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!

She's a Brewin'!

Our donor started stimulating last weekend and we are starting to receive our ultrasound reports! According to our nurse, she is brewing a lot of follies down there! So many that they couldn't get an accurate count! They had to change her to a low dose stim this morning because they don't want to hyperstimulate her ovaries, which puts her at risk for OHSS. Our retrieval was set for Tuesday morning, but since they are going to slow the process a bit it may occur on Wednesday. She is having another ultrasound tomorrow morning and we will have a better idea by then!

Our nurse said that she feels like we made a very good match this time around. It's about time, haha! She said that with the number of follies she wouldn't be surprised if we had some snowbabies to set aside. We do have to remember that quality is better than quantity, but we are feeling pretty optimistic about this cycle! Woohoo!!!

If the retrieval occurs Wednesday, then that puts us at Saturday for a 3-day transfer, or Monday for a 5-day transfer. Happy 4th of July to us! We will head down to Charleston next Friday if everything goes as planned. I am taking off work the entire week after that so that I don't have to be whipped by the slave driver which will lessen my chances of this working. We've put too much into this to have it ruined by stress! I will be on bed rest for a few days, and then get to enjoy the company of my little sis visiting from Chicago along with my other sister and niece coming to visit!

Also, please pray for my best friend and her hubby who just had their first IUI perfomed...they have been trying for over 4 years. How often does an infertile couple have a BFF going through the same hell? It definitely helps to have someone who can honestly relate! Wishing her the best and hoping that we can raise our babies together!

I will be in touch. Hopefully this will be the last weekend we share as a couple...by next weekend I could be growing our family! Please pray!

Oh, ya know, this and that.

1. The fee stands. Nowhere in our contract does it state that we are supposed to pay it as a primary couple, but she said that it was effective this past January and we have to pay it. Whatever. Next time I am sitting face to face with my doctor I will give him a piece of my mind for taking advantage of vulnerable couples.

2. We did not lose an attempt with Shared Risk. They are charging no fees whatsoever to Attain, so this attempt will count as our first attempt. Thank God.

3. My period has finally started and is thriving. If I didn't know any better, I would swear I'm giving birth to a placenta.

4. I'm not sure if I am going to be mentally stable enough to care for a child if I actually get one. Infertility and treatments are going to send me to the frickin' insane asylum.

5. It's been almost a month and Andy hasn't completely finished the wood floors. I knew I should have hired someone to do it. I'm going to nut up.

5. That is all.

Crazy Hormonal Female...Vent Session

So, tell me how you would react to this phone call...

Jessica: Hello?

RE's office: Hey Jessica, this is ------. Just calling to let you know that since you are the primary couple in this cycle, you owe a fee of $500 that isn't covered by the Shared Risk Program. We need to get this taken care of today before your donor starts medications. 

Jessica: Um, fee? What fee? Nobody told me about an extra fee. I was told that with the Shared Risk program I would not have to pay anymore out of pocket except for my medications and ultrasounds. 

RE's office: Well, this is a fee that was instituted recently, so you wouldn't have known about it. The primary couple now has to pay a fee of $500 per cycle.

Jessica: Um. Okay?

Mind you, I'm in the middle of giving a patient medications and had to walk away to take this call because I thought it would be my nurse. I was completely caught off guard, so my only reflex was to hesitantly say okay, pull the credit card out, and pay the fee out of fear of being kicked out of this cycle if I didn't pay.

Seriously???

So, does this mean that they can just randomly call me and tell me that they have added another "fee" and I'm expected to pay it or be kicked out mid-cycle? Am I the only one that thinks that this was a complete lack of communication on their part and that we are being taken advantage of....again? How do you get around something like this? They have our balls in their hands and we have no choice but to pay it!

As soon as I got home today, I explained the situation to Andy and he went from cute to livid in about 30 seconds. He will be calling our doctor directly tomorrow and asking him why we didn't receive a letter or communication of some sort. I mean, who wants to dish out $500 unexpectedly? A little notice please! It wasn't even in our financial estimate that we received from the office in February. What really makes me mad is that I paid off a credit card LAST NIGHT thinking that I was done giving the fertility gods mine and my parent's life savings. Son of a biscuit eating bulldog.

To top it all off, I got home and received a statement in the mail that "insurance" was pending on our canceled cycle. I got to thinking, now why would they bill Shared Risk for a canceled cycle? After looking at our contract, it states that a cycle will count towards you if it is canceled AFTER egg retrieval. Andy will be grilling their butts about this tomorrow as well...we take it as that cycle counted against us even though we never went through with the transfer! We got absolutely nothing from that cycle but a bunch of wasted money! As a matter of fact, the primary couple had to pay out of pocket for our half of the cycle PLUS the office got our Attain money too! Even if we were paying out of pocket, we would have gotten our money back and the primary couple would have to strike a check for our half. I don't get it. If this is the case, we would almost have been better off paying out of pocket for 2 fresh cycles then giving Attain all of our money. Omg.

This is Jessica going from cute to livid in 30 seconds.

Now it's time to put the icing on the cake folks. I was supposed to start my period, um, Sunday. I'm supposed to go for my first ultrasound tomorrow. No, I'm not pregnant. However, this cycle will be delayed until I start my frickin' period. F'awesome.

I will blame the delay of the menstrual cycle on certain family and work issues over the last week stressing me out that I should probably not mention on here since most of them read my blog. Once again, you find out who your true friends and family are when going through tough times. And it doesn't help that someone I work with is the clone of Attila the Hun. That being said, the stress from my doctor's office and Shared Risk program is completely unnecessary and cruel. Why must they do this to me while I'm doped up on Lupron and hormones galore?

If we did lose that cycle, then I can only pray that this first real cycle gives us a damn litter and that I don't have to do anymore. Otherwise, I will only have one fresh attempt left and that will really stress us out. I will have more answers tomorrow after our office experiences the wrath of Andy.


God, please help me. Everything is always against us...do you just not want us to be parents?

Is this really my life?

Cautiously Optimistic Plan!

Low and behold our donor passed all of her tests and we received another schedule folks! Woohoo! This marks the third time since February that we have tried to do this, so we are not putting all of our "eggs" in one basket yet. We know that this is ALL in God's hands and we refuse to take the reins because He is in control of the outcome! It's easy to get desperate for this to happen, but over time I've realized that our patience is being tested for a reason. If we interfere with His plan, it just makes us look selfish and sets us up for more disappointment and embarrassment.

As of now, I am set to resume my Lupron injections tomorrow and stop the BCP on Friday. I should have a period sometime next week, and then I will begin the escalating doses of estrogen. If everything goes as planned, she will begin stims mid-June and retrieval is set for June 28. Our transfer *may* happen around July 1-3ish!!!

All we can do is sit back and enjoy the ride. If we get all worked up and paranoid about it actually working this time, then it will make things very stressful around here and we don't need that! We definitely have to give all of our worries to God and allow room for error.

We just returned from an awesome 10th anniversary roadtrip to Chicago...we were able to see most of the city and visit with my little sis! I will post some pics soon.

Right now, the pool and a few...well maybe more than a few...strawberry daiquiris are calling my name! For now, we will keep living our life and having fun. Hope everyone has a fun and safe weekend!

A Decade Later...

Exactly ten years and thirty pounds ago, Andy and I were saying "I do!"

I cannot believe it has already been ten years. I also cannot believe everything we've been through in our short time together!

We are in Chicago celebrating and spending time with my sister...awesome city! Tonight we will celebrate with a big fat filet and some cocktails at the top of the Hancock.

I know I say this every year, but this will be the LAST year we celebrate alone.

We WILL be a family of three by our eleventh!

My Uterus Has Exploded!

Warning: If you are easily grossed out, you probably should not be reading a blog with the word "Uterus" in the title. That is all.

After being off all of my medications for more than a week now, Aunt Flo finally arrived on Friday!!! This is probably the only time you will find me happy to see her!

I haven't had a period in almost two months, so this should be fun. My lining is probably 5 feet thick and thriving.

I start back on BCP tonight, and our nurse will be in touch soon with a new schedule! If all goes as planned, it looks like we will have a transfer around the end of June!

Last year, I was curled up in my bed, crying, and watching Lifetime movies. All. Day. Long. This Mother's Day has been MUCH better. I think that I hit rock bottom last year after our miscarriage. I'm so grateful that I have such wonderful support system...I wouldn't have any hope if it wasn't for God, my family, fellow bloggers, and friends that have actually stuck around through all of this madness!

Andy has completely made my Mother's Day...I woke up with a gift certificate for a Spa Mani/Pedi, and he is cooking me an awesome dinner tonight...pork tenderloin, pineapple casserole, and potato casserole! He told me that he was sick of me being left out on Mother's Day, so he was going to give me a good day:) Poor thing even ripped up all of the carpet and installed floors this weekend! I just hung out with my family and hid in the computer room so that I wouldn't have a panic attack from the mess that is our house. He did such a good job!

Before

After

We also took my mom and grandmother out for a nice lunch yesterday. Here is a picture of four generations...sans my youngest sister Elizabeth who just moved to Chicago:(

From left to right: Me, Mom, Brother, Grandmother, Brother-In-Law, Sister, and my beautiful niece!

I might as well throw in my FAVORITE picture of my mom and I. My mom told me that I was pitching a fit up until the second this picture was snapped. Dang mood swings!

I hope all of you had a wonderful Mother's Day. My heart has been heavy for those who have lost their mother, and for those of us who would give anything to be a mom.

One day we WILL be included in this holiday!

The moment a child is born, the mother is also born. She never existed before. The woman existed, but the mother, never. A mother is something absolutely new. ~Rajneesh

Third Time's a Charm?

Andy and I have officially picked out our THIRD donor since January. Hopefully this will be the one that "sticks"!

We submitted our choices last night, and were matched today with our first pick. I received an email this morning from my nurse telling us that we are going to be the primary couple for this cycle, yay! I thought that we were going to have to wait another month or so for a secondary couple to sign on, but guess what? Another couple picked her yesterday too! That means we can get started right away!!! I forgot that our clinic guarantees a primary position if you were secondary during the previous cycle...score!

I am to call my nurse when I start my period (my uterus should be exploding any day now) and she will get me started back on those awesome birth control pills. Then comes the Lupron, and you know the rest of the story. The entire process will probably take another 6-8 weeks, pending no delays.

Our donor still has to undergo the new genetic tests that they have added to their protocol, so we are not getting our hopes up yet. Our first donor was dropped after coming back as a carrier for a genetic disorder. I think our guard has officially been placed into the lock position until we actually take a baby home from the hospital. We have faith that it will eventually happen, but we remain somewhat cynical of the entire process in general. There is just too much room for error!

My doctor did call me personally, from his cell phone, to apologize again about our cycle being canceled at retrieval. He reiterated the fact that what happened is a very rare occurrence. I reminded him that everything that has happened to Andy and I has been a rare occurrence. We just roll like that. He urged us to continue to trust in them and they will do everything in their power to give us a successful donor cycle. I really wanted to ask him if he had thought about kicking us out of their clinic because we are ruining their success rates, but I refrained. Haha!

I'm really excited about this donor. According to her profile, she has been a donor once before. This means that they wouldn't have let her back into the program unless she had a good outcome last time. She is married, 5'6", 135 lbs, and about to graduate with honors to become a teacher. Her hobbies include singing, writing, gymnastics, swimming, dance...and she loves football! Sounds like my kind of girl! Our last donor's baby picture looked nothing like me, but this one bears some resemblance to me with brown hair and eyes. She also comes from a mutt background like I do...her mother is Irish, father is French/Italian, and grandmother is Greek/Italian. I would LOVE to post her picture, but since this is an anonymous cycle I'm not allowed to do so. You never know if she or someone who knows her will come across my blog one day.

So, we are about to hop on this Scream Machine for the 7,193,485,793,865,987th time. Thanks again for all of your support and for sticking with us throughout all of this madness...you guys ROCK!

The Shi**y Luck Fairy Has Struck Again

Cycle over.

Our donor went in for her retrieval this morning. Out of the 20+ follicles seen via ultrasound, she only gave up 9 usable eggs. Since we are doing a split cycle and are the secondary couple, all 9 of them went to the primary couple. It is their policy not to split them up if they retrieve less than 10 eggs. F'awesome.

I remember my nurse saying after our last cycle was canceled that taking secondary was no big deal because the secondary gets dropped <5% of the time...well, we should have known that the odds are always against Andy and Jessica!

Andy drove all the way to Charleston this morning to sit in the lobby for an hour and a half before our doctor finally came out to tell him the news. Needless to say, that trip, all of the time off work, all of the medications we've taken for the past 2.5 months, and ultrasounds we've paid for out of pocket were a waste.

The other couple already delayed the cycle by a few weeks because she couldn't ever seem to start her period. We also found out that they are self-pay and didn't have the Shared Risk program like us. This means that they are going to have to strike a check today for double the amount to cover our half of the cycle, which really sucks for them.

On a positive note, since we contracted with the Shared Risk program, this cycle doesn't count against us. We were very close to not doing Shared Risk and taking a leap of faith by paying out of pocket for one cycle. If we would have done that, look at where we'd be now! Out 20 grand because of a canceled cycle and no money to do it again!

So, we have to start from scratch. Again. If we ever make it to a freaking transfer I'll be shocked! I've been giving myself injections and taking meds for almost 2.5 months now...forrrrr nothing. I am to stop all medications today, start my period sometime next week, and our nurse will be emailing us another password to pick another donor and start this process all over again.

We're definitely picking primary couple this time around. Because of that, we will have to wait until another couple picks the same donor as secondary. Then go through another round of genetic testing. Then medicines and ultrasounds again for another three months.

We are going to start planning a trip for our 10 year anniversary that is coming up in two weeks! Yippee! We have decided that we are going to go to Chicago to visit my little sister who just moved up there. We were not sure that we'd be able to go because of the cycle, but I guess now we can!

We're going to spend the remainder of our weekend taking naps and drinking. Thank you all for your support, and I'm sorry to have let you all down. Ahh the joys of the infertility roller coaster.

We will keep the Faith that it will eventually be our turn!

STOP! Triggertime.

It's official! Cindy Lou Who will be triggering tonight and her retrieval will be on Saturday morning!!! Woot Woot! Everything looks perfect and we are so blessed that this went as smoothly as it did. Now we are praying that her retrieval and postop goes well and that our half of the eggs fertilize normally!

Andy has to be in Charleston at 10 am Saturday morning to give up some baby batter. Just to be safe, they will perform ICSI since we have had a problem with his count and the sperm penetrating the eggs in the past. Our embryologist will call us early Sunday morning to give us a fertilization report and schedule a tentative 3 day transfer on Tuesday. If it looks as if our embryos are strong come Tuesday, they will stretch it out to a 5 day transfer when they are in the blastocyst stage (we have never made it to a 5DT with our previous IVF's).

My last Lupron injection is tomorrow morning...sweet. I've been giving myself those darn things for almost two months now. My belly needs a break man! Andy will start giving me the PIO butt injections on Saturday and we will continue that 2x daily with the estrogen 3x daily up until the day of transfer. I will then switch to a PIO injection every morning, and a Prometrium suppository every evening. I am having to do all of this artificially because my body will not do it on its own since they have shut my system down to prevent me from ovulating/starting my period. All of these hormones are needed to support a pregnancy until the placenta is able to do it on its own at around 9 weeks of pregnancy.

Complicated. Ridiculousness.

I just wish that I could meet this girl and give her a huge hug. She will never know how thankful we are for being so selfless and putting her life on hold for us. I mean seriously...she has a husband and toddler at home and her ovaries are about to spontaneously combust because she wants to help a complete stranger have a baby. We are forever grateful for Cindy Lou Who!

We also want to thank you for all of the thoughts and prayers in the previous posts. Not only do you guys ROCK, you are our ROCK. We appreciate all of your love and support through all of this. I must say that I definitely found out who my true friends are, once again, while going through all of this!


I titled this post Triggertime, and now I can't get It's Hammertime out of my head. Let me pay homage to my main man M.C. whilst I'm at it.

I even owned and proudly sported a pair of neon splatter-painted hammer pants to school in 5th grade. Can't touch this. That is all.

She's Almost There!

Stimulation Day 10

We have about 20 follicles on today's ultrasound! She is doing much better than I ever did...geez. I was told that there were quite a few more, but they were smaller than the others. Keep in mind that we're going for quality vs. quantity. She could spit out 50 eggs, but that doesn't mean that they will all be mature. We won't know until the actual retrieval, but at least this gives us a good idea!

Our nurse is 99% sure that the retrieval will take place on Saturday 4/30/11. Our donor has another ultrasound/labs tomorrow to confirm this. My nurse will call me tomorrow afternoon with medication instructions and an appointment for Andy in Charleston to give a babyfish sample. I will have to start progesterone-in-oil (PIO) injections soon, so I'm getting the heating pad warmed up for those. Andy will basically be injecting my butt cheek with molasses twice daily...awesomeballs! Please pray for my butt...and for Andy to have a steady hand! I think that I will be stopping the Lupron injections this weekend too...thank goodness. Menopause ain't no joke.

Time to get the bags packed for a roadtrip to Charleston! So excited! After six redonkulous years, we may actually have a good chance at becoming mommy and daddy soon!