The Official Start of my IVF Cycle

Ahhhh the time has come, it's the OFFICIAL start of my upcoming IVF cycle. What starts the cycle, you ask? Birth control pills!! Hahaha, so funny, right? Did you know that a typical IVF cycle is 6 weeks?! Gosh that feels like such a long time haha, I kind of just want to fast forward ahead to February! LOL. No, it's all worth it of course :D So I started my pack of birth control pills tonight and have received my official calendar.

The course of events is as follows:
12/27 -- Start birth control pills
1/1 -- Call insurance to activate IVF coverage
1/2 -- Mock transfer
1/12 -- Start Lupron (1st injectible medicine)
1/16 -- Last active birth control pill
1/19 -- Baseline blood work and ultrasound
1/23 -- Start the injectible medicine to stimulate my ovaries to grow follices (Follistim)
1/26 -- Blood work to check estradiol levels
Week of 1/26 -- more blood work & ultrasounds
Week of 2/2 -- more blood work & ultrasounds; then when my follicles are the appropriate size we will stimulate ovulation (ovidrel) then have the egg retrieval!
5-7 days after egg retrieval is the embryo transfer -- the plan is to transfer 2 embryos
Then we WAIT! AHHHH!!!

I'm really excited but I'm also super nervous as well. We've never had many great embryos in the past so this makes me nervous, all it takes is one though (Hello, Mr Hank <3)!! So hoping for more embryos this time, would even be nice to have some to freeze. IVF is a very emotional process, so I'm not really looking forward to that. And last time I didn't have a toddler running around keeping me busy too so I'm sure I'm going to be extra tired. I always make sure to schedule the earliest appointments so I can get back to work so I don't have to use any time. So that means leaving my house around 6 am (yuck!). So that'll be hectic with daycare and what not too. Normally I take Hank to daycare at 8 am, but Casey will have to take him before he goes to work on days that I have monitoring up in Buffalo, so he'll have to go at probably 7:15 am to give Casey time to get to work. So I think we'll all be tired for that couple of weeks there! Keeping the end goal in sight will definitely help us all! I am so excited to hopefully give Hank a little brother or sister!! :D Keep us in your thoughts & prayers please over the next 2 months, we will really appreciate it!!

32 Week Update

Okay, so holy crap I haven’t written a new post in 5 weeks! I tell myself almost every day that I need to write a new post and by the time I get home, I’m either doing stuff around the house or I’m too tired to think! Haha! So a lot has gone on in the last 5 weeks!

We had our baby shower on March 3 where we had 70 attendees and received more gifts than I could ever imagine! It was so amazing andwonderful! We got all the big items we registered for, lots of other items I needed, and tons and tons of clothes!! He’s gonna be one stylish little dude! We also announced his name at the shower. Casey presented me with the first gift which was a onesie that said Henry (_____) Astry. Since we were undecided onthe middle name, we decided to pass out little ballots where people could vote for Alan, Scott, Floyd, or a write-in for the middle name. Alan won, so his name will be Henry Alan Astry. Alan is Casey’s middle name :) We actually call him Hank, so I hope having a nickname won’t be too confusing, I grew up with a nickname my whole life, so I’m not too worried about it! I made top secret favors out of “Oh Henry” bars, they were too cute! So that was the shower excitement!! 

On March 9 we had a 3D ultrasound, where little Hank wasn’t very cooperative! Haha! I should have known because he’s been such a stubborn little boy, I think he takes after his Momma. Anyways, he had his hands on his face almost the whole scan, I think he’s definitely going to be very interested in his hands when he comes out as well, better stock up on those scratch mitten things! He is head down and facing my back, so we tried getting him to turn a little, but he wasn’t really having it! He was hiding! We did get to see his face a little though which was really cool, he’s such a cute boy! I can’t wait to meet him! He also constantly pushes his foot out to my side and we got to see him doing that on the scan which was really awesome, definitely confirmed what I was feeling! The tech also measured him and he weighed about 3.5 lbs and is measuring in the 60^th percentile! 

I’ve been having a lot of pelvic pressure; it even caused me to stay home from work for most of a day. He’s just really low which causes it, thankfully the doctors checked and we have no dilation yet. I realized I need to put my feet up more and relax; I also got a belly support thing which has been helping! 

I picked up the rest of our cloth diaper stash and started prepping the diapers, seeing all the diapers in his dresser ready to go makes me so excited. I’ve also washed all of his clothes and they’re put away ready for him to come. I’ve slowly been working more on his room too. Casey and I made a Babies R Us run and picked up the crib mattress and some other things, it’s getting there!! 

Other than all this excitement, Hank seems to be doing really well, but I think the poor little guy is really starting to run out of room in there. He tries to stretch out a lot and I don’t think he can stretchas much as he wants. His legs digging into my side can get pretty painful sometimes, so imagine he is quite cramped up! His movements have changed from less kicks to more stretches like yoga, I still feel him a lot during the day though, which I love. He gets hiccups multiple times a day, which is cute but then I start to feel really bad for him because sometimes they’ll last 10-15 minutes at a time! Must be he’s got good, strong lungs! :)

 

Tonight is our maternity photo shoot which I am really looking forward to! I can’t wait to see all of her creative ideas! So I’ll make sure to share the photos once I see them! This is something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time! Each pregnancy milestone we hit has been so amazing; it really makes things more and more real!

Anatomy Scan

I'm 19 weeks pregnant today and had my anatomy scan yesterday! Casey couldn't make it, so my Mom went with me. Everything looks perfect!! The tech checked that my cervix is closed and looks good, she doesn't suspect I'll go through pre-term labor, so that's great. Then she checked everything on the baby, his heart, stomach, bladder, kidneys, umbilical cord, everything! I even got to see the blood pumping through his heart, it was amazing! I just love technology and what it can do. He weighs about 9 oz and is measuring right on track! She said that he was very cooperative for the scan so they were able to get all the needed measurements, so I probably will not have to go back for a follow-up scan. He has all his fingers and toes, and we got to see his femur bone too! I wish I could have a scan like that all the time! I love seeing all of his anatomy and knowing that everything is good! I even had her check that he's still a boy, and of course, he is! :-) Below are a couple of the pictures I got and my most recent bump picture. Oh I forgot to mention that I got a whole CD of pictures that were taken throughout the scan too!  

Gender Scan

We had our gender scan tonight but aren't finding out the gender until Monday at our gender reveal party. But here are some pictures from the scan :)

NT Scan

I had my NT scan today & it went wonderfully. I was really nervous going into scan as it was same scan we learned of no HB last time, but was definitely relieved to see a growing baby! Baby measured exactly 12w5d and had a heartbeat of 165 bpm. Baby was jumping & moving all over the place, it was so cute! We even got to see the baby in 3D/4D! Amazing seeing those features, makes this that much more real! We even saw the 2 sides of the brain!! Anyways here are the pictures :)

9w4d Ultrasound!!

I had my official dating ultrasound with Southtown's Radiology this past Tuesday & it was amazing!! Baby Astry was measuring right on what we should be measuring at 9w4d. Baby was moving all around, it was amazing! The tech told me that I have a very active baby & everything looked great! The HB was in the 170s and she even played the sound of the heart beating away for me, it was so wonderful! I'm now 10w1d. Everything has been going great. I am so exhausted and feel best when I get 9-10 hours of sleep each night! Granted I do get up "a million times" each night caused my insomnia and my freakishly small bladder haha! I have this amazing boppy pregnancy pillow that I highly recommend!! I'm so glad I spent the money on it! Casey even wants one! Haha. I've been quite nauseous in the mornings, but I'm good once I eat :) Sometimes I get it during the day if I get too hungry! I was surprised the 1st time I nauseous as I didn't have it last time, definitely a good sign for this pregnancy. Oh and I've been craving sweets like crazy, which is very unlike me normally!! I've started drinking fruit/veggie smoothies to get fruits/veggies in during the day, they're actually really good!! And that's my update! See some pictures below :)