The Unreality of my Pregnancy

I have been drafting this post for several weeks now... I’ve talked to several doctors, a therapist, and some close friends about it. 

I am at this point very pregnant! I’m a day shy of being 38 weeks along. 

And yet my whole pregnancy, there has been a HUGE dissociation between myself and my pregnancy.

It feels like it’s happening to someone else, not me! A relative says “wait till you feel her move, then it seems so real :)” and yet she moves and I’m a little indifferent. 

We set up a crib and buy some diapers and a cute outfit. But it feels like it’s for someone else’s baby. 

A doctor I really liked told me this was normal and likely not related to my depression or my IVF. She said it may just be that this whole pregnancy was just so stressful with the move and all that it’s a little jumbled in my brain. 

One thing she suggested was to talk to my belly more. To tell Maelyn how my day is, and what I’m looking at, and how excited I am for her. 

Which I am! At times. 

People at church have been asking “Are you just so ready to be done being pregnant???” And honestly? I’m totally indifferent at this point! I’ve gotten used to being bigger, and feeling a little nauseated, and being tired and uncomfortable, that this is just how life is at this point I feel. 

So I know to SAY “I am so excited for her to come out!” But I’m thinking that she could stay in there for longer or come out, I’m not super hype. 

It’s maybe not the healthiest of mindsets to have. But rest assured I am not doing anything to endanger the baby. I am making healthy eating choices, walking and doing yoga, making sure I get plenty of naps and rests. 

Every now and then I get a moment like “holy crap this is real, this is happening to me.” Bought a book for the little one and cried for a while. Sat in the glider, looking at the boxes of diapers, and realized I was going to use them on my own child. 

It’s just been a weird sort of journey to get here. I am hopeful that when I birth my baby that it will suddenly seem “real” to me, and that everything will make sense then. 

Oh Dang

This is why I’ll never be a famous blogger haha! It has been actual months since I’ve posted anything! And there is definitely been a lot that has happened!

We moved across the country! Started with a new doctor! Set up a nursery! Cried a LOT!

I’ll definitely try to catch up with some posts!

Girl Power! The CNM thought that fist was too funny, she gave us a printout 

I’m Sorry I’m Not More Excited About Your Baby

Today i saw my first pregnancy announcement since my own. 

Despite the life growing inside me, as i looked at that sweet picture, i felt a familiar sick sinking feeling. Hm. So she’s pregnant. Good for them??

I was confused honestly. I was pregnant! I “beat” my infertility! Wasn’t that the goal?! 

But here’s the thing i realized. 

We are always going to be that 1 in 8. 

We are always going to have to use ART to conceive. 

Just because i am pregnant does not mean we are suddenly a normal fertile couple. 

This is something that we’re always going to be dealing with both emotionally and physically, despite how many children I am allowed to carry. 

So, i’m sorry i’m not more excited about your baby. 

Our Announcement Photo

I chose to not wait until the end of the first trimester to announce my pregnancy.

There were a lot of reasons. The primary one being that I have been very open about our journey through IVF. Why not let everyone know that it was successful?

I think the main reason why women wait is because of the fear of miscarriage. I approached that issue as: I am trying to be more open about infertility. I want women to know that I am with them in their struggles. If I did end up miscarrying my baby, I would be open about that too. It is so hard to grieve alone! I did not want that.

So we waited until we got our first little ultrasound pictures.

Made with a whole lot of love... and a little bit of science!!

First Ultrasound

Heard her little heart beat today at 5wks10!

It was a vaginal ultrasound which was how we could get such a clear sound. I cried my eyes out!! It was beyond words how amazing it was to hear that little thump-thump of a heartbeat.

SUCCESS!!

Wow, how can I even describe the day.

February 13th was our transfer day. It was such a spiritual day. In the week that passed, we prayed, we hoped, we dreamed, we wished.

Infertility and expectations are difficult to reconcile. Like, I want to be so excited and hopeful, but I don't want to get my hopes too high, because getting them smushed into the dirt is harder than anything you can imagine! Our failed transfer was devastating, and I was torn this time between wanting to dance with joy and hide and forget it happened.

I was scheduled for my blood test on Friday, February 22nd.

Buuuuut on Thursday night, I may have had a leftover pregnancy test from last year....

 

And that was a positive!!! I was overcome with shock!! It actually worked?? All our hard work and tears was actually worth something??

Sure enough, I got the call from our sweet doctor on the afternoon of Friday, and he confirmed it! I took a video to send to our parents, but it is pretty cringey! I shouted out "now way!" when he told me, and he responded with "uh, yes way!" And then gave very dire warnings to continue my butt shots until ten weeks. Can do! 

It definitely made the shots easier, knowing that it was actually TOWARD something!

We had an appointment scheduled for our first ultrasound for six weeks!!

Lots to say!

Now that my brain space is starting to feel a little more normal... I have a few posts to catch up on! This is why I'll never be a world-class "blogger" tbh. Oh well!

Depression

Sorry I haven’t posted in a few months. 

Depression is a heck of a thing, my friends. Even good news has the shine taken off when you’re in the darkness of depression. And it’s not just “being sad”. To me there is a difference between being sad and being depressed. At least when I am sad I am feeling something!

But it has been getting better these past few weeks. I’m hoping to post some nice long updates here soon!!

FET Day!

I was going to do an update before today, really, but then I just didn't, so here we are!

Had my usual Friday appointments leading up and everything looked okay. Estrogen 3x a day. My levels were a little low at visit 2, so they had me administer one of the daily estrogen pills vaginally. It was just about as uncomfortable as it sounds.

After appointment 3, we started PIO injections again... yay. I think they hurt more this time around because I didn't have anything to compare it to. Last time they didn't hurt as bad because I had just finished with the stomach shots. So the shots have been really hurting me, but I am beyond lucky to have a wonderful supportive partner to help administer the medication so it isn't AS bad.

 

So this morning, I took a doctor-ordered Valium and we made our way to the clinic for our frozen embryo transfer! I'm not sure if Valium is regularly prescribed for FETs, but with my issues they feel it's better for me to be a little relaxed and loopy.

There are a LOT of blogs on blogs on posts on posts with a bunch of "How I Prepared For My Embryo Transfer" things, but like honestly? I didn't do anything particularly special to prepare. I tried to eat less fried food and more veggies, exercised a little more on the regular, but nothing really else physically! I feel like I was more spiritually prepared, however. I've been trying to make my morning prayers a more regular habit, and it has definitely been helping. 

Actually made it to the clinic ON TIME this time, too!

We went to the back, I got into that super flattering and beautiful butt gown, and then we were able to meet our lovely, sweet, healthy embryo!!

We're calling her the raisinette! It looks a little shriveled because they remove a lot of the water before freezing-- water means ice chunks which can damage the embryo! So this pic was taken right after they thawed her out. She is a beautiful 4AA embryo! Practically Perfect in Every Way!

a proud soon to be mama

I tried to have Myke take a couple of photos in the actual room, but it didn't turn out very well. Oh well!

Thanks to the Valium I was feeling pretty relaxed! I was brought back into the room, which is kept pretty dim and cold! Actually all the examining rooms at my clinic are kept pretty dark, it is nice and relaxing. They strapped me into the stirrups and then it was go time! 

If I had to advise something for FET prep, I would say breathing exercises. Just being able to breathe and keep a steady rhythm helps have something to focus on other than the very uncomfortable speculum! 

It is still so incredible to me that we were able to SEE on the ultrasound when that little raisin was placed in there. I started crying, I was so overcome. It was such a beautiful moment. 

The doc said afterwards that there were absolutely no issues with the transfer process. It went per-fect-ly! He was very happy about that. They let us stay in the room for a couple minutes but then we got up to leave because there were other little ones being transferred that day!!

So that was our FET experience! I really wish I was better at writing, then this story would probably make way more sense! It seems more stream of consciousness than an actual story. Sorry. But we go back next Friday for a blood test to see if it worked!! Praying so hard for a nice sticky baby!

(And you know afterwards we had to go to Chik-fil-a for some delicious nugs and waffle fries!)

Frozen Embryo Transfer!!!

Thanks to a VERY generous anonymous family member, we have the funds needed to proceed with a frozen embryo transfer (FET)! God has been INCREDIBLY good to us this whole process. It can be hard to see His hand guiding and comforting us when we are in the midst of trials, but when our eyes are opened it is amazing to see how much He has done for us!

But that’s a different post.

I was luckily in that my period happened just at the right time! At the last appointment with my doc, he called in birth control pills so we can control when my cycle happens- they make sure to align it with your doctor’s schedule too so they can be the one doing your transfer. But! Mine happened at a good time, AND we could pay! So we were able to jump right in to a transfer without needing the birth control.

Got all the paperwork with the medication schedule attached- looks like the only meds I’ll need is estrogen pills taken 3x daily (to start), and once the transfer happens we get to add those wonderful butt shots of progesterone yay.

Had my baseline appointment on Friday- which was very embarrassing for me as I was on my period and they had to do an ultrasound, yuck. They’re used to it though and luckily the female doctor doing it was very gentle, it didn’t hurt at all!

New IVF socks ❤️❤️

The blood work on the other hand was TERRIBLE! There is one nurse who does it and is so good at it, chats the whole time and always find my vein... and the other nurse (who I had) stuck the needle in at a 90degree angle and them twisted it around to my vein!! Ugh!!! It hurt so bad!

But everything came back normal, nice quiet ovaries and everything. So the next couple Fridays are gonna be more appointments, and hopefully our transfer day will be on FEBRUARY 13!!!!! I am SO EXCITED!!!!!

Cycle Review

Hi all!

Yesterday I made my way back up to UNC Fertility to have a talk with our doctor about how the cycle went, current state, and what we will do next.

I had to go by myself, unfortunately, since Mykel had a work event that went longer than he expected :( but that is okay! I was able to have him on speaker phone the whole time so he could be involved as well.

lucky tacocat shirt!

I love going to the clinic- every one there is very friendly, and they know who I am! The receptionist commented that it had been a while since she had seen me- which is true, it has been awhile! Plus, their wifi is really good ;)

The doctor called me back after just a couple of minutes of waiting and we got down to it! So here were the deets of my IVF retrieval and fertilization:

My body responded very well to the medications. My estrogen levels grew as they should have, although they expected a small number of eggs. The highest number of follicles they counted was seven, although that was due to my anxiety and pain during the vaginal ultrasounds. Those things are no fun, yall! 

They extracted 14 eggs, and of those 14, eleven were mature! Which is a crazy high number! 

Then came fertilization, and eight of my eleven mature eggs fertilized. Again, crazy!

Of those eight, ALL eight matured to the blastocyst stage! 8 for 8 is incredible. The doc was very impressed! What can I say, we make good embryos. 

There's a grading system that embryologists and those folks use to grade the quality of the blastocysts. I don't understand a lot of it, it really has been a hot minute since I've been in a biology class! There's a lot of good information online about that if you want to know, I won't go super into it here, but basically, the grading system is number-letter-letter. The number is between 1-5 and is how much the blastocyst has developed. Then the letter grades, A, B, or C. The first letter deals with the quality of the embryo itself, and the second letter with the quality of what will become the placenta. I think. 

My beautiful, healthy, lovely embryos, I am happy to say, were all 3's or 4's with a smattering of A's and B's. Which is again incredible. Not an unsatisfactory one in the bunch! The nugget that was transferred was a 4AA- the best quality! (I have one other 4AA, designated "Blue")

All of this combined makes it even more surprising that the embryo didn't stick. My uterine lining was nice and ready, the embryo was perfect quality, I didn't do anything crazy to cause it to not stick, but for some baffling, unknown reason, it just- didn't work. 

Because my embryos are all good quality, and I have seven snowflakes still waiting, it is pretty easy to know what to do next- a FET, or frozen embryo transfer. We'll be doing an assisted cycle, which means that we'll be controlling when I ovulate through the use of birth control, estrogen pills, and progesterone shots. It should be around a four-week process. So we could be doing a transfer the end of February! Just have to get the funds together... ugh. 

God has been very good to us, I am so grateful to Him and to our incredible doctors! Will update when we start our next cycle!

So, now what?

So our sweet beloved little one didn't stick.

I took time to grieve. The loss of a pregnancy at any stage is debilitating. While at my dad's for Thanksgiving, I cracked an egg and it made me sob uncontrollably.

Take some time to grieve. Cry when you need to. Do not try to hide your pain, it is very real and you are allowed to feel this way! Even now, over a month later, I still cry over pregnancy announcements. My husband's cousin announced their pregnancy and I cried all through church.

Here in the next week we're gonna meet with our doctor and talk about the process for transferring a smol snowflake. The problem is, it's remarkably expensive, so we'll need to wait for another couple weeks. Hopefully our tax return will be big enough to cover a transfer!

Bad news.

The embryo didn’t stick. Heard back from the doc today, right before we left for a twenty-hour road trip to Texas. He had  no idea why it didn’t work, which is the worst part. The sweet embryo was perfect, my uterine lining was optimal, why did it not stick?!

This is the worst day.

Fertility Foods!

I’m not so good with fertility diets, but I wanted to share something that I thought was pretty yummy and is very fertile-friendly!

This is a hash of roasted root vegetables (beets, sweet potatoes, garlic, and onions), chickpeas, and sausage. I also added in small chunks of pineapple! It was so good! I ate this for about three days for breakfast.