IVF Update #13

This was supposed to be a happy post, but it isn’t. Warning: It might get graphic.

Friday, Aug 5^th we went to Idaho Falls to get blood work done to find out if we were still pregnant with the two embryos that we had transferred. Not expecting to hear the results for

several hours we decided to do some errands while we were in town. Daniel was getting his hair cut when my phone rang. It was the doctor’s office. I silently panicked, then answered the phone. My nurse started talking and from the tone of her voice I just knew she was going to say it was negative. But then she told me it was a positive test result! We really were still pregnant! I’m pretty sure I stopped breathing. And then once I started breathing again I went right into bawling my eyes out. I couldn’t believe it! I was so happy!! She told me that they look for the HCG levels to be around 100 and mine were at 300! That was a good sign that possibly both embryos made it!

I was so excited to tell Daniel! He was so giddy when he found out. And for the next few days we were secretly planning everything. We wanted twins, but we were even fantasizing about having triplets.

We told my family the amazingly good news. We made plans to tell Daniel’s family on Sunday, Aug 14^th because we would all be together for a family reunion. And then we were going to announce it to the world on Monday after we had our first ultrasound that would tell us how many sacs there were. We know that being IVF my pregnancy is always high risk, but we just wanted to tell everyone the good news.

It was morning on Saturday, Aug 13^th, I was sitting on the couch talking with my sister-in-law about the coming family reunion. After we hung up I stayed on the couch looking up some information on my phone. And then I felt it… It wasn’t the same ooziness or leaking that came from my vaginal pills; it was a gush of blood.

I stood up and ran to the bathroom. There was blood all over my underwear and legs. Clots and chunks were coming out too. I yelled to Daniel. He asked if maybe I was just spotting, which could be normal. When he came in I saw his face and he knew exactly what I did deep down: We were having another miscarriage.

After cleaning up we hugged and cried. We were still holding on to the hope that this was a fluke or that there could still be one embryo still inside. I asked him to give me a priesthood blessing. He called up his dad and his brother, Ben, who lives close by, to come over and help give me a blessing. I’m grateful that they did. I was shaking; my whole body was shaking and I couldn’t stop crying. The whole time I was receiving the blessing I kept wanting to hear something to the effect of “you are still pregnant, you are healed, you will still have a baby…” But those words were never said. I was given comfort and strength. I was able to calm down and be comforted. As Ben and Daniel gave me a blessing I could feel their tears falling on my head. I knew that Daniel was in as much pain as I was.

We talked to our nurse and she told us to lay low, drink lots of water, take my medicine as normal and wait until Monday when we had our ultrasound scheduled. I continued to bleed and also I started cramping. This was not a good sign, but I was still hoping that there was still one little embryo holding on while the hell in my body swirled around him.

By evening the bleeding had slowed to just dripping and I hadn’t had any clots come out since 1 or 2 PM. I really thought, “Okay. This is good. Maybe we will still be okay.” The next morning, Sunday, everything was about the same as the night before. We were packing and getting stuff ready for the reunion. I had told Daniel if I was still feeling crappy then I didn’t want to go. But that morning I had been okay-ish so we decided to still go. Then around 10 AM I started cramping really bad, so I laid back down and hoped everything would be fine.

I was till just spotting, so we packed up the truck and went down to his parent’s house to get the jet skis for the reunion. As he was fueling up the jet skis I felt it again - a gush of blood. I ran into his parent’s house (they had already left to go to the reunion luckily). More bleeding, more clots, and then came the embryo sac. My heart sank. I knew that this wasn’t just my uterine lining shedding off. I took pictures just in case the doctor wanted to see it and so I could show Daniel (gross, I know, but don’t judge me until you have had to deal with this). I didn’t cry, I think I had shed all my tears the morning before.

After bleeding and having cramps for 2 hours things started to slow down. Daniel and I decided that we were either going to be miserable at home waiting to go to the doctor the next day, or we could go to the reunion and still be miserable, but at least have a distraction and family support to get us through to the doctor’s appointment the next day. So we drove to Island Park. Island Park was beautiful. We stayed in a beautiful cabin. It was fun to be with family.

Monday, Aug 15^th we drove to Idaho Falls for our ultrasound. Daniel and I were both on edge. We so badly wanted them to tell us that there was still a baby in my belly. We waited at the doctor’s office for an hour past our scheduled appointment. We were going crazy and may have gotten a little more than snippy at the receptionist. We were stressed and we needed answers.

We told the ultrasound tech that we were pretty sure that we miscarried this weekend, and you could tell that she really hoped she could tell us good news. We watched the screen as she checked everything out. Daniel realized that since she hadn’t told us that she could see a sac that it meant she was stalling, not wanting to give us the bad news.

 We are no longer pregnant.

We faxed the ultrasound over to our doctor immediately and he told us to get some bloodwork done to check my hormone levels. My HCG tested at just under 2,000, so we go back in on Thursday to have it checked again to make sure that it is going down and that I don’t somehow have an ectopic pregnancy.

This is not what we wanted. I really thought that since we had gotten to almost 6 weeks that maybe it would work. It hurts. Sure there is the bleeding, the cramps, the crying fits and hormone rollercoaster, but it is my heart that hurts the most. It hurts to see my husband aching. He tries to act normal, but he’s not fooling anyone: this is hard and it is hard to handle the stress of it.

Yes we still have frozen embryos. That will probably give us hope in a few months; if we can convince each other to put ourselves through this agony again.

But for now we need to mourn our loss. It is a devastating blow that breaks our heart so much.

Thank you again to everyone for your love, support and donations. We really wanted this to have a happy ending. Thank you for sticking with us and loving us. 

IVF Update #12

We never officially updated the GoFundMe page or our blog about our embryo transfer. We had posted stuff on Facebook, but I decided we better have the whole story here.

Ever since doing blood work and getting the go ahead on the transfer I had to start taking progesterone pills – vaginally, twice a day. Last year we did progesterone shots. It was a big old needle (like the size that we give shots to the cows and horses with), and it had to go in my butt/hip area. Daniel had to administer these for me because the angle was too awkward for me. We were kind of excited to do these vaginal pills instead of the shots, but now I’m not so sure. I ooze all day, it is smelly, it’s kind of awkward and it needs to be at exact times. I feel gooey and gross all the time. And after the transfer I start doing 3 a day. So fun…

On Sunday, July 24 we drove down to Utah. Luckily Daniel has a very sweet cousin that let us stay the night at her house. We had a 9:30 AM appointment on Monday, July 25 for our frozen embryo transfer (FET). For the FET I don’t have to take any drugs or anesthesia (glad about that!); I just have to have a full bladder and we have to wear some awesome hairnets and hospital gowns.

Last year when we were doing the transfer I took the “full bladder” advice very seriously. By the time I had gotten changed into the gown I was bursting at the seams, but the nurse said to hold on because they needed it full. Well, unfortunately for me the doctor was running late. I had to lay there, with my legs up in stirrups, and my lady parts just exposed, and I’m about to pee myself. And the urge to pee got stronger by the minute…20 min later the doctor comes in, starts putting stuff inside of me and pushing on my belly. I honestly don’t know how I was able to hold my pee.

This year the transfer went much better (and I didn’t come with such a full bladder)! The doctor was coming in just to do our FET. When we got there our nurse told us that they thawed out two embryos and they both survived and looked well. In the picture that we have of them you can notice that one is farther along/thawed out faster, but the nurse assured us that they were both in a good phase. So we quickly changed into our hospital attire and got all set up for the transfer.

Everything is very official. The embryologist has to come in and confirm both of our identities (Daniel gets to be at the bed next to me for this one). Also, we have to confirm that the name on the petri dish is ours. I’m grateful they do this because I don’t want any sort of mix up! That would be awful! Then the nurse does a belly ultrasound to see if my bladder is full. This time mine wasn’t. Oops. They gave me a water bottle to drink and said they’d check on me in five minutes. So there I am again, lying on the bed, half naked, with my feet up in the stirrups. Thankfully I didn’t need more than the five minutes to get a full bladder. There are 2 reasons for the full bladder: first, it helps straighten out the uterus so that the catheter can go in smoothly and to the correct place. Second, it helps get a better ultrasound visual of the catheter.

Now that my bladder is ready and we’ve confirmed who we are, the doctor sanitizes me, clamps me open, swabs around inside, and then inserts the catheter. While he is doing this, the nurse is doing a belly ultrasound on me. The ultrasound shows the catheter going in and the doctor uses the image to get the catheter in the correct place.

Then the embryologist, in the lab in the next room over, displays our petri dish on the TV screen, we verify it is ours, and then we get to watch him pull our two embryos into a straw. Obviously we are seeing it magnified, because they still are teeny tiny. He then brings the straw into the operation room and hands it to the doctor. The doctor then inserts the straw into the catheter, which is inside of me. He pushes them in as we watch on the ultrasound image. You can actually see two teeny, tiny white dots that are our embryos.

And that’s it. They are done, and for now we have twins inside of me.

The nurse takes me to the bathroom because they know that after sitting there with a full bladder and my stomach being pushed on from the ultra that I definitely need to pee. It is funny though, my mind says “No! Keep your legs crossed and don’t let those embryos fall out!” And my body is saying “Pee! Pee! I need to pee!” Eventually my mind realizes that I’m being irrational and nothing is going to “fall out” and the fact that I really have to pee.

We change back into our normal clothes and we are sent on our way. I’ve been doing research on how to have a successful IVF and a lot of what I read said that studies have shown that doing activity immediately after transfer will increase your chances of staying pregnant. That isn’t super easy for us because we have a 4+ hour drive home. But just a few blocks away from the clinic was this cute little garden/park. We strolled around it, enjoyed the peacefulness of it and said a bunch of prayers for us and our little embryos. Then we got in the car and drove home.

Then the waiting game begins…Don’t worry, we will let you know what the outcome is.

Aren't we so sexy when we make babies? Fingers crossed that these two little embryos stay in and grow into health twins!

IVF Update #11

Still on schedule!
We had an ultrasound and blood work yesterday and the results came back good! That means we will drive down to Utah for embryo transfer on Monday the 25th.