Finally an update! :)

-slaps wrist- Bad blogger. Very, very bad blogger. I promise, I am still alive, and even with good news and lots of new pictures too. I just kept thinking, "I really should update my blog" and then forgetting the next time I had a moment to do it. I finally remembered tonight. :)

We found out on 11/4 (our third anniversary) that we're expecting a boy and a girl! :) I had a feeling that it was a boy and girl since about 12 weeks and even had a guess that it was a boy on the left and a girl on the right and that's exactly what we have. So, we have Jonah Christopher and Temperance Carolyn. :) I was also allowed to go off bedrest at 19w5d as well for a grand total of 7w4d of bedrest. I know I'll probably go back on it again later on, but it's been nice to get out a bit and feel like a normal pregnant woman. :) My husband and I went clothes shopping the other day and picked up a ton of adorable clothes for Jonah and Tempe. They're going to be so freaking cute. :)

Here's some pictures from our anatomy scan at 18w6d. First up, Jonah:

Profile #1 - chewing/sucking on hand

Profile #2 - still sucking on his hand

Jonah's feet, one straight up, the other tucked under

Of course, the scary, straight on shot lol

And now, Temperance...

Profile shot #1

Another profile shot

Her little foot

Her waving, looking straight at us

Finally, their heads next to each other :)

I love this shot of them together. They are Di/Di twins, meaning they have two separate gestational sacs and placentas, but in this picture it looks like they're cuddled up together. :) This is probably my favorite picture of them so far and I just can't wait to meet them!

I'm such a bad blogger.

Seriously, Sept. 20th was my last update? Ugh. It's 3:30am here, so I will update this tomorrow, including the newest ultrasound pictures we have. :)

Bleeding and hospitals

So, we had our NT scan on Friday afternoon from 3:30-4:30pm. I ended up with two different techs trying to get the measurements since while one of the babies was posed perfectly, the other was insistent on staring at my lower back and not moving for anything. :) The measurements came out at .8mm and 1.8mm, which are normal.

During the scan, I was pretty uncomfortable. They were pressing down really hard, shaking my belly several times and just bordering on really painful. I just figured it was an ultrasound, there's nothing that can go wrong from this. I was horribly mistaken.

My husband and I came home, ate dinner, then laid down for a nap since he had just gotten back from Maui that morning and was running on next to no sleep. I woke up around 8:30pm, went to the bathroom and notice light pink spotting. I've never spotted while pregnant. At all. So I call my OB, she tells me not to worry and that it could be anything. Eventually the spotting eases up and goes away.

Around midnight I get up to go to the bathroom one more time before bed and I feel a gush. I freak out, run to the bathroom and there's blood everywhere. My jeans, underwear, toilet, everywhere. I yell at my husband to get stuff ready to go to the ER and he raced over there. We both lost it at the hospital and I was on the edge of a panic attack that I might be losing these babies.

Within 2 hours I had had an ultrasound showing both babies moving around and with good heartbeats (~160) and my bleeding had started to slow down. I had the head of the ER watching me and he told me that it was entirely possible that the ultrasound I had for the NT scan could have irritated something or loosened up something I already had (like my subchorionic hematoma from before). They let me go home with strict orders to take it extremely easy until my appointment with my OB on Tuesday.

I've basically put myself (with my husbands urging) on modified bedrest for the time being. It looks as though the bleeding might be starting to ease up, but I obviously won't know for sure what's going on until Tuesday. We've listened to the babies with our doppler 3 times since getting released and they're moving and have good heartbeats, so for now I'm okay, just worried. I can't wait to see my OB on Tuesday and get some type of answers as to what this is and how I can try and prevent it from happening again or getting worse.

How the hell...

am I already 12 weeks?!

Seriously, there's not much point to this post other than I saw my ticker on a forum post, saw "I am 12 weeks pregnant!" and was like...holy shit.

NT scan on Friday afternoon. We decided not to do it, then the more I read, the more I wanted to just do it since I'll have the Quad Screen anyways in the 2nd trimester. So, one hour of looking at the babies on Friday. :)

First trip to the hospital...

Yup, I spent all of last night (9pm Tuesday until 7am Wednesday) in the hospital. They do not let you leave when you are pregnant unless they rule out every little thing. Holy crap.

Basically, it started with a sneeze. I've been having round ligament pain since about 8 weeks. When I sneeze or cough, I get a sharp little pinch, usually in my pubic bone area, it lasts a couple seconds, then goes away. Well this time it didn't go away. I waited an hour and called my emergency line for my OB. The OB on call called me back and basically said that there's not much he can do over the phone and if I still have pain in another half hour to go to the hospital. Oh, yay.

So, 30 minutes later, still in pain (a 6-7 out of 10) we went to the hospital. They got me back pretty quick (I guess high risk, twins, clotting disorder are the magic words) and then we sat. We sat a while. I held it together through a girl next to me puking her guts out and an alcoholic on the other side that had drank a fifth of whiskey. Fun times.

Their main concern was making sure the babies were okay, then trying to find the cause of my pain. I had seen the babies last week but they still looked like blobs mostly, especially since the ultrasound machine at my OB's is really old and they did it on my belly. After doing exams on me and taking blood, they got me up to ultrasound to do a full scan.

I made my husband come with me into the room hoping that he would be able to see the babies since he hadn't gone to my first appointment with my OB. He chucked twice during the ultrasound and when I looked at him he smiled and nodded his head that they were okay. :) At the end of the ultrasound the tech turned the screen so I could see it and showed us both babies. Holy crap they're getting so big! They have arms! And legs! And profiles! It was absolutely incredible how much they look like babies now instead of little blobs. My husband told me that one of them was twirling around and the other apparently got a little started at the ultrasound and spazzed with it's arms and legs flinging out. lol

After the ultrasound my pain started easing a little but they still had a surgeon come down to check me out. They wanted to rule out appendicitis so they wouldn't send me home just to have me come back. They ended up sending me home after letting me eat (almost 12 hours after I last ate).

The one thing they found that kinda sucks is a subchorionic hematoma. It's incredibly small and they couldn't even really measure it, but my OB wanted me to come in in 2 days anyways. The ER doctor told me to take it easy and my OB has mentioned bedrest before in general. I'm hoping that they'll just want me to be cautious and that this will resolve on it's own. I was really hoping to make it to at least 22-25 weeks before bedrest.

1st OB appointment & new due date!

My first OB appointment was this morning and wow was it a ton of information. My OB reviewed all of my files from my RE (her and the nurse kept saying how much I had been tested and how the information was insane), examined me and then sent me down the hall for an ultrasound and bloodwork.

The ultrasound was on the belly this time instead of internal, which was really strange. The detail just isn't there with belly ultrasounds at this point compared to internals, so I'm not going to post the pictures. The babies are much closer together than we saw with the internal ultrasounds though, which was kinda cool to see. Both heartbeats looked good and they're measuring 9w3d and 9w2d. Which leads me to...

My due date changed. I am no longer due 3/28, I am now due on April Fool's Day, April 1st. lol She took what I had been measuring with the RE and the measurements today and changed my due date since she's more inclined to go by how the babies are measuring instead of ER and ET dates from IVF.

My MFM appointment is on Thursday and my next OB appointment isn't for 3 weeks, on the 22nd. It seems like so far away. I guess we'll be trying to find them with the doppler in the mean time. :)

9w5d - Released to OB, sorta...

Friday was supposed to be my last RE appointment. In the morning I did the bloodwork and then we had our ultrasound. Our little ones are doing so wonderful! They're growing and their little hearts are perfect!

Here's baby A, who was all curled up. My husband swears that he saw this one snuggle up more while my RE was taking the picture, but my RE didn't point it out, so he can't be sure. Baby A's heartbeat was up to 183bpm, which my RE labeled as perfect for 9-10 weeks. :)

Here is baby B. :) I didn't expect to really see them moving this soon but right after my RE took the picture and got their heartrate (181, yay!) he went back to pointing out the head, body, arm and leg buds and that little one shook it's butt at us! It was the cutest thing. Then it wiggled it's butt again and then shook it's head back and forth like it was dancing! I absolutely can't wait to see them again now!

The only sorta bad thing that came up was that my RE called me in the afternoon and told me that he had just finished dictating a letter to my OB and MFM but that he wanted me to come back in on Monday to have my blood redrawn. Apparently, my hCG (beta) dropped from 50k+ to 41-42k between 8w5d and 9w5d. He wasn't really concerned since the babies are both doing so well and it's normal for your hCG level to peak then decrease throughout the rest of your pregnancy. He said normally that doesn't start happening until 9-10 weeks, but I might have just started a little early.

Right when I hit 9 weeks, my morning sickness that had been all day, every day calmed down to just 3-4 times a day. I started getting massive headaches and being even more exhausted than normal as well. Of course, I Googled and found several stories of this same thing happening and these women going on to have babies, so I'm not too concerned. I'm just hoping tomorrow brings good news, just as I'm hoping Tuesday (first OB appt) and Thursday (first MFM appt) bring good news too. :)

They caught up!!!

Yay!!! We're so, so excited that our two little ones had a nice little growth spurt for us and have basically caught up! :) Last week, they were measuring a week behind (6w5d at 7w5d) so we were just hoping that they didn't fall anymore behind than those 7 days. We were in for a shock!

Baby A is now measuring 8w1d with a heartrate of 158bpm. He/she was hiding up in a corner and not cooperating for a good picture this week. :)

Baby B is measuring 8w2d with a heartrate of 167bpm. We got a great picture of him/her and if you look closely, the little line that comes down from the baby is a hand! We totally melted. :)

And here is their first picture together! We've been able to get their sacs in the same picture, but this is the first one where we've gotten both of the babies together. We're so in love!

Last RE appointment is Friday the 28th and first OB appointment is Tuesday, September 1st!

Started weaning off PIO tonight!

This is a pretty pointless post, but I'm so happy to start weaning off the PIO! I've been doing 1cc of PIO every night plus my Lovenox shots. Tonight I got to reduce it down to .5cc which I'll take for a week and then be done with PIO! Yay for only one shot a night starting next Wednesday!

Next ultrasound is on Friday at 8w5d. Here's hoping that these little ones are still growing strong and healthy and want to show off for us!

7w5d u/s - The Big Test

I call it the big test because this was an unplanned ultrasound. I normally go on the first day of each week (6w1d, 7w1d, etc.) but at my 7w1d appointment, my RE didn't see any growth or a heartrate increase. He told me it could just be early technology and that I should come back today at 7w5d to be checked again by him.

I have morning (read: ALL DAY) sickness anyways. It's pretty bad and I have it pretty much all the time. This morning I seriously thought I was going to toss my cookies a few times. Before we left, in the car, walking up to the office, in the room. It was awful. I try not to stress, but we've lost twins before. I can not lose these babies. I just can't.

My RE told us that he wanted to see appropriate growth between Monday and today. That was his main concern, not necessarily how I'm measuring week/day wise because I very well could have had late implanters or they could just be a little slow and pick up later on.

The good news: both babies are now measuring 6w5d, up from 6w2d on Monday. Both babies heartbeats went up too from 100 and 109 to 118 and 115. :) We could actually hear their heartbeats today which we haven't been able to up to this point, it just sounded like static. My RE was pleased with the progress and said that while we aren't out of the woods obviously since we aren't holding a baby right now (he's very adamant that being "safe" or "successful" is holding a live baby) he thinks that we're making really good progress and he's happy with how well we're doing.

I'm also being watched extra carefully now. Normally at my clinic, you're released at 8 weeks to your OB. In my case, my RE said that he's going to watch me until 9-10 weeks. He doesn't want to let me go until he's extremely confident that I have a sustainable pregnancy and he's done everything he can. Once I'm released I'll be sent to my OB (who may refer me to a high risk OB or perinatologist) and also monitored by my Maternal Fetal Medicine practice. I'm confident that I'm in good hands, but I'm going to miss the weekly ultrasounds. They're comforting.

Thank you everyone that prayed for us and kept us and our babies in your thoughts. I was never really a religious person, but my husband and I have prayed every night for these babies. We have always said, we didn't care what we had to do, we will do anything in our power to try to have at least one healthy, live child in our arms. If someone out there has been listening to us and sparing us another heartache, thank you.

Please pray/keep our babies in your thoughts

We went in today for our 7w1d ultrasound and my RE measured the babies at 6w2d with heartbeats of 100 and 109. Obviously this is similar to last week although the actual babies looked completely different and much bigger and more defined to both my husband and myself.

We're hoping that we're just victims of technology and that there was just some bad measuring last week to this week and that when we go back on Friday we have some growth from today. My RE is looking to see mostly a growth spurt between today and Friday to confirm that it's just measuring too early and the difference in two different doctors measuring.

Please keep these little ones in your thoughts and prayers so that on Friday I have some great news to pass along and this little scare is the only one we have this pregnancy. I can not fathom losing these twins too.

6w1d Ultrasound

Baby A: 105bpm, measuring 6w1d

Baby B: 96bpm, measuring 6w4d

We are so overjoyed and so cautiously happy! This is such a dramatic difference than last time and gives us hope that these will be our strong, healthy, live babies!

(u/s pictures to come later)

5w1d - Ultrasound

My husband and I went this morning for our first ultrasound at 5w1d. My RE does them every week from 5w1d through release, normally 9w1d. Here's what we saw:

Two sacs. :) They're within the size range for this point in pregnancy (.5 to 1cm) and my beta is 6800+. By my calculations, it should have been around 4800 if it was doubling, but with twins it would be higher.

We're being really, really cautious since next week at 6w1d is when things starting going wrong for us last time. My RE is really optimistic that we have the issues figured out and calls me himself now for all my tests. We're just really hoping and praying that we see two little heartbeats next week and that these babies stick and become our live, healthy babies.

Scared

My first ultrasound is Monday at 5w1d and I am scared out of my mind. 6w is really when things started going down hill last time, but the pressure not only to see how many sacs there are, but that they're the right size, that they maybe have a fetal pole, etc. is terrifying.

I feel pregnant. Oh my god do I feel pregnant. I'm nauseous after almost anything I eat and somethings I eat make me sick right away (BBQ chicken pizza for example). I'm bloated too. Like, even the "loose" jeans that are a size bigger are getting slightly tight around my lower tummy. I just know that I felt pregnant last time too. :( I really, really hate these scary feelings. I just want to be happy.

2nd Beta

It almost tripled! It went from 99 on Friday to 271 today! :) My RE called me himself to tell me and he sounded really happy for us. My first ultrasound is on the 27th at 5w1d to check how many sacs there are, then at 6w1d for heartbeat(s). :)

Beta #1!

I moved up my beta to this morning instead of Sunday since I had a positive HPT yesterday. I tested again this morning and holy dark line! It's about twice as dark as it was yesterday, so I had a good feeling about the beta.

I waited all day (went in at 7am, was home by 7:40) for them to finally call back. At 2pm, my phone finally rang and the nurse gave me the good news. My beta was 99 at 7dp5dt. They normally look for 100 at 9dp5dt! I go back on Sunday to have a repeat beta drawn to make sure it's doubling, then they should be able to schedule my first ultrasound for around the 28th to check how many sacs there are. :)

The one kinda blah thing is that my RE is starting me on Lovenox. My MFM didn't feel it was really necessary, but my RE is being extremely cautious and having me do that, plus low-dose aspirin and 6.4mg of folic acid for my MTHFR. I'm happy he's being so cautious, I'm just so freaking sick of shots. More than likely, I'll be on the Lovenox, once a day, until my third trimester.

I just want this baby(ies) to stick this time. We want this so bad and were so heartbroken last time when I miscarried. I so hope that we have the issues figured out and we have a live baby(ies) come the end of March.

Moved up my beta & ET story (late I know!)

I decided after laying down to try and make up for some of the sleep I lost getting up to test at 4:30am that I wanted to move my beta up. So tomorrow morning, I will get up at 5:30am (and probably pee on another stick lol) and go in for a beta two days early. They would look for ~100 on Sunday, so I'm hoping for ~50 tomorrow. This way I'll get two betas in before my husband has to travel for work next week to make sure their doubling.

Also, I'm already getting sick to my stomach on and off. :( This happened a little right after my beta last time before I got really sick, but this is earlier than last time. I don't know if it's my body remembering this part or what. My husband said, "Oh god, if all three took, Dr. M (my RE) is so babysitting for us." :) I got comfortable with the idea of twins last time before the miscarriage, but triplets honestly kinda scares me. Beyond all the health implications for both me and them, the pressure of carrying triplets to try and get as far as you can is a lot of stress I know I will project on to myself no matter what. First and foremost, we want a sticky, live baby this time. The rest we'll worry about as it's dealt to us. We're strong, our marriage is strong, and we have amazing family support. We'll make it through this. :)

ET Story:

I didn't really get the chance to go over my transfer since my husband planted me on the couch as soon as we got back and told me to stay there unless I had to pee for 3 days. :) That's way, way more than my RE tells you to do (he says to take it easy for the first day, then just no exercise, lifting, alcohol, caffeine, etc.) but my husband and I are just more comfortable being cautious since we're OOP and this was our last fresh IVF.

On day 3, my RE called us and told us we had 5 of our six fertilized embryos still growing and all perfect. We were so much happier knowing we had some rockstars and that they were going strong. On day 5, we went in for transfer at 6:30am, got changed and waited for my RE and the embryologist to come talk to us. I could see the picture as soon as the RE walked in and knew there was a quality issue because there was three blasts in the picture. For a little background, for our first IVF, we were given the option of 1 or 2 blasts to transfer. We picked two and both implanted, although only one had a heartbeat and grew. We told ourselves we would never put more than two back.

When our RE told us the quality of the blasts, I pretty much knew we were putting three back. My husband and I had discussed what we would do if there was quality issues. If there wasn't two perfect or even very good ones to transfer. The quality of our blasts this time was not the perfect 4AA that we had the first time. We had a 4BB, 3BC, and 2CB (I think on the last one, I can't remember exactly). So, based on the recommendation of our RE and the embryologist, we put all three back and hoped none of them divided into identical twins if they all implanted.

Here is a picture of the blasts that at this moment, are snuggled in and hopefully creating our live, sticky baby(ies):

(Left is the 4BB, middle is the 2CB, right is the 3BC)

Because, this is what *I* do at 4:30am...

at 6dp5dt. Apparently, here we go again folks. Please, please snuggle in tight little one(s) and be our live baby(ies).

Feeling a little better

After the rough morning with getting our fert report and just being upset at our awful fert rate, I made a comment to my husband that when I was depressed I either want to shop or eat, both of which are bad. lol He told me I could go shopping if I wanted if it would make me feel better and I suggested going to one of the outlet malls here.

I always wanted a large Coach bag but never wanted to spend the $350-450 that they cost. I love my Kate Spade purse but it was discounted from $350 to $150 because it was an older style, so I was willing to ask for it for our anniversary. I knew that I liked some of the older Signature Hobo bags from Coach, so I decided to check out the Factory Outlet to see if they had anything reasonable.

I looked through all the regular sale stuff, then I spied the clearance section with an additional 50% off the lowest price. I peeked at a few different ones and then I noticed a bag with the Signature pattern fabric on a higher shelf. I pulled it down and it was the large Hobo I was looking for in black! I figured it would still be pretty pricey, but was so happy to find that it had been marked down from $350 to $110!!!

My husband is so incredibly sweet and told me to get it. He did a little retail therapy too (some cookies from Pepperidge Farm and shirts from the Gap Outlet) and we both left feeling a little more optimistic. We're expecting a day 3 transfer at this point and just hoping that our embies keep growing so we can transfer them back Wednesday morning.

We've even discussed putting 3 back instead of two if we have three and any of them have compromised quality. This is our last chance at a fresh cycle. We have one frozen from the first IVF to do a FET with and then after that, we need to consider our options with the rest of our loan money. Right now that's Donor Sperm/Egg or adoption (which we can't use our loan for and would take us several years to save up for). We're hoping this is it, but we're prepared that this may not work and we may have to give up at least half of our biological connection to our children.

Fert Report - Not good...

Out of 26 eggs, only 14 were mature. They ICSI'ed all of them and only 6 fertilized. SIX. ICSI fertilization rate should be 70%, and this time and last we're getting less than 50%. If this time repeats last, only a third of what fertilizes will make it to blast, so we're looking at 2 to put back, if they keep growing. -sigh-

I asked my RE why our fertilization rates are so awful and he said it could be a sperm issue or egg issue, but sperm issue is more likely. I just want a child that looks like my husband and I. I want to carry our baby. I don't understand why crackheads and people that hurt and kill their kids get them and my husband and I can't.

His mom said on the 4th that he would be a good dad and that's all I want for him and I'm so hurt and sad that I won't be able to give him that. It absolutely breaks my heart when he tells me that he's broken and that he's the only reason we have to do IVF because all he wants is for us to have our own family. I hate this so much and I can't stop crying at the unfairness of this.

ER this morning!

I was hoping for 15-20 eggs and they got 26! :) Even the doctor was pretty amazed and happy that they got that many. It seems as though the sting of all those Menopur shots apparently paid off. lol We'll get the call tomorrow letting us know how many fertilized and are growing, but for right now I'm sore, but happy. :)

Triggering Tonight!

That is the verdict! I pretty much knew yesterday that I was going to trigger tonight after talking to my RE but it was confirmed this morning. My lining is up to 13mm, +2 type and I have some nice 21mm and 20mm lead follicles. :) So I'll trigger tonight, go in tomorrow again for another check to make sure everything looks good, then go for ER Sunday morning! :) That means beta will be on 7/19. Let the countdown begin!

Day 10 of Stims

I'm getting so close to no more stomach shots! Here's the bits and pieces I remember from this morning:

E2: 1650ish (this is a huge improvement from my 5k+ last time)

Lining: 10mm, +1 type (!!)

Right Ovary: 17mm lead follicle, another 7-8 between 14 and 16, 6 more less than 10

Left Ovary: 2 17mm lead follicles, another 7-8 between 14 and 16, 5 more less than 10

Right now, they're estimating around 20 eggs retrieved. I'll do stims again tonight, recheck tomorrow morning, then hopefully trigger tomorrow (Friday) night. I'll go in again Saturday morning to check things again after the trigger, then have my ER on Sunday! My RE will be out of town this weekend, so it will be the female doctor doing my ER, but my RE reassured me that she does a great job. He even said that she usually gets more eggs than he does, so I guess I can't complain.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed for lots of perfect eggs to fertilize, a great fert report, and hopefully lots of embies to transfer and freeze. Lets hope we achieve a pregnancy this time that results in a baby and those frozen embies can be used for research into some really important diseases. :)

Day 8 of stims

I went for another check this morning and here's what I remember offhand:

Lining: 7mm +1 type (Yay for pomegranate juice!!)

Right Ovary: 15mm lead follicle, 2 @ 14, 2 @ 13, 3 @ 12, 3-4 @ 11, 1-2 @ 10, 6-7 more less than 10

Left Ovary: Two 15mm leads, 2 @ 14, 2 @ 13, 2 @ 12, 1 @ 11, 3 @ 10, 6 less than 10

I know, this is way more than before, this was my RE, not the other one I don't care for that's been doing the ultrasounds. I always thought it was a little odd that she could never find more than 18-20 follicles when a.) I have PCOS, so I have a ton, and b.) Last cycle I had 35ish. I guess we'll find out at ER how many are really in there cooking, but boy do I love when my normal RE does my checks.

My RE also seemed to think I would have ER Sunday or Monday too. He didn't think I would be ready for the 4th, but I'm getting much closer now. Two more nights of stims and I go back in on Thursday to see how these eggs are cooking. Lets hope that I'm mostly in the 16-23mm range so that I can trigger and get this show on the road!

Day 6 of stims

Tonight will be day 6 of stims for me. I stimmed for 9 days last time and this time they're expecting me to go for 10 days, for ER on the 4th. At my first check my lining was a bit thin (I had some bleeding and still have a bit) so I started drinking pomegranate juice to try and build it up a little. Here are my numbers from this morning:

Lining: 4mm, +3 type

Right Ovary: 1 @ 11mm, 8 more less than 10mm

Left Ovary: 1 @ 11mm, 12 more less than 10mm

So, we're looking ~22 possible follicles this time. It's less than the first IVF, which kinda scares me given out fertilization rate the first time, but I'm hoping that our quality will be pristine this time. I haven't seen my doctor this cycle yet, only the other female doctor. I'll see him for my ER and ET, so I'm not real worried. I just like him much more than this female doctor. :)

Since we're expecting my ER to be on the 4th, we've been trying to figure out how to handle family get-togethers for that day/weekend. It's so hard to keep this under wraps. We hate lying to people, but at the same time, telling them that we have ER that day will have them counting on their calendars trying to figure out when I'll know if it worked again. -sigh- I just hope we have some good news to give them.

So far, good news

After being in California for a week (it was beautiful and we never wanted to leave), my husband had another work trip this week and I had two appointments today. My suppression check was this morning with my RE and I fully expected my lining to be too thick, just like last time.

My first surprise was that my RE didn't come in the room for the ultrasound. Instead the female doctor in the practice came in with the nurse. The backstory on this particular doctor is long, but basically on my beta day for IVF #1 she argued with me in the waiting room, threw miscarriage rates in my face, and violated HIPPA. I spoke to my normal RE and he made sure he was the only doctor I dealt with for the rest of my pregnancy and miscarriage. I haven't seen or talked to this female doctor at all since mid-February, so I braced myself for her awful bedside manner.

She was completely different. She came in, put her hands over mine and asked if I was ready to do this again. I told her yeah and that I just hoped it worked this time and she squeezed my hands and told me that she knows this is scary but that they're all there for me and hoping this is it for me. It seriously almost made me cry. They both asked how my vacation was and made small talk while doing the ultrasound. She started counting off my follicles (8 visible on the right, 10 visible on the left) and I asked about my lining, waiting for the, "I'm sorry, it's just too thick still." She smiled at me and said, "Nope, it's great. Everything is exactly where it needs to be!" I asked again to confirm I was actually starting stims today and she told me pending blood work, I was starting tonight, with ER scheduled for the 4th of July right now. I'm still kinda in shock that not only did my lining cooperate, but my bloodwork was great too. I only hope that these are all good signs for this cycle.

I was supposed to have my pre-conception counseling appointment with the maternal fetal medicine (MFM, for my MTHFR mutation) doctor at 1pm but I got a call around 8:30am asking me if I could come in immediately. Apparently there was a booking problem and the doctor wasn't going to be in in the afternoon.

The appointment was a lot of talking. Going over history, him reading my file and asking me for clarification here and there. He's ordering some more testing to just confirm my abnormal numbers, after which he'll adjust my folic acid intake (I'm at 4.2mg now, about 6x a normal person's dose) and possibly add in baby aspirin once I'm pregnant again and we see a heartbeat. He seemed rather hesitant about me taking Heparin due to the possible side effects, but wouldn't rule it out completely. I go back for a stim check with my RE on Friday and the MFM will have my test results either Friday or Monday so we can figure out where to go from there.

It's so nerve racking doing this again. The first time I was so on top of everything and this time it's like I'm in a fog. It's overwhelming at times that we're doing this again. I'm drinking my last Diet Pepsi and then it's all water and gatorade from now until after beta. I have to actually start organizing myself and all my meds so I take them at 8:30pm every night. I have to find a way to hide that I'm taking all of these meds from family and friends. That's probably the hardest part of all. Being so open last time and then being so heartbroken when we had to tell everyone that we lost the babies. Then this time telling no one. Trying to think of excuses so they don't ask too many questions. I can't wait to be 13 weeks pregnant so that I can finally tell everyone what we went through this time and show them this page.

Babies, babies, everywhere!

I've been better lately about being around babies and children. It's much easier for me to be around little girls rather than boys though. Yesterday and today though, someone or something I think was trying to test my ability to deal with things.

Earlier this week I got an email from Huggies congratulating me on reaching week 2o of my pregnancy. Yeah, it's much, much easier to get on all these lists than it is to get off of them apparently. I had to spend almost 10 minutes at one point shortly after my miscarriage trying to remove myself from one baby related website. Apparently, no one thinks that it's possible to lose a child once you get pregnant. That doesn't play into their websites full of smiling happy babies and size 4 drop dead gorgeous moms. But, anyways.

Yesterday I was starting to wake up and didn't have my glasses on yet. We've been sleeping with the window by our heads open so we have some fresh air moving into the room at night. We've been going back and forth about our neighbor possibly being pregnant again (they have a ~3 year old boy) but I thought maybe she was just putting on a little weight. Well, apparently I was wrong, because from what I saw, she looks about 20-24 weeks pregnant. So not only will I have to mourn the fact that I'm not giving birth and holding our son around the end of October, now I quite possibly will have to hear her newborn crying and realize that she has what I was supposed to have too. Our children would have been around the same age and could have played together. It breaks my heart.

Then today, it was round two of the bitter infertile episodes. I was running errands before we leave town for a week and stopped up at the jeweler to have my wedding rings cleaned and re-plated (they're white gold). I was wandering around the store while they were re-plating them when I saw an employee walk past me with a Noah's Ark gift bag. Immediately I started to look anywhere but where the employees were gathering but then the oooing and ahhing started. Every employee in the store decided to stop what they were doing since there was only one customer (me) and have an impromptu baby shower. Like I said, I've been doing much, much better, but superwoman I am not. I'm just thankful I didn't get so upset I started to cry.

I absolutely hate being bitter and jealous of all these women, but I can't help it anymore. I just hope that this will eventually fade. I was never like this before and I hate that this is what infertility has made me.

First Post

I've finally given in and started a blog so I can attempt to get down my feelings and thoughts about our infertility and going through IVF. We're not telling anyone IRL about attempting IVF for the second time after my miscarriage with our first attempt and I find myself wanting to tell anyone, even if it's a stranger on the internet, how I feel. I guess I should start from the beginning.

We tried to have our first child for a year before seeking out medical help. I was diagnosed with mild PCOS along with my hypothyroidism that was at that point under control with medication. Then we looked into my husband before attempting to use Clomid. It was then that our MFI was discovered with a strict morph of 1 and 3% (normal is over 5%). We were advised to go directly to IVF w/ ICSI at the cost of ~$9k per attempt. To say we were heartbroken is putting it mildly. We had money put aside for a baby, but not enough to attempt just to have a baby even once. We ended up getting a loan for $35k. That $35k represented our only chance to try and have a biological child. Even if we exhausted that $35k, coming up with another $20k after that to attempt to adopt a baby would take years, if we were ever able to do it.

On our first attempt with IVF, we put two perfect blasts back and froze another almost perfect one. At 6dp5dt, I got my first faint positive on a HPT. We were so excited, we told everyone. We were convinced we had overcome the low morph and my PCOS. We had our first ultrasound and saw two yolk sacs. We were going to have twins! Nothing could compare to those two weeks that I was pregnant. We prayed for the babies every night, I told them I loved them every day, almost every hour. Then, I went in for my 6w1d ultrasound to see the heartbeats...and that's when it started falling apart.

They found a slow heartbeat on one of the babies. The other had no heartbeat and no clear fetal pole. Our doctor tried to be optimistic, so we came back two days later. I just knew something was wrong. I felt something was wrong. Deep down, I knew we wouldn't see another heartbeat. The one heartbeat that we had seen was now gone. The second sac was now getting smaller, most likely it had stopped developing and was going to become a vanishing twin. My beta had also plateaued and wasn't rising like it should anymore. Just like that, it was over. I wouldn't be a mom. The matching onsies I had bought the week before would be tossed in a bag with every other baby related thing in the house by my husband an hour later and thrown in the bottom of a rarely used closet in his quest to try and protect me from having a panic attack. I started crying in the office and I think I cried on and off for the next 10 days until I elected to have a D&C. Exactly one month after my beta day.

We both sought out therapy while we tried to find answers. They would do genetic testing on the baby and we would learn it was a normal male - a little boy - the day after my husband's grandmother passed away. We mourned them both, both of us crying, curled up together in bed. We mourned our lost first son and the great grandmother he would never know. We sought out therapy to try and understand our anger and despair. We asked question after question of our doctor, trying to find a reason. We needed to know why it had happened, why we were given this perfect little boy, only to lose him.

Two and a half months after my D&C I was diagnosed with Compound Heterozygous MTHFR. Treated with high amounts of folic acid, it can cause blood to clot and cut off blood and nutrients to a fetus. Usually losses happen in the second trimester, but given that everything else was normal, this has to be our answer. A gene mutation that happened before I was even born and lived with for 27 years.

We hold on to this answer because we don't have any others. The emotional burden for this is too high for us to not have something to try and fix for this next time. My stims were changed (because my RE likes to change at least one thing between cycles, hoping it will help, in this case our fert rate) and we hope that this second time we have the issues figured out. We hope that just as easily as I got pregnant the first time, with both blasts we put back implanting, that it'll happen again. That this time, my body with work correctly and we'll be able to bring home a baby.

I will have many more appointments this time. I'll have to see specialists before I even get pregnant and have a plan for what other medicines I'll be taking when I get pregnant this time. I'll be high risk no matter how many I have, whether we're lucky enough to have twins again, or if it's just one we're able to have. Pregnancy this time isn't the happy, uplifting thing it was the first time. We're scared. Terrified might be a better word. We're not telling anyone we're in the middle of our second IVF or pregnant until I'm 13 weeks pregnant. My husband will be keeping me planted on the couch probably my whole pregnancy if he can. But I would do all of that if it meant finally bringing home our living child.