Author: BS

December 5, 2017. The date of our second and hopefully last transfer. We woke up ready and excited to be trying this again! I took my antibiotic in the morning with breakfast and just relaxed all morning. Our appointment wasn’t until 1pm again.

We decided to head out a little early and get lunch beforehand. There really wasn’t anything in the area and my stomach was a little iffy so we settled on Subway! We had our lunch, I took my trusty Valium and we headed in to the office.

As tradition would have it, we took a selfie before going in 🙂

Again, I wasn’t allowed to go to the bathroom and I was starting to feel it! I.had.to.pee. BADLY. They took us back and had me get ready and get into a gown. They let us know that we were actually going to be the only ones back there today, so I wouldn’t have any neighbors. I can’t tell you how relieved I was to hear that. I had brought earphones to plug into my phone just incase I had someone next to me that wasn’t having a good recovery like last time. So happy to hear we would be alone. I think it just makes for an overall more peaceful experience to be honest.

This time around I don’t feel like the Valium was helping a whole lot. I still felt super nervous like there were butterflies flying all around in my body, not just my stomach. Dr. Moffitt called out that he was ready to have us come back into the procedure room. They had me read over the paper that stated my name and birthday and I initialed and signed it. The laboratory tech brought in the little dish with our embryo and sucked it up into the device the doctor was going to use to insert it. There it was! Our second future baby. Man I was praying that this time would be the time.

This round there was a tad bit more pain with the embryo going in, but that’s ok! It was in! We could see the little air bubble go in after the embryo on the ultrasound so we knew that it was in there. The doctor even gave us a picture of the ultrasound to have. Plus we have a picture of the actual embryo take minutes before it was inserted as well. I had to lie upside down for about an hour after they were done and then they let me go pee and then go home!

We went straight home and I went right to bed. I decided that I would even prop my bottom up on a pillow while laying in bed to try and help the embryo stay where it needed to. I have no clue if that is recommended or not, but you bet I still did it. Brandon was super good about me putting myself on bedrest for the full two days. I think he knew whatever was going to make me question myself less later on was the best for the right now.

Now with the last process I withheld from taking any home pregnancy tests prior to getting my blood drawn at the doctors office. But this time I really could not resist. I felt like this time around was different already and I felt more confident in checking myself at home. I didn’t have any cramps this time like I had already been having last time. I felt good and happy. It was just so different than last time, there really is no concrete evidence or way to describe it. I just had a great feeling. It definitely doesn’t mean that I wasn’t nervous as all get out to take that test. I tried waiting as long as I could. My friend that did IVF had started checking as early as three days after transfer to track her HCG levels (what makes the line show up on the pee stick). She told me she was able to see a very faint positive line on day five after her transfer.

Just to be safe I waited until day six to finally pee on a stick. Brandon had been working the day before so I went and bought some home pregnancy tests without him knowing. I wanted to “surprise” him if I got a positive one. Now obviously it wouldn’t be a complete surprise, but he wasn’t expecting me to check at home. The morning of the 11th, day six post transfer, I got up early to go into work. I decided to just go for it and take a home pregnancy test. I set it down on the counter and continued on with getting ready. Slightly hesitant to ever go look at it. I knew there was a chance that I could be pregnant but it not show up on the test, as it could still be too early to have enough HCG in my urine to make that line show up. So I prepared myself to not be sad if there wasn’t a line. Here was the test…

IT WAS A POSITIVE!!! Oh my gosh. Although that line on the left may be faint, IT IS THERE. I am pregnant! The embryo stuck and is growing inside me! OMG. I can’t even describe the kind of excitement that ran through me at that moment. It took every ounce of me to not call Brandon who was sleeping at work and tell him. I decided I wanted to somehow surprise him when I got home from work that night. (I had no clue the kind of torture that would be to go all day with the weight of this secret)

I still to this day while looking at this picture smile so big. What a miracle. The best miracle of life and it was happening inside me. Finally. We had waited so long for this moment. We had endured so much. It was our turn, finally. Finally.

I went through work with the biggest Koolaid smile on my face all day. Nothing could get me down. I was excited and happy. No amount of rude or angry patients would annoy me that day. I couldn’t wait to get home. I wasn’t sure how in the world I was going to tell Brandon, but I just wanted to get home and be able to do so.

I got home and said hello to him. He was finishing up dinner and I said I had to go run to the bathroom, as I have to do most nights when I get home from work. I decided I wanted to take one more test just incase the morning test was a fluke. Well sure enough, the test I took that night was also positive! AND it was even darker!!  Ok, we’re still pregnant!!

I shoved both the tests into the front pocket of my scrubs and ran out to eat dinner with Brandon. I still wasn’t sure how I was going to reveal the great news to him. It was hard to hide my excitement. He gave me the perfect opportunity to say something though. He had mentioned how he still had an upset stomach and wasn’t sure he was going to eat much of his dinner. I took that chance and said, “Well I’ve actually had an upset stomach all day from being so excited and nervous to tell you that you’re going to be a dad!” He was looking at me so strangely and I pulled out both tests and set them in front of him. He.Just.Stared. He also was wearing the biggest smile I have ever seen and he said, “What?! Really? Are you sure?” I just sat there and smiled and told him that I was indeed sure. These are real positive tests. We got up and hugged forever.

We were going to be parents. Real parents. To the baby we’ve dreamt of for years.

Our official blood test wasn’t until the 14th, and the wait killed me. Even though I knew what I saw on those tests was true, I just wanted it confirmed by the doctor. I think just like every new mom in shock, I took a test a day up until the blood draw. Each one got a little bit darker and darker. I seriously, 100%, was pregnant! Haha! Yes!

The day came to take the blood test and we were so happy. I got a phone call later that night from the doctor telling me that the transfer worked and we got a positive blood test. He wanted me to come back a few days later to repeat the blood test and make sure my HCG levels were continuing to double.  My first HCG level on the 14th was 102! Which is amazing. By four days later my HCG had more than doubled and was already 670!!! We knew this baby was growing just as it should be.

Years of trials, tests, blood, tears, ultrasounds, pain, grief, sorrow, excitement, happiness, hope and everything else in-between had passed. Our time had finally come. We were on the path that we have strived to be on. And we are so happy to share this all with you.

For now, my hands are starting to cramp with these last two blog posts, so I will leave you all here. But stay tuned for the rest of the story. There is still more to come! 😉

March 25th, here I sit in a Starbucks, starting to type away on my laptop to fill you all in on the past four months. I’m sorry I have left you all hanging and waiting in anticipation for any kind of news. It’s been quite a process and I had to take some time for myself through it all.

So I will break down the last few months over the next few blogs for you all. Make it an easier and less wordy blog post.

Where did I leave off? That’s right, a pretty sad and terrible time of my life. I lost not only my first baby Samson, the best dog I’ve ever owned, but also my possible future baby and first embryo we had transferred. Geeze, rough time for sure. I can’t say how glad I am to be past that. Or as past it as I can be. I still find myself crying over Samson on any given day or time that reminds me of him. Mostly happy tears though, of what an amazing dog he was or some quirky trait he had.

Ok, SO. Our first transfer failed us. We found out the terrible news on November 7th. While driving home and on the phone with the doctor he asked us if we wanted to take a break from the process or go right into another transfer. My instant thought was to go right into another transfer, as my body is geared up and ready to go hormone-wise and we probably shouldn’t mess with that. I looked over at Brandon and just nodded as to say  “Let’s do it” he agreed and we told Dr. Moffitt that continuing on was a go. He instructed me to stop taking my Progesterone and keep taking the Estrace. I should expect my period in a few days and to let the office know. From there they would schedule me for all my lab draws and ultrasounds leading up to the next transfer.

I’m going to be honest, the only two things I remember from that conversation was that the embryo didn’t take and to stop taking the medication. I emailed my nurse the next day to let her know we knew the bad news. She was quick to respond. She expressed her condolences and shared some very sweet words with me. She told me that in all her years of being a fertility nurse, this was the first failed transfer that she cried over. I always knew she was a wonderful, hard working, caring nurse, but I got to see that over the past few months Brandon and I really had connected with her. We are so grateful to have her on our side through this entire process. She then sent me an email with a rough estimate for when we would have to go in for all our future checks leading up to transfer day.

This round my body decided to behave and I got my period on November tenth. Now where you might feel like you don’t really need to know this or any of the details that go along with it, I would agree. However, this was a difficult one to go through emotionally. I knew I was losing the embryo in this process, or so I think I was, and I cried. Of course I was working this day too, so hiding the tears and emotions was really difficult. One of my good friends was working that day as well and was able to comfort me the best she could. But that was a really difficult day for me. All my hopes and dreams I had concocted for this future baby of ours were being flushed down the toilet. Figuratively and literally. Just like that, they were over. But as quickly as I had those negative feelings I wiped the tears from my face, splashed some cold water on it and moved on. Onward and upward was my mantra for this whole process and so I needed to continue it.

First positive insight was that I did get my period relatively quickly versus last month, which is great for lining reasons and what not. I emailed Tabitha my nurse to let her know and she instructed me to keep taking my Estrace through Thanksgiving and I would have my lining check on November 29th. Fingers were crossed it would be better than the previous eight that it was. Holy smokes, waiting the two and a half weeks for this day to get here again felt like FOREVER. At this point my mood was better and I was ready to get this next transfer over with!

The lining check came back fine and it was at nine. So hey, better than last time. Both the nurse and doctor reassured me as well that both an eight or a nine are wonderful numbers and fluffy enough for any embryo to adhere to. That helped me to feel a little more confident for this next round as well. The following day I was to start the Progesterone again. Normally I would just take two forms of it, but because my Progesterone level prior to the last transfer was low, my nurse and myself had talked about just starting me on all three from the get go. We would check my level the night before the transfer to see where it was at. At this point I was taking the Estrace three times a day as well as three different forms of Progesterone three times a day. I seriously felt like my life revolved around when I had to take all my meds.

For whatever reason this time around I was super relaxed about taking all my meds. I would forget to take them at certain times and would be late. Whereas last transfer I would have freaked out over it, this time I was so calm. I think subconciously my mind did not want me to stress out over the little things. So as a result I just didn’t care this round and would just forget. One of my work friends knew I kept forgetting to take them and even on her days off of work she would text me when I needed to take them. Haha. Now that’s a good friend, especially because I managed to need her reminders those days!

December second I was to start taking my steroids daily for three days leading up to my transfer and then the night of the transfer. They help to reduce the immune system so that my body wouldn’t see the embryo as an invader and attack it. Welllll of course I misread my calendar and didn’t go get my steroids picked up in time to take them on Saturday the second when I was off of work. So Sunday morning I woke up to go to work and looked at my calendar and saw I was supposed to already be on day two of steroids that I didn’t have in my possession. WHAT DO I DO NOW?? I was in serious freak out mode. I know that I had been more relaxed this round with my meds, but this was too far. This could really screw up my transfer.

First thing I thought of was to call my friend that I work with who just had gone through IVF and see if she by chance had any extra steroids from her process. Lo and behold she did. And she worked that day. Holy hell was I lucky. So I took my late dose first thing that morning and then my dose for that day at night after work. Of course that wasn’t ideal as steroids can make you wired and keep you awake, but some loss of sleep for the right reason was totally worth it. I emailed my nurse to make sure doing this was ok and she said that people do it all the time and not to worry! What I did was just fine and to not stress out over it. One negative effect I have from steroids though beyond being “wired” or thirsty or anything like that, I turn red. Like really red. Like lobster sunburnt red. All over my face, neck, chest and arms. And it feels like I’m on fire! The perks of being super fair skin-toned I guess. Yay me. Haha. But hey, if they do what they’re supposed to then I guess it is all worth it!

Monday December fourth was my Progesterone check, the day before our transfer. I got a call that my level was still on the low side, but higher than last transfer. I’m not going to lie I got really nervous hearing that. I mean, I was glad it was higher, but so upset that with taking the max doses of Progesterone for the last few weeks it was still on the low side. Was there something wrong with my body?? They decided to put me on the phone with my doctor in hopes that talking with him would make me feel better. It did and it didn’t. He told me that yes my levels were low, but that they weren’t so low that he was concerned for anything to go wrong. We just had to see what my body would do over the next few days. He gave me the option to stop the process and not go through with the transfer if I wanted. In doing so, we would postpone and start it all over again using another form of progesterone in a shot that I would give myself daily. The hope would be that it could possibly raise my levels prior to a transfer. I honestly considered it for a second, but I had put myself through so much this month already in preparation and didn’t feel like throwing it all away for a bunch of “what if’s.” I told him that I would see him the following day for my transfer.

What would happen this transfer? Would it be successful? Would I have another bad experience with the person behind the partition next to me, crying and cursing about pain? Would I have any pain?

I also decided to go about everything differently this time. No drinking for a week prior to the transfer. I would make myself be on bedrest for two full days after the transfer this time. All the scenarios I criticized with the last transfer I decided to do the exact opposite this time.

October 26, 2017. Transfer day!

We woke up relaxed and ready that morning. I had to drink a lot of water to make sure my bladder would be full for the transfer. It helps them with the ultrasound when they’re placing the embryo. So drinking a ton it was! I literally had to pee SO badly! Hahaha.

I gathered all the meds and everything I needed to bring to the office and we were on our way around one pm that day. Got to the office thirty minutes before hand like instructed and did a potty dance the whole time I was waiting. I honestly think it was because I knew I wasn’t allowed to pee that it made it worse. I seriously hold me pee for a living at work and I never have a problem. So I’m sure that’s what it was!

Of course we had to take an obligatory car selfie before we went in! Hehehe.

They took us back and had me get ready to go into the procedure room. The nurse asked if I needed to try and go to the bathroom beforehand, but I didn’t feel like I would have the control to only pee a little and not all of it, hah. She got the room ready and Brandon and I waited in the same bed that we were in for the retrieval. I felt like that had to be good luck, plus our transfer fell on my lucky number, 26! She called us back into the procedure room and I got all situated on the super awkward chair. Brandon got to come back too which was really nice.

They had me confirm my information and showed us the little embryo they were going to place inside me. It was such a cute little group of cells! Haha! But I already had so much love for this little embryo.

They got me all positioned and then went ahead with the transfer. I literally felt nothing, no discomfort and no pain. The most uncomfortable thing was the fact that I had a super full bladder and they had to push down on it for the ultrasound. We got to watch as Dr. Moffitt placed the embryo. You could see a little shadow moving along my uterus and then a little white air bubble after. Once he was done the lab tech went back to make sure that the embryo indeed was in me and not still in the little catheter. All was good and we got the “Ok.”  They moved me back into the recovery room and had my lay tilted upside down a little for the next hour, just to make sure the embryo stayed put.

I had just some minor cramps and discomfort but I am sure it was related to the fact that a catheter was where it normally is not! Once the hour was up Brandon and I were able to head home. They instructed me to be on bedrest for the remainder of the day and light duty until we drew my blood to see if I was pregnant. So we went home and I just hung out on the couch for the rest of the day. It was a nice and relaxing day.

The following morning I woke up so happy and excited. Each new day I would say a prayer for the little embryo that it would burrow in nicely and make a home inside of me. Later that morning we decided it would be nice to take our puppy Tucker to the dog park to wear him out a little bit. Our elderly dog Samson saw us grabbing the leash and was so excited, he wanted to join too. We normally don’t take him as he is so old but he was acting so cute and had his puppy ears on we couldn’t say no.

We got the dogs all packed up and ready to leave. Samson was so calm in the back seat, it was nice to see. He just had his sweet head out the window the whole way to the park, sniffing everything and taking it all in. Tucker on the other hand is a scared boy and didn’t want to get near the window.

We got to the park and let them out. They were both SO happy. Once we got into the gated dog park we let them loose. There were two other dogs there, both girls. Samson pretty much ignored them and just trotted off to go mark his territory on every inch of grass there was. And let me tell you, there was a ton of grass. It was so cute to see him have a burst of energy there he was all over the place. We threw the ball for Tucker and he was seriously smiling the whole time he went to grab it and ran back! We were having an amazing morning. Samson even got to pee on a fire hydrant and hump a girl dog, haha! After only about twenty or thirty minutes both dogs were tired and laid down. The other two dogs had left by this time so it was just us four.

(Warning: sad sad paragraph alert)

We decided to take the tired doggies home and let them rest there as well as myself. We had just started to walk to the gate when Samson lost his footing and fell to the ground. Right then and there I knew, we were going to lose our best friend and first baby boy Samson. His body started to lock up and he took about five last dying breaths. It was absolutely horrifying to watch. It broke my heart. We had not even the slightest inkling that we would be losing our dog that day. I dropped to the ground and just laid over Samson crying. I tried to convince myself that he was actually still breathing or that every time any of his muscles twitched that he was still alive. But I knew that that was normal and part of the body dying. Our sweet baby boy gone just like that.

In reality, we gave him the most amazing send off ever, without even realizing it. I mean, he even got to hump a girl dog which he has never done before, we joke his heart couldn’t handle a woman! But I will tell you, I feel like watching your pet die unexpectedly is harder than putting your pet down. I have done both and I of course never want to have to do either, but we just weren’t prepared at all. Brandon of course was worried about me and possibly losing the embryo. He kept telling me to try and be calm and not cry. Which, when hopped up on every hormone medication ever, is probably not the easiest thing to do. I was definitely thinking the same thing though and decided that I needed to be as strong as I could, for this potential baby inside me.

The following days were terrible. I was mourning the loss of my Samson, but having to hold it all in. We were scheduled to leave for Vegas in a few days for Brandon’s powerlifting competition! I was able to distract myself for the three days leading up to the trip at work. I had all kinds of thoughts running through my mind. In the few days after the transfer I had quite a bit of cramping. I really wasn’t worried as I know that can be a very normal thing when the embryo is implanting and the uterus is preparing itself and growing. But I still was nervous. I didn’t have any other signs of being pregnant. Granted I know it was SOOOO early in the process and there is a chance that I indeed wouldn’t have any signs, but I still wanted them.

November second, Brandon’s birthday, we headed to Vegas! We had a great time there, except I couldn’t drink! So that was a bummer, haha, but hey it was for a great reason.

Brandon did wonderfully in the competition and placed fourth, for the World’s Powerlifting. I was so proud of him!

While we were there the friends we got Tucker from messaged me and told me that his litter mate Ollie was brought back to them, as the previous owners were unable to care for him any longer. They were wondering if we were interested, as they knew we just had lost Sammy. We told them we would think about it and when we got back home we would bring Tucker over to their place and see if they got along.

November sixth we drove home and on the seventh we had my blood test first thing in the morning and then the puppy play date later that afternoon. They drew my blood and I asked when they would be getting results and when I would hear from the doctor. Well the results they have within an hour of running the blood, but I wouldn’t get to hear from the doctor until the end of the day, as he would being patients up until then. We waited, myself very impatiently for the phone call. Luckily enough we got to be somewhat distracted with getting to go meet Ollie. We took Tucker over and the two got along great. We knew we would have a lot of training and work to do with Ollie but we really wanted to give Tucker a friend and who better than his actual brother!

On our drive home my phone started ringing. It was from the doctor’s office! Oh my gosh, my heart started racing and my hands were instantly sweaty. After what seemed like five minutes of me fumbling with my phone and the bluetooth vs speakerphone issues I was having, I finally got the doctor on speakerphone to talk with us. He asked us how we were doing and all that small talk that we really didn’t care about. We just wanted to know the results.

He then continued on with “Well I unfortunately have some bad news for you.” My heart sank as low as it possibly could. Dead silence. I could feel Brandon’s head quickly turn to me and stare at me but I just stared off through the window in front of me. He then proceeded to tell us that the blood test showed that the embryo did not take. We were not pregnant. All the cramps I felt each day, that I took as a good sign and talked to our little embryo each time were for nothing. They were just teasing me. My world came crashing down. I was so angry. I couldn’t believe that it didn’t work. We had spent the extra money and time and effort into the PGS testing to give us a 85% chance of success. And we were the 15% that it didn’t work for. I. WAS. MAD.

I just sat there and stared when we got off the phone. I think it probably worried Brandon a little bit, as I am sure he was expecting the waterworks right away. But I didn’t have any quite yet. I was still trying to process everything that we had just been told. So many different emotions were running through my mind. I not only lost my favorite dog ever the week prior, but now I lost my future baby. How is this fair? Why is it happening to us? What did I do wrong that caused the embryo not to take? Did I get up and move too much that next day? Did Samson dying and me crying over it cause it to not work?  Because I got my period too late and my lining was only eight and my progesterone was low, did that cause this? Did drinking one drink the night before cause this? Did I do too much walking in Vegas? All the what ifs floated in and then I finally lost it.

It has been a few weeks now and things are starting to settle. Life is getting back to normal. Going back to work that first day was extremely hard, I wasn’t myself. I wasn’t chipper or happy. I wasn’t talkative. I just wanted to clock in, care for my patients and go home. Coping was really hard for me the first few days. I had no abilities to do so. I just sat there and cried. Hard cried. Ugly cried. Can’t breathe kind of cries. One of the hardest parts is that no one else knew. We had been keeping this whole process a secret so that we could surprise you all if it was good news. But now that is was bad news, I was all alone. Brandon had to go back to work and had an overtime shift as well he had to work. I was home alone, didn’t have my best friend Samson there to cuddle with me and make it all better. I was all alone. It was gut wrenching.

The silver lining? I finally got to mourn the loss of Samson without being worried it would cause the loss of the embryo. I finally got to get rid of all those emotions I had been harboring inside of me. I got to get my anger out. I got to scream and have puffy eyes for multiple days with no judgements. I got to realize that it will all be ok. That life does indeed suck at times. But it is also amazing at others.

We did not get the outcome we wanted the first time we went through with our transfer. There is currently no bun in my oven. But we were blessed with multiple embryos and so we will get to try and try again. In my head I joke that God was like, OHHH NOOOO, you won’t be able to handle this little one, no way, let’s just go ahead and have you try another. Haha. And maybe that truly is what happened. Who knows. Not me, not you, not anyone. But I do have faith that one day it will work out. And that is what I continue to hang on to to keep me afloat.

Now: I don’t need anyone’s “I’m sorry’s” or pity or sadness. You can feel all those things that’s fine. I can’t keep you from feeling them. But if you talk to me or see me around, just give me your joy and hope and strength. Because that is what I need to keep pulling through. We will try again some day. We promise you that. We will give you a little Serio. But until then, just shower us in prayers, good thoughts, strength and happiness. That is all we ask. ❤

Thank you all.

With love.

Since I last blogged we had received the wonderful news that seven out of our ten embryos came back completely PGS healthy.  At the end of September I went for my last test/procedure before the transfer. This they called a Sono/Mock. It is where they go through my cervix and inject some fluid while they’re looking at it with an ultrasound. The procedure allows them to make sure that I don’t have any weird polyps, misshaped uterus or any other issues that would prevent an embryo from attaching. Once they completed that portion then the doctor does a mock transfer to be able to measure and see exactly how and where he will place the embryo on day of transfer.

I was really nervous that this procedure would be completely uncomfortable and possibly even painful. They were nice enough to give me a valium to take before and it was just enough to take the edge off! But my fears were proven wrong and Dr. Moffitt did a great job with the Sono/Mock, there were some uncomfortable parts as you can imagine, but honestly there was no pain at all. He told us that my uterus looks just fine and there should be no issues for the day of the transfer! Woohoo. Now it was go time to start preparing my body for the transfer.

At this point the team had me taking birth control pills(BCP) in order to regulate my hormones and keep them nice and low. I was to stop the BCP’s after sixteen days and start taking Estrogen twice a day. The plan was to get my period by day five after stopping the BCP’s. I had a bad feeling about this as I never have had much luck with controlling when it would come. My body always tends to make it be late, even with medications telling it what to do. I also had an inkling that because I started the Estrogen right after I stopped the BCP’s my body wouldn’t really realize that I stopped them, which would delay me getting my period.

I had voiced my concern with my nurse and she stated that there is a chance I might not get it at all because I did start the Estrogen and that is ok. As long as I don’t get a major period after day six I would be fine… Well of course guess who got a major one over a week late? Yup, this girl. I was devastated. The reasoning for not wanting to get it after the six days is because during your period you shed the lining of your uterus that has built up over the month’s time. If I shed too much and it is too close to our transfer date, then we would have to delay the transfer. Of course that is the LAST thing we wanted! I immediately contacted the nurse and let her know what had happened and she wrote me back to not worry, we would continue on with the plan and at my ultrasound we would just see where my lining is at.

I continued for the next week taking my Estrogen (to build up my lining again) twice a day and then switching over to three times a day. I went in for my scheduled ultrasound and blood work early in the morning. Shockingly my lining was pretty good at an eight. Now that’s not necessarily the number I personally wanted to hear, I wanted it to be a little bit more fluffy. However, the doctor and nurse assured me that eight would suffice for a successful transfer. My lab work turned out great as well and the next day I started taking Progesterone to again help get my uterus into gear for the transfer and implantation of the embryo.

Our transfer was scheduled for October 26th in the afternoon. We couldn’t wait! We were a week out and getting so excited. I had one more blood test the day before my transfer, it was to check the amounts of progesterone in my system. I got an email later that evening from my nurse stating that my level was on the lower side, but not too low to cancel the transfer. I just needed to go get another form of progesterone and start taking that right away. I was taking three different forms of progesterone three times a day. As well as the estrogen and other meds that I took daily. Needless to say I had MANY alarms set on my phone to remind me when to take things!

We were SO ready to get to this transfer the next day. We just couldn’t contain our happiness. Now when I say we, I mean me. Don’t get me wrong, Brandon was excited as well but he wanted to be more guarded throughout this whole thing. We needed at least one level headed person and we all know that that wouldn’t be me! Sleep was something I had a feeling I wouldn’t be acquainted with very much that night and oddly enough I was! I said a prayer before bed and slept soundly all night. Rise and shine! Oh what today  would bring us. We were ready. We were prepared. We were getting closer. It was finally time…

Well my apologies for keeping you all in the dark for the past two weeks. There is really no good reason or bad reason for not updating the blog, I just was feeling a tad lazy. Maybe it was because we received good news and so I just wanted to keep taking it in and not quite blog about it yet. I also have an acquaintance that is going through infertility and unfortunately had a very sad outcome from it all. I feel like I needed to keep this post to myself for a while before I shared it.

I realize that although Brandon and I have endured a very trying and emotionally challenging four years, these past two months have been very fruitful for us going through IVF. Not many people have as good of outcomes as we have. For that I am forever grateful. We have been blessed with many eggs, embryos, blastocysts and genetically sound embryos. My whole retrieval process went smoothly (beyond all the hormones and feelings), nothing went wrong in the actual procedure, all the followup and testing has gone well and I pray that our testing and transfer here on out all goes just as wonderfully. I know that many others cannot say the same. And for them I am truly sorry. Just as I don’t want to take away from the pain that they have felt, I don’t want to take away from the joy we are feeling.

Last Wednesday while Brandon was at work, I received a phone call about midmorning. It was from ARMS Clinic, I’m not going to lie, I slightly panicked when I saw them calling as I had an appointment just the next day with Brandon to go over our PGS results. Putting on my bravest face I answered the phone. It was the embryologist, oh lord, what could she be calling about? “Hi is this Bri? This is so-in-so and I just wanted to tell you that we got your results in a day early and I wanted to share them with you!!”

Oh! What an amazing phone call! I was so very excited. My palms got so sweaty and I ran to go get a piece of paper, any paper I could find and a pen. I did not want to forget anything this glorious woman was going to tell me, if you know me then you know that I forget a lot of things (a gene so nicely passed down from my grandmother and mother). She told me that we had wonderful results from the PGS testing. Now not to be negative but last time she told me that it sure didn’t feel like it, so I definitely was bracing myself. Thirty to fifty percent of embryos are not genetically sound and could/would result in miscarriage.

But guess what? Out of the ten we sent SEVEN, I repeat SEVEN were healthy. Praise that woman on the phone, praise our embryos, praise my husband, praise Jesus, praise every single person that has prayed for us, praise all my family and friends that constantly check in on me and ask how we are doing, praise ARMS for working as hard as they do to give us the best results, praise my body for making good eggs and praise Brandon’s swimmers for blessing me with seven healthy embryos. Oh my gosh. Excitement ran through me like you couldn’t even believe. We could, if we wanted and if all went perfectly have seven children, we won’t, but we could! Haha! (Don’t worry we won’t have seven children)

Now you will have to wait to find out the sex of the embryos by waiting to find out the sex of our babies as they happen! Sorry! Have to have some suspense and surprise for you all!

I immediately got off the phone with the embryologist and tried to Face Time Brandon to let him know the amazing news. I was literally beaming (and shaking) from my excitement and happiness. Brandon didn’t answer. Shoot. I texted him and told him to call me ASAP but that everything was fine. Didn’t need to worry him at work like something was wrong. It took about an hour or so before he wasn’t busy at work and was able to call me back. That was my favorite phone call so far that I was able to make. To hear the happiness in his voice, I could tell that he had the biggest smile on his face while we were talking.

Now we have totally started talking about baby names, how we are going to decorate the room depending on what baby will be, I’ve been a pinning mad woman on Pinterest, the whole shebang! With that being said though, there are still a few tests/procedures that have to be done for me. I also have to continue to get lab work done and then eventually start taking meds again to prepare my uterus for a transfer. We are patiently awaiting dates for all the things just mentioned. And this is where we are going to go rogue for a while. Not that we don’t want to include you all in these last steps, we definitely do. But for the sake of us not getting to be surprised about being pregnant, we want to be able to do that for our loved ones and all of you. If we kept you updated with each and every step from here on out, you would know exactly when things were happening and when to expect some results.

And to be quite honest, we would like a little privacy for this part of the adventure. It is something that Brandon and I would like to cautiously celebrate or tenderly mourn with just each other depending on the outcome. When we see fit we will indeed update you all. It is my goal to still write some posts on this blog over the next few months. Some will be public and others will be private! Once we are ready to share the news, happy or sad, I will make all the private posts visible for you all!

I hope you can respect our wishes. We appreciate the following we have and the support, love and prayers you all have given us. We would appreciate now more than ever for your continued love and prayers on our future endeavors in this IVF process. We hope that our official post in a few months will be one of complete and utter happiness. From our hearts to your’s thank you all so very much. We couldn’t have got to where we are now without you. Whether you know it or not, you all have helped us tremendously for getting through this season in our lives. For that I will be eternally grateful. I know that one day our future children will be loved by so many, as I have a feeling they already are.

I sit here on the couch thinking about all I have been through in just this past week alone. Last Thursday I went for my egg retrieval and that was all kinds of emotional. We were on a high after hearing how many eggs we got. Then the next day we were updated with how many embryos were formed. Still riding that high we had to wait patiently for five more days to hear an update about our babies.

Those five days were some of the longest hours of my life. You sit there day dreaming about your future. Surely we would have great numbers for how many embryos made it and hatched into blastocysts. We HAD to. I could just feel it. Deep down I knew that they were strong embryos and we would be blessed with a large number. I just knew it. But still we had to wait to find out. The embryologists had to leave them in the incubator and would not take them out until day five. That pivotal day.

Monday rolled around and I went to work. Everyone asked me how I was doing and congratulated me on our outcome so far. It was a fun and exciting day as I was going to be getting a phone call on Tuesday for our update. I tried to stay as busy as light duty would allow me to to keep my brain from only thinking about how many we were going to have. But yeah right. That’s all that flooded my brain and I’m pretty sure everyone got sick of me talking about it! Haha.

Monday night I forced myself to go straight to bed at about eight o’clock. Brandon was on shift so I didn’t have him to distract me. Guess who couldn’t manage to turn her brain off? Yup, this girl! I literally laid in bed for the next couple hours wide awake. I surfed Facebook and Instagram and after looking at the same content three times over I decided I just needed to shut everything down and try to sleep. Luckily that was successful, yet I was still super restless all night. But what did I care? I was going to get a phone call at some point the next day and I was so happy! No amount of dark circles or bags under my eyes could keep this girl down!

What the heckkkkk. It was already one in the afternoon and I hadn’t had a single phone call from the doctor’s office! They called at about nine in the morning the last time. Then I realized that if they were going truly five days later it would be around the afternoon when they took them out, as that is when they were officially created was afternoon. One other nurse that I work with was equally as anxious for me to get a call, as she had just gone through this same exact scenario. Every time I would walk by she would give me that look like “have they freaking called yet??” and I would just shake my head no and roll my eyes.

FINALLY. Two o’clock on the dot and I get a phone call. I was working in my manager and educator’s office that day so I could have my own computer to do some tasks. As soon as my phone rang and I answered it my educator instinctively shut the door. She knew exactly who was calling and how important it was (she’s pretty amazing like that). Two minutes, that’s all that phone call took. But man did it feel longer. I’m not going to lie, it was not the phone call I thought I was looking so forward to. The embryologist started with “Well I have good news,” ok so that sounds promising, “You have six, well five embryo’s we can freeze and send for testing.”

Wait, what? Say that number again? Only five? Why didn’t the sixth one count? “Well it just doesn’t look as good as the other five, but I suppose that really doesn’t mean anything! It still made it into a blastocyst, so we will biopsy and send it too.” Ok, so we have officially six embryos to send. Wow. Now don’t get me wrong, I am beyond thrilled to have six that we can send. Some people don’t have any, some only one or two. I knew that the number would decrease but I really didn’t think it would be that drastic. My heart hurt. Badly. I then asked her, “Is there any chance for any more to grow?” she informed me that there definitely could be more and she thinks by looking at them that there could be four more. Ok, four more embryos to possibly add to the group. That’s nine, maybe ten if we count the one that doesn’t “look as pretty” to the mix. That is a little better but why does my heart still hurt this much? Why am I feeling like I am going to start crying any minute.

My mind is racing and numb all at the same time. It is such a mix of emotions. I am so happy for having six embryos, possibly four more. Yet I am so very sad for losing over fifteen of our babies. Yes, babies. They were ours, they were fifty-fifty Brandon and myself. They had made it to be embryos and tried growing and developing and they just couldn’t. How absolutely crushing that feels. I know it sounds so silly, and honestly until you go through that exact scenario yourself, I just don’t think that you can even begin to feel the same. I would assume it is somewhat like the loss of a baby inside you. I just didn’t get the same amount of time with them. Or have to go through the physical throws of losing one that way. But it is heartbreaking just the same. I’m saddened for the loss of the others.

Then I start to take my mind to not so positive places. So we have six embryos to send. What if none of them are healthy? Surely if these are the ones to make it to this stage they must be the healthy ones? Right? What if they are healthy and I only have six to implant? What if we implant them and they don’t take? What if my lining isn’t good enough for them? What if they do stick but then something on my end goes wrong? We won’t have as many to start off with to transfer in case some don’t take.

Yes, I realize that is a ton of negative thoughts. But after all we have been through it is so hard to not let your mind take you there. Of course I know it only takes one! I am blessed that we have six to send. I pray for all six to come back as healthy and ready embryos!

That night I came home to dinner being made and I was greeted by a beautiful bunch of lilies on our island. Brandon knows I love these flowers and they always remind me of him. They were one of the first flowers he ever got me. Instantly it put a smile on my face. I am married to one of the sweetest men I have ever met. I am so lucky to have him in my life and we will take on whatever comes next, together.

Brandon reminded me, just as I needed him to do, that we just need to stay positive and it will all work out.

Sure enough, that was the case. Like I had said before, I just knew deep down in my heart that there would be quite a large number of embryos to make it to the blastocyst stage. That next morning I had to go into work for a meeting/education day. I had forgotten to link my watch to my phone so I would know if I was getting a phone call (since my phone was on silent). Although, I figured I wouldn’t hear from the embryologist until the afternoon again anyways. But what do you know? She called almost first thing that morning and I had missed it!

Yay! She had left me a voicemail. I apologized to my group that I was going to listen to the voicemail right then and there. There would be no excusing myself out of the room. Ain’t nobody got time for that, haha! Almost everyone at work knows what I’m going through so none of them minded. (seriously lucky about that, otherwise that would have been a big no no) Ok stop. Did I hear the voicemail correctly? We had another EIGHT embryos hatch. Eight more. Holy smokes. I seriously could not wipe the smile off my face if I tried.

We have fourteen blastocysts! Now we had to decide if we were going to pay more to send all of them or send the original set amount of eight that we already paid for. That is definitely a difficult decision. We know that thirty to fifty percent of all blastocysts can have a genetic mutation that will cause them to have a trisomy. These embryos aren’t compatible with life. In knowing that, we could lose quite a few more embryos in this process. So do we test them all to find out? Do we just send the eight that we already allotted money to? Do we just send a few more?

After some talking it over, Brandon and I decided that we would send ten. It is a strong even number and we think it should yield us with a good amount of embryos still. If not, we still have the four more that didn’t get biopsied that we can use. The only downside is we will not know if they have any trisomies, but that is just like everyone else when they get pregnant naturally, you just don’t have any clue.

Talk about emotions. Good grief I think I experienced over one hundred in the last two days. But that is how this process is. It’s never ending ups and downs. With that said, I just have such a good feeling about all of this. I truly do.

Now we sit and wait for about a week to find out the results of the PGS testing. Oh boy. This is going to feel like a fifty day week instead! Haha! So if any of my friends want to take me out and keep me busy, just let me know!

One thing I do know though, is you can’t rush perfection. So I will sit and be as patient as I can, only occasionally peeking through the oven window and checking on those sweet buns that are baking.

Thank you all for continuing to read my posts. I hope you find them entertaining and informative. If you guys have any questions please feel free to comment and ask!

Eight am we arrive at ARMS. Sign in. Sit down. Bathroom break for both of our nervous bladders. The wait to go back felt like forever. This is the day we have been waiting for. How many eggs will they actually retrieve? Will they be healthy? Will they fertilize with Brandon’s sperm? Will they survive their first day?

How will I do? Will I get to be put under? Will I have to be awake? How bad is it going to hurt? During, after, days after? Am I having a heart attack, no, just a minor panic attack starting. No big deal. Just getting those weird numbing/tingling sensations in my chest and arms. Ugh. Take me back already and let’s do this. I can hardly walk as it is. I feel bloated, swollen and over all like a fat cow.

They call my name. Thank goodness! Brandon and I both go back to the pre-op room. Three beds are set up and separated by curtains. I will be in the middle one. Oh my goodness do I have a nervous bladder and stomach. Bathroom break again please? The nurse is very sweet and is talking to me about all kinds of things, I know she knows I’m nervous. I’m pretty sure even a little kid could look at me and tell that I am. She explains how the whole morning will go.

I will go to the bathroom (thank goodness), get dressed in my beautiful gown, hair cap and footies. Then jump back into bed, have my vitals checked and get my IV started. My vitals were a little off, but with being so nervous I was actually impressed my blood pressure wasn’t as high as I figured it would be. Time for the IV. Ok, being a nurse I know where all my bad, good and great veins are. I’m sure I would be dubbed a “hard stick” in the hospital. Except for two locations where you’re guaranteed to hit a winner. I showed her both places and she went with the first. She did a great job and I barely felt it.

Next we will patiently wait to speak with Dr.Moffitt and the anesthesiologist. While we wait there is another lady having her retrieval done in the room just in front of us. We are separated by just a door. I can hear the beeping of her heart rate on the monitor. You can also hear muffled voices but can’t quite make out what they’re saying. Again my nurse is making excellent small talk with me to keep my anxiety somewhat at bay. They finish the case before me and wheel her to the spot to my left. She sounds happy it is over with (I cannot wait to feel the same way here shortly). We hear her complain of some pain, warranted, and she is able to get a little extra meds to make her comfortable. That’s good.

Dr.Moffitt comes in, says hello and asks if we have any questions. We both say no and I let him know that I’m ready for him to get these guys out! Then walks in our anesthesiologist. He is very kind, gives a warm smile to us both and introduces himself. He informs us of the risks that could happen if I am put completely under by propofol and he mentions that the previous anesthesiologist that we saw for our consult recommended just conscious sedation. I told him that I completely understand what the latter would be a better choice, but that I am just worried for the pain and my anxiety level. But I trust whatever his decision may be and I will go right along with it. After some more talking the doctor says my favorite words ever, “We will give you propofol and put you under, in the case that you’re having difficulty breathing we will wake you up and have you do conscious sedation.” In that moment he was my best friend. I instantly was put to ease when he made that decision. Ultimately he wanted us to have a successful retrieval and he believed the only way to ensure that was to have me completely under.

Time to send Brandon out and for me to make one last bathroom break and walk into the  procedure room. Let me tell you, that was the weirdest looking chair/bed and stirrups ever. Thank goodness they did put me out because I was in a position I don’t care to remember! The anesthesiologist was the sweetest, I do remember him telling me he was giving me some medicine to calm me down. And although I didn’t quite feel more calm, I did have a weird numbing sensation to my brain. I guess the meds were working at that point! I also remember him petting my forehead and telling me to keep taking deep breaths and asking if I was alright. Yeah, I’m great. I literally feel numb to the world. He then proceeded to tell me goodnight and I can’t remember a single thing after that!

Coming to is also a very strange sensation. I remember bits and pieces of people talking, but that is about it. Once I really started to wake up I was back in the pre-op/recovery room. I was little miss Chatty Cathy, which for my family and friends, this isn’t hard to believe, cause homegirl loves to talk. I remember the first thing I asked my nurse was “Did I cry??” and “How many eggs did he get?” To which she had a good laugh and told me that I actually did not cry at all. (When I had my wisdom teeth taken out I was put under and when I woke up I was literally bawling for no apparent reason) To be able to answer my second questions she had to go ask the final number, but she thought it was around twenty-four.  When the anesthesiologist came in the first thing out of my mouth was “How did I do? Did I get to stay under the whole time??” He told me I did wonderful and the only assistance I needed was at one point he just tilted my chin up a bit to help me breathe. I was so relieved.

Once I talked the nurses ear off enough she went and grabbed Brandon to come on in and give her a break. As he walked in the nurse told me the final count for the eggs, she had been off by a few. It was twenty-six!! Now twenty-six has forever been my favorite/lucky number. Do you remember when you were in grade school and you were assigned a number each year in class? Well my number always ended up being twenty-six and from there on I deemed it my special number.  So to hear that is how many I was able to make definitely felt like there was a higher power involved.

From this step now, the eggs would be incubated and checked to see when they each got to their own perfect maturity. Once this happened the embryologist in the lab was going to perform ICSI. Which is where they take an individual sperm from Brandon’s donation (hehe) and place it inside the egg. This guarantees that the eggs will for sure be fertilized by sperm. Because there was male factor issues, we had decided to just go ahead with this method. If not, they would have all the eggs in the same petri dish and place the semen sample in the dish as well and hope for all the eggs to become fertilized. But we figured we already were spending the money on doing IVF, we might as well guarantee that our eggs are getting fertilized by doing ICSI.

I couldn’t believe that I felt amazing. Seriously, I was awake and excited and happy. They were out of me! Thank goodness. I did have some pretty bad pain on my left side and so I had asked for some more pain meds, in which two doses later it was manageable. Brandon sat there and laughed at me as I kept chatting away. About an hour passed and the nurse asked if I felt well enough to go ahead and get my IV out and start getting dressed. I told her “let’s do it” and she just laughed.

Here I am all smiles and some half closed eyes after the retrieval. But I felt wonderful. I was actually shocked by this. Until the Fentanyl wore off and we got home. Then I started to feel like crap.

The pain in my pelvis was unreal. I also got this wicked headache which then turned into a full blown migraine. At one point the pain of my head was actually worse than that of my pelvis. Not to mention that the pain meds I took made me completely nauseous. So I decided to not take those ever again. Tylenol was the only pain reliever I was allowed to take. I also tried icing the base of my neck and top of my head, as sometimes it really helps. But there was no stopping this one. I did great with advancing my diet and got to actually eat for dinner.

Collectively throughout the day I dosed in and out of sleep. Bed time rolled around and the sleep was terrible. Which honestly I figured it would be since I was pretty much sleeping all day. I tossed and turned, couldn’t find a good spot. I slept with my knees up and bent, flat, on my back, sides, etc. Every time I tried to move in bed it would hurt and it was just a big ole mess. When I officially woke up in the morning I felt like I was hungover. My head was foggy, I was dizzy, there was so much pressure and I couldn’t quite see right. I was nauseous and my head was still killing me. I literally sat on the couch all day with no TV or anything and was miserable. My mom was my saving grace as she reminded me about some migraine medications I had. I took one of those, fell asleep for three hours straight while Brandon went to the gym and when I woke up I felt like a brand new person.

This was also the day that the embryologist was going to call and let us know how many of our eggs fertilized and turned into embryos! I was so excited to hear from them. We really had no clue what it was going to be. I prayed so hard that we would have at least a few. We really didn’t know if I had any issues with my eggs or not. So it could have been possible not to have any fertilize. Throughout my napping I woke up to my phone ringing! AAHHHH! It was a number I recognized from the doctor’s office! Sure enough it was the embryologist calling. She said that they were able to look at all the eggs and out of the twenty-six retrieved, twenty-one of them were now embryos! We have twenty-one babies!!! Two of the embryos were not multiplying correctly, so they removed them from the group. Three of the eggs and sperm had not quite yet formed into an embryo, but she had said that they could still do it and just might be late bloomers. But hey, we have twenty-one! That is amazing.

Now you ask, what is the next step? So the embryologist will continue to incubate our embryos for the next five days. They won’t take them out at all during this time to look at them. They want the environment to mimic being inside my body this whole time. Each day the embryos will continue to multiply and divide the cells. By day five if all goes correctly in each one, they will be considered blastocysts. This is when they are able to adhere to the uterus’ lining and implant.

The embryologist will take each embryo and look at it under the microscope to see if it successfully got to this stage. Now unfortunately, there is a good chance that many of the embryos will not make it to this stage. That is just the way of life. So we are thankful that we are starting with twenty-one! Once they see how many we have left, they will call us with the final number on Wednesday.

We are also choosing something called PGS testing. This is where they will take a biopsy of each of the healthy blastocysts and send them out for genetic testing. They will then keep the embryos/blastocysts and freeze them for us at our doctor’s office until we get the results. The genetic testing is just specifically looking for any trisomies in the embryos. Thirty to fifty percent of embryos have a trisomy. What does this mean? The baby would more than likely not be compatible with life and would be miscarried at some point during the pregnancy. So at this point we are also expecting to lose some of our babies due to trisomies. But again, we are staying positive and are just so happy that we are starting with a high number!

From this point on we just sit and wait to hear back. Once the PGS testing is done we will have an appointment with Dr.Moffitt and go over how many embryos we have that are healthy and we can work with. Then we get to have our transfer date scheduled and hopefully one day soon have our little one featured in this book that lies upon the waiting room table at ARMS.

So Monday September fourth we knew we were possibly having the retrieval done the following Thursday. I called in to my personal “medvoice” voicemail and was instructed to give myself all three shots and report back to my doctor the following day, Tuesday.

I woke up eager and excited Tuesday morning, I had a feeling the doctor would tell me that I was going to be able to trigger myself with a new medication in hopes for the Thursday retrieval. I was also going in to work after this appointment so I had to pack all my medications to come with me. And of course each one needs to be kept refrigerated… But because I wasn’t sure what the exact plan was going to be, I had to bring ALL my medications with. Depending on my hormone levels from my labs drawn previously would determine which trigger medication I would use.

Anyways, I show up with my cute little lunch box full of needles, alcohol swabs, medications and ice packs. Not going to lie I felt so silly with that lunch box that I just left it in my car for the appointment. Dr.Moffitt did my ultrasound and measured each and every follicle in both ovaries. It was amazing to see them all and see how tightly packed they were. I had been experiencing frequency with urination, just as if I was pregnant and I totally understand why! There was just no room in my pelvis for anything other than those follicles. Did you know that they get up to 20-28mm in size each before they’re mature enough to release an egg? That is almost half an inch in diameter for each one. Uhm, when you have forty of those no wonder things don’t feel quite right!

After he did all the measuring he smiled and told me that I would be able to trigger that same night and we would set me up for the retrieval on Thursday!!! I had my labs drawn as well to check my estrogen levels. They had been climbing as they should, but were doing so at a little bit faster rate. If they were higher than they wanted then I would use Lupron as my trigger shot. If they weren’t too high then they would have me use the HCG trigger.

I waited so very anxiously that whole day to call my medvoice voicemail at four pm. (That’s the time that they leave a message for me each day after the ultrasound and blood work) I’m not kidding you, I called it at three, three fifteen, three thirty, three forty-five and four. By four o’clock I was starting to worry that they forgot to leave me a message. This was THE most important message that I was waiting for. I impatiently emailed my nurse and asked if she knew what the plan was, as I hadn’t heard from the medvoice yet. Four thirty rolls around and I call it again, still no voicemail. Oh my gosh!! I literally was getting panicked by this point. I pretty much hid in my “office” that entire evening waiting until I heard from them. By five o’clock I received a live phone call from the doctor’s office and the MA instructed me on what I was to do.

I was going to take 100units of Lupron for my trigger shot at exactly nine thirty pm. Then I would go into the office the following morning for my Pre-op meeting. I needed to bring a needle and the rest of the Lupron to the meeting as well. I was SO excited to get the news!! But when I heard I had to stay up until nine thirty that night to give the shot I was dreading it. I am an old lady when it comes to getting my sleep, the earlier to bed the better! Staying up until nine thirty was going to take all my effort!

My favorite shot of them all! Preparing my follicles to finish maturing and essentially get ready to ovulate. (Although we would be extracting them before that would happen, or so the nurse had to assure and reassure me, haha)

I went in the following morning to the pre-op appointment and she just filled me in on what to do and what not to do prior to the procedure. She also told me what I could be expecting to happen during the procedure if I did have to be awake for it. Well that made my anxiety climb quite a bit because it did not sound pleasant in the slightest. I gave myself the last shot ever for this cycle after the appointment and I was scheduled to show up at eight am Thursday September 7th for my egg retrieval!

I wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to sleep that night! I was just so excited and anxious to get this over with. I felt like a beached whale, could hardly walk any more because of how much pressure I had in my pelvis. Every time I peed it was painful because my bladder contracting affected the positioning of the ovaries. Not to mention I was just OVER IT ALL. My body had taken a huge toll and I was ready to get to the next step and get them out of me!! Believe it or not, I laid in bed and was able to read a few pages out of my current book I’m reading, and I was fast off to sleep. I even slept amazing and never once woke up during the night.

My body was working and behaving exactly how it should, with exception of making too much of the estrogen hormone (the doctor would continue to watch this) and I was well on my way. My dose was rising and we were getting one step closer to putting it all in the oven and setting the timer!

Ok guys, my apologies. I have been quite the busy lady the past week and a half with work and all my doctor’s appointments. Remember how I told you I would have to go to the doctor every other day? Well that definitely didn’t leave me much time for myself. But here we are! You ready for a little update? It’s an exciting one if I do say so myself.

So last I wrote about completing my birth control pills and awaiting the phone call to see what dose to start my first injection, the Gonal F at. I started it at 300iui for two days and went in for my lab draw and ultrasound. Well my ovaries definitely got stimulated by the medication because my right ovary had over 17 follicles in it and my left had around 24. Now if you can remember at my original ultrasound just a few days prior I had 8 on the right and 10 on the left. So amazing the growth that already had happened! Now just a little education recap for you: women have two ovaries, each of which house many follicles (you’re born with a set number and that is it for your lifetime to work through), each month your ovaries grow some follicles and at some point, ideally, one will get large enough and release an egg. That egg will then essentially meet up with the sperm and possibly become fertilized.

Do you see how exciting it is to have almost twenty follicles in each ovary?! Now not every follicle will house an egg, there is always a chance that it is just an empty sac. So the more follicles I have to harvest, the better chances I have at retrieving multiple eggs.

After my appointment at the doctor I went through the process of filing for FMLA at work. My bosses just wanted to make sure that if I ever needed to call off of shift that I wouldn’t be penalized. (I truly have some of the best bosses I have ever met) I also had to turn in paperwork stating that my doctor wants me to be on light duty prior to and after my retrieval. As my ovaries grow with the multiple follicles, there is always a chance of ovarian torsion, where the ovary can twist and cut off it’s own blood supply and die. Ok, we do NOT want that happening after everything we have already been through.

I officially went on light duty at work on September 1st and am to be on it until the 24th. However, depending on how fast I bounce back after the retrieval I might try to have my doctor let me go back to work sooner. Light duty at work sounds nice when you’re working the floor and get a little burnt out. But let me tell you, light duty is so boring. You practically go around asking all your managers and team leads and fellow coworkers if there is anything you can do for them. I am getting very proficient in photocopying, laminating, packet making, organizing and cleaning various places on our unit.

Back to every other day lab work and ultrasounds. After my second visit they had me decrease my Gonal F to 225iui and then add in my low dose HCG shot, only 10units. Luckily for me the Gonal F causes no skin irritations and because the HCG is a small enough amount it hasn’t caused any skin issues thus far. By the third ultrasound my follicles were averaging 10-11 for size and I still had about twenty follicles on each ovary.  Overall I have been feeling extremely tired, some nausea in the mornings and evenings and some lovely breast tenderness and by tenderness I mean pain. I had asked my nurse why I was feeling pregnant and she just giggled and said I’m getting a sneak peak into how I will feel when the actual time comes. The meds I’m taking is having me produce some of the same hormones and causing all these symptoms. Joy!

Saturday, September 2nd I went for another appointment and my follicles grew another four in size! So each was averaging 14-15! Such a relief to see that my body is doing exactly how it should. I called in later that evening to see which meds and doses I needed to take and found out that I had to start adding in the Cetrotide. Cetrotide helps to tell the body not to release/ovulate any of the eggs. So it pumps the breaks on that, but does not affect or slow down the growth of the follicles! Three shots each night. By now I have got pretty darn good at giving them to myself. No more of that “one, two, three, go!” over and over again for five minutes at a time. I just get them ready and poke! I won’t lie though, when I am at work I totally have another nurse give me the shots. It is just easier that way. My brain isn’t hard wired to like to cause myself pain, I would much rather someone else do it!

Two out of the three needles are wonderful. They’re super skinny and sharp and you can barely feel them go in. The third however is awful. I don’t know if it is more blunt or what, but you can feel the drag going into the skin initially and while you are trying to push it all the way in. I could do without that one..

Unfortunately for my skin the last shot that I had to add in to the mix, the Cetrotide causes bad reactions to everyone. I was warned by my nurse that it would cause a warm, red, hard spot on my belly that would go away just in time to give myself the next shot a day later. So I definitely wasn’t looking forward to giving myself this shot for fear of what I might experience. At first poke it wasn’t so bad, the needle was nice and sharp and barely felt it go in, so that was a plus. I injected the medication and all things were a go. Then within the first minute of injecting it I could feel it start to burn. The burn quickly started turning into an itching sensation and by minute two or three I looked down and my stomach had some hives starting to pop up right where the medication was on my belly.

It literally itched like no one’s business. I’m not going to lie to you, I got a little nervous that I was having an allergic reaction to the medication. The only reason I questioned that thought was because the hives were just residing directly within the lines of the medication. But I definitely still called the nurse on call that night to make sure that this reaction was normal and that I didn’t need to take Benadryl or anything like that. The nurse called me back and just laughed and reassured me that hives are normal and not to worry. Great, just what I always wanted! Oh well, it’s worth it, right??

Sure enough within the first thirty minutes to an hour the tiny hives turned into one large welt and that’s what remained on my stomach until sure enough, just before it was time to give my next shot the following day.

This morning, September fourth, I went in for hopefully my last follow up labs and ultrasound! It was amazing. My ovaries really do look like huge chocolate chip cookies. Even I know what I’m looking at now on the screen (which is saying quite a bit cause I never know what I’m looking at on an ultrasound). My right ovary still has about 20 follicles, all about the same size just coming in slightly under 20 each for size. My left ovary was quite a bit more full and most the follicles looked to be over 20 for size. In my left ovary there are so many and they are so big that they’re being squished into weird shapes and not pretty circles like normal. But my nurse reassured me that it is a good sign! Both my ovaries are so full and big that they are also squishing my uterus and we could barely see it on the ultrasound, they were creating too large of a shadow over it! Haha. Way to go ovaries!!

I definitely am feeling pain today and yesterday. Which is quite understandable after seeing what is going on inside me this morning! It is such a relief though and so satisfying to see how much I have progressed in the last week. The meds are doing their job and my body is doing it’s job as well. My nurse predicted that we can rule out the retrieval for Tuesday and Wednesday and we more than likely won’t make it to Friday. So Thursday as of right now is the set day. Once she talks to the doctor though we will know for sure.

Brandon and I are SO excited. We are getting closer and closer each and every day. This past week has flown by. I think it helped that Brandon was away hunting the whole week. It is probably the best thing that he was because I know I have a very short fuse right now and I would have snapped on him quite a few times. It was also good I went on light duty because my patience for my patients was wearing very thin and that is not a good thing.

So my oven is set to 450º and my follicles are almost ready to be taken out! Once that happens the lab gets to create our babies, we will have them tested to see which are the healthy ones and then eventually we will be able to put a bun in this oven to see if it grows!

I owe each and every one of my family members and friends that have reached out to me, said prayers for us and continue to check in on me, a huge thank you! Knowing how many people are thinking of us and wishing us the best is such an amazing feeling. Our future babies are already loved and wanted so much from so many people and I can’t quite describe how wonderful of a feeling that is. As I sit here and think about it, like every time I do, it brings tears to my eyes. I am surrounded by the best and I am forever grateful. So thank you all for going on this journey with us and not giving up on us ever. We love you all and can’t wait to share the good news as it keeps coming in!

After countless months of disappointment and negative tests, Brandon and I sat down and talked about our options. We had three different “next steps” to choose from. We could try Femara and timed intercourse instead of the Clomid, we could try doing IUI or we could try and do IVF. What are these three different options? Let me tell you!

Femara is a medication that is off brand used for infertility. They found it can help make your follicles grow, like Clomid, but not have the same negative effects. So hey, there is an option. But, we only have a 15% chance of becoming pregnant for the medication/timed intercourse combo and lets face it, we’ve come up empty about eight times now with trying that method (if you were keeping track). Ok so Femara option one is out.

IUI. Well this one sounds promising. I take medications (the same as timed intercourse, probably Femara as Clomid was wreaking havoc on my uterine lining) and we monitor my ovulation cycle (I don’t on my own so I would have to do the trigger shot) and then they would take a semen sample from Brandon and inject it through my cervix into my uterus. The hope is that placing the semen higher and closer to where the egg will be would increase the chances of getting pregnant. So yeah, this could work, why don’t we try this option then? Well, again, it is really only a 15% chance of getting pregnant even with this option. Plus it cost more money and would start eating away at the little infertility insurance I have. So nope, option two is out of the question.

IVF. The holy grail, mother of all infertility treatments. The one I cried over in the beginning thinking it would be the worst thing ever if I had to go through it. Ha! Oh how my thoughts have changed. Now it is the best option I’ve ever seen and I don’t know why we didn’t just do it from the beginning?! Why did we put ourselves through months and months of let downs? Because we had to. We had to get to a place in our minds and hearts where IVF would be our saving grace. Where we weren’t dreading it, where it is only positive thoughts when we think of it. Where we can imagine us finally being closer to being parents. So here we are, at the start of August sitting on our couch debating what the next step we should take should be and we choose IVF. And we have the biggest smiles on our faces because we know it is the right choice for us, it will hopefully (no it will be) our final destination in this roller coaster ride.

So IVF, explain it to me a little Bri, I’ve heard of it but don’t really know what all it entails. If you guys want a very scientific answer, please see yourself to google and the countless medical journals and websites that can offer it, I however will be explaining it how I’ve come to learn it in the simplest terms over all of my interactions and meetings with the nurse and doctors. So stay tuned for a long winded explanation.

August 8, 2017, day one of IVF.

So first ingredient needed: putting me on birth control! Seems slightly counter productive but then makes sense all at the same time. They want to be in control of all my hormones and pretty much “turn them all down/off” in which the birth control can do that. I have to be on it for twenty-four days and then the real meds start to happen.

For the most part, this step is just really like a throw back to my earlier years. Some pimples (really could do without these), nausea and other minor side effects from birth control. Luckily nothing crazy like with my hormone meds, lucky for Brandon!

August 16, 2017. Let the list of ingredients grow!

Meeting with anesthesia and my nurse for a pre-op evaluation and then going over what to expect over the next few weeks. So Brandon and I had to wake up super early to drive across town during rush hour of course to get to the doctor’s office as anesthesia is only there from 7:30-8:00am. Joy. But hey, we were super excited to get this process going, so waking up that early on our day off wasn’t that bad. The whole way there Brandon kept asking me if I was ok, as I was being very quiet the entire drive. I reassured him I was fine just nervous for the pre-op eval from anesthesia. Being a heavier girl, I was worried that maybe the doctor wouldn’t approve me for anesthesia.

We get to the office and sit in the waiting room for what felt like an hour (really only like ten minutes) before he called us back. We sat down in the room and the guy just jumped into it. Telling me the reason I’m here is because I’m overweight and he isn’t comfortable giving me propofol during the retrieval of the eggs. There it is, the one thing I was worried would be said. Great. He said a few things in the evaluation that for sake of time ill leave out. However, I felt as if he was making assumptions about my health based on my weight and leaving it at that, I felt like he was shaming me in the words he said to me and the worst of it, it was all in front of Brandon. It just didn’t sit right with me what all he had said and to top it off, once he was done he tried to make small talk. No sir, I am through here, do not ask me where I work and tell me you’ve worked there too. We are done.

After meeting with anesthesia we sat in the waiting room of the office until we would be called back to talk with our nurse (who we LOVE). She is seriously the best, most caring person and I am so thankful she found her calling and works at this office and gets to take care of us. I sat there, in that waiting room, feeling embarrassed, angry at the doctor, angry at myself, scared and sad. I sat there with silent tears rolling down my cheeks, fighting back every urge to ugly cry. Brandon didn’t quite know what to say, how could he? There is no right thing to say when your wife is hopped up on emotions/hormones and is crying, it’s usually a lose/lose. The wait to get back to see the nurse literally felt like an eternity and I was growing impatient. I just wanted to go home. How could they let us spend all this money to go through with IVF, order all these meds, spend countless hours on the phone with pharmacies, insurance, finance people and get us all excited to then send us in to get denied for anesthesia. Seriously?

Our nurse finally was able to come get us, we walked down the hallway and into their special teaching room, closed the door, sat down and then I lost it. The tears started and they wouldn’t stop. The nurse just took one look at me and asked what anesthesiology had said. Brandon had to do the talking for me for a while until I could calm down. Eventually I was able to express my concerns. I was just upset about what was said, I’ve recently been working out and losing weight and then to be told I was still too heavy sucked, I was scared for having to go through the retrieval without being put under, I was overall just so frustrated. The nurse reassured us that conscious sedation was the go-to method long before propofol was being used and not to be worried. They would give me a lovely amount of versed in pre-op to relax my nerves and my brain. By the end of the meeting I was feeling more at peace with what would be happening. She also went over several consent forms and filled us in on the next steps. Ok, now it’s getting even more exciting. We can see these dates coming up and they’re coming up quickly!

August 19, 2017, Picking up all the meds.

You know those big Tupperware containers that you put your holiday decorations in and then store in your garage or attic? Those big ones? Yeah, well that’s what the lady brought out for me when I went to pick up my meds from the pharmacy. I straight up laughed when she came out with that. I’ve never seen so many boxes of meds in my life for just myself. I was starting to feel like one of my patients that I’m handing countless pills over to every morning for them to take. I always joke with them that I’m giving them their second breakfast. Well, here was mine! The lady behind the counter spent about five minutes trying to pack all of them into these two large brown paper bags. Oh lordy, what am I getting myself into? Each one of these meds are injections as well, some I will have to do on the same day, some of them (let’s face it with my skin all of them) will cause irritations on my belly. But, one super big positive is that NONE of them are intra-muscular shots. They all just have to go into fat, well that will be easy, ha! But seriously, I’m so thankful for that.

I drove home quickly that day, as most the meds need to be kept in the refrigerator. I got home and decided to lay them all out to see what I was getting to work with. Now mind you, each box has a med that can be used for multiple days, so it’s even more than what is seen.

Ok, so what do these meds do? Gonal F helps to stimulate my follicles to grow nice and big and make large enough eggs to be harvested. Cetrotide I have to take if I start growing the follicles too quickly, it will slow the process down. Novarel will be my HCG trigger shot to clue the follicles into getting ready to release/ovulate and Lupron is the same, just a different medication incase I need that instead of the Novarel. Then there are some oral antibiotics to take pre-op and post-op just to protect me from any infection from the retrieval.

August 23, 2017 lab work, ultrasound and med prep.

Again, up and early for my appointment. It seems as though all of them will be about the same time every day, 7:30am. Rush hour time. Oh well. Today I go for a baseline ultrasound and lab work. From here they will know what dose to start me on for my medications. All goes well, I have eight follicles on my right ovary and about ten on my left. My lining is still pretty thin from the darn Clomid but I am told that it will thicken up perfectly by the time for transfer. The nurse goes over a few last details and gives me my next set of instructions. August 24th, stop taking birth control pills. August 25th call into my special patient mailbox to listen to a voicemail telling me what dose to start with for the Gonal F injection. August 26th, give myself the Gonal F injection. Then every other day starting on Tuesday the 29th I will go in for ultrasounds and lab draws to see the progress of the medications and determine future doses.

Tentatively the week of September fourth we will be doing my egg retrieval! SO DANG EXCITING.

So here I am, sitting here and typing away trying to explain the process. You now know all the ingredients involved thus far. It was slightly difficult getting to this point in the IVF cycle, but all the phone calls, stresses, meds and struggles were worth it. We are here and we are moving forward. No set backs now. We’re only going up from here!

 

Last month we tried another round of timed intercourse with Clomid at the half dose. Everything was going as planned and we were scheduled for our mid cycle ultrasound again. Brandon was off of work and able to join me for the ultrasound. We were excited but I think a little guarded, as we had been on this roller coaster time and time again. We knew that the higher we went the further we would fall.

Well, lucky enough for us we got decent news from this ultrasound. It showed about four follicles total, two big ones and two small ones. The largest of the two was actually a “twin follicle” as it had one inside of it as well that if fertilized could give us fraternal twins! Well that was unexpected news. Brandon and I had always joked that because we’ve had such a hard time with conceiving that when we did, it would more than likely be twins. Now that’s really not a bad thing at all, especially because we don’t have any kids yet, we don’t know any better! Haha. The only hangup about this ultrasound was that it was done a few days earlier than normal due to my work schedule and the nurse and doctor wanted to wait to let the follicles grow a little larger and more mature before we decided to trigger.

A few days later I went in for another ultrasound and unfortunately the twin follicles had separated but that really was ok because there is always a chance for multiples when on these meds. Any of the follicles can release an egg ending up with more than one baby! I did however have two mature follicles ready to trigger so the nurse instructed me to in two days give myself the HCG shot! Now let me tell you a little something about myself. I am pale. Like a ghost. I have very fair skin that on occasion will bless me with a tan for about a week and then before your eyes I’m pale again. Due to this lovely genetic gift I tend to react to anything that is put into contact with my skin. Remember when I said my body rejected the Implanon? Well it in the years I have been living has also rejected six ear piercings, two nose piercings, two bellybutton piercings and has given me countless rashes to belt buckles, bracelets, necklaces and the like! So when it came time to give myself this shot I knew it wouldn’t be pretty! My skin welted up, grew red, angry and very hot, not to mention painful to touch for about three days post trigger.

Now time for baby making and then the dreaded two week wait. Yup, that’s a real thing in the infertility community. The repeated longest two weeks of your life. Honestly.

So we got my follicles to grow, triggered them to release, caught that on several ovulation tests, had intercourse, we should be pregnant then right? We did all the right steps. Well, we did, and so do you all. However SO MANY things after that have to go correctly as well. First, there needs to be some mighty agile sperm to swim up and through the appropriate canals, the egg then has to gingerly float through the fallopian tubes and down into the uterus, meanwhile meeting up with said sperm. Then the two of them need to divide and grow into a healthy embryo. Once that happens it needs to keep growing and dividing to a blastocyte and when that step is completed it can finally start to settle in and make a home of part of the uterus. If it can hang on and settle in, then it has a fighting chance of making it a full ten months before making it’s debut in the world. ALL OF THAT has to happen, not to mention all the other countless steps that could go wrong, but for sake of time I’ll keep that for another post!

Ok, back to us. Two week wait was over. No pre-pregnancy or PMS symptoms this time. Ok, so this must be a good sign then, right?? Oh, nope, big fat negative test again. Well alright, at least it wasn’t a false positive again. But oh man does this negative test hurt even more than the first. I really thought since this time felt different that it would be the time. I was certain. Are you all on this roller coaster with us now too? See how easy it is to get on? Such high highs and then such low lows. We were so close. We did everything correctly so what in the world is going wrong?! And don’t you dare tell me it is in God’s hands and obviously isn’t the right time.. Unless you want to get my signature dirty look, then please go ahead and say it. (I know you mean well, but as aforementioned you just don’t say that to someone dealing with infertility, or really anything for that matter)

Well what in the world do we do now? The mood swings, hot flashes and night sweats are still very real and very frequent with these meds. We’re tired. We’re sick of seeing nothing happening. We’re ready as ever to become parents (yes we really are). I’m tired of crying. I’m tired of being unhappy and angry and taking it out on my innocent husband. I’m tired of doctor visits and hopeful thoughts and painful realities.

We could do IUI. That’s a foreseeable next step. But then I start using up my small amount of insurance allotted to infertility (let me tell you I am SO grateful to even have ANY) on IUI that doesn’t have as high of a success rate as IVF. Do we do IVF? It used to seem so scary and such a negative and last resort option. There is such a stigma towards infertility and needing IVF. Why? Why do you judge something or think less of them because their body just doesn’t want to work the same way? That’s ridiculous. I used to be ashamed. But I am no longer. I’m proud of my body and all that it has allowed me to do so far in my life and it just needs a little help to keep doing all the things it needs to. Peoples joints give out all the time and they need replacements. People’s hearts do as well. No one ever judges them for needing surgery to fix that problem. So why in the heck should someone judge me, or my husband for having reproductive issues?

It felt SO good to have this revelation. How sad that so many women before me also felt ashamed for needing assistance with conceiving. How very sad. I hope to continue to use my voice to make other’s aware of what all we have to go through. What all it takes to do this. And if you really pay attention and look closely, you’ll see that I’m not weak, I’m actually so very strong for enduring what I have and continuing to give myself shots, have reactions to them, cause my ovaries to go into overdrive and produce many eggs, have hormonal changes I can’t control, have sleepless night, keep riding on this crazy roller coaster and STILL manage to give you a smile, grit my teeth, and say that one day, I too will be a mother. I will have my baby. And be damn sure that I will be so proud of my husband and myself for making it on this journey, with love in our hearts for not only each other, but our precious baby to come.

So here we are.. upping the ante and buckling our seat belts. We’re about to take a ride on the biggest coaster yet!

IVF.

At the start of 2017 the preheat setting to my oven was starting to really warm up as we decided to finally branch out, admit defeat (or so how I felt) and see an infertility specialist.

After getting many referrals from friends and family we decided on Dr. Moffitt with Arizona Reproductive Medicine Specialists. We had our official new patient consult (which is free with his office, bonus) and felt a little bit more certain, yet very frustrated about our new plan of care.

We would be sticking with Clomid for me, but taking away the estrogen and progesterone, increasing and changing up the Metformin and adding a small dose steroid to the mix. We would also be doing monthly ultrasounds to see if I am even responding to the highest dose of Clomid a woman can take, as I hadn’t got pregnant from that dose yet…

Why are we changing so much? Why did my previous doctor have me taking all these meds that my new doctor questioned? Is that why we hadn’t become pregnant? Were the last six months all a waste? Will this new set of meds work for me finally? I honestly had so many questions and almost felt more in the dark and angry about it all!

Well after our first month of trying this new medication regimen, we were very excited to see how my body responded to the medications. We went in for our mid cycle ultrasound to look at my ovaries and see if I made any follicles and if any of them were big enough to release an egg/ovulate. “Guess what? You have three large ones and two medium follicles!” The nurse was seriously ecstatic which then made Brandon and I super excited and hopeful. She said that usually someone with a diagnosis of PCOS (oh yeah, along the way I guess I was semi diagnosed with this, but no one officially said so) is lucky if they even produce one large follicle, but here I was with three! The next step was for the nurse to go over the ultrasound with the doctor and then get back to me about which day I could take my trigger shot to make me ovulate (as we know I can’t ovulate on my own, hence the never having a single period in four years issue.)

As we well know with rollercoasters once you go up you must come down. I received a phone call that following day which I thought was going to be telling me which day I could trigger and it turned out to be the exact opposite. The nurse told me that my doctor reviewed the ultrasound many times and feels as though it would be unsafe to trigger, as the two medium follicles could actually be bigger than they show and that would leave me with five mature enough follicles to trigger. Well seeing how I don’t want to be the next octomom, we had to stop this cycle and move on to another month of trying.

This was the worst best news I could receive. My body responded TOO well to the meds. Honestly, thank goodness I can’t ovulate on my own because lord have mercy if I could, I would probably have had a litter growing inside me from the previous Clomid cycles with my OBGYN, as she didn’t do mid cycle ultrasounds.

So, next step was to cut my dose in half and try again! The following cycle my ultrasound showed two follicles of mature size and I got to trigger myself with HCG that next day. I tracked my ovulation and sure enough, I got POSITIVE ovulation tests! Now that was something I had never seen before and it brought me many happy tears! Now all we had to do was make sure we had intercourse and I would be pregnant!

Over the next two weeks I think I experienced every pre-pregnancy sign there could be. Tender breasts (sign of progesterone being made), sharp pain on the left side (sign of implantation), cramping (sign of uterus growing to prepare for baby), you name it, I felt it. Needless to say when I took my pregnancy test and it showed a very faint positive line, I couldn’t believe my eyes and ran out to my husband to make sure he saw it too! He was hesitant to agree with me, but he definitely saw the line as well.

We were pregnant! All that hard work paid off, we did it. We could start talking about names and whether we though it was a boy or girl and what the baby would look like. Could we have twins in there since there were two follicles? All these thoughts ran through my head. But there was still a shred of doubt in both of our minds since it just felt too good to be true.

So I called my nurse and asked for her to write me an order to get my blood drawn that next day. Unfortunately those pre-pregnancy signs/symptoms I had experienced were more than likely PMS symptoms because when I took another pregnancy test the following day, it was a big fat negative. I still went in for the blood test to make sure and the day after that I got a phone call telling me it was indeed negative.

Now whether or not I was having a miscarriage and I caught the tail end of it on the pregnancy test or it was still some of my HCG trigger shot coursing through my body, I will never know. But let me tell you, it was the most depressing experience to have to go through. I literally was the happiest I had every been in the last four years that day I got my false positive and then I was the saddest I’ve ever been when I saw the negative and got the results back from the blood test. I cried for hours. I felt so guilty for even showing my husband that first test. I should have known it was too good to be true. How could I put him through that too?! Ugh, that was some serious feelings to have to work through. And I and BEYOND lucky to have this man by my side, because if it wasn’t for him, I don’t know if I could have pulled myself out from the darkness that was starting to surround me.

 

Four years. Four years is what it has taken to get to the step we are at now. But let’s not jump right to the present, I’ll tell you a little bit about how long I had my oven set to preheat for…

(Fair warning when I said a little, I really meant a lot. We were set to Preheat for quite a long while.)

Brandon and I got married January 20, 2013, one of the best days of my life. A few months before that I had decided that I was tired of taking the pill and wanted to try something different, something that would allow me to not get pregnant for up to three years AND I didn’t have to take anything daily for it (win win). I went to the doctor and got myself a handy dandy hormone implant into my arm, called Implanon. I had my own issues with my body rejecting it, having to get another placed in my other arm and then a hell of a time getting it out of my arm once I decided I was done. We had heard that it could take six months up to a year before my hormones would regulate after removing the Implanon, so a few short months after we got married we decided to go ahead and take it out.

From there we decided we would do the whole, not not try to get pregnant gig. If it happened then great, if it didn’t then not a big deal! Little did we know it wouldn’t happen for well over that 6-12 month period. Approaching about a year of no monthly cycles and no pregnancy to blame that on, I decided I would go see my OBGYN to figure out what our next step was.

For about three months she decided to put me on Metformin, Clomid, Estrogen and Progesterone to see if we could stimulate my body into ovulating and potentially getting pregnant. Three months of hormone induced tears, anger and hot flashes went by, with no sign of being pregnant. What a waste. Was I really going to put myself and let’s face it, my husband through all of this again and again? We both came to the conclusion that we would take a break from the meds, I would try to lose some weight and relax (apparently stress and weight are not conducive to making a baby) and see what happens next.

Another year passed and no baby Serio to speak of. Depression felt like it was starting to set in on me. I was SO upset that we hadn’t become pregnant yet. Everyone always would say to me, “You’re so young, don’t worry about it,” “Oh you’ve only been married a few years so you should enjoy each other for longer,” “Have you tried X, Y, Z yet? It worked for so-in-so,” and my least favorite response “In God’s time it will happen.” So you’re telling me that God doesn’t want me to be blessed with a baby right now? That everyone else around me can and not to mention more than once, but I for whatever reason am not allowed? Ok…

So here we are, year three. I decided to go back to my OBGYN and give the timed intercourse with meds another try. After a few cycles the doctor suggested I get a test done, HSG, to determine if anything was wrong with my fallopian tubes which wouldn’t allow the eggs and/or sperm to travel through them. She also recommended that Brandon get his semen tested to make sure those little swimmers were healthy. I was even encouraged that most women after a HSG got pregnant right away, as the tubes were then “nice and clean.” Unfortunately I was one of the many ladies that this didn’t happen for. Although my HSG looked great, I was bummed out because then we still were in the dark and without an answer. Brandon got his analysis back from his doctor and it wasn’t quite what we had hoped. In fact, we were both devastated at first. Pretty much every function/quality they checked for his came up under par. Oddly enough, many firefighters seem to have troubles with infertility. Not that that statistic made us feel any better.

So at this point both Brandon and myself were put on Clomid to increase our chances of conceiving. Clomid for Brandon helped to increase his testosterone levels which then increases the quality and quantity of those tiny swimmers. Clomid for me helped to increase the chance of making big enough follicles to then ovulate and get fertilized. About six months of this went by and we were fed up. I was an emotional and hormonal wreck, not only were my poor family having to deal with me but my coworkers and possibly even my patients felt the irritability just radiating off of me. While Brandon’s tests kept coming back better and better I wasn’t getting pregnant. But I was getting hot flashes, mood swings, weight gain, night sweats, headaches, acne (oh lord the acne) and every other side effect known to these meds.

Each month we would increase the dose of Clomid but to no avail. We just weren’t getting pregnant. There was no bun in my oven and it felt as if there was never going to be.. But we knew we had to keep faith that it would some day happen.

We had to do something else….