It is hard to explain in words how blessed Jamie and I feel. Years of infertility have taught us so much, but it has been a hard, expensive, and tearful road to walk through. I have been keeping it pretty quiet (well by my standards and I am a big blabber mouth about my own secrets) exactly what has been going on with us over the past 2 months only because IVF is such a terrifying process to go through and I was so worried people would be asking me if I was pregnant or when I would know. I was more worried that people would ask and I would have to say "we found out we aren't pregnant." That really terrified me. But before I jump too far ahead, let me back up and give you guys some of the details of all of the crazy and amazing things that transpired. The story is a little long, so I broke it into 3 parts. I hope you find the time to read all of the amazing parts because they truly show how God answered prayer after prayer and they also fill you in on fun details like do we have any frozen embryos for future babies, how I revealed to Jamie we were pregnant, and whether or not we are carrying one or two babies.
Part 1
At the end of July, my fertility Dr. put me on birth control pills, until we were ready to start our IVF cycle at the end of August. It sounds like the opposite of what someone trying to get pregnant would want, but they do this to actually encourage a better harvest of eggs during the IVF cycle so one or two don't become dominate. In early August, our health insurance kicked in at Jamie's new job and, even though it wasn't going to cover IVF, it did cover a lot of the blood tests and pre-testing that were required. One very sweet friend of mine, Emily Trader, actually went with me and held my hand when I got my sonohysterogram done. A not so fun procedure where they inject solution into your uterus to make sure you don't have any fibriods or other issues that could prevent a pregnancy. Thankfully, we got the all clear from that procedure and all of our other tests.
On August 29th, I took my first shot as Jamie and I were driving to Asheville for a camping trip. I mixed the drugs and boldly stabbed myself in the stomach with the needle, but then I yanked it back out because it hurt more than I thought it would. After about 20 minutes of me whining and trying to get the courage up to do it again myself as we are going 70 mph down the road; eventually, I gave up. Jamie pulled over on the side of the road and he gave me the injection. After that I had a self pity moment and cried saying "why can't we get pregnant the fun way?"
Don't worry the story gets better. Thank God Jamie is not afraid of needles, because every night thereafter he gave me my shots and we started putting ice on the skin first so they were not anywhere near as bad as the first one. We actually had it down to a relatively quick science. Sweetly he would say "I am so sorry you have to go through this" after every shot, which made me feel better. On our camping trip, I found these chic band-aids that put me in good spirits every time I got to slap one on.
The Sunday after we started injections, our church pastor gathered a group of people to lay hands on us in prayer over our IVF cycle. Okay, there goes the waterworks. I am crying now just thinking about this precious time. There were elders of the church, one of my amazing infertility warriors/my amazing mentor, and a few friends from our small group. To have others plead with the Lord on your behalf if just amazing!
After 6 days of injections at night, I added a morning injection to the regime, so then I was on two shots a day. The night shots were to stimulate egg/follicle growth, while the morning ones were to prevent me from ovulating. I had one ultrasound prior to starting my cycle and two during my stimulation shots. Every ultrasound they took bloodwork to make sure my estrogen and progesterone levels were in a healthy range (yay...more needles). But the fun part of the ultrasounds was when they start counting and measuring your follicles...the more they find the better.
During my last ultrasound before my egg retrieval they told Jamie and I that they were expecting to get 8 eggs. We were excited and ready to go! This was the amount they told us we should expect based on my AMH level (my ovarian reserve test).
I took a hcg trigger shot that had to be timed exactly 35 hours before my egg retrieval surgery. The timing is super important because if you ovulate then there is no way to capture the eggs from your fallopian tubes. When we went in the morning of my egg retrieval surgery on Tuesday, Sept 9th, I think Jamie was more nervous than I was. The whole cycle felt like it had escaped me and I was floating through days and weeks. I kept commenting that..."didn't we just start injections like 3 days ago?"...even though it had been longer than that it really felt like whole chunks of time just eluded me. Jamie and I prayed so hard that morning. It seemed like we arrived at the dr.'s office, I blinked my eyes 3 times, and I was laying with my feet up in stirrups before the surgery. This part may be a little tmi, but using a long needle they pierce through the vaginal wall and into the walls of the ovaries (at least one time on each side). During this whole time, Jamie is donating his DNA if you get my gist. Thankfully, they put me under anesthesia during the egg retrieval and I don't remember anything.
When I woke up, I was anxious to hear how many they had actually retrieved. Jamie came back and sat with me as we waited. The nurse came and told us they retrieved 14!!!!! We were so excited. After she left, I broke down because I was so happy. We got almost twice as many as what we were expecting. The rest of the day, I took it easy at home and it finally started to set in for both of us that ..."we are conceiving today". They were mixing our DNA together on those very hours after surgery. Jamie was very sweet and was more emotional than I expected he would be. He bought me very beautiful orange roses, stargazer lilies (which we had at our wedding), and babies breath (get it?). So thoughtful!
The next morning, I waited for a call from the embryologist to tell us how many of our eggs fertilized. Typically, there is a 30% drop, so we were expecting to only have maybe 8 or 9, BUT we had 12. This was awesome news to hear! We became semi-parents lots of embryos.
After that call on Wednesday, the day after my surgery, we knew we wouldn't hear anything till we went in on Sunday for a Day 5 Embryo Transfer. They wouldn't even open up their little incubators to look at their development because they did not want to disturb them. We asked if it was possible if they could open up the case on the day of our embryo transfer and find that NONE of them were still alive and they said "it is unlikely, but it has happened before." So the anxious waiting began. We knew that only 30% of those 12 were expected to survive. We prayed everyday for those little embryos to grow properly and divide how they were suppose to.
On Sunday, Sept 14th, the day of our embryo transfer, we arrived at the Dr.'s office for our embryo transfer. The nurse called us back into the consultation room to wait on the Dr. and the Embryologist to bring us our results. Five minutes felt like forever. I started crying... "Jamie what if they don't find any left?"..."Dear God just let us have at least ONE left"..."Jamie if we don't have any left then we spent all this money for nothing"..."Please, just one"...(hands clenched together sweating).."Please God"....
(Read Part 2 below)
