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.

TRANSFER DAY!!!

November 12, 2017 was the day we met our beautiful, beautiful, embryo.

 

Look at her! Isn’t she lovely? We also were able to see our other seven snowflakes. But I’m getting ahead of myself. 

My IVF nurse was very understanding. She phoned a few days before the transfer and called me in a prescription for Xanax. She knew that I have trouble with speculums. It is so hard for me to stay relaxed while that big disgusting piece of metal is in me! So the Xanax definitely helped me stay relaxed. 

The day of transfer, we got up nice and early and made our way to the clinic. I didn’t have to fully undress this time, just my pants. Wore my lucky-in-love snuggling bears sweater. Seemed like an auspicious choice! 

And we saw our beautiful embryo! They handed me the photo of the little One and we both started crying. To think that this sweet bundle of cells would become our child! I was so overcome.

It was pretty cold in the room, but Hubs was able to come in. Put my feet up in those giant stirrups, and then it was just relax, relax, relax. It was very important to keep everything soft and loose down there, it made the speculum hurt much much less. The catheter was inserted in, and the little embryo was poofed into my uterus along with a small bubble of air. We were able to see on the ultrasound where the embryo was inserted. 

after transfer!!!

After that, we went home and ordered Panera Bread. Bacon mac and cheese, yall! I relaxed all day.

There is no real way to know whether the embryo stuck or not. Just so many prayers, a lot of faith, and lots of good food. 

Fingers crossed!!