  We were still actively trying to get pregnant, and month after month of me getting my period was nothing short of disappointing.  

After about a year of trying on our own, we were ready for some assistance.  We have tried medications, we have had so many tests done, that I could not name them all.  We were referred to a fertility specialist who informed us that with all the information they had received from the test results, we would have a 1-3% chance of conceiving on our own.  What?  How does that happen when we got pregnant so quickly before.  At this point, we decided to try IUI (Intrauterine Insemination).  We did this for 3 rounds, and each time that it didn't work felt like we had lost our baby girl all over again.  

So here we are, faced with the ultimate decision.  IVF, or no IVF?  It's been a long road full of emotion, obstacles, up and downs, and to me, this is our cross-roads.  Is this the end of the world?  No.  We will still go on and be our happy family of 4, but I just can't ignore this feeling that we still have a baby waiting for us, waiting to be a part of our family.  This is it, we are jumping in.  We have decided to go ahead with the IVF process and I want to be able to keep this record of our journey.  I want to detail the things we will be going through, the good and the bad.  No matter how this turns out for us, this will be a real journal, open and honest.  If anyone is going through this process, or thinking of going through it, maybe, just maybe this will help.