Embryos: Growing

Well.  I’ve been putting off posting this because it terrifies me to put it out there.  But I was encouraged over the weekend to embrace it and enjoy it and not let the “what ifs” scare me.  🙂

I am pregnant.

I feel silly every morning because I wake up super early with butterflies and have to go take another test (or two) because I’m not quite sure if I believe that it’s real.  But 11 tests confirm with a darker line everyday.  At least one of those embryos is growing.  The fact that there was the faintest positive just 5 days post transfer has us wondering if they’re both doing their little embryo thing in there. 🙂  This morning at 11 past our 5 day transfer, I had barely tested when a positive showed up.

They checked my progesterone levels Saturday because I’ve had a ton of cramping.  But my progesterone is nice and high at 47.  So they told me not to worry.  My beta was supposed to be next Thursday, but I had it moved to tomorrow.  There’s really no point in waiting…  I’m anxious so see the beta numbers, but for now, it looks like everything is fine.

I am so incredibly thankful for this baby (these babies?).  ❤

PS.  If you know us in real life, MUMS THE WORD!  AND FOR GOODNESS SAKE, NO ONE TELL GRANDMOTHER YET!

Embryos: Transferred

We are officially 3 days past a 5 day embryo transfer!  I’ve finally escaped bedrest, although suddenly all I want to do is sleep.  Go figure.  I blame the progesterone.

Last Thursday, Dr. T transferred 2 grade 3, 5 day blastocysts into my, hopefully, hospitable uterus.
They’re gorgeous.  I got a little misty when they handed us the picture.  And then I got a little misty again when they took us back to the room and let us look at them through the microscope before transfer.  That may have had something to do with the valium they had me take…  But they are beautiful little clumps. 🙂  If you look at the left side of the top embryo and the top of the bottom embryo, you can see the holes made by the embryologist for the assisted hatching.  I just think it’s so neat that we get to see them like this.
The transfer itself was amazingly fast.  I couldn’t believe that we’d done so much to build up to and prepare for that moment, and then it was over.  They had me lay back for 15 minutes and then we were on our way home.  Other than my extremely full bladder, it was mostly painless. 😉

Bedrest was 72 full hours after I got home.  It wasn’t pleasant, but Jeremy definitely made it bearable. ❤  I did some knitting and did some reading and watched a ton of movies.  And waited.  And waited.  I still have another 11 days to wait before our first beta test.

I’ve had a bit of mild cramping and my progesterone injections sites are starting to itch. 😦 But other than that, all is well.  I’m hoping our little goldfish are getting comfortable and that we have a good 8 more months to grow together.     ♥♥

FET Prep

Here we are.  3 days to transfer!  I am SO READY! 🙂

I went in for my last monitoring appointment on Friday.  It went well.  My lining is just over 10 and my estrogen came in around 1070.  As long as it’s under 2000, they’re happy. 🙂  I started progesterone in oil injections on Saturday and I have to say they aren’t nearly as bad as I was expecting.  I’d heard a lot of horror stories about progesterone in oil, and while it’s not pleasant, it’s completely tolerable.

Plus, I don’t think anything can trump the lovenox injections yet…

I was amazed after the first few injections because I NEVER bruise very much via subcutaneous injections.  Every so often I’ll hit a blood vessel, but it’s rare.  Lovenox is definitely unlike anything I’ve ever given myself though.  It burns going in and for a good while afterwards.  I may or may not be on it throughout the entire time I’m pregnant.  My nurse says the bruising is from the blood thinner I’m taking as well.  As long as it’s normal, I don’t mind that much.  No fun.  But so worth it. 😉

Symptom-wise – last week, I was super tired.  Towards the end of the week I started feeling really achy.  Saturday was especially bad, so I scheduled the massage I’d been hoarding from Groupon, hoping it would loosen my muscles up and relax me.  It definitely loosened my tight muscles, but all of my joints were still super achy.  I took some tylenol when I got home and fell asleep in bed, only to wake up around 10 to run the injections marathon.  At some point in the night I ended up with a low grade fever and realized this probably wasn’t side effects.  I had some kind of flu/cold.  As bad as I felt, my main concern was whether this was going to affect the transfer.   As much as it would suck, I’d rather cancel the transfer and try again next month than have my body kill those perfect embryos in a way we hadn’t bargained for and tried to correct.

While I am feeling better today, I’m definitely not 100%.  BUT, it’s hard to tell what’s illness and what’s side effects at this point.  Thankfully I talked to the nurse who said as long as my fever is gone and I don’t have any congestion in my chest that we should be just fine.  I start taking antibiotics tomorrow as well which should help with any bacterial issues.

All in all, things look good.  I should be feeling pretty good by Thursday and I am more than ready to give these two embryos a shot at life. 🙂

BTW, in about a week, like with our IUIs, I’ll stop posting blogs to facebook.  If you haven’t yet, “follow” my blog to have new posts sent to your email. 🙂

Drag

A frozen embryo transfer is so much different than any fertility treatment I’ve ever done.  With our retrieval, the 6 IUIs, and even the awful clomid cycles, what I viewed as my main goal was to grow good, healthy eggs.  With the IUIs and retrieval especially, I started to think of those follicles as pre-babies.  They were things my body was nurturing and taking care of.  With the later IUIs and the retrieval, they were something I could feel.  I was taking care of these pre-babies.  I was doing something proactive for them.  I felt horrible, but my discomfort was taking care of them, which made it all ok.

I mentioned before, how pleased I was (and still am) that we chose to freeze all 6 of our embryos and not try a fresh transfer.  I felt awful post retrieval.  It took me a good week to start feeling good.  It took me 3 weeks to lose the 10 pounds I gained after retrieval.  Now, here I am, doing more injections.  But this time, I feel mostly fine.  The side effects are almost nonexistent.  This time, my sole responsibility is to make my body as inhabitable as possible.  I  don’t have to worry about jumping from the process of growing eggs straight into the process of nurturing an embryo.  It’s just so different that I’m just worrying about my body for once.  The embryos are there.  They’re waiting like good little baby-sicles while we get this show on the road.

But that all being said, the word “drag” came to mind this morning when I was thinking about how I am feeling about this process today.

• The time is dragging along.  2.5 weeks until transfer still.  Outside of the three months of lupron last summer, this is the longest cycle of treatment I’ve had so far.  It feels astronomically far away right now.
• This is a drag.   These injections have been some of the worst I’ve ever taken.  The Lovenox is especially painful and is leaving some nice big bruises on my stomach. 4 down… 26+ to go.
• I’m feeling so dragged into baby EVERYTHING.  I’ve had to really pull myself back and make myself slow down.  1 step at a time.
• Is infertility going to drag along behind us forever?  It feels like it now, but I also know that I’m so eager to kick the whole notion of infertility straight to the curb.  I don’t want this to be who we are, who I am.  3 1/2 years is long enough.  Our 5th anniversary is in June. 3 1/2 years of that have been consumed with fertility issues.  I’m so thankful that it’s seems to have improved our marriage somehow…  I can see how it so easily goes the opposite direction sometimes and I’m so thankful we’ve been able to work through it.  But enough is enough.
• Thankfully, I let myself be dragged to North Carolina… the land of babies.. 😉 And warmer weather.

I go in for another monitoring appointment on Thursday.  They’ll be checking my estrogen and my uterine lining and will decide then if they need to up my estrogen injections.  Slowly but surely, we are getting there.