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Hope everyone had a great weekend! I know I did! Had my annual girls weekend with some of my college, sorority sisters in Northern California. We all used to live together and since moving out 12 years ago we have maintained this "special weekend a year" tradition. The 9 of us lock ourselves in a cabin in the mountains and just hang out. There is usually a good amount of drinking (this was my first sober year), board games, self reflection and reminiscing about the past year. This weekend is incredibly special to me and I am so glad my cycle allowed me to still go this year. I was terrified I would receive bad news at my beta last week and just be a hot mess this weekend. So glad it didn't work out that way. Plus, I got to tell all my girls we were pregnant in person (they all live 7 hours away from me)!!!! How exciting is that! Of course, I would prefer to have waited to tell anyone till we were a bit father along but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to do it in person. They are keeping it quiet for me for now. The weekend turned out great and as usual... I can't wait for next year. :)
Had my first ultrasound today. It is obviously very early, 5 weeks and 2 days, so not much can be seen. We did see one sac. So one baby it is. Adel was a bit disappointed. He really had a feeling that both embryos had taken and we were having twins. He asked the doctor like three times what "happened to the other one"? Lol. Really? Poor guy. I told him "my uterus ate it". I think he just thought our quality of embryos this time was so great that it was done deal or something... I however, know the statistics don't work like that. Twins would have been great from an instant family perspective but I am over the moon for one baby. Another appointment next Monday where they will zoom in to try and see the fetal pole. Hopefully this little guy keeps hanging out in there.
Lastly, it is with a heavy heart that I ask for some support for a fellow infertile. My friend Laura is losing her baby after a successful FET (frozen embryo transfer following a failed IVF cycle). Last week the baby had a heart beat, was on track and looked great. Yesterday when she went in at 7 weeks and 5 days the baby had no heartbeat. She is scheduled for a D&C tomorrow. She had her pre-op today and took a last look at her baby. My heart is absolutely broken for her. No one should have to go through the pain and suffering that we in this community do. Laura doesn't have a blog of her own but she does read mine... please send some support and prayers her way.
I am so sorry this has happened Laura. I am thinking of you and your hubby in this difficult and unfair time. I wish there was something I could do to ease your pain. *Big hugs to you*
Had my 2nd beta today.
For reference this is 12DP6DT (18DPO). The number was 770. Beta #1 was 335 so the second beta doubled nicely!
The numbers indicate 1 growing baby. Which I am ecstatic about. Twins make me nervous.
Very thankful for my doubling beta. Hope it keeps going up and up!
Had my first beta today. For reference, today marks 10DP6DT (16DPO).
The number was 335!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am very, very excited.
I hope so much my body decides to hang onto this one. Please.
Pregnancy test is coming out positive.
Been getting a positive since 5DP6DT. Eeeeep!
Excited but nervous.
Looking forward to my beta tomorrow.
To the other BFPs out there... so very very exciting. Stay healthy and positive during this special time. Can't wait to see your updates as things progress! CONGRATS!
For my friends with recent negatives... I am so sorry. I know your hurt/pain and wouldn't wish it on anyone. Big hugs to you and your families while you process the emotions and begin to heal. Thinking of each of you.
Still here... waiting. Lol
The 2ww is such a mindf**k. So many emotions.
Sorry I have been so quiet. Have been trying to stay off the computer, google, etc to keep my mind from going crazy. Sorry for my recent lack of comments on your blogs, I really feel so bad. Just trying to stay positive and in the zone.
Been reading a lot (books). Like 500-650 pages a day. No joke. Lol. Well, at least it keeps my brain busy.
Beta is on Tuesday the 21st. Still praying this third times a charm.
Miss you and I will be back soon.
We had our transfer today and it went amazing.
Your positive thoughts and prayers worked!
We arrived at Dr. Cold's office (actually it was on yet a different floor of the building his office is in. This one is connected to the lab) about 15 minutes early for our 11:45am appointment time. We were called back by the embryologist shortly after who stated she had good news for us! Yay!
Out of the 7 embryos biopsied for PGD yesterday, 3 were chromosomally normal. OMG. This. was. huge. I was expecting 1 really. Again... my previous cycles have gone like this... 11 retrieved, 6 biopsied, 1 normal... 20 retrieved, 17 biopsied, 3 normal. So yay!! 3 normal, great news thus far.
We then moved on the discuss the qualities of the normal embabies. They were really good quality. One was graded an AA and two were graded BA. We have never seen our embryos graded better then a BB. SO this was very exciting. Also, all 3 embabies had already completely hatched out of their zona shell already. These guys were all ready to go!!!
Due to the good quality we decided to transfer two embryos. We were able to freeze the third one (again, we have never had any to freeze before).
An unintentional side effect of PGD is learning gender information... so we knew we had a boy (grade AA) and two girls (grades BA). We put in the boy and one girl. Eeeeeep! We shall see what happens.
Transfer was normal. "Get undressed from the waist down, feet in the stirrups, this flash on the screen are your babies going in, etc". Neither of my clinics have handed out valium. Man that would have been nice. Haha. I also have never had to deal with the full bladder thing that many fellow bloggers complain about. Very lucky there. After the embryos were placed, I had to lay there for a half an hour before getting dressed/leaving. Hanging out with hubby in the dark transfer room with my babies, finally where they should be, was nice. We talked a bit during this time but mostly just hung out quietly, taking it all in. Regardless of what happens, I love him... and our life.
Currently lounging it up on bed rest. This office has a pretty strict bed rest policy. 3 days strict bed rest, only up to use the restroom and then 4 additional days of house arrest. Lol. That is nuts... but I have no reason not to follow it. I have a bunch of movies and books ready to entertain me. It is also nice this happened on a Saturday so hubby gets to hang out with me for two of the days. :)
Today I am feeling encouraged. I know my emotions will be on high alert the next couple weeks and I may not always feel sunny. But today, was a good day.
Oh and... yes, I definitely brought the fertility tiki with me today. Haha. Hey, we need all the help we can get!
I leave you with pics of our little ones! Girl is on the left, boy is on the right.
Thank you all for being here.
Ahhh.. Last Sunday. Egg retrieval and my 10th annual Super Bowl party... cause those two events totally go together right?
Wanted to get this written down for documentation purposes.
Egg retrieval was bright and early Sunday morning. Actually it wasn't bright. It was still dark since I had to be there at 5:30am. Really? 5:30am? OMG. PLUS I decided it would be best to get fully ready for the day beforehand, since I was unsure I would be feeling afterwards. SO I showered, blew dry hair, curled hair and did my full makeup. Haha. They must have thought I was nuts showing up to retrieval at 5:30am all done up like that.
The retrieval was done in a surgery center on the first floor of the building my RE is also located in. With my last two cycles the retriveal process was a bit more casual... I would only undress from the waist down, hop up on the bed, get strapped in and go to sleep... but since this retrieval is done in a surgery center I had to fully undress, put on a gown/grippy socks/hair net and be wheeled in the surgery room on a hospital bed when it was time. Very serious.
The procesdure it self went well... I think. I was outty. Seriously, I don't even remember going to sleep. That stuff is amazing. I am a huge fan.
Woke up crampy and sore but the awesome nursing staff was right there with some drugs to help with that! Dr. Cold tried some nonchalant walk-by method where he threw out "hey we got 17 eggs, call you tomorrow" and kept walking by. Bastard. Lol. I stopped him and wanted more information. Truth is... I am just not that comfortable talking to him (with his infinite coldness) but I had a question for him. This question was definitely a "down the road, what if" question BUT... considering I knew this would be our last face-to-face time before transfer, I wanted to take adantange of asking it then. So I begin... "Dr. Cold, I know we have some time before discussing embryos but I really want get a plan in place for PGD. If we get to day 5 and there are only 2 embryos, I would prefer to just transfer them and not do PGD. Is there a minimum number you prefer to see before biopsying for PGD?" His response "Those are what if scenarios I am not willing to discuss at this point. Yeah, I am not going to talk about those situations now. Take care and I will call tomorrow with a fert report" *Walks off* Uhmmm... really? I started bawling. I don't know... maybe I am just unstable. But I was really upset. Really? You can't just answer my question? I get that there are a million things that could go wrong before we discuss a day 5 scenario. I also know that it is a moot point if we have more than 2 still alive and kicking at day 5. I was just wanted to discuss my wishes and get a common practice answer from him. Meh. He's a douche. But again... I knew this going into this cycle.
Dr. Cold walks away and I start crying up a storm. Lol. I am usually not a crier after surgery so I am definitely blaming it all on Dr. Cold and our interaction. They bring hubby back and I tell him about our insensitive bastard of a doctor. The nurse comes over to console me and lets me know that most of the surgical staff feel the same way as I do. She personally has worked with him for like 15 years and she has always found him to be cold, clinical and an egomaniac. Apparently though, the rumor is... he becomes semi normal after a few cocktails. Soooooo liquor is the ticket apparently.
The rest of my surgery center experience was amazing. The staff was absolutely great. I had to sit/lay around there for longer then usual since I was given an IV of Hespan (to help avoid OHSS) after the procedure. Once finished with the IV I got dressed and we headed home. READY TO PARTY FOR THE SUPERBOWL. Lol.
Took a few hour nap to wear off my fentanyl/versed/dilaudid haze. Woke up around 1pm knowing people would start arriving at 2:30pm. We were only having about 7 people over so it wasn't a big party but it happened to be his mom, his sister, 2 brothers, etc. So people that the house needed to be cleaned for, food needed to be good and most of all... these are people that really would know if something was wrong with me (since they know me pretty well). None of them know about our infertility struggles. I knew it was going to be an interesting challenge hosting a party that day... but really what were the odds our retrieval would land on that day? Lol. Retrievals are always moving targets. We were sure it would land on a different day. Anyway, back to the party.
I had prepped everything accordingly the night before (Saturday). All the food was basically ready to go. Short of throwing it into the oven when it was time. I had also fully decorated the house in football gear. It looked so cute. :)
The party went really good I thought. Had to pop a vicodin at a couple different points in the day as I just seemed to be getting more and more sore as the hours wore on. Towards the end of the third quarter of the game I was ready to lay on the couch and have everyone go home. Haha. From that point on... the end of the game couldn't come fast enough. When it did, everyone hugged, said goodbye and I immediately went to bed. I had been cleaning up as the party was going on for the most part but I did leave up the decorations and various cups and whatnot out. I was just not into feeling up to being the cleaning crew at that point. That waited till Monday (maybe even some was left till Tuesday, lol).
All and all... egg retrieval and Super Bowl were both successes. Crazy they had to be done on the same day but this is just another example of how infertility has truly taken over my life. No days are sacred.
*PGD post is still coming (it will give me something to do while on bed rest)*
Transfer is tomorrow at 12:00pm (day 6). 7 embabies are still alive and have been biopsied for PGD. We will get the results of this testing right before the transfer. Please, please, please let there be some normal ones.
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| Egg Retrieval |
Got the update on my growing babies!!! So exciting.
As you may remember, we had retrieved 17. 11 of those 17 fertilized (with ICSI) and out of those 11... all 11 are still dividing/growing/kicking/hanging in there. One is not looking too good but 11 nonetheless. From what I understand, they are looking for embryos to be 6 cells or more on day 3.
Here are our embabies stats:
1 - 3 cell, grade B (this is the one not looking too good)
1 - 6 cell, grade A
1 - 7 cell, grade A
2 - 8 cells, grade A
5 - 9 cells, grade A
1 - 10 cell, grade A
Looking good so far. We won't get another update till Friday (Day 5) when they do the biopsy for PGD. This is always the scary part for me. We historically haven't produced many chromosomally normal embryos. IVF cycle #1 we had 11 eggs retrieved and only 1 was chromosomally normal. IVF cycle #2 we had 20 eggs retrieved and 3 were chromosomally normal. Scary to know our numbers take such a hit with PGD (well, it's not PGD's fault). I will post more about PGD and our experiences with it over the next couple days since I know some of my blogger friends were interested in knowing more about it. Stay tuned.
Still feeling really yucky. Really yucky. This is the worst I have felt after a retrieval. By far. I am basically still in bed. Lol. My whole torso hurts. Like even behind my breast bone. Not just in pain in my abdomen, it runs all the way up my torso. Just trying to take it easy and focus on feeling better before my transfer on Saturday. So glad I have a few more days till then.
Hopefully I will be able to be more talkative tomorrow... I really want to go into more detail about retrieval (for those new to IVF'ers out there) and talk about PGD. Just not feeling up to it yet.
Out of the 17 eggs retrieved yesterday all were mature and ICSI'd. 11 fertilized. There is also another one on the fence but 11 for sure.
I won't hear anything more till Wednesday. Transfer is scheduled currently for Saturday (we do a day 5 PGD biopsy and transfer on day 6).
I am currently trying to heal. Really sore and uncomfortable. Been in bed all day. :(
Back at home and wanted to give a quick update.
We got 17 eggs! There are being ICSI'd today and we will find out the fertilization results sometime tomorrow.
A bit sore but still pretty drugged from the IV (man those drugs are amazing).
Heading upstairs for a napper before I need to get ready for the super bowl party I am hosting.
Thank you all for the prayers and well wishes!!!
I always look at the day before retrieval as the calm before the storm.
It is usually just a quiet day, hanging around the house since usually one is pretty uncomfortable at this point (this time is no different). There are no shots to take and I have done all that is physically possible for their cycle. This is the calm.
But a storm is brewing on the horizon. A storm of pain, nerves and waiting over the next few weeks.
Tomorrow my body will be violated and ravaged by an aspirator. Again. The drugs will be amazing as always I am sure... but once I awake... I will be left with empty follicles and a sore abdomen. The soreness will last for days with probably Tuesday-ish being the worst of the pain (this has been my experience). Tomorrow also begins the waiting... waiting to see how many fertilized, how many make it to day 3 & day 5, how many will be normal once PGD has been completed and how many will make it to transfer (I am not even expecting any to freeze since I haven't in either of my first two cycles) and waiting to see if it worked. Lots of waiting and lots of nerves cause things could go wrong at any of these points. I won't even go into the storm of emotions that is on the horizon. Either extreme happiness or more sadness coming over the next few weeks. As I said... a storms a brewing.
Anyway, back to getting things ready for my super bowl party tomorrow.
Have to be at the surgery center at 5:30am for retrieval. OMG. 5:30am. That is nuts.
Wanted to wish a GOOD LUCK to two blog friends that also have their retrievals tomorrow morning. Sometimes and Millionbabysteps, I will be thinking about you and hoping all goes well tomorrow. Crossing my fingers for both of you.
Well not for a few more hours. But we are very close my friends.
Is it a problem that as I was typing "It's Trigger Time" for the title... all I could think about was the Je.rsey Sho.re saying "It's T-Shirt Time". Lol. Really? Omg, if you don't currently subscribe to this lowest form of reality tv... don't start. It's pretty bad. But alas, I love it.
Appointment went fine today. Still 19 follicles but seriously like 6 of them are ginormous (i.e. 29mm x 27mm). Way too big in my opinion. The doctor in me (self taught, lol) says that if there are actually eggs in those, they are going to be over mature for sure but I am not going to stress over such things I cannot control. The size of my follicles and amount of eggs I am currently eggulating is just one of those things.
E2 came back at 4445 (after 11 days of stims).
No Follistim or Luveris tonight... officially done with those for this cycle. Still taking my Lupron and Lovenox (blood thinners for MTHFR) tonight. Trigger is happening at 7:30pm (7500iu). Also starting Cabergoline tonight (to help keep any OHSS at bay).
Eeeeep. I am getting nervous.
I'm still hoping... 3rd times a charm.
Still here... eggulating.
Day 11 of stims.
After 10 days of stims today my E2 was at 3328. We saw 19 measureable follicles today... some of the left side finally decided to get involved. Very exciting. A few of them are huge... like literally... one was 26mm x 21mm... that one obviously is going to be over-mature for the retrieval but overall I am pleased with how the numbers are lining up.
I go back in for monitoring tomorrow and trigger tomorrow night. Definite Super Bowl Sunday retrieval.
Eggs are growing nicely. :)
Today marks day 10 of stims.
I currently have 13 measurable follicles. Most are in the 16mm-18mm range but a couple are in the 20mm range. There are also a bunch of smaller ones that I hope catch up a bit. This time last cycle I had 19 measurable follicles (and ended up with 20 eggs at retrieval) so hoping a bit more make it to the party.
My E2 came in at 2657 after 9 days of stims. This is up from 1014 on Monday.
My Follistim dosage is being adjusted slightly from 250iu to 225iu. Luveris and Lupron remains the same.
All in all I still feel pretty good... not that uncomfortable yet. Bloated for sure but not overly full in there yet. My headaches have gotten better which is nice. No crazy emotions yet either, still in a pretty good place mentally... I chalk that up to my amazing beach outings over the weekend. My belly is a bruised roadmap of needle love but outside of that... no complaints. We shall see what tomorrow brings.
Another monitoring appointment tomorrow and still planning for retrieval on Sunday.
Grow Eggies Grow!
