This is My Heartbeat Song!

WE MADE IT!

We made it to the first ultrasound!

Historically, this is the rockiest period for me. I've had three miscarriages and all three of them happened in these first few weeks, before our first ultrasound. We never even saw a heartbeat.

So, when finding out about my pregnancy and my rising levels, I felt like we were starting down that rocky road, the shakiest part of this whole thing. Would I make it through these first few weeks?

Fortunately, I've been completely swamped with a bunch of different projects and haven't had much time to obsess over it. I've also had no pregnancy symptoms - no cramping, no spotting, no nausea - so I tend to forget that I'm even pregnant! I was kind of wishing I had some sign, some sort of symptom. That way I could feel like things were happening, make it feel more real. Or even to have some sort of special feeling, to feel different somehow. But I didn't.

On the one hand, it was nice to have things going so smoothly. I figured that if things were not going well, I'd know it. If I did have cramping or spotting, then I'd have to worry it was bad cramping and spotting. No news is good news, in this case. At the same time, because I felt nothing, it made me curious if nothing was happening. Maybe I had no special feeling because nothing special was happening! Ugh.

So, it doesn't really matter what happens, I'm always going to worry at this stage.

Still, the worry was minimal and I've actually felt hope more than anything else. I certainly felt a lot of hope and excitement yesterday, knowing I only had one day left. Realizing I'd made it this far, I felt like I'd beaten my way through a huge obstacle. 

'Wow, I'm only 24 hours away from my ultrasound! I could really make it!'

I was excited but then, with only a few hours left, I started to feel really nervous and tried to prepare myself for all the outcomes, good or bad. So I started to pray. I prayed in the hours before my ultrasound. I prayed on my way to the doctor. I prayed while I waited for the doctor. I just pleaded with God that his angels would be with me if I was to walk through that wretched door of disappointment again, that I would have the strength and courage to accept His will. And I shared my hopes that this baby would be strong and healthy. Please, God, please. Let this baby live and be a part of our family.

The time had come. No more waiting. The image came up on the ultrasound screen and we saw...

...a little baby with a little heartbeat.

What a beautiful ten minutes it was. Everything about it was so perfect, so fantastic. The doctor was very excited about the baby and the nurse said it was one of the best images she'd seen this early on. We have a stellar beautiful baby already! It kind of looks like a little seahorse to me, cute and curly.

The baby was measuring exactly on schedule, which was very cool, and the heartbeat was strong! It looked so faint on the screen that I thought we might not be able to hear it. Boy, was I wrong! We heard it loud and proud, beating at 119 beats per minute - perfect and strong! That is THE best sound.

I'd been doing my research and had seen a lot of people online saying they saw a heartbeat already at this stage. That got me really excited, especially since the nurse had told me not to expect it with this first ultrasound. According to everyone else, it sounded like a had about a 50% chance of seeing a heartbeat, if not higher, so I was really hoping for that. I know that getting to the heartbeat stage decreases your chance of miscarrying, which obviously has been true in my case. My doctor said that people with a history of miscarriage still have a 84% chance of success once the baby gets a heartbeat. That's great news.

Click here to see a video of the ultrasound. You can see that baby and hear that heartbeat!

I wish I could say that I'm excited. But relief is much more appropriate. I'm relieved that I didn't have to see things falling apart and deal with the devastation. We've made it past this big milestone and I can rest a little easier.

Right now, I have a strange mix of confidence and worry. I feel confident in this baby. I told Nick that I already feel like a family of four and I really like that feeling. Because things have been going so smoothly, because this baby is giving me so little grief, I feel like this may be a normal happy pregnancy.

But I also feel completely uncomfortable with things being that easy! Normal? Happy? Easy? Where's my heartache? Where's my disappointment? Where's all the grief and struggle? Nothing is ever this easy for me! Everything must be fought for, must be earned with pain and perseverance!

That's where I'm at right now, where having to do this complex and expensive process of in vitro only once is considered EASY. Everyone else runs a lap, and if I only have to run five miles, I'm shrugging my shoulders wondering why I didn't have to run a full marathon!

We still have a long ways to go. I'm not sure when I'll feel enough confidence to drown out the worry. I know I did reach that point with Gavin, I think when we saw him moving all around at about 18 weeks. Something about that ultrasound really changed me, helped me see how active and alive he was and made me feel that this boy was determined to come. I'm anxious to get to that point with this baby, perhaps mid-January or so. Good thing I'll have the holidays to keep me busy!

The doctor told me I had graduated. Once you see a heartbeat, you've moved on and can see a regular obstetrician. Now I need to find someone I really love, probably at the same hospital where I delivered Gavin. Very good memories there, the place I became a mother.

I will keep the blog updated with any news, including ultrasounds. Hopefully, my OB can get me in quick and we can take another look in a few weeks. My fertility doctor told me I could even come and see them again if I wanted to get in sooner and take another look. Hooray for modern technology so I can see my little miracle!

Thanks for reading and thank you for the prayers! Sorry if you were hoping for twins. I was sort of hoping for that, but I'm very happy to be handle just one baby and a hyperactive toddler. Let's keep praying this little baby here so Gavin can have his little sister! Or brother?

First Milestone - Rising Levels

I had my second blood test on Saturday, October 17th. My HCG levels are right where they should be at 148.

Typically, they want to see your levels doubling every 48 hours. Since my levels started at 75 on Thursday, I was hoping for them to be 150 or more on Saturday. So we are right on target.

I find it hard to pinpoint exactly how I'm feeling right now.  I think about my due date - June 22nd - and that feels an awful long ways away. I have to make it across all those months and cross a mine field to get there, or so it feels anyway. My history with pregnancies isn't the best and that makes this feel a little shaky. It's like we've set up a house of cards and are holding our breath to see if it stands. And we know how fragile it is, how easily it can topple.

Because of that, there's definitely some nervousness and hesitation. I think about those coming months and just wonder where I'll be, whether we'll still be here in a place of hope or somewhere else entirely. How's my Thanksgiving going to be? My Christmas? My Easter? It's pretty nerve-wracking.

Then again, I've been here so many times that I've gotten pretty good at keeping myself distant and calm. There's some worry, yes. Even some dread at times. But there's hope too. In fact, I find it a lot easier to hope this time around. With all my other pregnancies, I couldn't imagine myself getting to the finish line, couldn't see myself with a pregnant belly or holding a new baby in my arms. Having been down that road, it's easier to envision a positive outcome this time. It's hazy and seems so far away, but I know it could be a reality and not just fantasy.

It's really such a weird and amazing feeling to think of what's happening inside of me. I'm in total awe of the process, and that we all went through it. I look at my hands, my feet, my eyes, and I think of how it all started like this, with a few small cells. Here's a quick little youtube video where you can see these first few stages of growth. Right now, I'm just getting those two sides fused together, the foundations of the spinal cord and the two hemispheres of the brain.

There's still such a long way to go! C'mon, Baby!

I have my first ultrasound on October 29th. We should be able to see the gestational sac at that point, measure it and make sure we're on schedule, and check to see how many are in there. Apparently, my husband is rooting for twins. Seems like I have quite a few people wishing multiples on me. A two-for-one deal would be great, for sure. But it'd scare me to death to take care of two newborns on top of a hyperactive toddler! So there's a part of me that wants twins, but I'd be very happy with one and that's what I'm expecting. I think my levels would be higher if there were twins and I have my doubts about that oblong embryo we put in. I guess we'll see what happens.

We won't be able to see a heartbeat yet, but we should be able to just a week after that, about a week after Halloween. I pray that things continue on, that this baby is strong and can develop as it should. Let's get to that heartbeat stage!

Fertility Wars: A New Hope

Thank you all so much. Thank you for your prayers, for your good thoughts, well wishes, and high hopes. Thank you for being here on this journey with me, for taking the time to read my blog. I know there are a lot of silent supporters out there and I'm happy to know that people are listening to my story and rooting for me.

I know it's a joyous and triumphant moment when you see a happy outcome from all your praying and hoping - when your niece fights her way through a terrible illness, when your brother gets that job he needed so badly, and when your infertile friend finally gets pregnant. So I want you all to know that your prayers are answered and you can feel joyous. Because I AM that infertile friend and I AM pregnant!

This is a surprise to you, I'm sure, since my test is scheduled for Saturday. Well, here's the story.

After my embryo transfer, I felt pretty calm about the two week wait. As I said in my previous posts, I had no expectation - meaning that I was expecting a negative - so I wasn't getting worked up about the results. But, as the days went by and I got closer and closer to my test date, I got more and more nervous about the outcome. It wasn't so much the results but the waiting itself that was driving me nuts. Whatever the results, I just wanted to know so I could move on and stop worrying about it!

More often than not, when my mind would go wandering, I would get a sinking feeling and a sense of dread. Sometimes it would hit me with no rhyme or reason, and I'd feel this fear of being let down, a fear of the unknown. Other times, there was a narrative going on in my head, all my pessimism spelling itself out:

Well, I put those two embryos in when they were only three days old. They still had another four days before they were ready to hatch and implant. So many of my other embryos bummed out during that time so I don't feel too hopeful about the ones inside of me either. For all I know, both those embryos tuckered out long ago and I've got myself an empty uterus. Statistics show that there's a lower success rate with 3-day embryos anyway so I shouldn't get my hopes up. And who would be lucky enough to get pregnant five times in a row with in vitro? Eventually, I'm going to have to pay my dues and get a negative result.

My anxiety was highest at night, when I would dream about getting my results back. Tuesday night, I had a dream that the clinic called me and told me that my results were negative. I was in and out of dreams that night, feeling that dread, that surety that things were going to go badly. The next night, I had a dream that Nick was telling me about his own dream! And that, in his dream, the results had been negative. I was obviously dreading my results and not feeling too hopeful!

And then there were moments where I would feel some hope. It'd be little things - something someone said, or something I would see, or a little thought that would pop into my head. I think I felt the most hope when I was talking to my mom on the phone the other day and telling her about my overwhelming dread. I told her that I was going to be really surprised if I got a positive pregnancy test. And she quickly replied, "Then prepare to be surprised." Something about her confidence made me wonder, made me feel a tickle of hope in my heart, made me think that maybe all the faith and prayers of everyone else would get this baby here.

Then I was texting a friend before bed, making plans to get together the next day. Her last text to me was, "Going to bed. Saying a prayer for you." It made me wonder how many people are praying for me, people that I don't even know about besides obvious family members. And yesterday, I had another friend tell me that her family had fasted for me over the weekend and that they were thinking about me a lot. Again, I had to wonder how many prayers were being said for me, how many people are thinking of me and rooting for me and believing that things will turn out for me. Somehow, all of that made me feel hopeful and I started to feel a confidence that my results would be positive. I'd feel my fears melt away.

And then I'd get nervous about feeling so hopeful. Don't do it! Don't set yourself up for disappointment! Stay neutral! Stay calm!

What a crazy roller coaster ride, a horrible cycle I was going through all day and all night! Let me know what is happening so I can move forward and stop wondering!

Earlier this morning, I was looking through the journal I kept back in 2013. I'd made a goal that year to write in my journal every day and I did it. That's pretty cool because I have documented everything I went through when getting pregnant with Gavin. If I feel a twinge in my back and start worrying about cramps, I look back and see that I had those with Gavin too. It's not necessarily a bad sign. Maybe everything is okay. But then, maybe it's not? Gah!

Looking back in my journal, I realized that I'd always gotten my blood test done when my embryos were 15 days old, which would be today! Well, what the heck? Why are they making me wait an extra two days!? This is torturous!

I was talking to my sister-in-law on the phone, telling her that maybe I'd go and buy a urine test and just get it over with. But she didn't like the idea. The urine test can end up giving you a false negative and then you can be all screwed up not knowing if it's a real negative or a fake negative! Of course, a positive would be great! But the negative would get me more worried than I already was! And I don't have a good history with pee tests. I've never seen a positive and that negative is just so mean and hurtful.

She said to me, "Why don't you just call and see if you can come in today?" I thought that was a great idea! I called the clinic and told my nurse that I'd tested this far along on all my other cycles and was able to see a positive on every one of them. So we set up for me to come in at noon.

I was feeling calm going into my appointment. I had a little talk with God on my way there. I told God that I believed in Him and His plan for me. But I also said that it'd sure be nice to not have to do things the hard way all the time. Maybe I could get a break from all the tough love, that I could have this second child come without so much grief and struggle. And not just for me, but for my husband too. I'm sure it'd be a relief for him to see our family grow without so much trial and turmoil. Not only that, but I only have one other embryo and it'd be nice to have this pregnancy work out so there isn't so much pressure on that one embryo. It was an honest talk, but I still felt myself putting it all in His hands. I felt that I'd be okay with whatever happened, that I was strong enough to move forward with either outcome.

A few hours after my blood test, I was heading to my apartment with Gavin in one arm and his diaper bag in another, trying to hold on to my leftover Sonic Burger too. Then the phone rang. Great! Not good timing with my hands full. Even better? There were two guys with leaf blowers doing their noisy job right next to me! Wow! Worst timing for a call!

But I wasn't going to miss it!

I was so distracted by my crazy situation that I didn't have much time to worry about the call, whether the news would be bad or good. But the nurse had a happy and positive tone, so I was feeling pretty happy pretty quickly. Sure enough, she told me that my results were back and that I'm pregnant! My levels were at 75, which is pretty good. Yay for me! They will have me back on Saturday to make sure the levels are rising like they should.

Of course, I was happy. Mostly, I was happy that I didn't have to deal with a negative! I didn't have to face the fact that all my hopes now rested on one embryo left in the freezer. I didn't have to be bummed out and wait another few months to try again. And I was a little shocked too that I've gotten pregnant five times in a row. I think it's pretty rare for a woman to get pregnant every time with in vitro. I guess I have bum embryos but a really inviting uterus! I know how to stick 'em, just don't know how to keep them very well!

I called my husband, called my parents, and called my sister-in-law. We are all happy but we've been here before so we're all hesitant too. This is the beginning of an uphill battle. I so wish we could be elated and feel nothing but happiness and glee. I wish I knew the statistics too, what my chances are of having a successful pregnancy. Does it make a difference that I've miscarried so much in the past? Does it make a difference that I've had a successful pregnancy? I haven't been able to find that out.

So our first quest is to make it through the weekend, to see the levels rising. Then we need to make it to our first ultrasound and see a heartbeat. Once you get to the heartbeat, your chance of success goes way up. Lucky for me, I only have to wait about two or three weeks before my first ultrasound. Crazy how soon you can see a heartbeat, right? C'mon little baby! Or babies?

I was hesitant to write about my results before I got my second blood test done. But if I want you all to experience this journey with me, then this is certainly a part of it, feeling the joy and the triumph but feeling the nervousness and hesitation too. It's such a jumble of emotions and mostly I try to keep my distance from it all in order to keep my sanity!

At least my overwhelming angst is over. I am pregnant. We have a chance. Now it's taking it one milestone at a time.

I also wanted to let you all know so that you could keep praying for me and my family. Maybe there is some real power in prayer. Maybe your faith and thoughts helped get us here. If so, keep at it! With all my heart, thank you. I appreciate it so much!

I decided to say my own little prayer after hearing the results. But then I stopped and wanted it to be our prayer, mine and Gavin's. This doesn't just affect me anymore. This is Gavin's family too and I'm sure he wants a sibling! He specifically wants a sister. That's what he keeps saying anyway. So I had Gavin fold his arms and I said to God:

"Please help my baby brother or baby sister to grow strong inside my mommy. Help him to be healthy, and grow like he should so that we can meet him someday. Help her to become a part of our family, so that I can play with her and we can be good friends."

"In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

Gavin said, "AMEN!"

The Real Trial - It's All About the Money, Money, Money

A lot of you might have seen this picture that's been going around. Of course, I can appreciate it. There's so much work that goes into having a baby, making the miracle happen when you're dealing with infertility and having to fight the odds.

Funny thing is, I consider the shots to be a rather minor sacrifice. Right now, I have two big bruises on my bum from giving myself progesterone shots every day. Yeah, it's kinda lame and sad. But I would give myself a shot three times a day - three times an hour! - if it meant I could make myself a baby.

If we're talking about resources, my physical and emotional resources are nearly unlimited. I am willing to endure any pain and discomfort. I am willing to submit myself to the unknowns - to the negative pregnancy tests, to the miscarriages, and whatever else - in order to have children.

Physically and emotionally, I can be the ultimate punching bag for my children because it's worth it. Gavin is worth it and so are all of my other children. Whatever I have to go through, I'll do it.

We're so blessed to have the medical knowledge that we do, that we've made such great advancements and are able to do in vitro fertilization. Each time a woman does in vitro fertilization, she has about a 30% chance of taking home a baby. Those are actually better odds than your typical fertile couple who have a 20% chance of getting pregnant each month. Imagine that! In vitro fertilization has actually helped level the playing field and gives infertile couples about as good a chance of having a baby as the next person.

But you're only on a level playing field if you have unlimited funds.

That's the big hang up for the whole in vitro process. Yes, it may level the playing field but you've got to be able to fund all those tries. A fertile couple can try again and again, month after month, at essentially no cost to them. Like me, they can submit themselves to the emotional trauma but they don't have to pay for it in dollars. A fertile couple has a negative test. Okay, we'll keep trying. A fertile couple loses a pregnancy. Okay, we'll keep trying. You get the picture.

I lose a pregnancy, and I've got to scrounge up thousands of dollars to give it another shot.

That's where the majority of the devastation comes in because, unlike my emotional and physical resources, my monetary resources are limited. I am willing to try again and again, but I just cannot pull money out of thin air.

Of course, insurance coverage would be a dream. I know it exists out there and some super lucky people get to do this at a discounted cost. But for us, there is no fertility benefit and that's pretty standard across most states. It's kind of a joke, really, how they write the fertility benefit in the insurance policies. (And I've read many insurance policies). They all say the same thing.

"We cover fertility treatments except for the following: Fertility drugs, injectable fertility medications, intrauterine insemination (IUI), in vitro fertilization (IVF), and basically anything and everything to do with helping you get a baby."

Gee, thanks a lot! Glad to see you care so much about me having a family. Thanks for the free birth control, though. That helps a lot!

With no help from our insurance, we had to look into financing. We saw an article that had ideas for financing your fertility treatments. The first option was to get a loan from your parents. We had a good laugh about that. But for some people, that is a real option. In fact, we live in a pretty affluent area and I've heard of plenty of couples with rich parents. So-and-so's dad is a dentist so they were able to try fertility treatments again and again, no sweat.

No, no, I'm not jealous at all. Sure would be handy if only the wealthy had fertility issues, though.

The second option was to take out an equity loan on your home. We had a good laugh at that too. Sorry, I haven't bought a home yet. I'm too busy paying for my fertility treatments! Duh!

Eventually, we decided to get our own loan to finance the treatments. It's a five year loan with a similar monthly payment to buying a decent car. Now, I'm not sure how many car payments you can afford but I know your average middle-class American family has about one or two car payments. That's where we're at right now - two car payments, but only one car.

My pregnancy test is coming up this Saturday, just a few days away, and I can feel that anxiety rising. It's not because I can't handle a negative pregnancy test. It's because a negative pregnancy test means we have to find more money to try again. Even trying with my one embryo in the freezer will cost us another $4000 and that's on top of the $1000 I paid for them to freeze it in the first place! Yes, just that one embryo will cost us $5000. And if that doesn't work, we'll have to find ourselves another $13,000 to try all over again. That's another car payment right there and there's only so many cars we can afford. We're about maxed out as is.

Trust me, a baby is worth all that money. If I had all the money in the world, that's where I would spend it. No doubt. But the financial strain is what causes so much of the anxiety, so much of the devastation.

I hate to be a pessimist, but I'm already trying to work out in my mind how we're going to fund more tries, especially with only one embryo left over. Of course, I'm a full-time mom right now and I may have to start working if we need the money to try again. The problem with that is we will have to buy me a car to get to work! So there's another car payment on our plate. With two car payments, plus two fertility payments, not to mention the childcare payments with me going to work, we'll be pretty bogged down by debt. It's a sad, scary, and stressful situation.

With all that being said, I hope you're all praying hard that things work out for us. I need all the faith and prayers I can get!

And I want to end with a little tribute to my mom. After our first three tries, which all ended in miscarriage, she wanted to help us out with our fourth try. By no means is she a rich woman. She is a single woman living on her own. She works full time and rides her bike to work most days, about 30 miles round trip. She does whatever she can to save money.

For us, she set aside a fertility fund. And what did she do? She worked overtime. Whenever they offered a Saturday to come in and work, she took it. And everything she earned from her overtime, she put into our fund until she reached her goal. She gave us the money and what did we get? Gavin.

My mom told me, "I can't take away the emotional burden, but I can help lift the financial one."

Thank you, Mom.

Checking in Emotionally

I don't deal with disappointment very well. In fact, it may be one of my biggest hang ups.

I actually don't get too genuinely excited about a lot of things, with grand ideas of how I want things to play out on a day-to-day basis. So, when I am excited, when I'm really looking forward to something, I get pretty ticked off when it doesn't come together.

Our trip to Europe was an excellent example of that. At the time, we were living in this teeny tiny place, not doing any infertility treatments, so we had some money to be able to travel. I felt like this was a once in a lifetime chance to see some really cool places, and I had a few particular things I was super excited about. The Louvre, for example, was definitely at the top of the list. We were literally running through that enormous museum, trying to see everything that was there, because I'm so determined to soak up us much as we can in all that we do. My dear sweet husband went along with all of our running, bless his heart.

One of the things I was excited about was the palace at Versailles. There are incredible gardens there and they have an amazing display of fountains all throughout the gardens. But they only turn the fountains on at certain times during the day. Once again, we were high-tailing it so we could make it in time to see the fountains turn on in all their glory. Instead, we got there just in time to see them turn off the fountains! I looked at my Versailles brochure and realized I'd messed up the times! My chance to see the fountains was gone.

I was so upset. I cried. I kicked at the ground. I said some words that I'm not supposed to say. I wanted to yell at everyone I passed and tell them this place sucked for turning on their fountains for a measly half hour every day! Yes, I had a full-blown adult-sized tantrum.

Good thing I don't have high expectations about a lot of things, huh?

I'm not proud of that. Not at all. I've really tried to temper my... temper. I try to keep expectations low, try to get the most I can out of something, even if it didn't work out like I'd planned. I try to act instead of react, to think long-term and ask if it's worth it to get so worked up over it. Not to say that I succeed, but I do make an effort knowing that it's one of my weaknesses.

As you can imagine, my skills in handling disappointment were tested more than ever when I decided to do in vitro. And we're not talking about fountains, we're talking about family, about life, about our own children.

Last time, when I ended up with eight embryos, I imagined my whole family was right there just waiting to happen. Statistics said I should have about two or three, even four, of those embryos turn into babies! Sweet deal!

I remember when I first got pregnant. We'd already been through so much disappointment that I figured this was it! We were done with that. We could finally be happy because I was pregnant now and we were going to have a baby. That dream materialized in my mind.

And then I lost it. I lost the pregnancy. And then another. And another. Six of those eight embryos didn't turn into children, they turned into heartache.

Coming away from all that, from all my miscarriages, from being let down again and again, I've learned one big lesson. Life is neither predictable nor fair. This is especially true with infertility.

It doesn't matter how badly you want it. It doesn't matter how much you deserve it. It doesn't matter how hard you pray, how faithful you are, how optimistic you are, or whether you're a good person. It doesn't matter if you've already been through the ringer. It doesn't matter if all signs points to a good outcome, if you have good reason to hope or if you have very little.

When it comes to making a baby, there is nothing I can do to make that happen. I cannot pray myself a baby, worry myself a baby, or hope myself a baby.

All I can do is wait and accept God's will.

The hard part is in knowing that God's will is not always easy. Not by a long shot. And I'm not a firm believer that everything in life happens for a reason. But, I do believe that we are on a journey that extends far beyond this life on Earth, that we are learning things here that we will carry with us, that are shaping us for things to come. And I trust that God knows me better than I do, that His vision extends far beyond mine.

Yeah, I would love to have a baby right now. Yeah, I really want to have more kids, to have a bigger family, and for Gavin to have some siblings. But for me and for my husband, we cannot know our journey here and how we will be shaped by it.

If it doesn't work out, then yes, I will be kicking at the dirt, crying and angry. I will pound my fists and wonder why in the world this has to be so doggone hard. I will be a little angry at the heavens and ask, "Is there no other way? Why must my suffering be so great!?"

But perhaps I am helping someone, either now or in the future, through my infertility journey. Perhaps our path will lead us somewhere we never expected and will bring us a joy we never knew existed. Perhaps my quest for children, and the enormity of that financial burden, will lead me to work at a job I'd never have considered, and will open up other doors for us, expand my horizons, and help shape me and those around me. Perhaps my own path will turn a different direction and I will go on to be more than a mother, but a woman who has the time and talent to shape others, to influence them for good.

And perhaps my life will continue to be hard and confusing and I will not know the purpose of my trials or the scope of my growth until after this life.

There's a famous scripture in the Book of Mormon that urges us to "...becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."

That is where I am right now. I am far from patient, humble, meek, and full of love. But my trials have brought me to my knees and I have submitted. I submit my life to God because I cannot know what is best for me more than He does. It's not easy. In fact, it's downright scary because I know what the Father IS willing to submit me to and I hate to think that He wants to test me further! But all I can do is hope and trust.

As for this pregnancy, I am calm because I expect nothing. As a woman who does not take disappointment well, as a woman who has learned that nothing with infertility is fair or predictable, as a woman of faith who has learned that you don't always get what you think you deserve or desire, I have come to expect nothing.

I know that sounds depressing. It would be more exciting if I were to tell you all that I just have a good feeling that this is all going to work out and I'm going to get pregnant and have a baby and we'll be a happy family of two! Gosh, I would love with all my heart to be able to say that. But oh, how terribly sad if it didn't work out. I do still hope because, as I said, this is all unpredictable and things could go either way. But I cannot let myself build up an expectation that this will be easy, that we deserve things to go smoothly, that my body knows how to have a baby now, that the embryos looked good, or any of that.

Right now, I know there are people who are worried about me, who worry that I am stressing, obsessing, or whatever else. But there's really no expectation at all except for life to continue on as it has been. And ya know what, I thought for sure I would not even get pregnant with Gavin. I thought for sure his pregnancy would fall apart. And it all worked out. Like I said, my expectations mean nothing so I'm good with expecting nothing and hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

After learning about my embryo count, I was sad and disappointed. I cried while I wrote to you all about my anticipation and my huge let down, that only one embryo had survived. I thought I was safe in expecting only two. Still, in the disappointment department, I handled it pretty well and was feeling better by the end of the day.

One thing that helped was a song I heard on the radio, "A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri, which is the song on our video about us having Gavin. It made me think of him, think of all we went through, how we finally got success, and I felt that reassurance that this journey is worth it. Yes, there's a possibility that we will go through a whole lot more heartache before we get there, but I believe we can make it if we persevere, and if we can work hard enough to somehow fund it all. It was a friendly reminder of the blessing we have in our life and that more blessings may be in store.

How Many Made It - Final Embryo Count

My calm feelings went out the window last night. All throughout the night, I was in and out of dreams, worrying and wondering what they would tell me about my embryos. I was feeling so afraid of them telling me that I had none that had progressed. Zero. That all my hopes would be on the two embryos inside of me and that's it. All my time and money was on this one chance.

I kept trying to be reasonable. You try to make safe guesses so you don't set yourself up for heartache. I kept shooting for two embryos. That seemed pretty safe to me. Maybe one of my beautiful oval ones would work out, and maybe one of my fair-grade ones. I would love more, like four or five. But two felt safer, and I couldn't go any lower than that without knowing I would be bummed either way, even if I prepared myself for it.

The phone rang in the morning. I looked at the number and felt my anxiety rise. This was it. This was when you had to be ready to be pleasantly surprised or utterly disappointed, even devastated. I said a quick prayer before answering, asking God to help me be okay with whatever they told me.

My fears soon dissolved as the embryologist said, "I have excellent news for you." Phew! Wonderful! Excellent news? I must have four or five embryos that made it because that would most certainly be excellent! I grabbed my little note pad and a pen and got ready to write down whatever she was about to tell me, how many embryos and what stage they were at and what grade they got.

"We were able to freeze one embryo."

Wait, what? One? Just one? How is it excellent that I lost eight of my nine remaining embryos?

I waited for her to say something else, to tell me they were watching a few others for a few more hours, that they were going to freeze a few more in just a little bit, or something! But she didn't. No. It was just one.

My heart sank.

They told me that the others didn't have enough cells, or they were very poor-grade embryos, or they hadn't made it to the right stage. I guess they need to meet certain criteria in order to be frozen and my embryos didn't measure up. It made me sad to think of these embryos that had tried. I wish I could have seen them. I wish I could have said to them, "Thanks for trying, for working so hard. I'm so sorry I didn't get to meet you. But I wanted to get a look at your beautiful self before saying goodbye."

So much money. So much time. So many hopes. Disintegrating, breaking down, falling apart. My little embryos that couldn't make it.

There's still some hope, of course. The good news is, they told me that this one little embryo was a very good looking embryo. Maybe that's my little girl right there, the one that will make it all the way.

The bad news is, the oval ones didn't make it, so I don't have much hope for the oval one inside of me. Even though they looked perfect otherwise, they didn't progress like they should. You never know how it'll turn out, never know with any of this process. I have a little bit of hope for the other one we put in. I have a little bit of hope for the one they froze. But it's not much to gamble with, not much at all.

All things being equal, a woman my age has about a 30-35% chance of having a baby with an in vitro cycle. All I can do now it wait and see if I become pregnant, see if I can get myself into that 30% group and give Gavin a sibling.

My blood test will be October 17th, with lots of waiting and hoping in between.

We're in Business - Embryo Transfer

Anticipation.

That's probably the best worst to describe my emotional state at the moment. I don't want to use the word anxious. When I hear the word anxious, I think of someone who is plagued by worry, who obsesses over the worst possible outcomes. But I can't worry when I have no control over any of this. It's all in God's hands and I can't worry myself into having a baby.

That being said, I am wondering about it, and wanting to see how it's going to work out.

You start running through all the different scenarios in your head, all the "what-ifs." That's what I was doing Friday night, the day before my embryo transfer, the day before I found out how many embryos were still progressing. I had eleven that were successfully fertilized but were they still going strong? I had so many different thoughts running through my mind:

"What is my ideal outcome here? How many embryos do I want to progress?"

"What is the safest number to expect without getting my hopes too high? Half my embryos? One-third my embryos?"

"Maybe I won't have as many as before. Maybe I won't have as many as I'd like. But maybe that's saving me from heartache, from more pregnancy loss. Maybe I will only have two or three, but they'll be the ones that will really make a baby instead of faking me out."

"What if I end up with none? Am I going to be okay if I have a terrible outcome?"

One thing I love to do is look up studies and statistics. I like to look at the numbers and have all the facts. I was trying to find out the average amount of embryos that progress like they should so I could make a safe guess about how many to expect from my own batch. It looked like about fifty percent progress to Day 3 and about thirty percent progress to Day 5. So I figured I might have five or six still progressing from my original 11 embryos.

But I knew it could be more. Or less. Or none.

All those scenarios, running through my mind.

Saturday morning, I got the call from my nurse. It was better than I'd hoped for but not exactly optimum. All of my embryos were still progressing, so it was wonderful to know I hadn't lost anymore already! That was way better than I'd hoped for! Yay! 

But my embryos were far from perfect.

On Day 3, there are certain things they're looking for in am embryo. Ideally, the embryo will have eight cells. They want the cells to be a nice round shape and for the embryo to be free from any fragmenting. And, ideally, the embryo itself will be a nice round shape.

You can see how embryos B and C have a little fragmenting, while embryo A is nice and clean.

Of those criteria, I had one perfect embryo - a round, eight-celled embryo with no fragmentation. Hooray!

I had six others that had a varying number of cells - from four cells to twelve cells - and varying degrees of fragmentation. These are my fair-grade embryos that could go either way. Some may continue on and some may break down. Remember that Gavin was a fair-grade embryo, so I actually have some faith in those little guys.

I had three other embryos that looked absolutely excellent - clean eight-celled embryos - except for one oddity. They had an oblong shape.

Here is a picture of five of my embryos. You can see the perfect one in the middle there. You can see a fair-grade one to the right of it, where it has some fragmenting going on. And you can see the oblong embryos, with their weird shape but their perfect looking cells inside. The embryologist said he would give those embryos an excellent rating if not for the shape.

Time for Andrea to go into research-mode again. I did all I could to find out about oblong embryos. Did they have lower success rates, or does shape not really matter? Well, I could hardly find any information on it! My doctor told me he hadn't seen oblong embryos in his 18 years of doing in vitro. Great! I love being in my own special category!

I was able to find only one study on shape. They had about 2500 embryos in the study, but only 27 were oblong - one percent of all the embryos - so that just shows you how rare this is. I'm a little tired of being in the crappy one percent category. Only one percent of women miscarry three times in a row and I got to be in that one percent. Only one percent of women make these odd-shaped embryos, and here I am. How about I get into the one percent of women who have nothing but perfectly-behaved, drop dead gorgeous children? Throw me a bone here? Haha!

What they did in the study was pre-genetic screening on all the embryos to see if there were issues with the DNA. They found that the oblong embryos were not any more likely to have DNA issues than the normal-shaped ones. They also observed how many oblong embryos made it to Day 5 and turned into blastocysts, and found they had just as good a chance as the normal-shaped embryos.

That seems pretty good, right?

Unfortunately, it's only one study with a very limited number of embryos to observe. So I can't put all my hopes on that. Not only that, but I was looking over my embryo report from my last round of in vitro and saw that I'd made a whole bunch of oblong and oval-shaped embryos that time too! Six of the eight embryos we transferred were oval or oblong, and Gavin may have been the one that was a nice round shape. 

Here's the picture of the two embryos we put in two years ago, one of them being Gavin. You can see how one of them is round and one is a little more oval.

Going into our embryo transfer, we now had a decision to make. We would obviously transfer the one perfect-looking embryo. That was a no-brainer. But we would need to pick the second embryo from our batch of so-so options. Because of my own experience, I was feeling a little more sure about the fragmented, fair-grade embryos, since I made a beautiful baby from one of those. But my eyes were telling me that those oval-shaped embryos looked really good. Did I go off past experience? Or did I listen to the embryologist and pick one of the prettier ones? 

They did tell me that the embryo itself would be normal-shaped once it hatched from its shell. It's not the embryo, but the shell itself that's oddly shaped.

In fact, it's my egg that was that shape from the get go. So, I make odd-shaped eggs but they can end up becoming normal embryos once they hatch from their shell, which happens about six or seven days after fertilization. Crazy, right?

It kind of makes me wonder if this is our problem all along. Perhaps I make so many odd-shaped eggs and somehow that messes things up. Maybe the sperm can't get in as easily? Maybe they don't develop right? Maybe they have a harder time hatching from the shell? Who knows? Unfortunately, this is such a rarity that there hasn't been much research done on it. And even if that were the case, I don't know what we could do to make my eggs round.

I would have preferred to wait and see which embryos progressed to Day 5, which is what I did in Hawaii. That way I would have a better idea of which ones were more viable. But we were there at the clinic, my husband was there with me, we had our babysitter available and watching Gavin, so I figured we should just do it.

I decided to listen to their recommendation and chose one of the oblong embryos as my second embryo to transfer. Here are my two embryos:

I am awake during the embryo transfer, with my husband next to me on a stool. They show the embryos on a screen and verify our identities. Then the embryologist sucks them up into a catheter and helps the doctor put them in, up into the tippy top of my uterus. You can watch a video of them sucking up the embryos right here, which is pretty fun. There's a pretty good amount of discomfort, but nothing too terrible and it doesn't take too long.

After we put the embryos in, everyone left but the doctor. He asked if he could say a prayer with us. He had Nick put his hand on my belly and we were all holding hands there. He said a short prayer, asking God to bless my embryos and to bless us with children. It was really such a nice gesture.

I continue to be calm. My life is so full with other things that I don't have much time to obsess over it. And my expectations are so very low. Even though I had Gavin, I still had only a twelve percent success rate with my embryos becoming babies. Of course, I hope to increase that success rate. It would be lovely to skip all the heartache we experienced last time. But we will see.

The nice thing about having such low expectations, though, is there's plenty of room for me to be pleasantly surprised. If I'm expecting all-out failure, than I'll be thrilled to be wrong.

In the meantime, we wait and see how my embryos are doing. Right now, they should be at blastocyst stage, including the ones that are inside of me. That means the ones inside of me haven't even hatched yet, but they should in the next day or two, and should implant into my uterus another day or two after that, probably around Friday. We hope so anyway!

They will call me tomorrow to let me know which of my remaining embryos are still progressing. They are incubating them until Day 6 and that will let us see which ones are the most viable, the ones that are still going strong. There's all kinds of scenarios running through my head, but since I know how they were doing at Day 3, I'm expecting anywhere from two to four that will still be progressing when we reach Day 6.  I'm very excited to get that call tomorrow, see how many we will have to freeze, and how many more chances that gives us of having a baby.

For now, let's hope these babies inside of me decide to stick!! Which, by the way, are not the size of a grain of sand. The embryologist told me they're the size of a spec of dust!

My Egg Retrieval and Embryo Status

My egg retrieval was Wednesday, September 30th.

I've done this before so I wasn't scared or nervous. I did have a little trouble sleeping the night before, just because I felt a bit anxious and excited. In fact, I had a dream that we were in the mall and some bad guys were holding the whole mall hostage. I was scared at first and then I was mad that they were making me wait around. Finally, I threw my hands up in the air and said, "Ya know what, I have an egg retrieval to go to and it's imperative that I be there on time. I'm outta here." So I risked my life and walked right out. I wasn't going to miss my appointment and lose these eggs!

Thankfully, we had no such hold up in real life. We got to the clinic on time and I went in to have a consult with the doctor that would be performing the surgery, a doctor who I hadn't even met before. I thought my own doctor would be available to do it but I guess not. It really didn't matter since I'd be asleep anyway!

He was actually a very nice doctor and was trying to accommodate me in getting some footage of my egg retrieval. We had planned for Nick to take some footage so I could share that with all of you (not any footage of my sleeping body, mind you, but of the ultrasound screen), but the doctor was telling me that some policies would not allow my husband to be in there. We arranged for one of the nurses to take my camera and do the footage herself, which was fine with me.

I got dressed in my beautiful hospital gown and went into the operating room. The nurses and anesthesiologist were there. I think the anesthesiologist didn't waste any time pumping his sleepy juice into me because I swear the lights on the ceiling were moving around the moment he got me hooked up to his IV. I'm thinking, "Sheesh, dude, lemme get situated first!"

The embryologist came in to talk to me. I've actually never met anyone who handles the embryos. I said, "Wow, hello, you have the most amazing job!" She asked me to verify some information and to confirm that we are doing ICSI, which is short for intracytoplasmic sperm injection. Basically, instead of putting the sperm and the embryos in the same little dish together, they actually pick out the best looking sperm and inject it into the egg. Pretty crazy, right? I said yes to the ICSI (pronounced ick-see), and told her not to pick any two-headed sperm. My anesthesiologist said, "But haven't you heard? The two-headed sperm is all the rage right now!" Haha!

Yes, these are the jokes you make when you do in vitro fertilization.

And yes, there are two-headed sperm, and sperm with two tails, and a whole lot of other abnormalities. When they do a semen analysis, they check for sperm count and also check to see how many sperm look normal, how many are swimming straight, what the pH balance is, etc. If your numbers are slightly off, then they recommend ICSI just to increase your chances of picking out the best looking sperm and making a healthy embryo. You can see some of the typical sperm abnormalities here.

I found this fantastic little video showing the ICSI process. We don't talk much about sperm and if we do, we're usually joking about them. But I actually got a little emotional watching this video, just to be reminded of how incredible this process is. It's remarkable, miraculous, and mind-boggling that we all started from this tiny egg and itty bitty sperm. So I recommend watching it just to appreciate the miracle that you are. The link is right here.

I think the egg retrieval took about a half hour. They go through the vaginal wall with a needle and aspirate the follicles out, using an ultrasound to see the ovaries and guide the needle. The nurse took some footage of my egg retrieval so you can actually see this process on a video right here.

I woke up from my egg retrieval and was thrilled to hear that we'd gotten 24 eggs. What a fantastic start to our journey! I took some video explaining our result, which you can see right here. I had a good laugh at it since I don't remember taking that video and I'm so groggy-looking. Kind of amazing that I had the wherewithal to talk on a video, take a selfie and post it on Facebook, all while being completely out of it. Next time, do not give me my phone until I'm coherent. 

Nick had a good time laughing at me, especially since I was asking him the same questions three or four times: 

"Have you ever gone under before?" 

"How many eggs did we get?" 

"Did we get video of the egg retrieval?" 

"Was I still asleep when you got here?"

They sent me home pretty quickly and I took a few naps throughout the day. I was definitely feeling some pain all over my pelvic area. But I'm feeling pretty good now, so the recovery wasn't too bad.

The nurse called me this morning, the day after my egg retrieval, to tell me how my embryos were doing. This is one of those big calls you feel a little anxious about, waiting to see how many eggs were able to be fertilized and how many are progressing. Those numbers are everything. They represent your chances, your hopes of having a baby. Still, I was pretty calm, especially because we started with such a good number of eggs.

I was in the grocery store when I got the call. The nurse told me that 16 of my eggs were mature enough to be fertilized, which is about what I expected. Remember how we were measuring those follicles to see which ones were ready, and I knew we had about 15 or so that were the right size. But I wasn't too happy with what she said next. After 24 hours, five of those embryos had broken apart, leaving me with 11 embryos altogether. That may sound like an excellent number, but I had 20 embryos at this point last time. I'm sad to see so few progress from my original egg count of 24.

Anything could happen at this point. They will be watching the embryos each day to see which ones progress, with the cells dividing like they should. You can watch a quick video of this incredible process of embryo cell division right here. And here's a picture of the growing embryo.

We know that we will lose a few others during these next few days and this is where I'm hoping with all my heart that we don't lose too many. I admit that I'll be disappointed if I end up with three embryos or less. I'd love to see a number closer to five or six. But, of course, it's the baby that we really need, so even if there are only three embryos, there may be a baby in there. Heck, all three may even work out. Ya just don't know until you get there.

It's amazing how so much hope can be contained in something so small, the size of a grain of sand.

They have me scheduled to put embryos in (called an embryo transfer) on Saturday morning, the 3rd. If my embryos are doing really well, then they'll let them incubate a little while longer and do the embryo transfer on Monday instead. So we're in the "wait and see" game right now.

C'mon, little baby of mine. Mommy and Daddy want you so bad, and you will just LOVE Gavin, I know it! :)