Thing 1 Thing 2

Tuesday was our embryo transfer and everything went very smooth. By that morning we were told we had 1 super star embryo, 2 good ones and 1 that was fair. Josh and I had a very very hard time deciding if we should put one or two embryos in. It's something that we've talked about for a while now but we just weren't really lead one way or another. Josh and I were literally in the room for the transfer...minutes away from the transfer and still hadn't made a decision. I was very impressed with Dr. G's patience, he didn't rush us at all. He answered some questions we had and then our ultimate decision was based on fresh is best. Frozen embryos may be healthy prior to the freeze but there is no 100% grantee on the quality when they are thawed. And because we are dealing with male factor infertility, we are very limited on our embryos.

So we chose to put in two beautiful embryos. For those of you who are curious of their "grade" and are apart of the IVF world, one embryo was 5AA and our other was 4BB. 5AA was already hatching and 4BB was a mature blast. We are affectionately calling them "Thing 1 Thing 2".

We are all doing very well and just taking it easy. Yesterday I received a gorgeous bouquet of summer flowers from my sister, her hubby and daughter. It totally melted my heart. They're sitting on my coffee table so I can look at them all day long :) Josh's mom came over and cooked us dinner and brought me more flowers! It was nice not having to worry about dinner. My friend Nish sent me a gift card to buy a movie and a really interesting magazine and today a couple of friends (Amanda and Kim) had an Edible Bouquet of fruit delieved! I was SOOO happy to see that most of the fruit was covered in coconut...drool. Tomorrow night Josh's grandparents are making us dinner...my favorite BBQ meatballs. Josh and I have felt so loved and cared for. Thank you all for the texts, well wishes, prayers, cards, dinners (still eating on The Giltner's enchiladas!) and just love. We are so thankful for our family and friends!!!!

This morning our embryologist called and told me that two embryos made it to freeze. She is so optimistic and kept telling me how great that was. I smiled and agreed with  her but when I hung up I felt really sad. I'd like to clarify that I am over the moon happy that we have two extra embryos! I keep thanking God that I have two in me (and praying they stick around til Spring) and two waiting for us. But everyday since our retrieval we've had embryos not make it. I have felt emotional pregnant since last Friday when I heard that 10 were successfully fertilized. I know these little embyos are just clusters of cells and aren't actually babies yet. But those clusters of cells are a mixture of me and Josh. They could have been our children. But I remind myself that they just weren't strong enough, they weren't healthy enough.

So please believe with us that Thing 1 Thing 2 are strong healthy babies and that our other two on ice are the same. I have to continually control my thoughts and fears, this is such a roller coaster. We are not doing IVF again, this is it. These little guys need to hold on tight, our journey has not yet ended.

We are going to lay low for a little while and try to not think about everything. The next post you see from us will be the results of our pregnancy test (I should say tests because we all know I'm going to take a lot of them). We aren't sure if we will reveal the results right away or not. Though we are grateful to share this journey with those we love, we might take a few weeks to soak it all in. I'll leave you with a photo of how I go to sleep every night. My dear friend, Angela, sent me this prayer puppy. It has been prayed over by many people who are believing with us for our miracle babies. 

Seven

We have seven embryos that are still growing and dividing. A couple are right on track, some good and a couple that are fair. It's been such a roller coaster of emotions. I'm grateful that we have seven but I'm believing God that they all keep growing and stay healthy. On Friday morning we found out we had 10 then yesterday it was 9 now today it's 7. My heart feels so connected to these little guys, I don't want to lose anymore.

I'm done with infertility. I am ready for Tuesday 8:30 am to be here to have one or two of our embies to be in my ute safe and sound. The remaining embryos will be kept on ice until we are ready for more children down the road. But right now I'm having a hard time keeping my mind at rest and my heart at peace. I'm angry at infertility for what it has done to me and to so many of my dear friends. I'm tired of worrying and I know I need to let it all go and relax but it's much easier said than done.

Tomorrow when the embryologist calls for my daily report I want to hear her say "all seven embryos are looking awesome". That's all I want right now.

Hang tight sweet embies. You are loved so much already.

IVF Egg Retrieval

So 28 eggs!!! Dr. G called around 3:30 and told me that 18 were mature and all 18 were fertilized using the ICSI process. This morning the embryologist called and said we have 10 embryos that are cleaving and progressing. She said they're going to keep watching the other 8 but for sure right now we have 10 good looking embabies. She said we should be very pleased with this number since we are dealing with severe male factor infertility. Which we are very happy with the 10 and pray that they keeping growing and stay healthy. We're looking at a 5 day transfer which would be on Tuesday morning.

Yesterday was a little rough as far as recovery. I took some pain medication at the hospital and they just didn't settle well. We had to pull over three times on our way home from Olathe (which is about 75 minutes away from Topeka). It didn't help that it was a million degrees out. I never thew up which is a miracle, I seriously don't know how I held it in. I knew I'd hurt so bad if I got sick so maybe it was a little mind over matter. I felt nauseous until around 8 pm. I have decided that I'd rather deal with the pain than take pain killers and feel sick all day. Good ol regular Tylenol will have to do.

I am feeling better today. I am going to bum around and watch some movies (ok, I'm planning on watching all of the Twilight movies...don't judge). I'm still pretty crampy and sore but that is to be expected. Hopefully by tomorrow I'll be feeling like myself and get get out of the house. I think that's all for now, thank you soooo much for all of the love, support and prayers. Please keep our 10 embryos in your prayers too, we're hoping they all make it and we can freeze them (other than the ones we put in on Tuesday) for later use.

BLOAT

It's intense and I'm ready for this belly to have a baby in it.

{pssst..."Bella"/Linds. Like our new MCM find!?! 9 dresser drawer for $75 on craigslist! ::swoon:: It's going in the nursery and will also serve as a changing table.}

I know it'll take a few days for the bloat to go down after the egg retrival and I'm ready for it! Not being pregnant but looking pregnant is not exactly fun. I love when Josh rubs my belly and says "I can't wait for there to be a baby in there". Me too babe, me too. Speaking of Josh...he thinks he has IVF bloat too.

Tomorrow our babies will be made. Guess what boys and girls....tomorrow night there will be a FULL MOON!!!!!!!!!! :D Let the high tech baby makin begin!

Trigger Baby!!!!!!!!!

My appointment went awesome this morning. I have tons of beautiful follicles that should hold my beautiful and healthy eggs. My nurse didn't spend a lot of time inspecting my ovaries because I was in some discomfort. I'm *bloated* and I have a good reason :)

My estrogen today was 4,917!!!! This would explain a lot of symptoms that I'm having that many of you may not care to hear about ;) Other than that I'm doing very well. Josh and I both are happy that I haven't had any major mood swings or craziness. Go me.

Tonight I took my Lupron trigger shot at 9:45. This will tell my body to release my eggs after 35ish hours. So Dr. G is going to retrieve those precious eggs at 8:45 am this Thursday morning. Here is information on how the egg retrieval works in case you're curious. 

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I had to take a break because I was instructed to take 4 antibiotics after my Lurpon shot. Well I just threw up...a lot. I don't know if it's because I haven't eaten in a few hours or if that was just too many pills for my stomach. Regardless...throwing up with very swollen ovaries is no fun. Off to bed now.

IVF Stim Day 8 Ultrasound

My follicles are looking awesome!!! They grew so much just since my last appointment on Thursday morning. I'm so glad Josh was able to go with me to the appointment. I just have TWO more stim(ulation) shots and then Tuesday night I should take my trigger shot. I have one more monitoring appointment on Tuesday morning and I can't wait to see what my ovaries look like then. My estrogen levels game back pretty high again, 2157. So I'm reducing my Follistim to 150 iu for the last two injects. Again, I started at 200 iu then 175. I'm so thankful that I'm producing rock star follies and pray that there are lots of healthy eggs as a result.

IVF Stim Day 6 Follistim & Ganirelix

Here is the video that I linked in the blog post below. I have no clue why I can't load it to that particular post so I just made a new one.

Shots With Bran

So Josh is out of town and I didn't want to do my shots alone. After watching my video I'm laughing at the irony of my shirt. You'll see :) Recording this was very last minute but I'm glad I did. It really made me just breeze through the injects.

Please pardon my bloat. There is a good reason for that bloat though. Yesterday at my appointment my doctor said "wow you have monster follicles" lol. Yes that's right, after only 4 days of 200 iu Follistim I'm cooking up lots of eggs!!! Which is why last night I had to start the Ganirelix already. I'll talk more about that in the video. My estrogen blood work came back a little too high so we bumped me down to 175 iu Follistim. I guess my estrogen level was supposed to be around 400-600 and mine was 892. Yowza. Uterine lining is looking beautiful and should be nice and cozy for Baby E.

Please click the link below to watch the video. For some reason Blogger isn't letting me load the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VMKY3hTfkE&feature=g-upl

How am I feeling? Well I feel like a hen. I can feel my ovaries (Heaven forbid I sneeze) most of the day and again I'm really bloated. I'm not having any crazy side effects (yet) though which I'm happy about. I have been a little emotional, today I almost cried because I miss my sisters and wish we all lived closer together. I just really need my big sisters. I have an appointment on Sunday at 8:15 am and am hoping to see one of my sisters that morning since she lives in KC.

Things are moving right along and we're looking at an egg retrieval (ER) on Thursday the 19th. We'll know for sure after our Tuesday morning appointment. But I'll most likely do my trigger shot that night :) Until then I'm praying that the rest of my follies grow and the ones that are big stay put and keep being rock stars. I'm believing for 20ish eggs and around 12-15 to be fertilized.

I'm so excited and grateful that everything is going so well. With many bumps in the road over the past 22 months if feels awesome to have smooth sailing. We feel so at peace with all of this and that God's hand is over all of it.

Inject 1

I was fine allllll day long. Yes, it was the first thing I thought of when my eyes opened this morning. But I didn't feel nervous or scared. It probably helped that I received a heaping amount of lovely text messages cheering me on. Those texts really made my day and gave me more confidence. Today was a day that I needed that love and thoughtfulness, so thanks again!


Josh and I decided that 10:00 pm would be a good time to take my shots. I've been painting all night which served as a great distraction. However at 9:52 I realized it was time to take the Follistim (this will stimulate my ovaries to produce a bountiful amount of healthy eggs) out of the fridge (to get to room temp).

This is when I started to freak out a little. I'm pretty sure I said "we're doing IVF, we're doing IVF" a thousand times in my head. I was starting to sweat. I had no clue what to expect, I think I was just more nervous about the whole process...not just the shot. Josh and I headed upstairs to the bathroom and he assembled the Follipen that holds the Follistim. Then we were ready.

{this is my OMG is this going to hurt and YAY we're making babies face!}

It took me a few minutes to muster up enough courage to inject myself. Josh cheered me on and offered several times to do the shot for me. But I wanted to be a big girl and do it myself. I took a deep breath and jabbed my gut. And guess what...it was completely painless. I couldn't really feel it at all :) Afterwards Josh and I high fived, cheered, huged and kissed and he said "you're a champ, I'm so proud of you!" That was my favorite moment. We were all smiles and I said "we're making high tech babies!!!!!"

Josh left for work and I continued to paint. Then I could feel the inject sight, I'm assuming it was just the meds doing its thing. It didn't/doesn't hurt, just noticeable. So yeah, that was our exciting night of inject numero uno. We won't document all of them, we may document the last shot-the trigger shot. It's crazy to think that on 7/17 we'll find out when we'll do the egg retrieval. That's soooo soon and I'm beyond excited. Thoughts, prayers and good vibes are always appreciated! We're believing that my body responds perfectly to the medication and the side effects are minimal.

Cheers!

Baby E Cocktail

It arrived today!!!! Stim day 1 is this Sunday night :D I'm so thankful that I'm on a low dose of everything. This is nothing compared to what a lot of IVF women go through. This will be a walk in the park (but please don't remind me that I said that in about 8 days when I've had enough shots and bloated belly).

                    {sorry for the bad camera phone shot...I was kind of shaky}

We are so excited and giddy. Ok maybe I'm the only giddy one, that probably isn't the right word to describe Josh lol. Lots of fun things are happening in our house. We finally got our awesome numbers posted on our house and Josh and his dad are now remodeling/updating our half bathroom downstairs! This is something we've wanted to do for years but now that I really need that bathroom while on bed rest it's getting fixed. The toilet was broken but the whole bathroom needed updated. It's going to look awesome, I can't wait for the finished product. We're hoping to get it done this weekend. I'm going to paint tonight then Josh and Tim are going to do all the real work tomorrow.

I'll post before and after photos when we're finished. I'll also post photos of our house numbers.

Oh I almost forgot. In case anyone was curious, today's appointment went great. Nurse Jane called and said "you're blood work is perfect, right where we want to see it" ::huge smile:: My ovaries were nice and suppressed (well as suppressed as they can be for PCOS ovaries) and everything looked really good. It's been a really great day. I'm finally starting to feel better as far as my blood sugar goes and I have more energy. I'm still eating a ton of protein and high fiber which may be why I'm feeling better.

Ok, off to tear down some wallpaper...wish me luck.