2 Week Wait (2ww)

                So on implantation day, I am told to show up with a stomach full of liquid (all I am going to say is that it is very uncomfortable to have that while going through the implantation procedure).  I was given a picture of our adorable embryo, and was told that there may be only 2 or 3 eggs left that may be good enough for freezing.  This number is a little disappointing, considering how many eggs were retrieved, but I will be happy with ANY being frozen. 

                The implantation takes about 7 minutes, and you have to lay there afterwards for 15 minutes with you pelvis elevated.  (Attractive, I know)  After that, I was told to go home, and stay off my feet for a few days, and continue with progesterone inserts.  I am not allowed to do any sweating, or heavy lifting etc.  And now it is time for the two week wait (2ww).  We are now told that in 2 weeks we can come back to the doctors office and they will give us a blood pregnancy test.  Well, here I go googling and researching away.  I want to know if there are ladies out there that take home pregnancy tests any way, and if they don’t wait the entire two weeks, and what kind of symptoms they had when they had a positive pregnancy test, etc.  I was too excited and anxious to not research and look into things so much, etc. 

                A few days shy of this waiting game coming to an end I decided to take a HPT (home pregnancy test), and guess what!?!  BFP – (big fat positive)  I was ecstatic!  Hubby was ecstatic, we couldn’t believe it!  After only one cycle it worked!  Although it was a positive test, the line was very light, and we were told by our physician that the line will get darker as the day goes on, and by the next day you will see a significant darkening in the color of the line.  So that test was taken in the morning, so by the evening I was so excited to POAS (pee on a stick).  The line was still there, but it was just as light, so I decided in the morning I would take the test again.  Now it is about 8 pm and I am getting some serious cramping.  I go to the restroom, and I am spotting.  I read up on this, and it said that sometimes when the embryo implants into the uterine wall it will bleed a little and this is called “implantation bleeding.”  I was told it would occur for a short amount of time, and that it should stop after an hour or two. 

                DH and I went to bed hopeful.  During this time, we had Christmas Eve parties to attend, Christmas parties, Christmas dinners, work parties, New Years Eve celebrations, etc.  We tried our best to put our game faces on but I wasn’t as good as DH was. 

                Back to the story . . I woke up in the middle of the night and I had a full on AF (Aunt Flo) type of thing happening with excruciating cramp pains, and very large clots.  I called my doctor in the morning, and (since it was the day after New Years) she told me to come in the next day for my test.  I went in for my blood work.  They are checking your Beta levels when they do these blood pregnancy tests.  A beta level over a 5 was technically a positive pregnancy test.  That afternoon when my doctor called with my results, she said that my levels were a 9, but although this is a positive test, according to the day I am on they should already be above 60.  She said that if I had not miscarried the fetus already, I will soon.

                Needless to say, this was a tough day or two for DH and I.  It was also a day that I was allowed to have some wine again, so needless to say . . I did!  We were sad.  We felt like we just went from a complete high, and being as excited as we could get, to a complete low.  During that time when we thought we were pregnant, we were excited that our plans for a nursery were no longer just a dream, and that we may actually get to paint those walls, and buy the furniture, and clothes shop, etc.  We were going to be a family of more than 2.  And then when the reality of the loss sets in, it is like mourning the loss of all of these things.  I don’t wish these feelings on anyone!  We have moved passed this now, and we are hopeful for the next round.  But the rock “exterior” we tried to hold onto, kind of just crumbled.  All of those mixed emotions we had for over a year now all came to the forefront of ourselves.  Luckily for us, we have our faith to rely on.  Without it, we would be DOOMED!  And it’s also great having each other to lean on.  We know God’s timing is perfect, and it clearly wasn’t the right time yet . . but we are human, and we were sad. 

                We had kept this whole situation pretty quiet other than for a few close friends and family members, but at this point I decided this story isn’t something I should try to hide.  I am not ashamed of what I am feeling, I am not feeling sorry for myself for what DH and I are going through, I am proud of how we have handled it thus far, and want to share our story and our experience with those that want to know about it, and those that we don’t know but are going through the same thing.  Blogs like this helped me out BIG TIME when I started this whole process.  It’s tough bouncing emotions off of people who haven’t been through this, or just think that the doctor is, “just putting an egg and sperm in you, and you will have a baby in 9 months.” 

                We pray daily that in His time it will all work out.  With everything else in our lives, that’s been true, so we will assume the same with this situation!

Thankful for all of the support

Baby Dust to all,

Lindsay

And We're Off!

                So now that we know all of the things that are wrong with our “baby making moves” we have to figure out a way to fix, or work around the “issues.”  First off, I am continuing with all of the appropriate vitamins, DH is now taking Zinc (which is supposed to help?  Who knows!)  The reason I say, “who knows,” is once you have these diagnosis’, it is very difficult to not research online.  You will learn so many things online.  I have read countless medical articles on the subject, I have read pages and pages of blogs, and discussion boards.  Sometimes this can be a bad thing, doing all of this research, and finding out some things that you probably don’t want to know, or finding out all of the new “what ifs” you didn’t even think of.  So there are definitely ups and downs to all of the reading.  I will tell you this, if I have learned anything that I would like to pass on to anyone else starting on this journey, is that you MUST be your OWN ADVOCATE! 

I am a very organized person, so for me starting lists of different questions to ask the doctor, and which topics and concerns I need to research, etc. was second nature.  But I mean this 100%, no matter how wonderful you doctors are, they will not tell you what people who have gone through it will tell you.  I am seeing one of the top doctors in the country, and I will tell you that if DH and I had not done our own research, and made a plethora of lists, with a ton of different questions, we would not have felt anywhere near as prepared as we did.  Even being as prepared as possible, and acquiring as much knowledge as we can from the “infertile community” online, whether it be from blogs, or medical sites, etc., you still don’t know what you are to expect until you have gone through it.

Once we were cleared through our insurance and approved for our first cycle of IVF, we were told that they would also be using a process called ICSI.  In short, they are going to take the eggs, clean the sperm, run them through this process called ICSI, and put them together in petri dishes and hope that some of the eggs fertilize.   Before all of this could happen we had to sign our names about 50 times each just to get the process started.  All of a sudden you are thinking about the “extra” embryos.  They are asking you questions like, “if you have extra embryos are you choosing to dispose of them?”  Questions such as, “would you like to donate any extra embryos to research?” are not questions we would have considered ourselves ready for.  They of course ask you if your wish is to use all of the embryos, and you happen to have a plethora; you must use them before the age of __.  Questions we weren’t expecting, but we were expected to answer.

So now the eggs . . How do they get these eggs, you ask?  Well let me tell you.  Since I don’t have a regular cycle and I do not ovulate they must force my body to have a cycle, so we can know exactly what day in my cycle I am on.  IVF relies heavily on timing.  So they put me on BC pills for 3 weeks.  Once I got off, I started my cycle.  This is when the real fun began!  I was given medications that were delivered in a big box (or 2, I don’t remember) and there were very specific instructions.  Some of these drugs were to be refrigerated, some were to be left at room temperature, and some were not to be used until weeks later.  I started on something called GONAL-F.  This is a drug that is in the shot form.  The directions said I could inject the drug into my thigh, my arm, or my stomach.  I chose my stomach, but it is strictly on preference.  I got to do those shots nightly.  After a few weeks of that, I added a Ganirelix every morning and continued with the GONAL-F at night.  During this time I was going in the RE’s (Reproductive Endocrinologist) office every other day or so for ultra sounds to check my uterine lining, and my egg production that was being cause by the hormones, as well as tons of blood work to check my estrogen levels etc.  I would get calls each afternoon, after these appointments, and depending on where my levels were, they would tell me if I had to change the amount of the drug I was injecting, or not.  Once they believed I was about 2 days away from my retrieval surgery (this is where they removed the eggs from my uterus), they had me take a trigger shot.  This trigger shot involved mixing a liquid and a powdery substance together and retrieving it into a shot, and then I gave myself the shot.  I did watch the “how-to” video on how to do the shot correctly about 10 times before administering it to myself, with the fear that if I did it incorrectly, I could risk the last 2.5 months of “work” to be flushed down the drain.  The next day and a half I didn’t have to do anymore shots.  I just had a waiting game for when I would go in for my Egg Retrieval Surgery.  FYI, the shots were awful, but I will tell you what . . they were NOTHING compared to the pain of how swollen and sensitive your stomach area becomes . . inside AND out.

The day FINALLY came.  I was nervous, but excited!  All I wanted was to cry . . because of all the hormones in my body, one, the fear that it wouldn’t work (2),  and three, because of the joy I got thinking that it just might work!  Today could be the day that DH and I conceive our miracle baby we have been praying for!  I was quite nervous for the laughing gas, that was going to put me “to sleep,” temporarily, but I was told it was only a 15 minute procedure and I will be completely fine! 

Surprise, surprise, the 15 minutes procedure took over 45 minutes.  I was told that my body responded almost too well to the treatments, and we had 22 eggs that were retrieved!  Usually they are happy to retrieve anywhere from 6-12 eggs!  So needless to say I was told that the pain of the swelling is going to take a little bit of time to come down, and I should be “down for the count” for at least 4 days. 

Gosh, I feel like this is the longest entry, but I have ALMOST caught you up to where we are currently.  Getting over a year of information and 4 months of treatment into 3 entries was not an easy task, lol.  To make the next step of this process a little shorter and less painful as it actually was . . all I am going to say is that 5 days after the egg retrieval is when I would be implanted with the embryo.  Out of 22 eggs, I was told that there were at least 7 that were in excellent condition to use for implantation (we were only using 1, and having the others frozen for now) and that they were keeping an eye on them to see if the remaining eggs will be at a great enough condition in which they can be frozen.

 Almost all caught up!

Praying for Baby Dust,

Lindsay

I Didn't Study for These Tests

                So once we were directed to the RE (Reproductive Endocronologist) I was lucky enough to be told that I would have to do most of those blood tests again, plus a few more.  We were told that we have to have 3 SE (Sperm Evaluations) before my DH could be deemed infertile.  Due to his low counts in every aspect the doctors became very concerned.  My DH is only 30, in shape, and as far as we know healthy; so how could his county/motility/morphology be so horrid?  They wanted to check him for hormonal diseases, testicular cancer, and thyroid disease.

                During this time I did everything I could do to make me the healthiest me for a possible future baby.  This included eating more of the right things, and less of the wrong things.  I continued running, and tried to make it more of a habit, and also took all the appropriate vitamins, most importantly my prenatal vitamins.  My husband was told he could no longer take a steam shower at our house or use the Sauna at the Health Club.  They also say beer could effect your SE as well as cigarettes and unhealthy eating.  We started him on Zinc as well at this point, because the next 2 SEs came back just as poor as the first one.  Well you can imagine that at this point we were definitely done with get poked and prodded and tested.  I had successful blood tests and was told that I was very healthy but had a system that wasn’t working efficiently enough to prepare the eggs in time for ovulation. 

We finally found out that my hubby did not have any of the horrible diseases that they were concerned about, but in fact has Bilateral Vericocele.  Vericocele is a condition where the male has a varicose vein in his testis which creates a pool of warm blood where all of the sperm go to die.  In his case, he had two, one in each of his testis.  So between the two of us, we were deemed infertile.  Ugh..

                Now that we have went over all the nitty-gritty of the “fun times” you get to enjoy while going through the beginning stages of figuring out infertility, there is a lot more than just these tests and scientific things that are happening.  All of a sudden I was having conversations with my DH about adoption, and obsessing over our diets and our exercise plans, and how much the meat is cooked; and these are things that I was not too concerned with prior to this diagnosis of Infertility.  All of a sudden we were both reading pamphlets and books about all of the things that can go wrong during this process, and how much a woman’s body will go through in attempt to have a successful and healthy pregnancy.   We were “mourning” something that wasn’t ever ours to begin with, we were sad about the baby we had imagined would be ours . . and realizing that we may never have that.

                Don’t get me wrong, we tried as much as we could to be as positive as possible.  We relied heavily on our faith in God, and relied on each other to take turns lifting the others spirits when we would have a “poor us” moment.  We were excited to see what the next steps were.  I was very excited that we had some answers, and that neither of us had a life threatening sickness.  So now we had answers, as to what the issues were, so now we had to figure out what the answer would be…

Baby Dust to all,

Lindsay

What to Expect when you're NOT expecting

So my plan when this all started was to try to record everything that myself and my DH (Darling Hubby) had to go through.  This includes everything from the emotions, to the “what ifs,” and the physical and invasive procedures and testing that we would start to live through.  But of course with life, things just seemed to keep going and it all of a sudden we are already going through our first round of IVF.  With everything happening so quickly, I have decided that now that I am on some bed rest I can type up some entries with the “notes” I have jotted down along the way.  I am going to start by catching you up to where we are at now, and then continue posting while we continue our journey to our Miracle Baby.

First I will give you some background and tell you about myself, and my DH.  My name is Lindsay (27) and I will just refer to hubby as DH (30).  We got married back in 2009, which is a little over 3 years ago.  We only dated for 1 year before we got married, so as badly as we wanted to start a family together, we wanted to give ourselves about a year or so of “just us” time.  This, by the way, was a great decision we made.  As we continue to go through this journey I have fallen more and more in love with him, and am so glad we had those years of foundation to start our relationship off with.  So once we were married about a year we decided we would no longer “worry” about preventing pregnancy and let nature take its own course.  After about 6 months of this, it was still just DH and I, so we decided we would track my cycle, and track my ovulation, etc.  After about 5 months of this, still nothing.  I decided I was going to take it into my own hands, and spoke with my OB/GYN about this.  She told me I was so young (25) and to not worry about it quite yet.

It’s been about eleven or so months now and I know there’s something wrong with me, but my DH thinks it’s too soon to be worried, and is trying to calm my nerves a little bit.  My OB did not seem concerned at all, and tells me to wait a few more months and see where we are at then.  Although I am hoping she is right and there’s nothing to worry about, I definitely want a second opinion.   I chose to go see a different gynecologist in the office and take matters into my own hands.  He tells me there’s a little bit of concern considering how young we were but we will watch it for the next 3 months, and to continue to take ovulation kits, and tells me to make sure I get the test to take every day from the day after my AF (Aunt Flow) until I get a smiley face.  (Which would indicate ovulation had occurred) 

I had taken the ovulation kits already for about 5 months and nothing had happened, so when I told him this, he told me to continue the ovulation kits and track my temperature as well.  We realized that while doing the ovulation kits I was not getting a single smiley face, which indicated that I was not ovulating.  This sounds like bad news, but in the whole scheme of things, this is something that can be helped along with some assistance from a pill from Clomid.  So although it wasn’t the best news, it was not the worst.

Then they decided to do an HSG test to ensure that my tubes were not clogged.  This procedure involves you laying on a table and they put a catheter inside of you while they have a camera view for you to watch.  They take a dyed liquid and shoot it through the tubes to see if the liquid comes out the other end of the tubes.  As I was laying there (feeling like major cramps were occurring and small contraction type pains) and the liquid was inserted, we waited.  The waiting was only about 30 seconds, but it felt like forever.  The liquid finally flushed through one of the tubes, but not the other.  The doctor proceeded to ask the nurse for more liquid, and they injected some more liquid, and finally it pushed through the second tube.  They found small mucus parts in my tubes, but they were pretty easily flushed out with the procedure and we were able to move onto the next steps.  We did a lot of blood work (about 20 tubes) which verified that I do not ovulate.  So although this wasn’t the worst news, it had shaken us both a little because we thought, “this wouldn’t happen to us.”  With this blood work we found out that my levels were normal and I did in fact have healthy ovaries, but my eggs did not develop quickly enough in order to be ready when it came time to ovulation each month.

After being poked and prodded throughout these tests I decided it was time to test my DH to make sure we were had all the information needed before we proceeded.  Let me point out that this was a test that I requested.  This was not a test that either of the gynecologists recommended.  You definitely have to be your own advocate when it comes to this entire process.  Obviously checking him out was an easier task than the tests that I had gone through, but definitely JUST AS IMPORTANT!  So the doctors checked DH’s sperm count (how many), sperm motility (the speed and healthy movement), and the morphology (the shape,  and health of them).  Surprise, surprise. . Another bump in the road . . And not in my belly.  His count was very low.  I am going to try to explain this in the easiest way possible.  They grade the count/motility/morphology on a specific number scale.  (Different places grade them differently) 100-200 indicates an excellent count/motility/morphology; 50-100 indicates a good count/motility/morphology; lastly, 0-50 indicates poor count/motility/morphology.  These were his scores:  Count:  .06/Motility:  .05/Morphology:  6. Needless to say these were not the outcomes we were hoping and praying for. 

At this point we are referred to a Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE) which is a doctor that specializes in infertility in couples.  Be back tomorrow.

    

  Baby Dust to all,

Lindsay