Pregnant

This morning I went in for my first of three blood tests.  I was so nervous all the way to the doctor's office and all the way home.  The phlebometamist said that my blood needed time to clot and she would have results around 9:45.  This was at 9.  When I went in for my transfer the doctor said I would have results in less than two hours.  When two hours came and went, I called the office.  No one answered, so I left a message for the on call staff.  Thirty minutes later, no one had called back.  The message when I originally called said to expect a return call in under 15 minutes. I decided to call back in, because I may not have left my original message on the correct answering system.  About 15 minutes later, we got a phone call from the nurse. I put her on speaker phone for the hubby to hear.  She asked me how I was doing, I thought she was being pretty chipper if she was going to deliver any bad news. Anyway, she said, "I just got off the phone with the lab and your HCG level was a 9.6"  There was a pause as I processed the fact anything over a 5 meant pregnancy and I said, "I'm pregnant?!"  She said, "Yes, you are pregnant, congratulations!"  She did say my levels were on the low end, so she was going to call the doctor and consult with him.  A few minutes later my doctor called back and increased my progesterone from one shot a day to two shots a day.  I go back on Tuesday for a second blood draw.  We are praying that the HCG number has at least doubled or more.  I also go back on Thursday morning.

Here are some fun facts...

A few weeks ago my mom had a prediction that she would find out I was pregnant the same day she found out my sister was accepted into medical school. Guess what, my sister found out late last night and we announced this afternoon!

The due date will probably be November 5, 2011.

I am guessing we are pregnant with one wonderful baby, but we find out for sure in a couple weeks!

I think this is a HUGE testament to the power of prayer.  Thanks again for all of your love, support, and prayers. Please keep praying for my numbers to rise and a healthy pregnancy.

The hubby and I are ecstatic.  I think this is the second happiest day of my life (the first was marrying my dear husband)!

In the 2 Week Wait Update

So, I am feeling a little more optimistic.  There are a few reasons, so I will go through them chronologically backward.

Through this whole journey I have had this really terrible thought process that maybe my inability to become pregnant was somehow God's way of punishing me for my actions when I was younger.  Today at church the sermon was about love.  The part that jumped out at me was when the pastor talked about our God not being a God of retribution.  If our God was a God of retribution, we would all be, well in pretty bad shape if here at all!  Instead we have a God of love.  A God who has made us in His image and forgives us, because he is a loving God.  I am so thankful we went to church this morning, because this was the message I needed to hear.  Not to mention, our pastors are so kind.  As soon as we walked in both pastors came right up!  One of them pointed at us (like we were just the people he wanted to see) and walked over, sat down, and asked how IVF was going. Despite the fact he had tons of people to talk to, he sat and checked in with us right until church started.  He really seems to understand what infertility and trying to conceive is like.  It makes me wonder if he has had first hand experience, because he is so compassionate.  Just in case you are wondering, we had two pastors today, the one who gave the sermon was our intern pastor from Wisconsin and the one who sat with us for a while is our normal pastor.  Anyway, it was so nice to hear messages of love. 

On that note, I cannot even begin to tell all of you how much your love and support have helped the past few days especially.  I appreciate your prayers, love, friendship, and sisterhood more than I can even imagine.  Whether it's remembering us with flowers, a note on your Facebook comments, a comment on our blog, a call, or text, it has been exponentially helpful.  I am so blessed to have you in my lives.

I have been having some abdominal cramps which I think is a good sign.  I have had a series of other comical symptoms, but I chalk them all up to my daily shots of progesterone and estrogen patches.  Just for fun-sake here is what I'm experiencing: I am SO hungry,  I am wanting to eat some different foods than normal like fried chicken, I am nearly to a point where I want to sleep with a bra on, I have gagged twice- once over the smell of a dry erase marker being used on a white board and later when my piece of pizza had a tiny piece of Italian sausage that had a faint flavor of anise. They truly are a result of the drugs I am on.  They want your body to think and act like it's pregnant hoping the embryos have implanted.  The result is symptoms that are very difficult to sort out from what's pregnancy and what's drugs.  It's all sort of comical though.

Another piece of information that I found helpful was that embryos don't typically do well after day 6 outside of the uterus.  They much prefer to be toasting like buns in an oven in a natural environment.  I felt much better learning and understanding this.  The doctor said the fact the others didn't make it to freeze had no impact on the success of the ones that were transferred.

I am more at peace, more hopeful, and am thinking positive thoughts at this point. The wait is really seeming crazy long at this point, fortunately I have a busy next couple of weeks at work to keep me rather distracted!

Thanks again for all of your love and support.

Remaining Embryo Update

Today was our day to call and see how many of our remaining embryos were frozen.  We had 7 contending and were excited because that could mean if this cycle doesn't work, I would easily be able to go through a much more simple process to try again or if it did work and we wanted more kids in the future, go through a frozen embryo transfer.  In my mind I had thought, investment wise, if this cycle didn't work, we would keep going until the frozen embryos had been used and that would be it.  That's where I would end this crazy journey. 
Well, the doctor let me know today that none of the embryos made it to be frozen.  I am crushed.  I have prayed and prayed and prayed some more that the two embryos inside of me make themselves comfortable and are carried to a full term pregnancy.  I feel like I have pleaded with God.  I'm not even sure if I can explain to most people how deeply rooted this desire to have children is and how if it doesn't happen, it's probably going to be some of the biggest grief I have ever dealt with. 
This whole process has been such a roller coaster anyway.  From monthly negative pregnancy tests to bad test results to my tubes being blocked and then finally figuring out the finances involved, I have shed so many tears.  Yet, I feel like in the end God has always taken care of us.  Something has always worked out.  So, I'm just trusting right now that this is all in God's hands.  There is nothing more we can do, but wait and pray.  I was worried about what might possibly happen with the other embryos if they had to be frozen for a long amount of time and now I don't have that worry.  I just have one big impending thought of whether I'm pregnant or not.  I'm not even sure if I can vocalize all of this. I was barely able to tell the dear husband and didn't make much of any eye contact when we ate lunch together.  I just knew if I did, I'd lost it and spend the lunch hour crying.  So forgive me for not telling anyone this in person or even over the phone with my voice, I'm just not able to right now.
Please, please keep praying for the two that are in my uterus to implant and be a successful pregnancy.

Transfer Day Update

Today was the transfer! Yay! We drove over toward the doctor's office early so we could stop for breakfast to celebrate the husband's birthday.  After breakfast we got to our appointment about an hour early, but that was just fine, they were ready for us.  I dressed in my cap and gown and the hubby got to wear a cute blue pantsuit.  We talked to the nurse, talked to the doctor, signed our release to have two embryos transferred, and talked to the embryologist.  The embryologist gave us a picture of our embryos to be transferred! Out of the embryos we had yesterday we used the one that was at 8 cells yesterday and one of the ones that had been at 4 cells had almost caught up! Next we were wheeled back to the room they did my retrieval and would do the transfer.  There are two sets of doors and they are never open at the same time to try and keep as much of a sterile environment as possible.  Once we were all in the hallway we shut one door and opened the next.  We put on our little face masks anytime the embryos were out or the lab glass window was open.  At this point the doctor did an ultrasound to see if my bladder was full enough, it wasn't, so we waited.  He did another ultrasound and my bladder still wasn't full enough, so we waited some more.  Finally, I was ready to go.  The transfer itself is super easy.  They use a catheter filled with about 2cc of liquid and push the embryos in.  What was not fun was the catheter to drain my bladder. Ick. That pain quickly passed and I just layed there for an hour resting before being "discharged".  I've been laying down all day since and am just sending prayers and positive thoughts for these little embryos to implant!

Update - Night Before Transfer

This morning I had an ultrasound and labs.  My labs today included a urinalysis. I hate peeing in public bathrooms, especially when I know I need to give a urine sample.  I had to leave the lab and come back! At my ultrasound the doctor said I should definitely be able to pee because my bladder was full, I think it was just nerves. Anyway, there was some fluid in my abdomen and my ovaries were a little larger, but all in all I am okay.  I was glad that I didn't have OHSS or had hyper stimmed. I think there is still a small risk, but for now we are doing good. I am still keeping up on my fluids and drinking EmergenC.  I talked to the doctor and we are confident in our decision to put two oocytes in tomorrow.  Hopefully one or both of them implant! The embryologist said that this morning there was one 8 cell blastocyst, two 6 cell, and six two to four cell.  The ones that haven't grown as much have the rest of the week to grow, so that's okay.

Tomorrow is the hubby's birthday too! Should be an exciting day.  I am giddy thinking about tomorrow being such a big day!

Day 15

This morning the doctor called to give us a fertilization report.  We had opted to use ICSI which is Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection.  This process injects a single sperm into the oocyte in order to increase the chances of fertilization. Out of the 20 eggs, the doctor performed ICSI on 18 of them.  The benefit of keeping two off to the side is to see if they would have fertilized on their own, in our case they did not.  Out of the 18 that did fertilize, 9 are developing and growing normally so far.  This is a good number.  A lot of women only start with 10 eggs and go down from there, so to have 9 in the running is excellent.  In a strange way knowing that they fertilized only with ICSI is reaffirming too.  Moving on to IVF was the best move for us, because IUI (where they just inject the sperm into the uterus to mimic normal conception and is much less invasive) would not have been successful for us.  Between my tubes and needing to use ICSI, I am very confident we made an appropriate decision.  I won't get a report tomorrow, but the doctor does want to touch base with me to monitor for Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome or OHSS.  In fact, I need to go weight myself as part of the monitoring.  I am feeling okay today, sleepy and sore, but doing okay.  I'm so relieved to know we have 9 little embryos in the making.

Day 14- Retrieval

We got up at 5 this morning to be to the doctor's office by 6.  The sleeping pill wasn't at all what I expected.  It took me a bit to fall asleep and the only difference I noticed was not remembering my dreams.  I woke up to my alarm clock just fine.  The hubby gave me valium this morning.  I kept my eyes closed all the way there I think.  When we arrived they took me down to my pre-op room. It was decorated very comfortably, like a guest bedroom.  They rubbed some numbing medicine on my hand before giving me my IV. I was glad, because it still pinched a tiny bit.  Can't imagine if they hadn't! I just took off the cotton ball and have a bump and bruise.  They hooked up the monitors and the doctor slowly gave me some anti-nausea medicine, some drugs for conscious sedation, and something else I think.  He injected them really slow so they wouldn't burn.  Other than a few seconds of mild burn, it was not bad at all.  After prepping me, they had the hubby give me a good bye kiss.  They wheeled me to the operating room.  I didn't think I could feel the sedation, until it was time to roll to the other bed.  My body just didn't want to move.  Of course I was able to cooperate and got up on the table fine.  They put my legs in holsters and had me scoot to the edge of the table.  From that point it felt like an annual exam.  I could feel the speculum, them prepping the area by cleaning it, etc. 
Retrieval from my right ovary went smoothly.  I don't remember any pinching.  My left ovary was trickier.  They did not have to go through the bladder like they thought, but it was still a lot of pinching sort of pain.  To put this in perspective, there is a long needle attached to a vaginal ultrasound probe.  Since they have to be so careful, I have to lay very still.  I was thankful during some of the painful ultrasounds he had worked with me to take deep breaths.  Anytime I felt pain, I just breathed in deep, held it, and exhaled slow.  At one point I was breathing lots of deep breaths, but it got me through.  I tried so hard to lay still, but it was difficult.  I grabbed the edges of the bed to stabilize myself and that helped.  I also did not go ever go all the way under.  Afterword they told the hubby it might have just been how nervous I was that I stayed so conscious.  I don't remember feeling nervous, was just so curious about the procedure and what they were doing with my potential babies!
After the procedure the doctor said it was the most difficult retrieval he had done.  This is just because of where my left ovary is located.  It tucks in between my other organs and is very lateral.  Out of the 20 eggs they retrieved, only 7 were from the left.  They sent me with a prescription for pain medication.  This is because they thought I'd be sore from working so hard to get to the left ovary.  Overall things went really well.  My 20 eggs is a great outcome.  Out of those, I expect around 15 to fertilize.  Tomorrow we get a phone call to let us know.  Hopefully, we will have some to transfer and some to freeze. 
I am feeling a little nauseated and pretty groggy. I slept when we got home.  I finally had a little to eat about an hour ago.  I am feeling okay, but to be very honest I am nervous to pee.  The catheter still pinched, even with some sedation and numbing medicine.  It was not as bad as the one I had in the emergency room, but it still really hurts.  The nurses and doctor were so kind though.  They kept tell me I did a good job and were telling me how well I did. I had the easy part, they had the difficult one!  One of the nurses stood beside me the whole time just to comfort me, which was so nice to just feel like someone was monitoring me in ways a machine can't.  They figured out quickly that I wiggle my toes when I am in pain, ha ha.
The hubby has been taking good care of me. He made us breakfast burritos for lunch.  I told him to make something soft because chewing would be way too tiring.  I also drank some EmergenC.  A random thing I learned that all of you could use, is to get in electrolytes a lot of people think Gatorade.  To put it bluntly the nurse said Gatorade is crap.  She instead suggested V8 or EmergenC.  I will admit the EmergenC is not the best drink I've ever had.  It takes like diluted vitamins, but it does the trick. 
Oh and the funny moment, to me anyway, is that when they were finishing up I felt a very cold sensation down under.  I asked the doctor what he was doing and they said it was the speculum, that he was just doing a final check.  I said, "Oh, okay, I was worried you were putting an ice cube in." We all laughed.
Well, I am pretty tired, so I am signing off.  Since I know part of the medications were to leave me with little memory of the process, I wanted to write while I could still remember as much as possible.
Thanks for all your prayers and support. Hopefully, tomorrow I will update with how many have fertilized and how the hubby did giving me my progesterone shot.  Have a nice day.