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.

Birth Control Pills

Throughout our 7 years of infertility journey I always laugh when I heard other ladies having to take birth control before they started a IVF cycle. I guess I laugh to hard because this Dr and clinic has me starting on birth control pills to make sure we schedule the egg retrieval when the Dr has the outpatient surgery center schedule for him. So, now I see the importance of birth control before IVF cycles.
The best is when you go pick up the prescription and they have to go over everything because I mention I've never taken birth control before, hahaha. I almost rolled my eyes when she said you may want to use another form of protection until the medication kicks in.
All I could think of was, "If only you knew lady, If only you knew"
So the procedure I had last week jumped started my period a few days earlier, so I called the Dr office and  they had me started on the pill. I because the crazy person.
I stayed pro active this whole week because I knew things were coming up soon and knew I take forever to stim. It's a good thing I did my nurse called tonight and told me the Dr. made up my schedule and wants me to come in tomorrow morning and start Lupron tomorrow.
All I could think about was." AHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, this is all getting so real again!!!!!"
So excited
yet so scared, again.
So I'm trying to calm myself down because my ultrasound tomorrow will give us our baseline count for my follicle and I really want the most to work with. 12-15 will be the best news ever....then if we can make sure my eggs are quality and ready to be fertilized.
We got our loan application all ready this week and ready to do this....
So here we go!

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!!!

And we are off....

I have read it all over the internet (everyone has the worst painful periods after the Lap/Hys surgery) but I was in such denial that I wouldn't be the same. Well, Sunday morning came and I was hit with what I like to call "Kidney Stone " pains. I was taking my left over pain meds  from the surgery to help but once again I woke up at 4am Monday morning with horrible pain. I woke up my husband to get me some water and ibuprofen and he thankfully brought me that with some crackers.
After calling in to the office and talking with the nurse, I made my first ultrasound appt for this round...always on cycle day (CD) 3. That night you always start the medication too. He put me on 150 of Follistim, which I was happily surprise. Go big or Go home is my thought process this time around.
Follistim is infertility GOLD.
and if you don't have any infertility insurance is cost as much as gold I hear.
**Side note***
2 of the BIGGEST blessings have happened
1. Its only April and we have met our out of pocket for our insurance.
2. When we thought we were going straight to IVF we requested the paper that breaks down our infertility insurance and how much we have used on it....We thought doing IVF would put us close to our $30,000 max lifetime, boy we're we shocked when it said we have only used $500. worth of that amount. Makes me want to have 8 kids just to use every ounce of our insurance because not many people have it and I truly wish I could share that right now with some other loved ones going through this.

Back to my IUI round....
I started my shots on day 3 and will do them for 3 nights at the same time for the same dosage then go back in for the ultrasound and blood work. The ultrasound will start measuring how big the follicles are getting and the blood work looks out my estrogen levels to tract ovulation too.
wait....seriously tell me again how someone gets pregnant on a one night stand, I just don't believe it right now.
We are in the very happy, good days moods now. I love doing the shots and just dreaming about being pregnant again and how everyday Brinley gets old the better of a big sister helper she will be to me.
Did I mention
We are Excited!!

IVF Consultation & Laparoscopy

Last week  my husband and I went in for our consultation with our RE, Dr. It was good sitting down with him and talking about our goal. We knew we were going to start up IVF as soon as we could and started to look forward to this process.

He quickly talked about our history and then mention laparoscopy surgery then moved on to how we would do IVF. We talked about my cycle days and what my calendar would look like. I also learned  that my Dr has done a lot of studies and test that have found in the past 3 years that you have a greater success rate doing a frozen transfer (FET) and not a fresh transfer because it gives your body a month after the egg retrieval and your body has a break from all the drugs you use to producee so many eggs, which means the IVF is a 2 months processes. 1st month you have all these drugs to help make your body produce anywhere from 10-20 eggs, then retrieve them all, then wait until your cycle comes the next month and when it's time for a natural egg to drop they implant 1 embryo.

It didn't help that our family planed and booked a vacation to Hawaii beginning of May for my Dad's 60th Birthday and Dr. A said their is no way he will do an IVF transfer the month before Hawaii and let me go on a plane when I need to be monitored closely. 

One reason why I love our Dr. is he knows the importance in working with your natural cycle and not putting me on birth control before IVF to group me in a certain time table for him, but that will work best with my body.   

There was just so much information and a lot only has to due with me as a patient. Not every person will have the same map to achieve pregnancy as me and that's why its always good to follow your dr's suggestions. 

He educated us about PGS (Pre-implantation genetic screening) read more here.Then I asked him point blank, well you are my Dr...what do you recommend we do next? He said well I was the one that brought up Laparoscopy, since we have achieved one pregnancy through IUI, and you have no physical change to why it shouldn't work again we should do the laparoscopy to see if their is anything going on, like Endometriosis, scar tissue, cyst, fiber tumors..etc....
Doing the laparoscopy is also a treatment that can clean everything out if he finds something wrong...that could actually help us get pregnant doing an IUI after.  If not we just move on the following month for our IVF and egg retrieval.

Many are familiar with Laparoscopy and even have had it done to achieve a pregnancy. It is the only way to medical confirm you have Endometriosis, which I never thought I really had, but after reading a lot, thanks Google, many women never have the symptoms I thought you had to have. It will first be looked at to see the outside of the uterus, fallopian tubes, ovaries, and internal pelvic area. Then if something like scar tissue or more is found it can be treated.

Both my husband and I feel really good about doing this first, so after talking, praying I called the nurse the next morning and since it has to be done between your 5th-12th day after you start your period I have to time it out. So one week from  today I'll go in for the laparoscopy. 

We have the 2 opinions after that and although I keep thinking on which one should we do, Joe and I have decided that we will decided AFTER Dr. A goes in for the laparoscopy. 

I am so grateful for such a great dr that is crazy smart. We learned so much about how he does IVF. 

I called my friend after who had IVF from Dr. A back in 2011 and we talked and found out soo much has changed in the short amount of time! The things they have learned are fascinating to me and I will continue to study everything about IVF to know more. 

On top of all of this I'm trying to change everything to better myself to take this whole process on. I'm seeing a therapist for infertility and work on how to deal with the ups and downs, also the huge jealously, guilt and pain. 

I started back at the gym and my daughter absolutely loves the daycare there so we try to go every other day because I know after we do the transfer and all through the first trimester my dr does not allow any exercise. So I feel like I need to get it in while I can. 

The last but most important is my nutrition. I'm the worst at this but it's so much easy to think this will only hurt any chances to have another baby if I eat this donut or drink this soda.

To help my mind set and support I started reading a book again called 

infertility; help, hope and healing that I read back when we first started trying and I'm grateful for great reading that is more uplifting. Also another infertility blogger recommends another book for IVF that I plan to read next called Infertility Inferschmility.

So here's to my next few months

Let the waiting begin...

I've done all I can do...now I will just sit here and wait!

Well, It's always so easy to update the blog after 2 days of IUI because I personally like to come straight home from the Dr. office and lay down as much of the day as I can, relax and help the miracle of IUI take place.
We had great outcome this cycle with the medication, ultrasounds look great, and high five to the husband who did his part and it was great numbers and all. I'm very pleased with this round and I want to say this did the trick...I will say that if it didn't take this round...I don't think anything else will do it but IVF, which we are open and ready for.  We all know follicles that drop don't mean much....but I just have to say for record...we had 4 and if one of those can't make it...well I'm convince my eggs are drying up or something.

We are starting tonight with the progesterone oil shots because I prefer them over the suppositories. So I know have to wait a week for 1st blood test then a week after that a blood test for HCG. Wish us luck!

follicle ultrasound!!

I'm so excited! Tomorrow is the first ultrasound scheduled on a weekend so my hubbys get to come with me! While he is less than excited to wake up early on the weekend and drive up to Newport Beach, we are so excited to see how big my follicles have gotten and if we are ready for an IUI this week!

Soooo Baby hungry

We had a great time with friends last night at there house for dinner. They just had there 2nd child 4 months ago and she is just so adorable! I love holding newborns and she was so sweet to hold, while I was a little nervous about our little girl, she just was thrilled that there was a "BaBeyyy" Brinley laugh and giggled and was all smiles! She loves babies just as much as her mommy! We even sat down on the floor and she got to hold the baby. She was all smiles! I just hope we can give her a baby soon, I'm sure this stage can't last long.

Brinley is just smitten, and going to one day be a great big sister