8dp5dt

Working as an oncology nurse, I get to see very bad things happen to very good people. I was just reminded again today how short life is, and to never take family or friends for granted. Today was one of the hardest days I have EVER had to endure as a nurse. Ever.

I carried it home with me today. People have always asked me, "How do you work with cancer patients? That must be so depressing." My answer to that is that my days are usually not filled with grief and sadness. Most patients are very upbeat and positive. They are ready to put up a fight, and they don't let their guards down. The moment they find out they have cancer, their life flips upside-down and their priorities immediately change. They start having more fun, going on vacations, spending more time with family, and not letting the "little things" get them down.

I think that because of what I'm exposed to everyday, I have changed my priorities in life. Whenever I feel like I'm making a big deal out of something, I try to take a step back and ask myself, "Does it really matter? It could be worse, Jessica."

Whenever my mother is getting on my nerves, I have to remind myself that I watch children sit next to their dying mothers every. single. day. They watch that chemo drip, drip, drip and pray that it is going to save their mom's life so that they can go back to their normal lives. I am one of the lucky ones.

Yes, I make a big deal out of not being able to have children. About being infertile. I worry that I'll never be a mom to someone. But, at least Andy and I are healthy...and our family is healthy. It could be worse.

So, tonight as I stare at my bout of psychosis on the bathroom counter, I will remember how precious life can be...and how blessed we are at this point in time. I will pray for those who are heavy on my heart and have lost their battle to cancer....what a horrible disease.

 Andy bought me a pack of digitals. You can blame him for contributing to my problem.

7dp5dt

Let the psychosis begin.

If you followed me the last time we had a BFP, my POAS obsession was out. of. control. It became somewhat of an addiction to watch that line get darker and darker. I think that it was some sort of coping mechanism for me? I remember doing it when I woke up, sometimes in the middle of the day, and then again before bedtime. I looked at them and compared them every time I went to the bathroom. I would come up with excuses to go to the bathroom so that I could look at them. Andy would roll his eyes and call me a freak. Here is the picture to prove it.

Did I really just admit that? There is just something about waiting so long to see those two lines. Don't take it for granted!

Welp...here we go again. When we attended the RESOLVE conference in Atlanta last year, we racked up on some HPT's. I swear that almost every booth was giving them away. I never understood why they would be giving away pregnancy tests at an infertility conference. But, whatever. Those things are expensive!

So, here's my loot (some are fertility tests that are even more useless for me....considering I have no eggs)

I'm sure that once these run out, I will be buying out Dollar Tree's stock. Those are the best tests ever. And cheap!

Here is my line comparison, including today's. Always reassuring to see it get darker.

Today was my first day back at work and it went okay. I'm trying not to overdo it, but I kind of have to act "normal" so that people won't wonder what is going on. I am a nurse and on my feet all day long, so this could definitely pose a challenge! 

I will never complain, but would just like to document the pregnancy symptoms I've been experiencing. The only things that I have noticed up until today have been the period-like cramping, boobs, constant lower back pain, frequent urination, boobs, diarrhea, headache, boobs, bloating, boobs, feeling hot, and massive...sore...boobs. I love it. That is all.

We still can't believe this is happening again. We want to thank all of you again for the overwhelming love and support through emails and comments. We love you all! We are not out of the woods yet...anxiously awaiting those beta numbers. Please hurry up Wednesday!

Until then, I have some sticks to pee on.

6dp5dt

God answers prayers one of three ways: 

      1. He says yes and gives you what you want. 

      2. He says no and gives you something better. 

      3. He says wait and gives you the best.

I think that after 6+ years, He gave us number 3:)

Please please please if you know us in real life, keep this to yourself. We are scared about what happened last time (no heartbeat), so until we are comfortable in knowing that this is real and viable, we do not plan on making an announcement anytime soon. Please do not facebook us or ask us about it in public. We are still very early right now. Thank you so much for understanding:)

I had another vivid dream Friday night that I was peeing on sticks and they were all positive. When I woke up, I was so anxious about it that I just went ahead and did it. I didn't want to say anything yesterday because I wanted to make sure today before I mentioned it on my blog! 

Last night, I dreamt that we were getting an ultrasound and it was twins...until my doctor said that one of them didn't have a brain and the other looked like a baby chick. God help me.

A couple of people have mentioned concern about having the trigger shot in my system and to be careful about false positives. I forgot to mention that I did not have to take the trigger shot this time because we had to use donor eggs. So, our donor had to do all of the dirty work. 

We are excited, but very nervous...which is understandable. "Cautiously optimistic" as we usually say in Infertility Land. I don't think we will breathe until we see a heartbeat and make it out of the first trimester. Actually, I don't think there will ever be a time where we stop worrying. All we know is that this is 100% out of our hands and God has control of the reins.

Our first Beta isn't until Wednesday, so that is yet another hurdle we will have to overcome. If we see the numbers high and doubling, then that will give us a better idea of if this is a viable pregnancy. Our first ultrasound to see a heartbeat would be around 6 weeks, which would be towards the end of July. Eeeek.

Thank you all SO MUCH for your prayers and support...please keep them coming! I can't believe this is happening...we may FINALLY become parents! And my boobs may FINALLY be bigger than my sister's!

5dp5dt

First off, thanks for all of the compliments on the haircut! I love it...it's going to take a lot of getting used to because I am so used to having it long! I will definitely save in the shampoo/conditioner department.

All is well here. I've just been enjoying all of my family being in town and trying to take it easy. I continue to have an upset stomach almost every day. I know this is TMI, but, I eat...and it goes straight through me. Probably because I've been eating pounds of fruit and veggies everyday.

Last night, Andy and I went out for Italian and I left with a splitting headache and became extremely tired. We went straight home and I passed out very early. I had to get up once to pee around 3 am, and woke up in a pool of sweat this morning. And...my boobs are getting massive!

Hopefully these are good signs! I'm trying to hold out on POAS...I'm starting to get very anxious and I want to know...but I don't want to do it too early! Possibly tomorrow...I don't think I could do it right before I go back to work on Monday and have time to recompose myself depending on the outcome. Last time I tested positive 7dp3dt, so today would mark exactly that point with the 5dt.

Please pray! The two week wait is TORTURE!

4dp5dt

Today, my sister and I donated our hair to Locks of Love! We were both looking like Crystal Gayle clones, so it was about time. I've been growing mine out for about 3 years, while it only took my sister 1.5 years to catch up...and then some!

It feels so much better not having 5 pounds of hair to carry around in this 100 degree 91237640% humidity southern mugfest. Hopefully a few children will benefit from it!

My other sister is also here visiting from Chicago this weekend, so she met up with us at the salon to get her hair did. It's been so much fun having all three of us back together again. Love them!

I am feeling fine...still wondering what is going on down there. I'm having a little pressure/pulling/heaviness in the gonad region. I'm not really sure how to describe it. Again, not sure if it's progesterone or an answered prayer.

Before..I (L) had a total of 23 inches, and my sister (R) a total of 26. We both donated a little more than 10 inches:

First snip on mine

First snip on sister's

Me After!!! Please excuse my boobs...they came from one of two things: A. Progesterone B. Possible answered prayer

My sister after! She has the natural boobie DNA.

Chicago Sis getting her hair did!

Here's to Locks of Love!

Sisters together again for the weekend...fun times!

3dp5dt

Vivid Dreams. My life is a wack-job whilst my head layeth upon a pillow.

Last night I went to a food eating contest to watch one of my friends compete. She ate 50 cameras and won the contest.

Yes, cameras.

Afterwards, I had to move back to Alabama and was made to work on the same hospital floor that I was at when I lived there. Which, by the way, is Hell on Earth. If I ever have to go back to work in a hospital I will change careers.

I then awoke from that nightmare to pee around 5 am. My stomach was also pretty upset. Probably from the 76 pounds of fruit I ate yesterday.

Once I was able to fall back asleep, I found myself at a huge outside party surrounded by everyone on my Facebook friend list. I had to pee, so I went to the bathroom only to find that the toilets sat freely throughout the lawn for all to watch. Apparently I didn't care so I sat down on one for what felt like 20 minutes and could never pee. I had the sensation, but it just wouldn't ever...come out. Andy got tired of waiting for me, so he picked up the toilet with me on it and carried me around the party. Pants on the ground and all. I don't think I ever peed.

Progesterone side effects? Geez! I can't wait to go to sleep tonight to see what other adventures are in store for me!

Otherwise, nothing much new. I don't feel pregnant, but it is wayyyy to early to tell. Still cramping down there, but that is about all.

One of my best friends is bringing us dinner tonight, so I can't wait to catch up with her! Will be a good time. Tomorrow, I get to finally get out of the house! My sister and I are getting our mops chopped to donate to Locks of Love. We've been growing our hair out for awhile and both look like Crystal Gayle, so it's about time! I will post pics tomorrow!

2dp5dt

Below is technically what should be going on in with Boom Boom and Pow right now. I have put them in God's hands and constantly pray that they are thriving and doing their thing down there! I have not really had any weird happenings until this morning. I began having intermittent sharp pains in my uterus that shot up throughout my abdomen, and the boobs are getting pretty sore and swelling. However, the progesterone can cause all of these same side effects, so I don't want to get my hopes up!

I have been asked if I'm going to POAS (pee on a stick) this week and the answer to that is, um, hell yeah! I mean, seriously? I'm a peestickoholic. I didn't spend all of this money to torture myself for another two weeks. I haven't decided exactly when I will test...probably sometime this weekend. Even then it may be too early to get an accurate HPT. Our beta is scheduled to be drawn next Wednesday, July 13.

I just want to remind you that if you know me in real life, please keep everything you read on my blog to yourself. We have not told many people that we are going through with this again, and if it works we will not be telling anyone until we are far enough along to feel comfortable in making an announcement. It is very stressful to openly talk about it all of the time, not to mention having to "un-tell" people should something go horribly wrong...which often happens when dealing with these fertility treatments. Thanks again to all of you for understanding, and for all of your love, prayers, and support:)

 

5-Day Transfer

Days Past Transfer (DPT)	Embryo Development
One	The blastocyst begins to hatch out of its shell
Two	The blastocyst continues to hatch out of its shell and begins to attach itself to the uterus
Three	The blastocyst attaches deeper into the uterine lining, beginning implantation
Four	Implantation continues
Five	Implantation is complete, cells that will eventually become the placenta and fetus have begun to develop
Six	Human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) starts to enter the blood stream
Seven	Fetal development continues and hCG continues to be secreted
Eight	Fetal development continues and hCG continues to be secreted
Nine	Levels of hCG are now high enough to detect a pregnancy

Snowbabies!

1dp5dt

Our embryologist called to let us know he was able to freeze five of our embabies today! They were all Grade A beautiful blasts! This is SO reassuring to us. We have never made it to a 5 day transfer, nor have any left over to freeze.

What this means is that we can use those, two at a time, to do frozen cycles should this one not work out. This is a much easier process because I would not have to wait for a donor to stim...they would just regulate my cycle, thaw them, and do a transfer. There is a risk that they would not survive the thawing process, but this doesn't happen very often. Through our Shared Risk program, we have unlimited FET cycles already paid for. Once all of the cryopreserved eggs are gone, we can move onto another fresh cycle. Overall, we are contracted to three fresh cycles and unlimited frozen cycles.

If this cycle did work, then we have the snowbabies to use in the future should we ever want more children...yay! It would be much cheaper to do a FET cycle in a few years than it would be to shell out money for another fresh cycle. I'm pretty sure that we have reached beyond our limit financially for another fresh cycle.

I am a little disappointed because I found out today that we can't get any pictures of our embabies transferred yesterday! After questioning the embryologist directly, he told me that he believed the system was struck by lightening over the weekend and that he wasn't even able to take the picture:(

Bummer.

Sooo, we have decided to go ahead and name our embabies. Technically, they are our children so we have always done this. It just so happens that they are always conceived around a holiday. Last time we named them Giblet, Shweet T, Gobble, Hambone, Greenbean, Cornbread, and Cranberry because we had a Thanksgiving transfer.

The two in my belly will be called Boom Boom and Pow in honor of an Independance Day transfer. We have named the snowbabies Sparkler, Bottle Rocket, Jumpin' Jack, Snake, and Snap Pop.

Lol.

Right now I am still on bed rest and taking full advantage of Andy being my biotch. He's been so good to me by bringing me medicines, making healthy meals, and concocting yummy smoothies! I'm down to 1 PIO injection every a.m., but I had to add the progesterone va jay-jay suppository at night. I'm also still popping estrogen pills 3x/day.

I'm also going with the wives tale of eating pineapple with core every day for 5 days, starting with the day of transfer. It worked last time, so I'm trying it again! Apparently the core contains an enzyme called bromelain that aids in implantation. By Friday I will have eaten an entire pineapple. Yummy! Even Griswold thinks so...

Got My Preggo On!

I was fine until yesterday when I started sweating balls that something could go wrong today. I mean, look at everything else that has happened to us...haha!

However...

We transferred two perfect grade blasts this morning!!! Woohoo! One was graded 4aa, and the other was 4bb. One was about to start hatching and we still have another five marinating until tomorrow. Our doctor is very hopeful that we will get some snowbaby siblings! Here is a good reference link on how they grade the blasts.

He said that this is the best possible scenerio that you could have during a transfer! God is so good!

We are still in Charleston and I am laid up on bed rest for a few days. We will head back home tomorrow morning so that I can get out of this hotel room and be in my own comfy bed. We brought Griswold here, and have been spoiling him by letting him sleep in the bed with us. I swear it is like sleeping with a horse. He's got to go back to that crate. Evicted!

Here are a few pics from our fun morning...I was all doped up on Valium and feeling the flow! Their printer was broken and I don't have a pic of the actual embryos, but I will get one from them later this week to share!

Dressing up in our space suits and hair nets

 All ready to go!

After the transfer. Andy looks like he's crying. I'm all doped up on Valium.

Arrow pointing to our two babies in my uterus! Big black blob on top is my bladder...about to explode!

Our babies are in there! I had to go feed them Mexican for their first meal.

A huge thanks to all of our troops on this 4th of July, especially my bro-in-law who has been deployed for 1.5 years and won't be home until next year.

Hopefully today will mark our independence from infertility! Stick babies stick!

A Sign?

I'm kind of skeptical about signs, but this was just too weird! Before leaving for Charleston yesterday, Andy checked the mail and this was in it...a brochure from a local hospital inviting us to give birth at their newly renovated women's center. All I have to say is.... Freaky!

Fertilization Reportation!

Drum roll!

37 was the final egg count; we received 19 of those as primary couple in a split cycle.

17 were mature

10 fertilized normally

All are snuggled up in the incubator and the embryologist is planning on a 5 day transfer as of now!!! That would put our transfer date on Monday, the Fourth of July! We have never made it to a 5DT, so please pray that our embabies grow!

Don't get me wrong because this is the furthest we have ever come...but is 10 our of 17 normal?? I just figured that since they did ICSI on every egg that we would have a few more. I am not being greedy, I just know all too well that the number can dwindle drastically by the time we get to the transfer.  We haven't spoken to the embryologist directly, but we kind of figured that it was Andy's sperm. Who knows. We'll see!

All I know is that we are extremely grateful and excited to be at this point. We have 10 embabies y'all! I have continued taking estrogen three times/day, and we started progesterone-in-oil (PIO) injections yesterday. So far my butt is surviving, but I have a feeling that it will start bruising and lumping up soon. Andy gives a good injection though...I can barely feel it! We'll be heading down to Charleston tomorrow to get away from work stress and wait everything out.

We have always done a 3 day transfer which normally puts the embryo in the 8-cell range. Our embryos have always looked like this:

 

After 5 days, they have developed further into a blastocyst, which looks like this:

This will start to hatch towards day 6, and the ICM will develop into the fetus, and the TE will form the placenta.

Pretty cool, huh? 

I'm a dork.

Maybe I need to get out of oncology nursing and become an infertility nurse. Hmmmm.

Thank you all for the sweet comments and prayers. Keep them coming! :)

Party in the Petri Dish!

Thirty Six. THIRTY SIX eggs retrieved from Cindy Lou Who this morning...unbelievable! Since we are splitting the cycle, we get eighteen...but still! This is more than we could have ever asked for.

I had to steal the title of this post from a comment that my blog friend Jenicini left for me the other day...cracked me up! She has been a huge support for a while now, and even had success with her donor egg cycle last year. Cutest little boy ever! She even has an American Bulldog just like Andy and I do!

They fertilized them all this morning via ICSI. Andy drove down to Charleston at the crack of butt to give them some babymaker. Thank goodness this wasn't another wasted three hour trip. The embryologist will call me tomorrow morning to let us know how many fertilized normally! So flippin' excited!

As far as we know, our donor is resting and did well during and after the procedure. They will be monitoring her closely for OHSS. Bless her heart. She is our angel!

Please cross everything you can cross and storm the Heavens for us in hopes that our 18 little embabies make it through the next few days.

It has to be our time. HAS to.

Get In Mah Belly

After 7,021,934,579,872 injections, I thought that I would keep it classy and share with you all the experience of injecting my last Lupron.

 I hope!!!

It's Triggertime Again!

It's confirmed! Cindy Lou Who's retrieval will be on Wednesday! She has so many follies that they had to put her on low dose HCG yesterday to calm her estrogen down. I'm not sure how that works, but all I know is that we don't want to put the poor girl in the hospital with hyperstimulation. She was supposed to do her HCG trigger tonight which will prep her eggs for the retrieval. My last Lupron injection will be tomorrow morning.

Andy has to be in Charleston by 8:45 a.m. Wednesday to work his magic. Please let the swimmers cooperate. Luckily we have a batch that has been in storage for a couple of years as an emergency backup. Never hurts to be prepared! We pray that this trip will be worthwhile, for we all know what happened the last time he drove down there. What a waste!

They will call me Wednesday after her retrieval to tell me how many eggs we have, and then again on Thursday to let me know how many have actually fertilized.

Eeek!

Thank you all so very much for your love and support. I don't think I could have gone through the last two years of treatment without this blog. Talk about a support group!

We are packing for Charleston and getting the house straightened up so that I don't have to worry about it while on bed rest next week. I will be in touch as soon as I have more news!!! :)

She's a Trooper!

This is how many shots I've given to myself since we started the donor process in February...almost three sharps containers full. My poor belly! Make it go away!

However, this week will open up a whole new realm of target practice. I'll get to stop the Lupron injections, but then I add the PIO shots twice daily on retrieval day. I'll be busting out the heating pads for those daddies to prevent painful lumps in my butt! Andy gets to give me those...awesome! I will have to administer those until 9 weeks of pregnancy if this cycle is successful.

Did I mention that there is a nationwide Lupron shortage?? I ran out mid-cycle and almost had a mini-meltdown. Luckily my nurse found a compounding pharmacy in NJ that gladly made some for me. Talk about lucky. What in the world would they have done? Only me!

Our update today was nothing less than grand...they measured around 35 follies (ouch) and her retrieval has been pushed back to Wednesday to allow for optimal maturation of her eggs. So exciting! Our nurse described her as a "trooper". I would have to agree. I remember my ovaries feeling like water balloons when I only had 13 measurable follies. Poor thing!

It's hard not to think about a negative outcome after all that we have been through. Yes they are telling us 35 follies, but what if only, say, 12 are mature? Then we have to split them with another couple which gives us 6. Then we have to worry about any of them fertilizing normally because Andy's sperm is hit-or-miss. Lots of pressure here! BUT, we will continue to put it all in God's hands and hope for the best. I think that we've shown God that we want this more than anything!

Our donor will have another ultrasound tomorrow morning so we should get an update then as well. She should administer her HCG injection tomorrow night if she is to have a Wednesday retrieval.

Now I'm on the hunt for another sharps container...I guess that a milk jug will have to do. Please pray for us and for that poor girl's gonads...bless her soul for going through this for us. Such a selfless act!