Waiting for FET....Embryo Adoption

I haven't had a moment to write down many of my feelings, but this past week I was hit with the flu, which makes anyone slow down and rest up. Which gives me time to blog about this next adventure.
We are 1 week away from starting my cycle. The medicine are all called in and all I have left to do is some blood work on monday morning.
I do have a little bit of scoop of what will happen. I told my nurse in all my years this will be the first ever transfer so I have no idea how this works!!!!
She said Dr. A has switch to shots because he is getting better results thickening the uterus this way, but it will only be twice a week and I am sooo happy to give myself a shot if it means I have a chance of being pregnant again and having a baby to grow up with Brinley.
We talk often to our 4 year old about adopting a baby and the Dr will put him in mommy's tummy. She is beyond thrilled for this to happen.

Our embryo donation journey begins

Almost a month after moving on from our donor we contact my Dr.'s nurse to get an idea of where we were on the wait list. I had to make decisions about health insurance and it was between two great insurance companies but two completely different maternity coverage or hospital delivery and where. I was hoping to know if it was more in the June range or late 2017.
Beyond my surprise....we were up next!
It was one of the happiest days of my life, my eyes flooded with tears or hope and joy and excitement.My husband and I just were in complete shock and so much excitement.
Later that day our nurse emailed over a 4 page list of 4 line descriptions of embryos that were up for adoption.  Out of the 4 pages only 4 families had done PGS testing on their embryo and would be able to know abnormal embryos from normal ones. (remember in this post we had the 2 embryos we got from IVF 2 that were tested and both came back abnormal, both boys, one was missing a chromosome and one had an extra one)
So my husband and I knew we wanted PGS tested embryo already. Then from the 4 family, 4 stuck out to us so strong.
At this point all we knew was...
DEP#____
 How many embryos there were? grade 4AA, 5BB
Year the were frozen
Female: egg donor? age of spouse? ethical background
Male: sperm donor? age? ethical background
(and if pictures were available) which we will always keep this private.so don't ask

We asked for the profiles from the 3 families we wanted to know more from. our nurse emailed us over pages and pages on each family of embryos. We waited a few nights before we sat up in bed going over them. My husband reading them and I was to take notes....pros and cons. Cliffnotes on embryos
We knew that night which family batch we were going to transfer from, but decided to take the whole weekend to think and pray about it together and separate. It was so overwhelming that night but it was good for us to get in. This part of the process can't be understand until you have gone through something like this. Know these aren't your biological kids but that they were meant for your family and you were always meant to be their mom and dad.
I think we waited until Tuesday to email the nurse back and she made sure that they were reserved by us. She told us we have 6 months to do a FET (frozen embryo transfer). I assured her we would be quick.

Never written post

I am in such a better place these days and it's all because I have grieved and accepted that I may only have 1 child and I could be happy with that.
Of course, this is all much much easier said than done.
Now, I still have days where I wish with all my might I could be pregnant, but it's a work in progress.  Still seeing my therapist and helping me focus on what I have been given is helping. For me, also my faith is my rock and foundation. I know their is a God and I know there is a plan for me, and every time I have a hard time I have to know that he hears my prayers and my cries to expand our family. I no longer have pregnancy guilt, and I actually have, yes this was really hard for me, but I have held babies in the last month and enjoyed it, instead of being bitter and angry. We are definitely working on other things in our life that we want and getting all of our medical bills paid off before we return to having a 2nd child, weather it will be through IVF, donor egg, or adoption.
It's been a long 18 months doing treatments almost every month but we have change and changed for the better. I have met some amazing friends and have a community around us that cheer us on. Thank you all for being a friend, a reader, and hoping to understand emotional trails that some have to deal with.

6 days past Egg Retrieval

The last few days have been a lot easier.
Today was the last day the embryos could turn into a blast into the last stage before it is ready for a transfer.
Dr. Anderson called me this morning and was happy to report 2 of the embryo were biopsied this morning. So out of the 3 we had we have 2 good ones we will send to PGS testing.
But before we do that we have been thinking and praying what we should do next....
For the PGS testing you pay for 8 embryos to be tested, its  a few thousands dollars even it you only have 2 to test. So we decided to do "batching"
What that means is we will do another round of IVF egg retrieval and hope to get any more embryos so we can send them out all together in Oct.
They will test them and come back to tell us which ones are normal.
Because my Dr. has told me both egg retrieval times that my egg look abnormal, I really want to make sure when we do a transfer that the embryo is normal to give a 85% higher chance for a pregnancy.
yes,
It's a lot of waiting and a lot of money more, since we have no insurance left to cover for IVF med.s that could be around 5,000. Hopefully, we still haven't hit our lifetime maximum for IVF procedure and that will still keep the cost low then if we had done this all out of pocket. Reason number 1, why we have been living at my parents for the last year!
I just want those friends starting this process to know they have lots of options when they read stuff out there.
So, for  now Sep. will be a quite month as I take my mind off of infertility treatments all together!

3 days past egg retrieval

It's been a hard last 2 days.
I've tried everything to distract me and that may have included going to Disneyland twice in one day.
I waited and checked my phone every min. yesterday waiting to hear the update on the embryos. By 4 o'clock I just knew the worst had to happen, we probably dont have any left, so my dr isn't bothering calling me.
I called his office and he was out, so they connected me to the lab to give me my results. I was sooo happy the embryologist (yes, the person who studies my embryos) was so helpful and had good news.
We have 1 shinning through!!! It's a grade A and has 8 cells already, it's our hopeful one and perfect. The other 2 are grade B and only have 4/5 cells so they aren't sure if they will make it to day 6 where it will become a blast (meaning they can transfer it). If the 2 don't keep dividing in cells it will appear as finished because it stopped growing and they can no longer do anything for it.
So right now, I know we have 1 good one.
They hard part is what do we do next.
We could easily go ahead with PGS testing and wait to see if it comes back a normal embryo and then do the transfer in Sep.
Orrrrr (we are most likely doing this one)
Freezing what embryos we have this saturday and taking a month off (Dr.'s orders) then doing ANOTHER (3rd's time a charm, right?) Egg Retrieval in Oct. and hoping we get more embryos to do the PGS testing then have the transfer schedule for Nov. then find out if all this really worked in Dec.
Have I told you yet, we started our treatments last Aug. and I never ever ever ever ever thought it would be taking us this long to have another baby.
Baby B was SERIOUSLY a miracle with our 1st treatment and IUI. I thank my Heavenly Father everyday to be her mom!
With all that said....we love all the prayers and support coming our way and I know they are helping so please remember us in the next few months still ahead we have.
Thankfully I have a great husband and family and soo grateful for a great therapist!!

The first call

Our egg retrieval was yesterday and this afternoon I'm feeling much better. I've been resting in my bed since I got home yesterday and I really think sleeping more has helped my body heal faster.
The bad news...
Dr. Anderson called me and informed me once again we have a problem with my eggs. They were able to get 12 yesterday but they all looked not normal, They ended up doing ICSI which means they fertilize them by injecting one sperm into each egg.
Out of the 7 they did this too only 3 fertilized. Yes 3 is 2 more than we had last time but now I'm not counting on anything. I don't think this IVF is going to last much longer, we are just on day one and there are soooo many hurdles these 3 embies would have to overcome to even make it to a pregnancy.
Right now, I'm just not hopeful
I'm just numb

Egg Retrieval procedure

Today was our egg retrieval and I was the only one booked for Dr. Anderson and the only one in the surgery center. We put our alarm for 5:30am, jumped in the shower and got ready. At 6am we left and drove 45 mins up to Newport Beach to check in at 6:45am. The one nurse met us and got me all dress  and in my bed, she also started my fluid, and finished filling out paper work.  Right at 7:45 the anistlogist and Dr. Anderson got my sleepy drug in and I was off.
After I woke up my husband came by my side, he told me Dr. Anderson retrieved 12 eggs and they were all going under to be fertilize. They will call me the next day to fill me in on the report.
I went home and slept for 4 more hours. I'm gonna stay in bed until tomorrow night to relax and feel better again.

Meditation

my therapist gave me some great meditation advice, because I feel like I'm very specific in why I'm doing all this (for my IVF cycle) I started googling infertility mediation and came across

CircleBloom 

of their facebook page is CircleBloom Facebook

This is the only meditation out there that is specific for IUI/IVF and they have many different programs to pick from. I started doing the meditation IUI/IVF cycle and can really tell a difference. I plan on buying the other programs they have for FET, and giving birth.
Also my therapist told me about Oprah and the mediation she started with Deepak. Just this past monday they started a 21 days program on "Expanding your Happiness"
I think this cycle has been different from the first with all these great changes I have made.

Ultrasound appt 9

Todays appt was great! My Dr. office was completely booked. I took a moment to look around and feel empathy for all these women that are going through their day to day life but there day usually starts here, in hopes to one day have a baby. Infertility effects all types of women, old, young, race. Just looking at some people you would never guess they know exactly how I feel too. I probably look like an egg donor in there being only 28, not going through my 2nd IVF.
The ultrasound show a few more mature follicles, yes we are up to 14 on the ultrasound. Not the same number that they always retrieve, but the higher the number the better chances of more eggs we have. I really thought this would be it, but I just got my call from Dr. Anderson and he says we are going to give follistim and menapour 1 more night!
We did see smaller ones that could defiantly grow. I'm excited to do one more night too since I have about 1 more night of medicine and I want as many as we can get. It just seems like a FOREVER stimming processes. Even Dr. Anderson said today I was a slow grower but that doesn't effect the outcome. Here's to one more night of follisitm shots then onto trigger and more when we do FET next month.

all ready for round 2 IVF

Last IVF 2 months ago was such an emotional roller coaster. I was sinking into depression and wasn't sure I would even want to blog again about round 2.

So, what made me decided to type all this again?

I'm so happy and confident working with
1. nutritionist
2. acupuncturist
3.therapist
4. meditation
5. great fertility specialist Dr. Anderson
I feel like I am going all out for this cycle, and even though a lot of these stuff takes a few months to have effect on a healthy IVF cycle I need to do all I can.

Today marks the start of IVF, and I have been counting down the day to start and get things going again. Everything is so timed so when I found out I would be missing my brothers up coming wedding because I'll be seeing my Dr. for blood work and ultrasounds everyday next week I was bummed. I talked with him and we have a good understanding and love for each other.

Today I feel hopefully, excited, bit tired and happy!!!

Nutritionist

If you ask my husband about my diet he would say I was not a healthy eater. I feel like I eat better or change my diet when I have that wash jeans feeling, you know the one when you just put your jeans on right after they have been washed and dried. You do some squats to stretch them out and grab just an apple for breakfast.

I have the personality that I tend to listen to a person by there ranking. Sad to say but even my best friend could make me change my mind even if it the exact same thing my husband has been saying a million different ways a million times. With this said back in March I decided I was ready to cut out all sodas for health reasons. I found myself haven't a hard time completely kicking the habit, so I knew if I talked to my ER dr I would listen to whatever he would say. So when I went in and asked him how bad soda is for me going through all my treatments, he laugh a little like I was crazy for even asking him such a silly question and said that stuff has nothing good in it for you. 

So just like that I have quit it, easy too. 

So I knew meeting with a nutritionist would help me a lot too. Also my aunt got me a book called The Kind Mama,  by alicia silverstone. While the book has caused some controversial, I feel like there is a bit of good education for me in there. It helps teach me what foods are good for going through IVF. I like to stay in the middle....but you can find a little green in me (I still cloth diaper). I would say I like to stay in the middle of the whole spectrum. I don't believe that you can cure all with just what you eat.
So my nutritionist talked about my diet and we decided while it wouldn't be best to over night make a change, I could week by week.
It's been almost a month now and I have been feeling great! I had some pizza, and hot dog here and there but nothing like I used to. My weight has stayed the same (maybe a pound lighter depending on the day).
Here are something and why my nutritionist asked me to skip on or add to help our IVF cycle.
1. MORE lefty green
2. Raw nuts
3. Keep your body warm and avoid or minimize cold foods and drinks.
4. switch from using antiperspirant to a deodorant that does not contain aluminum chloride.
5. Body lotion- switch to coconut or sunflower oil. face lotion should be 100% aloe.
6. Avoid using products that contain sulfates or parabens. These chemicals are commonly found in beauty products, such as soap, shampoo, lotion, sunscreen.
7. choose naturally sourced cleaning products.
8. swithc to a fluoride free toothpaste.
9. Begin to find supportive ways to reduce your daily stressors. (meditation)

The things I was already doing that they said to cut out, no soda or caffeine. I don't drink but alcohol is bad when doing IVF.
Process food is the number 1 thing to cut out of your diet when trying to retrieve better eggs for IVF. So, I am doing my best and I feel like its making a difference.
There was one more thing I wanted to add into my life before our IVF cycle and that was to meet with an infertility counselor once a week. I'll follow up a post about how I found one and how it is going so far. 

Acupuncture

After having such a hard 1st IVF then it failing really made me think, is there something else I could be doing to help out my body more. Infertility makes you feel like you have NO CONTROL over your body and able to grow a family and feel like a women. So looking and talking with my Dr. I have shared with you guys before I would be adding acupuncture, nutritionist, and therapist that all specialize in infertility.

So first thing first, I had to research and ask a ton of family and friends of any referrals. Since we have great coverage of acupuncture I went through to see who was in-network first under our insurance. 

Like you would expect everyone had a Chinese name and specialized in infertility but also 40+ things. 

On the second day of research I came across , Megan Joyce, licensed acupuncturist.

I had a good feeling about her and the fact that she specialized in women health including infertility was huge for me. I love that she had 1.5-2 hours booked for your first appointment to go over every single thing. 

So I went in this morning for my first try ever of acupuncture. (back in June 2014)

Her office was so nice, clean and modern. I felt so calm and relax there too. We spent the first 1.5 hours going over my medical history and what I had concerns about. The last 30mins was the acupuncture time. I didn't feel a thing and had such a nice nap. I made sure to schedule my next appt. in the afternoon so I could really nap and relax. 

I'll be going back in weekly now and really feel like this will help the blood flow which will help egg growth.

2 Months later:
I was going once a week to see megan untl my egg retrieval month came and I was in there seeing her 3 times a week. I started listening to my IVF meditation, Circle and Bloom.  These sessions were not as relaxing as the first month. She had me hooked up to a simulator and it didn't hurt it just didn't feel like a good nap time. 

Now, that I have decided to do egg retrieval 3  I wish my insurance would cover more. I want to be able to go as much as possible without breaking the bank. I know it really helped me and I know having her help me change my diet to eat things that will help my egg growth is so helpful.
I do believe in acupuncture and I love it. 

Back to square 1- Failed IVF

When I didn't hear from my Dr yesterday I thought something must be wrong. I knew I had my post-Op apt this morning and I would talk to him then about everything and go from there.
When he walked in the room he informed me right away that the embryo had stopped growing and we would no longer be able to freeze it.
 I felt like I knew this was coming so I didn't take it hard. We talked about our new plan and I was required to take a month off. Even though my body feels back to normal again, we did an ultrasound and he showed me that my ovaries were still double the size and I needed to make sure I wasn't doing any activity or working out.

ONE

Anyone who has been through this process knows you don't know how many embryos you have until right before you are ready for the transfer. So when the Dr told me at my Egg Retrieval I knew the numbers were just going to go down from there. They fertilized 4, and today we found out we only have 1. I can go on and on how much I cried and how much I felt like this is over, but I have to stay positive and hope and pray for this one embryo. I know when we had Brinley she beat a lot of odds, even from the very beginning my dr called and said my blood work with her said I was pregnant, but it was so low that I would probably miscarry. Yet, she didn't..she fought and she stayed. So I need to find that faith and hope again for this embryo.
For now I will wait until Tuesday and we will have a few decisions to make then.

possible failed ICSI Fertilization

While the first day after your Egg Retrieval is usually the happiest filled with hope and wonder how many of your egg fertilize.
I was simply one of the unlucky ones that didn't have my eggs make it to fertilization.
While I was waiting all morning for my Dr to call with the results, I knew the longer and longer the wait, the worst of the news. While I was getting our 2 year old out of the pool and ready for nap, my Dr. called and I didn't even hear to the phone.
In the nicest way possible he left a message letting me know that yes they were able to get 6 eggs, and after waiting the 6-8 hours to see how many are mature. By then, only 4 had made it and they  performed the ICSI (they take one sign sperm and inject it into an egg, making it impossible to not just fertilize, unless your me I guess) So with 4 being injected they have to sit and wait until the next morning to see the signs that it had fertilized. I guess they were just waiting it out trying to see if anyone of them would and not a sign that one had fertilized. On his message he did say he would check back in Sunday because maybe it could still happen, that we still had hope, but I think he was just saying that maybe there is a 1% chance of that happening.
I guess I can only hold my breath until Sunday now.

My husband called back and the nurse said she would check the lab tomorrow and give us a call Saturday to see if there is any hope.

Egg Retrieval Day

It's was a great morning. We got to sleep in have some pillow talk with ms brinley in our bed.

Call me crazy but I had time it all out.

It was a good morning, everything got done perfectly and I had a great time relaxing at the surgery center. 

It's hard not to have a good time when you are getting perfect pictures of your daughter back at home like this....

Here we are right before they are wheeling me in. After they gave me the good drugs to relax me and then when I went in the room they put me out before I could remember a thing.

When I woke up from recovery I remember looking at a clock. A few days earlier I remember them telling me that I would have until about noon to wake up and so I was watching the clock because I just wanted to lay there and sleep.
By the time noon came around I was fully awake and knew they would sent me on my way. We got in the car and came home. When I got home I went right back to sleep and rested the rest of the afternoon.
Earlier in the day (when I was fasting) I was dreaming about sushi, so I told Joe if I feel up to it I wanted to go out for Sushi that night.
He got Brinley in bed for me at 7pm and we were out for dinner by 7:30. I stayed out way to late, but it was worth all you can eat sushi!!!
It was a good, easy day for an egg retrieval.

Pre-Op, IVF appointment # whatever

Today was the worst day of them all.
I woke up to the worst migraine and I had to get to the drs early. I didn't know how I was going to make it, but I thought if I start moving and get my routin I would be okay. 

I grabbed a water and chocolate protien shake and started driving. I was also running late because I was trying to sleep in longer to make my migraine go away. 

As I drove I made myself more and more car sick. As I pulled into the parking lot, grabbed my parking ticket and knew I needed to throw up. I hurried and pulled into the handcap parking spot, got out and ran over to the bushes and threw up my chocolate drink. The worst was getting all over my white shoes and pants. I was so disgusted.

Thankful for baby wipes I cleaned up best I could and headed up to the drs. 

This time they only did blood work and talk to me about my pre op procedure for the next day.

We finished everything up, and although I wasn't feeling nausea at the time, I still wasn't feeling great.

I started driving back home and just a few stop lights in I felt sick again. This time I was the first car stopped at a red in a huge intersection ( crown valley and margarite). 

I had no choice but to open my door and vomit outside. I was so afraid the light would turn green and I'd still be throwing up. Luckily it was a long light and as I started driving  again I knew I had to pull over. I finished throwing up all my breakfast and made it home. Crawled in bed and slept the rest of the day.

Thank heavens I made it through that day, and hope tomorrow is better.

IVF appointment #10

CD- 18!

Wow I can't believe my poor responding ovaries took this long to get the size we need. My dr came to conclusion today that we are ready to schedule my egg retrieval! Whoo! Tonight at exactly 11:30 my husband will give me my HCG shot that will make me ovulate in exactly 36 hours and my ER will be exactly 34 hours so we can hope to get the most mature eggs. Fingers cross 

IVF appointment #9

This will never end.....
Today's ultrasound was showing a lot more hope. I was so happy and chatty that I didn't want to keep track of the follicles and sizes. I did notice the 2 Huge follicle on my right side and talked to my Dr. about it later. To sum it up he told me my body is finally responding better and he doesn't care to go under to grab those 2 because he has often found huge follicles can have no egg in them, so our focus is on the other ones that are almost mature and the ones that are already.
So again...we are going on 2 weeks of follistim (IVF drugs). I have been moody, but soo soo grateful we are able to do IVF and I just hope the best for the egg retrieval later this week.

IVF appointment #7

We were out camping last night with the extended family and I woke up early to be able to drive to the Dr's other location that is open on weekends. 

I got my blood work done, and instructions how to measure out my HCG shot and give it. 

We are getting real close to the retrieval, the follicles are growing nicely, just not anymore. So they say around 7-8, which seems crazy to me but I've come to terms that this is the cards I've been dealt with and it's okay.  

I got the call from the nurse this afternoon that my dr looked at everything and is keeping my dosage up to 250 for follistim and I'm doing another stim tonight. Looks like I'll be triggering tomorrow night and egg retrieval probably Tuesday.