Better Today

A HUGE thank you to all of you who left me sweet, encouraging comments and sent me emails! I couldn't make it through this journey without all of you. :-) Today was a much better day. My UTI is starting to get better I think, but it still gets pretty uncomfortable in the afternoons. I think I'm on the mend, though. I felt much more encouraged today too. I just wish sometimes that God would give us a litle glimpse of our future. It would be nice to know how long we have to wait until we get to be parents, but that's not how it works. So, I just have to cling to my faith and trust that God's plans are ALWAYS better than ours.

I have to give a shout out to my sweet husband. He has done such a great job of taking care of me over the weekend and this week. I couldn't have made it through without him. Thanks Christopher Patrick, I love you more than you'll ever know! He's also constantly making sure that I'm not doing anything to jostle the embryos around. We went to Luby's for dinner last night because we both just needed some comfort food. Chris decided that I didn't need to carry my tray because it might be too heavy and so I had to ring the bell and wait for this high school girl to come get my tray for me. I felt so bad asking her to carry my tray for me. She must have thought that I was a complete whacko or extremely high maintenance. Ha!

I'm SO glad that tomorrow is Friday. I'm ready for next Wednesday to be here already! I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Blah

That is how I felt today...blah. Yesterday was my last day home from work and I actually thought my UTI was getting better. Apparently my bladder had other plans for me. When I woke up this morning it was in full force again. I was actually in tears driving to work this morning because I was so uncomfortable from it. I made it through the whole day of work, though. Thankfully it eased up a little during the day before it made an appearance again late this afternoon. I didn't move from my chair at work today except to make about a hundred trips down the hall to the ladies room.

This morning I received a call from the embryology lab to let us know that we didn't end up having any embryos make it to freezing. I can't say that I was surprised, but I guess it was still a little disappointing. I'm getting to the point in this TWW where the excitement and hopefulness is starting to ware off. This happens everytime. Right after the ET I am full of hope and excitement but then all of that turns into doubt and a need to go into self-preservation mode. Afterall, this is our third IVF cycle. We know the pain and disappointment of a failed cycle all too well. When our last two cycles failed I knew that we would definitely try another cycle. This time I don't know what we'll do if it turns out to be another failure. I am trying really hard to just focus on taking it one day at a time and not thinking about all the "what ifs". It's just so hard, though. When I see other pregnant people and read about positive betas I can't help but think to myself, "will that ever be us" "will I ever get to experience pregnancy"? I don't know the answer to those questions and sometimes I just want to run away and not have to see pregnant women, or ultrasound photos or pregnancy announcements. Facebook has become my worst enemy lately. I really wish there was a filter sometimes, not because people don't have a right to share their joy and excitement, but because some days it's just too much for me to handle.

So, today was just a blah day. I will, however, put my big girl pants on and continue to be thankful for all the blessings that God has given us. I just hope he has a little miracle in store for us this time around.

4:00 AM Wake-up Call

Since Friday, Chris and I have been getting up at 5:00 AM for my PIO shots. This morning, however, my body decided to wake me up at 4:00 AM with a blazing UTI (urinary tract infection). Yuck! Stupid catheter! Thankfully I haven't had a UTI since college but let me just tell you they are not fun at all. I was so uncomfortable so I took my pillow, blanket and the laptop and I went and sat in the guest bathroom for 45 minutes. What else are you supposed to do when you feel like you have to pee every 10 minutes and your bladder is on fire? Our cat, Charlie, came to keep me company. He plopped himself down on the bathroom floor beside my feet and stayed in there with me the whole time. He's such a momma's boy! I called Dr. H's office this morning at 8:00 and they immediately called in an antibiotic for me. I was so glad that I didn't have to go in for a urinalysis first. Chris was home this morning so he was able to go pick up my prescription and get me some cranberry juice. Needless to say, I spent the rest of the day either in bed or in the bathroom. Such fun!

So far bedrest has been ok, but I'm pretty restless. Two of the nurses on call on Saturday told me to eat lots of fresh pineapple because they truly believe it helps with implantation. Chris bought two pineapples for me on Saturday, cut them up and I have since eaten them both! It's a good thing I love fresh pineapple! Now, I don't know if there's any truth to this but it can't hurt. I would stand on my head for the next week if I was told that it would help. :-)

Tomorrow will be my last day at home and it might snow here. I hope so! Only 8 more days to go!

The embryos are home!

Well, today did not go as planned. We were expecting to go through the motions of planning for a day three embryo transfer today and assumed that we would get the phone call from the nurse on call this weekend to let us know that all was well and we could turn around and go home. But, that phone call never came. We got to Dr. H's office this morning at 8:45, signed in and were promptly called back to have a quick chat with Dr. M since she was the one on call this weekend. As we walked through the door my heart began to sink. I thought, this is it, we might as well call this cycle a failure. The sweet nurse told us with a big smile that our embryos had been asking for their mom and dad and so they had to come find us because they were ready to come home. How cute is that!? :-) We sat down in Dr. M's office and she told us that we had two superstar embryos and the other three were just a little pokey. One of the superstars was a 10 cell today and the other was an 8 cell. They were both graded at an A- which is awesome because A is the best grade they can receive! Such little over-achievers already. :-) This news made me feel much better. Dr. M explained that she wanted to go ahead and transfer these two embryos today because we already knew at this point that they would be the best and most viable and she preferred to let them continue to grow in a more natural environment...my uterus.

Because we have already had two failed cycles they also decided to move forward with assisted hatching for these two embryos. Our clinic also uses something called embryo glue which is basically a sticky-like substance that's added to the outside of the embryos to help them stay put. We definintely need all the help we can get at this point! After our consultation I was instructed to take my valium and was taken back to get dressed for the transfer. I've become a pro at filling my bladder for the transfers. I was doing the pee-pee danced in no time!

Once we were in the procedure room, the embryologist rolled our little embryos into the room in their own little isolette. It was so neat! It's very similar to the isolettes used for newborns in the NICU. Dr. M said that I had done an excellent job of filling my bladder because she had a perfect view of my uterus. She also said that the lining looked really good as well. The embryologist was then given the go ahead to load the embryos into the catheter and away we went. We got to watch on the ultrasound machine as Dr. M placed the embryos into the lining of my uterus. It still just amazes me each time I watch this being done and I just lay there and pray that God will keep growing these embryos and help them to snuggle in for the long-haul.

After the transfer was over Dr. M inserted a catheter into my bladder to drain it. YUCK! This was NOT fun. God bless the sweet nurse that had to stand there and hold the container for my urine to drain into. She was so sweet and just kept telling us how she would be praying for us and that we would have a whole clinic full of people praying for these little embryos! After my bladder was drained I had to continue to lay on the table for an hour so I didn't move the embryos around. The valium had relaxed me by that point so it went by pretty fast. Now, I'm laying on the couch and will continue to be here or in bed for the next two days. This new clinic requires 2 full days of bedrest. I am fine with that because our last clinic didn't require any bedrest and we see where that got us!

God definitely showed me today! I was not ready for a transfer today, frankly I didn't want a transfer today. I had dinner plans tonight that I was really looking forward to, I was looking forward to church tomorrow and going to eat for my brother-in-law's birthday. I had plans, BUT once again I needed to be reminded that it's not my timing or my plans that are important...it's His plans. I know that God's plans are always better than mine and so that's why I'm embracing our three day transfer today. I have faith that this was the best thing for us and our embryos and I have faith that God is in complete control and only wants the best for us.

Thankfully this new clinic does not require as long of a wait until the beta test. Our beta test will be on March 3rd. 10 days to go! Please keep praying for our embryos! I hope they continue to grow and that they decide to snuggle in soon! I will leave you with a picture of our precious embryos! The first picture is of the embryos after they were transferred into my uterus. It's the little white mass on the upper right-hand side. :-)

Fertilization Report!

Ok, I'm so sorry that it took me so long to post this. I was crazy busy at work today and then we had our monthly women's event at church tonight so I just got home. I received a call from our nurse this morning about 8:30. She was on top of things! She told me that out of the 11 eggs they retrieved yesterday 10 were mature. Woohoo! From those 10 eggs we were able to get 5 fertilized embryos!! Considering the infertility issues that we have I'd say that a 50% fertilization rate isn't too shabby. :-)

The nurse told me that everyone is automatically given an appt for a day three transfer. So, Saturday morning we'll have to get up and go through the motions of preparing for transfer...full bladder and all. We'll get a call that morning sometime from the nurse to let us know if our embryos are doing well enough to make it to day 5 or if we need to move forward with the transfer that morning. We are hoping and praying for a transfer on Monday!!! So far, I feel like this cycle has gone better than the last two. Even though we had fewer eggs, they were almost all mature so that means that this protocol definitely produced better quality eggs. Even if this cycle ends up not working I know in my heart that we made the right decision by moving. I have no doubt that this clinic is where God wants us to be right now.

At 5:00 AM tomorrow I will be enduring my first ever PIO (progesterone in oil) shot. For those that don't know, this is a lovely intramuscular shot and the oil is really thick and yucky so you have to use one of the really big, awful looking needles to administer this shot in the tushy. I am NOT looking forward to this. I am so not a morning person and this just really is not the way I want to start my day, BUT if this gets us our miracle then bring it on! :-)

Thanks so much for all your thoughts, prayers and comments! They have truly warmed my heart today. :-) Keeping praying for our five little embryos! Grow little embryos grow!

Egg Retrieval

Our egg retrieval was this morning and I think everything went well. They were able to get 11 eggs from me this time and we're hoping that the majority of those eggs were mature. We won't find that out until tomorrow. This is quite a drop from the number of eggs that were retrieved in our last two IVF cycles, but seeing as how those cycles didn't get us anywhere we're hoping that this is a good sign of great things to come. :-) It's all about quality anyways (especially when you're dealing with male-factor infertility) and we definitely need to have better quality embryos this time around. We know that this cycle is in God's hands so we're trying to just relax and see what happens.

We'll get our fertilization report tomorrow morning at some point and I'll update as soon as I can. Please keep praying for this cycle! We're hoping for great news tomorrow morning!

Also, please take a moment and stop by my friend Fran's blog. She just found out today that their IVF cycle didn't work. :-( My heart is very sad for her and her husband right now.

Ready to trigger!

My appointment went well this morning. I have about 12-14 good size follicles between both ovaries and there are several smaller ones on both sides that will hopefully start to catch up by Wednesday morning. Dr. M wanted to see if my hormone levels from my blood work today would allow me to hold off for one more day in an effort to give the smaller ones more time grow, but that was not the case. My estrogen level is over 4100 and my progesterone level is starting to creep up to 1 now so that means no more waiting. We are about to take the trigger shot in 15 minutes and then I'll go back tomorrow morning to check my blood work again to make sure that the trigger shot worked. Our egg retrieval is scheduled for 9:15AM Wednesday morning. Yay!!!

I'm nervous about the trigger shot because it's the first IM (intramuscular) shot I'll have to endure. That needle does NOT look nice! Yikes! Time to put my big girl pants on, though. No pain no gain, right? I got to see that same sweet woman in the lobby this morning. We're pretty much on the same schedule, except that her ER might have been pushed back to Thursday from Wednesday. She told me that she added us to their prayer list at church over the weekend and that their whole Sunday School class is now praying for us! How sweet is that!? So, I'm asking a huge favor from all of you who read my blog...PLEASE, PLEASE keep this sweet woman and her husband in your prayers. They SO deserve this after all they've been through and she is just such an amazing, sweet person. I'm so glad that God put us in the perfect place at the perfect time so that we could meet and pray for each other.

Keep your fingers, toes and anything else crossed for us this week and please keep the prayers coming!

**Update: We just did the trigger shot and it wasn't too bad. I definitely felt it more than the subcutaneous abdominal shots, but overall it wasn't AS bad as I thought it would be. :-) Thanks, Chris! True love...staying up until 10:45 pm on a work night to jab your wife in the tushy with a HUGE needle! You're the best!!