Surprise!

So, it sure has been a whirlwind of a couple of weeks!!

Let me back track a little bit. Following the embryo transfer, my OHSS symptoms got stronger (as expected). My ovaries were VERY sore and I was quite bloated. Thankfully the symptoms were very mild!!

Saturday (February 14th), I got a wonderful message from my cycle buddy that was a pregnancy test with a very faint positive!! Of course they got darker each day, it sure was making me want to test, even though I said I wouldn't and I would wait for the beta (blood pregnancy test). On Monday, my ovaries started aching again. Dr. Griffin said OHSS symptoms would come back when the HCG hit my system again. So I took that as a VERY good sign that I was pregnant.

Well, Tuesday morning (February 17th) I was anxious all morning and decided to run to Rite Aid on my lunch break to pickup some pregnancy tests. I was still debating whether I would use them or not. Well of course as soon as I got home. I ripped open a test, read the instructions (haha) and peed and waited what felt like forever!! I saw that 2nd line come up and got so excited. So excited that I wrote on the test wrong. It should say 8dp5dt which means 8 days past 5 day transfer (I switched the p and the d haha). I immediately called Casey and was so glad he answered!! He was excited but couldn't believe I gave in and tested. I never tested with my previous two pregnancies, I always waited for beta. I was so sure I was pregnant though, so I had to do it! Haha! So of course I had to continue testing the following two days, it was so awesome watching it get darker each day. I can't even describe how much more gratification I got out of these tests than I did a beta number haha! And the reason I never tested before was because I've only ever gotten negatives on pregnancy tests, so I literally hated them!! Something came over me!! Haha!!

Anyways, beta was on Friday February 20th and came in at 248, which is great! It was higher than it was with Hank and a day earlier. I had follow up blood work on Tuesday February 24th and that came in at 1169, which is awesome! It should double every 48-72 hours so it more than did this. They scheduled my first ultrasound for Thursday February 26th.

On Wednesday February 25th I took my first bump picture. Because of the OHSS, my ovaries are very swollen which contributes a lot to my "bump" haha!

The first ultrasound showed exactly what we thought it would. One perfect look gestational sac! The doctor thinks he can kind of see a yolk sac in there too but it's a little too early to really see that. The gestational sac is the little black hole in the middle of the picture. Down in the bottom right and bottom left of the picture shows all the free standing fluid. My ovaries are filled with fluid as is the area surrounding my uterus. This is very normal for OHSS. This fluid will start going down over the coming weeks. There is no harm to the baby, just causes discomfort for me. I couldn't hide this bump if I wanted to from all this fluid haha!! 

So on Thursday night we decided we would send Hank to dinner at the hotel in his new big brother tee shirt so we could announce the pregnancy. I handed Hank to Mary to take off Hank's jacket (in hopes she would read his shirt), of course she sat him right down haha!! Casey and I just kept staring at each other wondering when she would notice!! Finally after 10 minutes or so, we couldn't take it anymore. Casey leans over to his Dad and says, "Tell Mary to read Hank's shirt!" So Bob yelled over to Mary and she finally did and started crying and freaked out!! It was so much fun finally being able to do a fun announcement like this as most people didn't know we were doing IVF again. 

I sent the picture below to our close friends and family that weren't at the hotel to announce the pregnancy. Of course everyone was super excited, as are we!! 

Thank you everyone for all the thoughts and prayers during the process, we really appreciate them!! We would appreciate them to be continued over the next 8 months as well. Official due date is October 28, 2015 :)

PS -- This still is not Facebook Official so please no sharing on there! :D

Embryo Transfer

After much convincing from Dr. Griffin we transferred one embryo that's in quote "pristine condition." It's rated an AB, he explained what that means, but I can't re-explain it haha. Dr Griffin said they rarely rank them this high. It's even beginning to hatch, which is so cool. We have two more that are a little behind this, and 2 more a little behind those 2. I was super nervous about transferring 1, but all 3 RE's agreed it was the best thing to do for my body if we were transferring fresh, they still would've preferred freezing and transferring at a later date. I still had quite a bit going on in my ovaries and some fluid as well. So we'll see how I feel the next couple days. Lining looked good thankfully. 

I was so worried that we would transfer only 1 embryo & have none freeze & I'd feel like I didn't give 1 more a fighting chance. It was a battle I was having with myself since before we made the final decision until I talked to Dr. Griffin again...I am so happy to report that we have 3 snowbabies waiting for us for future use. Plus they have an approximate 98% thaw rate which is simply amazing. I feel so much better now that I know we have 3 frozen embryos, we're so blessed to have them. I can breathe a little bit of a sigh of relief now :D So now we wait...


My lucky tee :) Dr Griffin and the nurse got a kick out of it!

Our absolutely gorgeous embryo ❤️❤️

PUPO :D

Egg Retrieval and Update

So, egg retrieval was Wednesday morning. The weather called for 4-8 inches of snow, so we left nice & early. Thankfully we didn't get the snow they were calling for, so we got to the office early. I had to be there at 7:30 am. I got back to the IVF area and got my IV in (which went in wonderfully by the way!). They took be back for ER just after 8 am I believe. I don't remember much after the anesthesiologist turned on the drugs to put me under. The next thing I remember is IVF nurse Kathy telling me they got 21 eggs! Holy crap, 21 eggs. I couldn't even believe it. No wonder I've had such a full feeling! The most eggs I ever got was 11 eggs and that was with Hank's retrieval. When retrieval was over, Dr. Griffin talked to Casey to tell him what they got and that we would decide later whether we're going to shot for a fresh or a frozen transfer. The earliest we would transfer though would be day 5 which is Monday. I wore a t-shirt made by a friend to the ER. And the other picture is me after I was allowed to eat something haha!! Overall I was pretty achy yesterday which is normal after ER. I rested up a lot and took advantage of the pain meds :) 

So today I'm feeling much better. A little sore here & there, but not much bloating which is definitely nice!! Out of the 21 eggs retrieved, we had 13 fertilize and 9 are normal and growing good. The doctors think I should do a frozen transfer but are letting me be a part of the decision making process based on how I'm feeling. They're treating the embryos the same right now whether we transfer fresh or frozen. I'll hear from the doctors again tomorrow to see how I'm feeling and how the embryos are doing. The only problem they said is OHSS many times won't even kick in until a week after transfer. And that my lining might not be ideal right now because my E2 was so high. So I don't really know what we'll end up doing at this point. Either way, I'm feeling hopeful that we'll have embryos to freeze. At this point I still want to do a fresh transfer. I don't know, it's hard. I'm ready to just move forward. Apparently OHSS can get worse with pregnancy, but I might not even get it at all. My lining looked great on Monday at my last appointment, I'm unsure what it was yesterday or if they even measured yesterday. It's the what-if that's the hardest for me. I don't know what to expect at all. I got a BFP on both fresh cycles I've done and never had any make it to freeze, I think that doesn't help with how I'm feeling. I certainly wouldn't lie to them on how I'm feeling and I really want to take it day by day. I'm super anxious to hear from the doctor tomorrow and talk to them some more. I've heard many success stories of transferring fresh with this many eggs retrieved, so it gives me a lot of hope! :) So please continue thinking of us over the next few days and weeks to come :)

Night Before ER and Update

Woah, so it's been a crazy couple of days. So my last update was as of Saturday. On Sunday I had blood work and ultrasound. Below is the top 5 follicles on each side, growing nicely. On Sunday afternoon Dr Crickard called me to tell me that my E2 was very high at 5,800 and that we would most likely have to freeze the embryos and transfer at a later date. I was heartbroken. The reason is because I'm now at risk of OHSS (Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome) which can become very dangerous and apparently it can sometimes get worse after the embryos are transferred. OHSS doesn't happen until after ER so we'll see how I'm feeling in a couple days, the unexpected definitely makes me nervous. I might or I might not end up with OHSS, who knows how my body will respond to this as I didn't have this issue with Hank. I was told to stop the Follistim & LH and only do the Lupron shot that night, and to come back on Monday morning.

Of course, on Superbowl Sunday night (Woo Patriots!!!) it started snowing like crazy and they were calling for a foot of snow over night. So Casey made the call that he would be driving me up to Buffalo & Hank would be accompanying us. We hit the road for Buffalo at 5:30 am, it was AWFUL. The roads were absolute crap and of course there were tons of idiots on the road. We finally made it at 6:45 am. It normally takes us like 50-55 minutes to get up there, so it was definitely a slow drive. Thankfully my ultrasound showed that I was ready to trigger. Below is a picture of one of my ovaries, the other one looks very similar. As you can see, I have a lot going on. I got a call in the afternoon that my E2 levels have now risen over 7,000 (we were hoping they would go down a little with the decrease of the drugs) but unfortunately not. I did my Ovidrel trigger shot last night at 8 pm.

So egg retrieval is tomorrow morning. We have to be there at 7:30 am, for 8 am retrieval. I took my doxycycline (antibiotic) tonight, and cannot eat/drink after midnight. We're planning to leave right around 6 am because wouldn't you know, we're expecting another 4-8 inches of snow overnight tonight. We got so lucky with our trips up to Buffalo last week with the weather, of course it's hitting us now. Thankfully Casey is a lot more comfortable driving in the bad weather than I am.

I'm very anxious to say the least as I really don't know what to expect. Yes, I've been through ER two other times, but it's still very nerve-wracking and I really have no idea what to expect from my eggs. No idea how many we'll end up getting and how good they'll be, etc. I don't know when I'll know for sure if it's a frozen cycle or not. It makes me so nervous because I've never had any embryos make it to freeze. But they do always transfer the best embryos, so who knows, maybe Hank would have frozen if we didn't transfer him. I know the doctors will do what is in my best interest though, so we'll see what happens! I am praying we can do a fresh transfer this cycle, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Please think good thoughts and for lots of good quality eggs that turn into some awesome embryos!!

Egg Retrieval to Embryo Transfer

So Friday was the egg retrieval and we collected...drum roll please...11 eggs!! This is 4 more than last time, so definitely much better!! On Friday, I was very sore and rested all day. On Saturday morning just before 9 am, I got the phone call that 7 of the eggs fertilized, and 4 were normal and growing strong! Yayyy! Doctor was very pleased as we only had 1 viable embryo last time. Even with 1 embryo, it did turn into a pregnancy, so we're hoping this time is successful as well and the baby stays put for 9 months! On Monday morning, we transferred 2 top grade, beautiful embryos! One had 10 cells and the other had 8 cells! We still have 2 more embryos that are growing and hopefully will be able to freeze. We will know more about these ones and if they make it to freezing within the next few days. Yesterday after transfer, I rested all day! I'm back to work today and now we enter the dreaded wait where I'll analyze every little thing over the next couple weeks to see if this works! So we're keeping our fingers crossed that this works for us! Please be thinking and praying for us. Below are pictures of our beautiful embryos!

 Here is the 10-cell embryo

Here is the 8-cell embryo

IVF Cycle & Longest 2 Week Wait Ever!!

So I figured I should write a new blog post since I haven't written one in a long time! A lot has happened since I last wrote a post. Since I said from the beginning that this blog was for me and my future children, there may be some things in here that people not going through infertility will not understand, and some things may be a little TMI.

But anyways, my IVF cycle officially started when we were in Las Vegas on January 26th. As I've mentioned before, an IVF cycle is extremely long!! On January 29, I started birth control pills (bcp) for 3 weeks. It is common to go on bcp's at the beginning of an IVF cycle to regulate your cycle and we also don't want any "left-over" follicles from the previous cycle hanging around. Two weeks into the bcp's on February 13, I was started on an injectable drug called Lupron which suppresses the pituitary gland, it basically tricks your body so it doesn't know where you are in your cycle so the doctors have total control over the process (i.e. no early ovulation, stuff like that). As you may or may not know, Lupron made me feel very sick at first. I even missed work the first day after taking the drug. Thankfully after a few days of what felt like "morning sickness," the side effects seemed to go away. Lupron is a medicine that is continued throughout the whole cycle up until the night before ovulation induction. I took my last bcp on Feb 17th, which brought on a period on February 20th. This doesn't necessarily constitute a new cycle as the doctors do not care about this period, it's more so an inconvenience on me, more like a "fake" period.

My baseline blood work and ultrasound was completed on February 21. I then started my FSH (Follistim) and what the doctors call a "magic diluted solution" (sol x) on February 24th. I was on a retreat for the Chautauqua Leadership Network (CLN) on February 24th, I went up to my room at 8 pm to give myself my now 3 injectable shots after being duct-taped to a wall Lol. I developed a very large bruise from these shots, thankfully that was the only time that happened. I posted a picture on February 24th on this blog if you want to see it, I won't lie, it's pretty gross!! Starting on February 26th, I started going up to Buffalo every other day for bloodwork and ultrasounds. On Monday March 5th, Casey and I made a daily drive to Buffalo until Thursday March 8th. It was our morning "date" haha.

Ovulation induction occurred via the injectable Ovidrel (hcg) on March 8th at 8 pm, which allows me to ovulate approximately 36 hours later. On March 9th I had to take the dreaded antibiotic Doxycycline which I absolutely hate! It always makes me feel so yucky! Worst antibiotic ever! It's take as a safety precaution though for the upcoming procedure. I was also required to use a medicated douche that night which surprisingly made me feel more violated than my practically daily transvaginal ultrasounds lol.

On March 10th, I needed to be in the doctors office at 7:15 for Egg Retrieval. After a bunch of questions and having the IV stuck in my arm, I was taken into the IVF room. I remember as soon as the anesthesiologist attached the sedation drug to my IV, I instantly felt the drug creep up my veins into my shoulder and that's the last thing I remember before being wheeled back out into the recovery area. At this point, they told me that they retrieved 7 eggs. We were hoping for 10-12 eggs, so this was definitely less than what we were hoping. After drinking a bottle of water & eating some crackers we headed out of there to head home! I was very sore all day Saturday, the cramps were much worse than period cramps and I felt a sense of mental "emptiness" it was a weird feeling that I wasn't quite expecting.

On March 11th about 9:30 I received a call from the Doctor for my fertilization report. He proceeded to tell me that out of the 7 eggs retrieved, only 3 fertilized but 2 of those were considered to be abnormal, so we only had 1 good embryo. I was really upset when we received this phone call. I couldn't believe that out of 7 eggs, only 1 turned into a healthy embryo. The 1 embryo came about from ICSI where they directly inject a sperm into the egg. The chances are higher of fertilization with this process, so it has become a commonly used fertilization procedure. I know all we need is 1 embryo and I am so thankful for it, but the original plan was to have 2 embryo's transferred and that we'd have others that would be frozen for possible future use. I am very thankful that that 1 embryo did make it though, so I think it'll be a super baby :-) Oh and I forgot to mention I started on Progesterone Sunday called Endometrin to thicken my uterine lining in hopes that the embryo will attach itself and stay on my uterine wall. This definitely isn't the "funnest" stuff as it's a suppository that I get to take 3 times a day haha.

Embryo transfer normally takes place 3-5 days after retrieval but when there is only 1 possible embryo for transfer they like to do the transfer ASAP because "my incubator" is better than their incubator. So now the plan was to be in Buffalo for transfer on Monday March 12th at 9:00. We just needed the cells in the embryo to divide overnight. If this didn't happen, I would receive a phone call on Monday morning that the transfer would not happen.

Wouldn't you know that my phone rang on Monday morning while I was in the shower, my stomach literally sank because I was under the impression that a phone call meant bad news. I frantically answered and Dr Sullivan said, come on up, you have "1 beautiful 4 celled embryo ready for transfer" :-) So Casey & I headed up there for a 9 am appointment. I was given a prescription for Valium to take 30 minutes before the transfer. The Embryo Transfer occurred and I had to lay on the exam table about 30 minutes after transfer. This is when I started to feel "goofy" from the Valium, it not only put me to sleep but it made me feel so silly, kind of like I was tipsy, I think Casey got a kick out of this. So Monday consisted of another day of rest for me.

So now, all we have to do is wait...I think this will be the longest 2 week wait of my life. After 2 weeks, I will get a blood pregnancy test. If it's positive, I'll have a followup blood test as well as an ultrasound. If it's negative, the I will stop the progesterone and a new period/cycle will begin and we will take it from there. I have a lot of hope and think there's a reason that only 1 of the embryo's survived and that it's meant to be our baby! So lots and lots of prayers and all extremities crossed! :-) <3

The Road to IVF

So we had our consultation with Dr. Sullivan on Thursday (1/12), it went really good but of course I always think of one million questions after I meet. Anyways, I found this really great website that explains the whole IVF process from me starting a new cycle to hopefully finding out that it worked. The article is called Understanding IVF Treatment Step by Step. It's helped me understand things a little better but I think I still need to make a phone call to talk to the IVF nurse to answer a few more questions.

Our percentage of IVF working is even greater than IUI, so I really hope it is successful...IVF is going to be the beginning of an end of an era for us, whether it works or not. I am of course still very hopeful that I'll be able to have my own children. One of the things we took from the meeting was that our percentage of having twins is now 50%!! This is super exciting for us. Within days of dating, Casey and I both talked about wanting twins. It's just something we've both always wanted. So maybe the reason we have to go through all of this is to get our twins...who knows. Of course we would be ecstatic to get one baby, but we'll be excited if we get two as well! Anyways, after all the scientific talk and what drugs I'll be taking and what not, Dr. S. talked about how well I've responded to the Follistim in the past (ie the reason we had to cancel the current cycle - I responded too well for IUI), so he thinks he'll be able to get 10 good oocytes out of me and about 70% will likely become embryo's. Dr. S. will transfer 2 embryo's into my uterus. This could leave 5 healthy embryo's leftover which will be frozen for possible future use. So if this IVF doesn't work or if we decide to have more children in the future, we don't have to go through all the hassle we've gone through this time. I would just have my body "tricked" again then when the time is right, embryo's would be transferred in. If we decide not to use them, we can have them destroyed, can give them to someone else we identify within the practice (huge hassle though as he pointed out, plus I don't know if I could let someone else have "our children"), or they can be donated to research which would be ideal for us if we don't use them.

Once I start my new cycle, I'll get started on birth control and then Lupron to trick my pituitary gland. Essentially, the doctor will have total control over my reproductive system. The meds he gives me tells my body what to do and when. Pretty crazy how we can take control over our bodies! Then I'll be back on Follistim and a new drug for me called Ganirelix. Then once Dr says it's time, I'll take the Ovidrel shot and have the egg retrieval done 36 hours later!! I'll get an IV of "Michael Jackson's favorite drug" Propofol (don't worry, it's a very safe form of an anesthetic when given safely and as prescribed) to put me to "sleep" while they retrieve the eggs. I'll then add another drug in there after retrieval (can't remember the name of that one right now)...this is a lot to remember!! Lol. Then, 3 days after egg retrieval, he will transfer 2 embryo's into my uterus. So after the embryo's are transferred, I will start the daily Progesterone (brand name endometrin) and have the dreaded two week wait to see if it worked. So stay tuned, this is a fairly long process. So that's what IVF is in a nutshell, the link above probably does a better job at explaining it than I have, but that's where we're at...

To end, in 7 days and 10 hours, we will be on that big bird to Las Vegas!! :-)