Our Embryos...

Here is the photo of the embryos we were given. Are they not just the cutest. :)  I hope they are still inside and growing, well maybe just one of them. I keep thinking about having twins. Scary thought, but I suppose not too bad....

Pluses of Twins:

1)  Our family would be complete, we wouldn't have to do all of this all over again and cost us a ton more money.

2) I'd only have to be pregnant once.

3) the children have a built in playmate.

4) Ideally, one boy and one girl would be awesome.  Not, sure what I would if we had two boys. I've always wanted a girl and only two children. I wonder if I would feel like a 3rd child. Perhaps adopt the girl for a 100% guarantee.

Minuses:

1) Health of myself & the babies.

2) Chance of premature birth much higher.

3) Body stretching even more than I would like.

4) First few years are going to be very tiresome and probably impossible to continue to work from my home.

Transfer was a success!

At almost 2 pm today, two nice looking embryos were transferred to my slightly over full bladder. That was the worst part. They even gave us a picture of our little guys. That was too cute. 

Is it a good idea to say I am pregnant unless proven otherwise? Positive thinking to help get the job done, or devastation waiting to happen? My honey is being so great. He's waiting on me hand and foot. He's off now getting me some Thai food for a craving. He might be going over board a little, but I think it's really sweet. He's going to make a great father. 

July 3rd, will be the day of our pregnancy test. It's going to be a long wait. Today I'm on 24-hour bed rest and am suppose to take it easy for the next 2-3 days. I'm going to try hard to not take a home pregnancy test. Let's see how that goes. Hope is something I haven't had for a while, today I am quite hopeful and happy.

Transfer is tomorrow :)

The time is finally here!! Tomorrow at 1:30 one or two of our growing 5 embryos will be implanted. It will only be a 3-day transfer. I was hoping for a 5-day transfer. I just hope it all works. I'm super excited, so is my honey.

Tonight's Progesterone shot went SOOO much better. I got some 1" needles instead of the 1.5", I didn't freeze the area first, but used some numbing cream and it worked perfectly. I think freezing the area first was making it more difficult to inject.

My road to being a mom has some more speed bumps...but I'm still driving.

So the ulcer I got from the Doxy slowly went away. I can now eat and drink just fine. The following Wednesday I found out that I have gallstones, which explains some other pain I get in my chest that radiates to my back.  I am assuming this came about because of the birth control pills or the estrogen. I did some more testing for the gallbladder, which showed that it was functioning normally, so that is good. All the doctors was recommending me cancel our IVF cycle.  I met with a surgeon on Monday, who said I could go ahead and take the chance. The problem with gallstones is that it may get worse when I get pregnant.  I've learned that I would get the pain when I don't eat until lunch, so I've started eating more frequently and I have been fine. I hope by eating more frequently and avoiding super fatty foods, I can manage the symptoms.

I am happy to know we can go through with the cycle. It's been a lot of effort & time to get to this point. Our donor has given us 10 eggs on Tuesday. She had a total of 30 that were split three ways. Today we have 6 that are growing!! Transfer will be Friday, Sunday or Monday at the latest. I am super excited. I can't wait. Sunday is father's day, kinda a cool day to have a child conceived. It will also take my mind off my first father's day without my father. I've been kinda depressed lately with all the father's day ads. 

Two nights ago, I started the Progesterone in oil. Sucks that I have to take these every day. Plus my hips already feel pretty bruised. :( I can't image taking these shots for over 2 months. Oh, how I wish this was simpler. What happened to the fun part of having sex to get pregnant. I just skipped over that part. My honey is about to go out of town for three days (luckily after transfer), so we have to find someone to help me with the shots. I REALLY don't want to give them to myself.

I hope this cycle takes and we have at least 4 frozen eggs to try for a sibling in a couple of years.

Grateful...

I'm thinking positive thoughts today...funny how that works. One day I am scared and worried about everything and the next I'm full of wonder and amazement of what is to come.
Today, I am grateful for the following...

1) I have a loving supportive husband. Who tries his best to keep me thinking positively and tries to take a lot of the pressure away about getting pregnant. He really is amazing!

2) I may not have my own eggs, but I am grateful for the fact that I CAN carry a baby and have my blood flow through him or her.

3) I can afford this super expensive ivf process - thanks housing bubble!

4) Everything so far is going smoothly, no hiccups - only normal test results.

5) I have a 90% chance of getting pregnant with the use of donor eggs with this program. The doctor said using donor eggs has the best odds of working per cycle.

6) There are so many woman willing to help other woman by giving them the gift of life.

7) All the amazing women out there blogging and commenting about their experiences. It really does make a difference, knowing I am not alone. All the positive thoughts are super helpful and is probably why I'm thinking such good thoughts today.

8) Science - it really is amazing. Donor eggs & IVF are becoming more common these days. I am grateful for all the advancements in this field.

9) I live so close to the largest fertility clinic in the country if not the world. More than 15,000 babies have been born with their help. My primary location is 5 minutes away for all the simple tests & blood work and my transfer location is only 30 miles away.

So yeah, I am lucky in a lot of ways.

Follow up appointment

Everything is normal. Yeah! The appointment went well. I asked lots of questions and got lots of answers. I feel more comfortable with the whole process. We are going to be accepted into the shared risk program. It means a lot of money, but if it doesn't work right away or not at all it will be worth it. We are hoping to do the 1:2 program, where we share eggs with another couple. There is more chance that something can go wrong - like not enough eggs to share, but it's a lot cheaper...some $14,000 cheaper. Can do a lot more with that money.

We have one more test and can then pick our donor!! I'm excited about that. I still have to figure out what is most important. Not sure if I want to know for sure the number of genetic siblings are out there...or to just wonder if there may be some in the future. One benefit of knowing is we get more information about the development of the donor's kids...color of their hair, eyes, when they hit their milestones. This is pretty helpful I think. I know there is a risk of our child wanting to find out where they come from and wanting to find their half-whatevers. I'm sure one day probably soon, the government will step in and make it so they will be able to find one another. I personally have always had an interest where I come from and my genetics. I would want to know. My husband on the other hand, could care less. I'm not even sure why this bothers me. I guess I'm scared.

I've always pictured a little girl like me, blond hair & blue eyes. My husband has brown eyes, as do his parents...so chances of getting blue-eyed child is probably slim, no matter what donor I choose. I wish I didn't care about any of this...I hope that when the baby comes, I can just be happy that I have a child.

Period...first one in a long time...

I feel very icky. I sure didn't miss these. Not sure what happens next. I emailed the donor nurse that I started. The cramps are starting too. Wish I had bought some Midol. Those used to be my saving grace back in the day.

I see our "doctor" tomorrow for a follow up visit, even though we have not completed our last test - the mock embryo transfer. I hope that is not a mistake, seeing him too soon. I have to start making a list of questions. I had some, but now I can't remember anything. Probably going to stress all day & night. I'm not even sure I like the doctor. That's problem number one. I only met him once for an hour consultation. I hope I feel better about him tomorrow, being that I'm about to pay him a whole lot of money and put all my hopes & dreams in his hands. :(

The waiting sucks...

I wanted to start this process about a year ago but we kept procrastinating.  We finally went in for our consultation and were ready to get the ball rolling. Before we could even read through all the paperwork, my 58 year old father died in September. I didn't feel like doing much of anything after that.  So we put off our prescreening stuff some more.  I had wanted to get started before the end of last year, but because of travel it didn't work out.  I pushed real hard for us to do everything at the start of the year.  Now, it's March. We are almost finished the prescreening process. We have our last test monday, then hopefully some day next week we can find out all our results.  (I've never had a HIV test before - I'm assuming if it were positive that they would have called to have us come in...it kinda sucks not knowing any of the results.)

My husband has quite of bit of travel coming up in the next few months, so I emailed our Donor Nurse to find out when we "might" be able to actual start IVF. I learned that the best case might be the first week of May....Uggh.  I just want to start already.

Getting started...

Picked up my medication today and got circles drawn on my "hips" for hubby to locate the injection spot with Del-estrogen tonight.  After picking up the meds, I suddenly felt really sad.  It is all feeling more real and now I fear that it might not work or I might not even be a candidate. I've read so many blogs about woman who have tried 8 times, 12 times...we only get up to 6 with our shared risk program. 

How does one prepare for loss & disappointment?  I don't think it is possible for me to prepare. I'm afraid to think it will work because I don't want to get my hopes up. What a drag all this is. It's stressful enough being pregnant and having a kid, but to have to worry about getting pregnant is so much worse.

I am so scared. Does this feeling ever go away? Zumba was my saving grace tonight, during the whole class, I completely forgot about the shot tonight.  Wish my stomach was not in knots now.

I haven't had a period in 8 years!

I have not had a period in 8 years and I'm only 34 years old!  I've been diagnosed with Premature Ovarian Failure. This year my husband and I want to have a baby.  The only way to have a baby is with IVF (In vitro fertilization), which means, I need a donor egg fertilized and then transferred into my body.  Sounds crazy and is all very overwhelming. 

I knew for a long time that I would not be able to have my own biological child, but had always hoped that there would be some way to fix me.  Turns out there is no hope for me.  My husband and I are working with Shady Grove Fertility.  We've started a couple months ago, but I wanted to start this blog to document the process and hopefully help other women like me.

So far, we have completed:

1) The initial consultation

2) Prescreening blood work for both of us - (they took a lot of blood for all the tests.)

3) A test to see if my tubes are blocked.  I did not look forward to this at all. I took some pain relief medicine before the procedure, so it did not hurt that much.  The night before the text, I scoured the internet to find out all I could about the procedure.  

4) The easiest step by far:  Test husbands sperm

5)  Meeting with a social worker - (paid for separately)  I was really nervous before this appointment as I did not know what to expect.  It was us pretty much asking the questions and letting her know what some of our concerns are.  She was very nice. She mentioned some group therapy classes she has and hopefully, I'll go to some.

6) Financial consultation - Cost, big concern.  We are leaning towards using a shared donor to keep costs down.  We would split the eggs with another couple and have some eggs left over for freezing (hopefully to have baby #2).  The cost for this is $37,000, but it's more expensive because we are opting to do their shared risk program.  If we are unable to have a baby in up to 6 tries, we get all our money back.  The only other cost is for my injections, which is about $400 per cycle.

7) Injection Class - Yeah fun stuff...NOT!  My husband learned on the way to the class that he was going to have to give me shots.  He was not happy with that at all.  He doesn't want to give them, and I really don't want to get them.  It's going to suck, but hopefully we'll get a baby out of all of this.

Now we are caught up to where we are today. The next step is to start the hormones & have a mock cycle to run some more tests. They need to determine if I am a candidate for the shared risk program and if it will even work at all.  BTW, we have yet to hear about any of the results of the testing above.

Hopefully, this will be the longest post.