Transfer Day: Take Two

   

Yesterday was the day, our second IVF transfer.

It did not go as smoothly as last time, in more ways than one.

For starters, I got extremely nauseous after retrieval & threw up everything I attempted to eat for days. Three days after that, my nose started streaming like a waterfall (a known effect from anesthesia according to our information packet). Unfortunately, mine turned into the nasties cold I’ve had in over a year. With that being said, I hobbled into the fertility center looking like Rudolph on a bad trip, with the voice of an aging smoker.

On the bright side, our nurse reassured me this would have no effect on the outcome of the procedure.

After I had my pep pink paper gown draped around me, with my coat covering me legs because I was freezing to death, our RE came in. He sat down on the spinning chair, opened my chart, and got to the embryos.

“You have two to transfer today & three that are being observed but probably won’t make it. The best one you have to transfer in today is in the Morula stage. It’s the stage before the blastocyst stage.”

&, with that, he was ready to go.

I looked over to Scott & pointed out, “So they’re not even as good as last time then.”

Two light knocks on the door came after & our nurse was ready to take us in the transfer room-my surgery socks and all.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with what an IVF transfer entails, let me fill you in. You have to go in with a FULL bladder, lay back on a table with your legs in those mega stirrups, while the doctor jams a supersize speculum into you & the nurses presses down on your swollen bladder & ovaries with an abdominal ultrasound. During this time, the doctor then tries to position the catheter & lets the embryologist know he’s ready. They’ll then come through the adjacent door & ask you to confirm your name on the dish. Once they’re given the go ahead, the Doc places them from the incubator to the catheter & into you. Sounds riveting, right?

The procedure usually takes 10-15 minutes….unless you’re like me & have a retroverted uterus that loves complicating matters. Our transfer took about 30 minutes.

I was all set up in the stirrups, super sized speculum jammed into me, when the Dr. started trying to place the catheter. He does this for what felt like painfully forever to me. Eventually, he looks up to ask, “Did I have trouble getting this in last time?”

Scott answers yes….while I think silently to myself, “Yep..and every time we did the IUIs.”

Finally, he gives up on threading that catheter and has the nurse get a new one. Thankfully, after a bit, he gets it to where it needs to be-thank, ya Jesus!!!! He gives the go ahead to embryology and one of our embryologists comes in to have us verify the name on the dish. We nod. She asks what my socks say & I’m in so much pain at this point, coupled by sickness and feeling like I’m going to pee on everyone, I don’t even know what they say. I ask Scott. He’s not sure either. I think maybe she moved them around to see.

“Hatch & Attach! I love those!! Those are so cute!”

Then my doctor and nurse get interested asking where I got them, which I found amusing.

  

You can snag these at TTC greeting cards

After what felt like an eternity, he pulled the catheter & supersize speculum out. On the way out, the nurse told me she had her, “fingers and toes crossed,” for us which was also nice.

Here are three of our little embryos. We aren’t sure which 2 they transferred in as 3 are pictured. Obviously, the best two but neither of us have any idea how that is determined.

What I do find interesting here is that a lady who identifies as clairvoyant told me that I would have three eggs remaining this time but two of those three would be the best. & here we are with this haunting picture of 3, with two of those being transferred in…..I am hoping that’s a good sign.

In addition, I also posted our embies to Instagram in hopes of seeing if anyone else had these types of embryos transferred in and had success. Two people commented that either they were pregnant currently from this stage of embi, or had a friend they tagged with the same result. The lady who said she herself had gotten pregnant from a Morula said that it was possible that when they examined the embryo it wasn’t to a blast yet but may have been by the time they transferred them. I looked into it further online immediately (of, course lol) & found that it is still possible for these to result in pregnancy. One website in particular had given a 50% success rate.

I am praying & hoping with everything in me for a BFP this time. Any & all additional prayers & good vibes are welcome, friends!

 

Have you heard of anyone getting pregnant from an embryo in the Morula stage??? Has this happened to you?? What are your thoughts?

IVF 2 For The Win!

As I mentioned in my earlier post, while I’m not stressing out as much preparation wise, I am feeling even more anxious going into this IVF as opposed to last time.

Here’s Why:

1. After my egg retrieval last time, I was in excruciating pain. The nurse had me take my pain meds before I got anesthesia, had apparently (unbeknownst to drugged me) given me a second hit after surgery, & then, when Scott came back to recovery, I asked for more. Once I got home, I slept until 7 or 8 that night & only woke up for more pain pills once they’d worn off. Also, TMI, I thought I’d never be able to go to the bathroom again….it was the oddest pain every time I attempted it & the constipation from all the hormones definitely didn’t help here..it was hell. A 2 day extended hell of terror every time I sat on the toilet. lol
2. Transfer….it was not the easiest of times for me. Thanks, to my uncooperative retroverted uterus, getting the catheter in took some time…some time consisting of our RE poking around down there in an effort to get where he needed to be. It hurt so much I was cringing & tried deep breathing.
3. Financial pressure: we’ve already spent around 19, 000 on our infertility journey so far. With that being said, we really need this to work.
4. There’s also the added pressures of hope & faith in becoming parents. IVF itself is already a much higher stake in the land of infertility. After a failed cycle, the pressure is even greater for the next time to work.

I’m trying not to focus on the latter two & calm myself with first two, “whys.” By that I mean, I will probably try not to think about it until the day before each.

In other news, I’ve been reading another infertility (& fashion) blog I stumbled upon on Instagram. It’s called A Slice Of Style & you can find it at http://www.asliceofstyle.com

On it, I read that the Jenica had tried some interesting interventions for her FET. For one, she gave herself human growth hormone shots 5 days before egg retrieval to strengthen eggs & also had her RE give her a neupogen wash inside her uterus 5 days before implantation. In addition, she had also tried an experimental drug Neupogen. She explained that this was a drug that got embryos to stick better. She listed in her blog on the subject that it was $400.00.

Even though it is experimental & not FDA approved, I would soooo be willing to try it! Her Dr. put it in 5 days before transfer & I would jump on that if ours would be willing to do the same. What’s another $400.00 & another procedure to us now? lol If it improved our odds, it could only save us money in the long run. Things turned around for this lady after all of that.

Since I always try to end on a positive note, I am comforted in the fact that Scott was able to take off for all the ultrasounds this time, as well as egg retrieval & transfer. We also just booked our 1st wedding anniversary trip to New York!!!!!!!! So we have something to look forward to after all these shots, pain, & procedures (hopefully, on top of a pregnancy!).

So excited. After the year long hell of infertility treatments, we deserve it!

 

The Lucky Dozen?

  
12.

The number of remaining viable embryos we have left. 

One of the embryologist called me again this morning to report this & added, “We’ll put the best back & there are 5 strong contenders for that right now.”

She also informed me transfer will be this coming Wednesday (a 5 day transfer) & also they this would be our LAST update until then..which makes me incredibly anxious. 

I want to know how they’re doing every day…okay, at all hours of the day-but at least once a day…we’ll see how I fair in the 2 day wait to see how many pull through. 

How am I feeling today?

Tired. Exhaustingly tired. I’m the kind of person who NEVER takes naps unless I’m really sick…every time I’ve taken any sort of fertility med, I’ve turned into Sleeping Beauty. This was especially true this week after all injections were finished & I had retrieval. 

On the upside, I’m not waddling as much! While I still don’t get around as fast as usual, I’m a far cry from resembling an inebriated baby penguin so that’s a plus, right?

What about Scott? Just as anxious as I am to see if this whole crazy process works! 

Meds for the day: OHSS med, infection med for post retrieval, & progesterone suppositories…THREE.TIMES.A.DAY!!!! 

  
Wednesday can’t get here soon enough…until then, I’ll probably nap! 

Embies Update 1

One of our embryologists just called me with our first update on how our embryos were doing!

She said, out of the 36 eggs retrieved, 19 of them were fertilized. One in particular hadn’t handled the injection well so they threw it out because it wouldn’t have resulted in a healthy pregnancy. Another hadn’t matured at all. And another 3 are slow developing & may catch up.

So, at this very moment, we have 14 fertilized embryos that are healthy as of right now.

We’re both over the moon excited that we have 14 good embies left! At the same time, I’m very anxious to hear about how those remaining 14 are doing tomorrow.

Before we embarked on our IVF journey, I’d read about women saying they had a natural instinct to be worried about their embryos & want them transferred back as soon as possible…at the time, I thought that wouldn’t be me….nope! I could barely sleep last night because I kept obsessively checking my phone to see if they’d called yet. When I did wake up, I could’ve probably slept another 2 hours but was NOT missing my update (crazy IVF lady). Since then, I’ve been laying on the couch looking at my phone any time the sun hit the screen certain way because maybe, just maybe that was them trying to reach us. lol Yes, I am well aware of how crazy I sound right now…..but I’m worried about out embies, darn it! 😛

  
Before getting off the phone, she told me I’d be getting a call again tomorrow with another update & we’d also be finding out when transfer would be.

Also starting tomorrow………

Yipeeeeee!!!!! 😀

But if it means having a healthy baby, I’d take the entire box a day if I had to.

Watch out, world….the hormones aren’t over yet!

It’s Almost Over

The infertility limbo I dreaded soooo much. The short break that my body was free of excess hormones (that would make the best of us more than a little cray cray) is coming to an end.

Guess what-finally-came in the mail this week??????? Our IVF info packet!

NOTE: if you’ve ever received one of these beauties before your teaching session, you will full well understand what I mean in saying I hesitate in calling it an information packet.

While it did contain some pertinent details, it left me more confused than I was prior to tearing open the big brown envelope it was enclosed in.

For one, it was my initial understanding I would be on birth control the entire month of October & then start meds in November–>do IVF at that point. Apparently, that is not the case my friends. As my ultrasounds are on the first/second week of November & retrieval will be some time mid month, I started questioning when injections & all those fun shenanigans would start up. After hubby read through our how to make a baby when you’re infertile literature, he discovered that I would start birth control on CD3. I’ll take this until October 27th & then stimulation drugs are talked about (we are assuming this starts immediately after the 27th?).

So what was in this fun IVF we can’t have a baby & really want one starter packet??

• Our teaching session is the evening of October 14th
• My ultrasound/blood draw dates are as followed: November 2nd, 6th, & 9th.
• Possible retrieval days:12th, 13th, or 14th.
• Transfer will be 3-5 days later depending on how everything goes.
• A password to super fun injection videos on our fertility center’s website
• A login to an iPHONE app!! Which, by the way, I think is cool as hell
• We get a preliminary egg count before leaving the hospital, also wicked exciting!!!!!
• We’ll get a fertilization report daily on our widdle embies ❤

We still aren’t aware of what specific meds I will be on, as the packet specified the med. regimen is unique from couple to couple.

& now…your nightly commentary:

Scott: “Your spouse will remain with you while you wait to go to sleep.”

Me: “You’re damn right he will!”

Hubby: “Though it won’t require bed rest, you should go home and rest for the remainder of the day.”

“Oh, don’t you worry. I’m not doing shit for three days!”

I mean….I’ll obsess about our embies, watch SUV, do grad school homework, & blog but-lets be honest-that’s about it. lol

Even though I have my concerns & am a little taken aback by starting earlier than we at first understood, we’re ready.

Let’s do this body, it’s baby making time!