Transfer Day Round 6.2!

Welcome to the family 3 littles! This was the closest I could get to a shot with all 3 embryos in it.

It was pitch black outside when I woke up at 3:30 am Saturday morning wide awake and raring to go. Good thing we went to bed early the night before and I had already got 8 hours of sleep! When Thomas got out of bed because he heard me in the kitchen, he laughed when he saw the clock said 4:15 and here I was baking. I had people to bake for though! Including a delicious frittata and pumpkin donuts for Thomas and I.

Fast forward to 11:15 am when we left for our appointment and it was raining. Like rain boots and raincoats kind of raining. And not the only time it was raining cats and dogs on our transfer day.

During my acupuncture appointment earlier that morning, my gal did her thing and then commented that everything was clear and ready to go! Honestly, it is nice to know that my body had a little help relaxing enough to get to the optimal point for those little embryos to attach. 

So after we headed there, it was wait, wait, wait, WHIRLWIND, wait, wait, wait, bedrest.

After we got to the office and they took us to the back room and got us all dressed up/undressed for the procedure, we just hung out in the room while Charlene got everything ready around us.

Waiting game!

When Dr Murrain came in, he said he was going to go back and talk to Jeff about where the embryos were at. They both came back in and Jeff gave us an update with urgency! He basically said that all 3 were thawed, but that 1 was literately bursting at the seems and they wanted to get the little embryo inside of me before it attached itself to the petri dish and he couldn't get it off! Hence, the whirlwind.

Where our 3 little embryos lived for the past almost 7 years! 

So he went back to load up the 3 embryos into the catheter, and they prepared my body to receive the little buddies. They inserted them and waited the customary 1 minute to allow them time to float away from the catheter. They then extracted it and Jeff went back to the microscope to make sure they hadn't clung to the catheter, but did indeed transfer. All clear! YAY!!!!

When the littles were transferred.

After they clean everything up, I get to lay there for an hour before they allow us to go home.  During that time, Jeff always comes in and explains everything about the embryos and answers any questions. 

Here is what we found out.

Embryo #1 - This embryo was re-expanding quickly and because it had no zona around it when it was frozen, it had no protection, but that didn't matter. There was no degeneration from the freezing process. It was perfectly in tact and a big ball of hollowed out cells that is expanding quickly.

Embryo #2 - This embryo did have a zona, but also did not have any cell degeneration in the freezing process. When Jeff went to help hatch it, it started re-expanding right away.

Embryo #3 - This embryo also did not have a zona and the cells were also not degenerated at all. However, in the time that Jeff had thawed them out, he still did not see any signs of re-expansion. But that does not mean it still couldn't re-expand.

Before Jeff left, he reminded us that we have now done everything in our power to get us pregnant. We cannot control whether or not these embryos attach, nor can we control if these embryos are genetically competent. Both beautiful reminders that ultimately this is up to God and God alone.

All beautifully thawed with 2 of them already re-expanding was great news! They will have started re-expanding with in 3 hours of being thawed and at this point (48 hours later), because they were actually day 6 embryos, they will have already attached or attach in the next 24 hours. So basically by noon tomorrow I will either be pregnant or not! 

With that knowledge that 2 were re-expanding and the 3rd still could be, I decided to literally not do anything when we got home! Which included blogging of course. So I literally laid on the couch and red until it was time for bed. Then I slept for 10 hours, red some more, took a 2 hour nap, red more, watched a movie with Thomas, slept another 10 hours, red even more and here I am! 48 hours later and 5 books down.

These were the beautiful flowers Thomas got me.

These were the 3 little onesies I got and the 1 sleeper that will be shared among all 3 of them. Thomas demonstrating how he will hold all 3 of them differently. Apparently I think they are all girls according to my shopping this round.

These are just the shots I had to be given to get to the transfer day. 

Only a day and a half of bedrest left! 

And then we all wait for the count down of the pregnancy test!

Thanks for all your prayers you all. We love you guys!

Day 14 - Ultrasound and Bloodwork

At yesterday's ultrasound was not what I expected! 

I went in there not concerned about the 2 cysts, because they already told me they were not concerned with them, but curious how they were regardless. Well, they were both pretty much gone!

And then when my nurse moved the ultrasound over to my right side, there was very clearly a large pocket of fluid connected to my right ovary.
Crap.

 So we measured it and right away she told me she wanted to draw my blood because pockets of fluid often times were an indicator that people had ovulated. She assured me it was very rare to ovulate while on Lupron (which I am), but that she wanted to get blood work just to put it in my record and to make us all feel better. 

Oh but wait.... She didn't anticipate blood work that day so she gave Jeff the day off. But there was a slight chance he would come in anyway, and if he did she would call me with the results yesterday afternoon.

And so we wait.

But she never called. So clearly Jeff didn't come in. 

There are only 2 ways this could go. 

1) I didn't ovulate, but because we pushed it out a day we wouldn't transfer until Saturday.

2) I did ovulate, so we stop the whole thing right then and there and we wait a month to start the whole cycle over again.

She FINALLY called an hour ago to tell me that I absolutely did not ovulate. Whew! 

My progesterone was at .37 which was below 1. Anything over 3 means you did ovulate. Thank goodness!!!

So this means option 1, thank you very much.

We are transferring our 3 littles on Saturday with a noon appointment!

SATURDAY AT NOON!

My friend Amy posted this and I thought is was the perfect caption to these last few days. 

By the way, as much as I know and continued to pray that if for some reason God did not want this round to happen that he would stop it, I was really starting to get a little bummed about the thought of not doing it this round. I am just so pumped!!!

Which makes me super excited that we get to do it still!!!
Pray for Thomas and I along with our 3 littles, Jeff our embryologist, Dr Murrain, Charlene, and my acupuncturist Kalin. We are going to be one big team on Saturday to make this happen. With God in the directors chair choreographing the whole big beautiful thing.

It definitely won't be until Saturday afternoon, or even Sunday depending on how much I just want to relax when we get home that afternoon. But I will keep you all updated for sure!
Happy Week!!

Day 11 - Ultrasound

Great news! 

They still believe it is just gas and they don't care. 

Oh man. It still just makes me giggle. 

Worried about a little gas or constipation.

Anyway, my uterine lining which is all they really care about, was perfect. It measured at 12mm which means that even though I have 3 days left until my final "go forth" appointment, I don't have to think about trying to thicken up my lining. 

So we wait for the appointment on Sunday basically as a check the box kinda of a day. If you all remember from last round, I have to follow the 14 day cycle and then wait the 5 days because the embryos were frozen on day 5. So basically we are mimicking an IVF cycle for my body so that those little buddies are transferred on the exact day they would have been transferred if this was an IVF cycle. 

So we will wait for the "go forth" appointment on Sunday to get the "all clear" signal. 

Then I will work the longest work week every waiting for Friday. Oh wait, that will be the following weeks waiting for the pregnancy test. That's right.

Meanwhile, on the crazy hormone end....

....I am doing fine. Whew! I know you were all worried for Thomas' sake, but for what ever reason I am just fine. 

As of yesterday, I increased my estrogen for the third time (Sunday will be the fourth and final time), and to date, I have not been snarky. And that is both the words coming from my mouth and the thoughts in my brain just to clarify. 

I am continuing to pray that the joy continues to just overwhelm any hormonal desires, but so far so good! And the only thing I have noticed that the hormones have done is make me forget words when I am talking. A very unfortunate side effect if you want to sound smart. So I am taking a supplement called MindWise and hopefully that will help. 

Other then that, all's well in this corner of the globe. Will update you more after our Sunday appointment!

I don't have any great pictures from the appointment or anything else, so you all can see a few baby pictures of my dad, my sister Alyssa, and I. Because why not? 

Happy weekend you all.

Day 9 - Ultrasound Check In

My ultrasound and blood work were yesterday.

And my right side still has that funny cyst that they are not sure what it is. But now my left side decided to join in the fun and have a matching cyst. They still think that it is not attached to my ovaries and proceeded to ask me many questions about my bowel movements. Gotta love it.

But my nurse told me to keep on my meds routine and to even increase my dose as was scheduled. And she didn't call me back after she showed the Dr the ultrasounds, nor after she got my blood work back. So I guess we are just going with this?  We literally could be concerned about intestinal gas. But never can be too careful. Not with our remaining 3 littles. 

After all of your joy verses that you shared with me, this is the one that God gave to me through a few of you and from French Press Mornings who have the most amazing graphics. And it just brings a smile to my face because I know regardless of if we put this round on hold for some gas, just to make sure that we give our 3 littles the very best chance, or if we end up with triplets 9 months from now, there is wonderful joy ahead. 

Will keep you posted on the ultrasound tomorrow and what they say. Meanwhile, I am drinking TONS of water trying to flush anything and everything out of my system. Cheers to 20 million trips to the bathroom today!

Round 6/2 - Day 3

Do I call it round 6 over all or round 2 of FET? 

Regardless, here we go again! 

We love that we got to just dive into this round after only a month off to let my body rest. Good thing the holidays and my little sisters wedding was tucked in there and it feels like time just flew by!

Wasn't she just beautiful?!

We actually started this round with Lupron shots on the 26th of Dec. Again they were to tell my body to night ovulate this month. Then my first (Day 3) appointment was on wed. Overall it was a perfect appointment in that 95% of everything checked out. There may or may not have been a little gas pocket. Literally. On the ultrasound there was an area that was pulsating that they questioned and they think it is gas. Hehe. I am definitely doing a little cleanse over the weekend to clear that out so that there is no question that we are good to go moving forward. They will check it on Tuesday's appointment to make sure it is either gone or the same, but has not grown.

But the day I started my cycle I dropped my Lupron shot from 10 units to 5 units. Then once I was given the go ahead after my Day 3 appointment I continued the Lupron, but added in the dreaded estrodial (estrogen). At this point I am just taking 2 mg every 12 hours. So it hasn't made me crazy yet. But I am on the look out! And I am putting on Orange Essential Oil and a blend called Joy to preempt any crazy that wants to come around.

I also need good verses about joy if you have them! I want to make sure that I give Thomas help!

Also, I just finished this book. It has been recommended so many times, but as always God's timing is perfect and  I read it right when I needed too. It is a collection of stories from her life infused with recipes that look amazing. The thing I loved the most is that parts of her story include miscarriage and struggles getting pregnant, but it always gave the hope aspect as well as the hard. Beautifully written.

I have a few appointments next week.

Day 9 - Jan 12th (tues)

Day 11 - Jan 14th (thurs)

Day 14 - Jan 17th (sun) - For IVF this would be extraction day!!

Day 19 - Jan 22 - Most likely transfer day!

Followed by 4 days of bed rest and 15 days until the beloved test day.

I also added acupuncture back in and I forgot how incredibly relaxing those appointments are!

So now that you have all the details, here is how I am feeling.

Excited.

Hopeful

Calm and organized.

Peaceful.

Grateful.

Loved.

Done.

So many of you have stuck with us through all of our crazy adventure. I know that when I have the "again?!" moments when we start up another round, I can only imagine you all feeling the same. I am feeling done. Not sure what that means, but that is where I am at. But seriously, I feel 100x more excited about this round then last. I have no idea why other then maybe it has something to do with the fact that I was relaxed last time because we had extra embryos if it didn't work. Maybe I just have an unnatural peace and hope about this round working. Maybe I am trying to speak it into existence. What ever it is, I am going with it.

Oh and by the way? We are putting all 3 embryos in this time.

World, be prepared for some Kucera triplets!

I am speaking that into existence too while I am at it.