Baby on Board!

This mornings transfer went so smoothly, I feel so good about our chances! After trying to sleep unsuccessfully through my excitement and nerves, I woke up to some funky dreams a little before my alarm.  To prevent any uterine contractions that could hinder our frostie sticking, I took my Naproxen at 8am with a weird assortment of food from the fridge. Two glasses of water, crackers, strawberries, yogurt and left over potatoes - I really didn't want to get sick >< Then I drank another liter of water between 9 and 9:30 to make sure my bladder was super full.

Around 10am we checked in at the ART center and paid our embryology bill - another $1150 to the embryologist for thawing and prepping our embryo. Since they hadn't had me come in the day before, we went across the hall and had my blood drawn for a progesterone and estrogen check too, just to make sure it was still at a decent level. Then, they whisked us off to our procedure room to gown up and get ready!

Gowned up!

Gowns on and bottoms off, they checked my bladder first to make sure it was full enough to press my uterus into the right position. Since I'd chugged all that water, believe me, it was full! I had to pee pretty bad and since Dr. D was in a consultation, he was running a bit behind and my bladder was getting fuller and fuller. We were hoping he'd come in quickly but when it looked like he was going to be even longer, the nurse let me go pee for exactly 5 seconds - no more than 5 one-thousands and then I was to stop.  That wasn't fun but I did it and honestly, was just super relieved that she let me go at all.

Finally, a few minutes later, Dr. D was ready! The nurse fired up the ultrasound machine to guide him and he got to the nitty gritty prep - mostly, setting up the speculum, aligning my cervix, and repeatedly washing it to remove any trace of the Endometrin. Uncomfortable, but no worse than a pap smear. Next, they threaded a catheter up through my cervix and into my uterus, using the ultrasound to guide it, and the call was made to the embryologist that we were ready for our embie!  This took a few more minutes - they had to load our embryo up into a pipette and have the 6th or so ID check to confirm the right frostie was making it into the right mama.

Embie baby right out of the freezer :) They've just been thawed out and 

 ended up expanding a ton over the next couple hours before we put them back!

This was really the incredible part. We got to see our little embryo, a tiny white spark in a drop of transfer medium, moving slowly up the catheter and safely into my uterus, which had a perfect trilaminar lining ready to welcome it. Dr. D said our embryo looked fantastic and he thinks our babe has a 90% chance of sticking :) It was a little emotional and my legs were a little trembly, there was so much positive energy and hope in the room. The really kind ultrasound nurse thought they might be getting tired for hanging out in that position for so long and asked E to come brace my knee with his shoulder while she got my other one. It was so sweet I didn't bother telling her it was just nerves.

The little arrow shows embie safely on board!

Once the embryo is safely inside, they back the catheter out and you're officially pregnant until proven otherwise. I thought I'd be able to get up and pee, since I was basically about to burst, but they asked me to lay in place for 15-20 min. Ouch.

At 10 minutes I started asking E for the time. I had been on the brink of an accident when they finished the transfer and now I really, really had to go.

At 15 minutes I insisted he go out there and find someone RIGHT NOW to let me go pee. NOW.

At 16, 17 and 18 minutes, I made him go out again because he still couldn't find someone to release me and I was literally about to pee on the table.

At 20 minutes, I was done. There was still no one there and I had to pee so bad I almost couldn't sit up without peeing myself. It was past the 15-20 minutes and I was going pee whether they liked it or not.

I got my ass up, still in my gown and booties and went to take myself to the bathroom. Of course, as soon as I get round the corner, here comes the nurse with a wheelchair to take me. She insisted I sit in it (do you really want me to pee on your chair??) and I made it just in time to pee, thank goodness.

After that, I got dressed and we were free to go! To help embie stick, we went straight from the clinic to acupuncture and then finally home where I've been ordered to stay in bed for 2 days and take it easy for 4. I'm so ready for this baby. The waiting is the hardest part, I don't know whether I should start peeing in sticks in a week or if I should wait for my beta on the first. Either way, I know this embie is going to stick, we already love them so much. 

So ready for our frostie baby

This time tomorrow, I will be Officially Pregnant (until proven otherwise). There will be an actual, live embryo getting cozy in my uterus, settling in for the next 40ish weeks. After almost three years of trying, I am so excited and so ready that I feel like I might burst.

My pre-transfer protocol began this morning with the last of my Z-Pack, my estrace, aspirin and vitamins. I ran the last of the errands I'm going to be allowed to run for the next 4 days and then had a wonderful, relaxing acupuncture session to increase the blood flow to my uterus. Although she forgot to tell me the day before, my acupuncturist S also recommends a massage the day before transfer to completely relax the muscles. This sounded wonderful of course, who doesn't love a massage, but they usually require a bit more advanced notice than 20 minutes to book.

So, after leaving acupuncture, I called my mother in law to see if she could get me in for a massage at her regular place. Most of the places near me require at least a days notice but her place is unusually  flexible. To my great delight, they were able to squeeze us both in at a moments notice and I spent a glorious hour getting rubbed and stroked by a deceptively strong little woman. I hadn't realized I was in need of a massage until she dug her elbows into my shoulders and pressed the small of my back. Holy Ow. After being waved out of the massage clinic, hair all over the place and a tiny Thai woman telling me something about my face (perhaps that I needed water?) we capped off the evening with some delicious Italian food.

The next step begins tomorrow at 8am when I take the first of two Naproxen, along with my usual estrace and aspirin. I skip the Endometrin until after the transfer, so I'll probably bring that to the appointment with me. I follow that up with breakfast and at least a liter of water between 9 and 9:30am to ensure that I have a super full bladder for the transfer. The fuller my bladder is, the more it presses my uterus into an optimal position. Finally, we check in at 10am for our 10:30 transfer and I get to bring our little embryo home.

Everything is lining up perfectly. E and I are so ready for this frostie to be our baby. This IS going to be our baby.

TWO BABIES To Be Thankful For!

We got our results a day early! We have TWO HEALTHY EMBRYOS! TWO!

We followed statistics for my mutation transmission almost exactly. We had a 50/50 shot of the embryos being healthy and we sent in 6 embryos. 3 of the 6 tested were mutation free, but unfortunately one of those 3 had a tiny chromosomal deletion. I asked if there was any way this frostie might still be viable but Dr. D said that with deletions like this, there are usually other segments or things missing as well. This makes me so grateful we decided to add on the PGS, without it we wouldn't have found out that this frostie is sick and would have had a heartbreaking miscarriage or worse, might have had to terminate for defects incompatible with life.

I'm so relieved, I feel like I'm going to cry and possibly be sick at the same time. We still have a long way to go, these babies need to stick! but we're so much closer to actually holding a healthy baby. After seeing so many of these cycles yield nothing to transfer, I'm so, so happy we have healthy babies to transfer.

We are all made of stars

Dr. D needs to confirm it, but it looks like one embryo came from our first batch and one from the second. They're both hatching blasts and although Dr. D told us the genders, we've decided to keep it a surprise. We'd really like at least one thing to be normal about our pregnancy process and since nothing else has been, this is going to be it.

After getting the good news, I asked Dr. D whether he thought we should proceed with our frozen transfer or whether he thought we needed to cycle again and try to get more embryos. They usually say (without PGS) that you need 2-3 embryos per child you'd like to have, and since E and I would love 2-3, but would be happy with any at this point, I knew with only 2/6 that we might need to cycle again. As I've said before, we don't know how quickly my fertility is going downhill but we definitely know it is going. I was ready to hear that we'd need to do this whole process again but Dr. D feels that with my age, if we need IVF again in the near future I should still be young enough to produce some good eggs. I'm not sure if I agree because FXPOI complicates things in ways not reflected by age but I'm going with it.

We have so much to be thankful for this year that I'm overwhelmed thinking about it all. I'm thankful for E and our friendship and marriage, going through this is incredibly difficult and I think it's amazing that we've been able to stay strong and united. I'm thankful for all our friends and family members, who have been incredibly supportive and have helped us stay sane thus far, especially through all the mind numbing waiting. I'm thankful for Dr. D and SCRC for helping us get these two embryos, who with any luck will both be coming home with us as two healthy babies. I'm thankful for IVF and especially for PGD, I'm so grateful that we live in a time where we have the tools and technology to create and screen embryos for so many horrible diseases. And I'm so, so thankful for the two healthy embryos, our two little fighters, who for the first time have given us a real shot at a healthy family.

With a whole lot of hope, wishing, crossed fingers, science and love, we will have a healthy baby in our arms this time next year.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope you have a wonderful holiday with all of your loved ones.

Getting Ready For My First Egg Retrieval!

According to this mornings blood draw, the HCG trigger was properly absorbed and I'm good to go for a Monday morning retrieval! I'm so excited/nervous/bloated/sore/tender that I don't know what to do with myself. Time seems to be crawling and flying by at the same time and I still can't button the jeans that were falling off my ass a week ago.

I never understood what people meant when they talked about sore ovaries and IVF bloating until now. I guess I never made enough eggs in my previous cycles for my ovaries to swell up like balloons but they're definitely there now. I'm not concerned about serious OHSS (Ovarian Hyper Stimulation Syndrome), it's definitely a mild case, but I look like I'm at least 6 months pregnant, it hurts to bend over and my lower back is tender too. I'm also peeing like crazy since I need to keep guzzling water to ward off OHSS. 

Mild OHSS usually comes with the following, per Mayo Clinic:

• Mild to moderate abdominal pain that may come and go - Check!
• Abdominal bloating or increased waist size - Check!
• Nausea - Check!
• Vomiting - No, thank goodness!
• Diarrhea - No, but I'd take it over the projected constipation O_O
• Tenderness in the area of your ovaries - Check!

Things don't get dicey until the pain and nausea/vomitting turn severe, you get dizzy and you start packing on 10lbs per day. While I probably look like I've gained 10lbs per day,  I'm definitely still in the normal-mild category. I'm ready to get these eggs out though so we can make some beautiful embryos!

Our trigger for this cycle was Novarel, which contains 10,000 units of HCG, way more than the 1,000 units in my last trigger, Ovidrel. Just think of the positive pregnancy tests I could get with this much HCG running through my system!

Stock photo since I used mine last night

I'm unclear as to why the manufacturer felt the need to include such a huge bottle of diluent. Even splitting it into multiple doses, I can't imagine any circumstance that would require 30mls of liquid. Since I was taking the whole dose, I used just 1cc of liquid with the powder and injected it into my belly at exactly 10:45pm.

Like the Menopur, this one is definitely a stinger. It burned going in and unlike my other injections, has had a lasting effect. My skin is red, hot, and tender even 18 hours later and I can't stand anything touching it.  Major ouchies.

I try to avoid posting photos of my bare flab, especially crazy bloated bare flab, in public places but I figured it was better to be honest about the reaction so other people know what to expect. The photo ended up washed out, but my reaction is red/purple, streaky, raised and hurts like a bitch. But again, it's unfortunately normal.

Since my retrieval is only hours away, I'm trying to get everything ready tonight. You're supposed to drink large quantities of sport drinks like Gatorade or Powerade, but since I'm not super into those, I'm going for PH water and other electrolyte infused waters. They're supposed to help flush the hormones out of your system so the OHSS symptoms don't get worse and go away quicker. You also have to watch out for super constipation from the anesthesia which I'm really, really hoping to avoid. That sounds like the last thing you'd want when you have tons of needle holes in your lady bits and ovaries.  I'm hoping tons of regular water, PH water, watermelon and soup are enough to ward off that unpleasant side effect.

I'm also prepping soft, stretchy clothes to wear tomorrow since my jeans feel awful and tight. I've got my lucky panties, rainbow cheetah print trimmed in hot pink lace that I've worn to all my IUIs and I'm thinking of upping the ante with new blue, puffer fish toe socks with googly eyes and pink glitter shoes. Now that's a lot of good luck :)

Since I'm still crazy hungry despite the incredible bloat, I think E and I are going to get some meaty take out for dinner. I'm craving steak like nobody's business and once midnight comes I'm cut off from food and water. 

Please send all the positive vibes, thoughts, prayers, and energy you can muster my way tomorrow morning. I've got everything crossed for these follicles to contain healthy, mature eggs that fertilize perfectly and turn into healthy, viable, Fragile X free embryos. I know that's a tall order but come on follies, I know you can do it! We need some healthy blasts!

SEVEN

I am in so much shock after my appointment this morning that I feel like I might cry. I can’t believe it, but we have SEVEN, SEVEN!!! follicles! At the beginning of this cycle, we were told not to get our hopes up for more than 1 or 2 and BAM! SEVEN beautiful, perfect follicles! I have 5 on the right, and 2 on the left and there might even have been another hiding on the left since it’s tough to get a good picture because your colon gets in the way. They looked like little bunches of dark grapes on the screen, I couldn't believe it when I saw them.


This is more than I ever thought my body would make. With FXPOI, 7 follicles might as well be a million and you’re lucky if you get even 1. After tons of Menopur injections yielding only 1 follicle last month, we figured this cycle would be, the nuclear option, would be a hail mary to see if I was even capable of making multiple eggs. I hoped that maybe 3, or secretly even 4 out of the original 5 small follicles would continue to grow, but I never dreamed it would work this well. I'm over the moon, completely overwhelmed and so, so hopeful.

They’re all growing at the same rate, between 10-14mm, and my E2 was 537 so all this Menopur is paying off! This is fabulous growth after only 2 more days of stimms and she didn't bother putting in another order for more Menopur, I might not need it! This makes the 2 daily injections, the bruises, the stomach pain,  the crazy bloat, the blood draws and early mornings all worth it. We could really have a shot this month to get a baby.


I am waiting on my call back now to see if I’m going in tomorrow or Friday morning and E and I need to discuss our options. He’s leaning towards doing IUI and hoping for multiples, with the hope that if we got pregnant with twins or triplets at least one might be healthy and unaffected.  I do agree it would be a pretty good shot, but I’m hesitant to lose the chance to potentially harvest 7 eggs. We could always follow the same protocol next month if we’re unsuccessful this month and harvest then, but it almost seems like too good an opportunity to pass up!

Either way, I’m so hopeful that this will be it!!

Hope, Faith 2013 and Beyond

Well said Mr. President.