Nine Weeks and growing!

I had another ultrasound appointment today, and am happy to report all is normal! That's a word I love to hear these days! I am 9 weeks pregnant today and both babies are still measuring one day ahead, and they're nearly an inch long. Baby A's heart rate was 173 and Baby B's heart rate was 172.



The nurse practitioner I saw today said they're both moving around and all looks great. She also said the cramping I've been experiencing is most likely the uterus expanding. It's growing quickly with two babies in there and some mild cramping twinges and pulling are completely normal.

Aside from the complete exhaustion, occasional cramp (that sends my head and heart spinning) and the mild heartburn I experience now and then, everything's been normal. I'm thankful for an easy time so far, and am hopeful that all the pain and anguish we went through to get to this point is all we have to endure throughout this pregnancy.

My next appointment is scheduled for the afternoon of Tuesday 5/4. It will most likely be my last appointment with my RE as I should be released to my OB after that. It'll be rather strange not to make the weekly (sometimes more than once a week) visit to the RE's office. It will also be rather exciting to move on to the next part of the pregnancy. It will mean we're normal! Yay!

Eight Weeks

Our ultrasound today couldn't have been better news! We are exactly 8 weeks today and both babies measured 8 weeks 1 day! Baby A's heart rate was 169 and Baby B's heart rate was 172. "Perfect" according to the doctor!



See, still twins! Can you believe it?! Twins!

My parents got to be a part of the excitement today, as they joined me for this ultrasound. I was so happy to them with me, since it's probably the only time they'll experience this pregnancy first hand. Next time they visit, the babies will be born!

My next appointment is in a week, on April 29th. Can't wait to share another picture then!

Heartbeats!!!

We had another ultrasound on Tuesday, April 13, 2010. I was 6 weeks 5 days. We were able to see (sort of) both heartbeats!!! It was difficult to make it all out. I think we were on the worst machine they have and the Nurse Practitioners were in rare form, but we got 'em! Baby A was measuring 6w5d and the heartbeat was 130. Baby B (I still can't believe there's two!) was measuring 6w4d and the heartbeat was 131.

Tom and I were thinking of what to call them until we know the gender.
We both like Max and Ruby, since it's one of Allan's favorite shows, but then I threw out Pat and Sam (as in unisex name-think old SNL skits!). Of course my so-not-PC-husband thinks Jose and Hose B is hysterical. I'm not sure if we will stick with one of those or not, but for now, two babies are in there growing and developing! We couldn't ask for better at this stage.

My next appt is next Thursday. My parents will be here visiting, so they'll likely attend that appt with me. I'm so excited they'll be able to share a part of this experience, other than emails.

Seeing Double

Our first ultrasound was on Tuesday, April 6, 2010. I was 5 weeks 5 days. I was anxious to see at least a sac. If we saw the sac, it would be farther than we’d gotten with any of our last five pregnancies. Tom was less anxious, more excited for the official view. Well, we saw it, alright! TWO gestational sacs! Each sac had a fetal pole in it, and each fetal pole was measuring 5w5d, right on track! HOLY COW! TWINS!!!

I was COMPLETELY shocked. Tom, for some reason, was much less so. He thought twins all along. I did not. I was in a state of shock pretty much throughout the week. Until the next appt showed heartbeats, though, I wasn’t going to believe much of anything. But I did get excited. Cautiously so, but as excited as I could let myself. Gosh! Twins!

Our IVF Journey

We were put on the schedule for a mid-March 2010 retrieval. What does this mean I wondered! So much was unknown to me now. IVF is spoken like it’s done all the time and no big deal, but the more I learned the more I realized it IS a big deal. It means a whole lot of money. A whole lot of doctor appointments. Being put through the wringer with the hormone shots. Being put under anesthesia for the egg retrieval. Then there’s the waiting. OMG, the waiting! It’s all enough to put any normal person over the edge. But while hopped up on all these hormones, you’re anything BUT normal!

My cycle went relatively easily and stayed on the original schedule. I had my first ultrasound the end of February 2010 to make sure all looked good to start. It did. I took 10 tablets of Letrozole on Feb 28, along with my first Follistim injection and low-dose hCG injection. Yep, that’s right, two shots a night. Those shots continued for nine days. On the 6th day, though, we added a third injection medication (Ganirelix) to the nighttime routine for those last three nights. I had internal ultrasounds every other day during this time to watch the follicles grow and determine when the right time for retrieval would be.

On Mar 8, my ultrasound showed it was time. I had two mature follicles on the left ovary (measuring 18mm and 16mm) and four mature follicles on the right ovary (measuring 18mm, 2 @ 17mm, and 15mm). Tom injected the hCH “trigger” shot on the night of the 9th. This shot makes the body ovulate within 36 hours. It’s timing is important, as our retrieval was scheduled for 30 hours after the shot is given. So, I got the shot, then waited.

I had my egg retrieval on Thursday, March 11, 2010. After we returned home, I received a call from the clinic letting me know they had retrieved five eggs. The retrieval process itself was pretty quick and simple. I was a bit crampy the rest of the day and bloated, too, but nothing horrible. Tom was a great help and took Allan out of the house for the day to let me rest up. Then we waited for the next morning.

The next day, we received a phone call from a nurse with the fertility report. Sperm is put with each egg about four hours after retrieval. They’re then checked the next morning to see how many eggs fertilized. Our report was great. Four of the five eggs had fertilized. Then we waited until Day 3 for the next report.

We received a phone call from a nurse on Sunday, March 14, 2010 letting us know all four of our eggs were now at the 8-cell division, which was perfect for Day 3. Since we knew we wanted to transfer 2 embryos, we were going to let them all grow another two days and pick the best ones available.

On Tuesday, March 16, 2010, we went to the RE’s clinic for the transfer. We met with the embryologist first, who explained two of the eggs had progressed to the blastocyst stage (which is exactly what we want to see at 5-6 days). So, we went forward with transferring those two blastocysts. Then we waited for the next morning.



We received a call the next day letting us know the other two eggs had made it to blastocysts, also, so we had them frozen for reserve! You couldn’t ask for better! Six follicles. Five eggs. Four fertilized. Four made it to blast! Two transferred. Two frozen. All great news!!! Now the real wait began. Our next step was the scheduled blood test on 3/25 to determine pregnancy.

The clinic tells all patients not to test with a home pregnancy test. Anyone who’s been on this journey, though, knows most people do not follow those directions. I am one of those people! I began peeing on sticks two days after the transfer! Well, five days after the transfer, Sunday, March 21, 2010 I saw the line! The faintest of lines, but a line none-the-less! We were pregnant! It had worked.



On Tuesday, March 23, I started spotting. I couldn’t believe this was happening again. There really must be something wrong with my insides that I just cannot carry another child. I called the doctor’s office and asked the nurse to let me come in the next day instead of waiting until my scheduled appt the following day. She agreed and tried to remind me that spotting is quite common, especially in IVF patients. I tried to remind myself of that, but after my history, any blood was never a good thing to see.

I had a blood test done on March 24, and the hCG level was 167. This is good news, but means nothing by itself. Two days later, I had another test. The doctors want to see the number double in 2-3 days. They want to see at least an increase of 66% in two days. My level on March 26th was 389. More than double. This was great news. Of course I wasn’t convinced all was ok, so I had another test three days later. My level on March 29th was 900. More than double again. Perfect! And the even better news was the spotting stopped. Could it be everything was actually ok this time?!

How It All Started

A bit of our family background getting us to here.

Tom and I met in 2002. We were married in 2004. We bought our first home in 2005. And had our first son in 2006. Life was great.

Allan was a joy in our lives and we wanted another child as soon as possible. I had a c-section, so I was advised to wait a full year before trying. We started trying again when Allan was about nine months old (neither of us are very good with following orders!).

Finally in January 2008, the day after my brother’s wedding, we got a positive home pregnancy test! YAY!! Our family was growing and we were thrilled! Since we were in Washington visiting family, we shared the news with everyone. Yes it was early, but why wouldn’t we share the news?!
Four days later I started spotting. Little did I know at the time this was the beginning of a two year torturous emotional and hormonal roller coaster ride.

We suffered our first miscarriage in January 2008, at only 5 ½ weeks. My doctor explained miscarriages are actually quite common; that 20-25% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage. I shouldn’t worry, and should try again, and would most likely have no problems having another child.

We suffered our second miscarriage in June 2008, at only 5 weeks. I saw a new doctor in a new state, and he agreed with my other doc that these things unfortunately just happen sometimes. He said he’d give me a referral to a specialist or I could try again and most likely not have a problem. Banking on already having enough problems, we figured third times a charm and went for it.

We suffered our third miscarriage in November 2008, at just 4 weeks. A normal person probably wouldn’t have even known they were pregnant, but I did. I actually took a home pregnancy test the morning I started bleeding…because I just knew something was wrong. As much as I didn’t want to believe it, I had to know so it was documented and I could move to a specialist.

We had our first meeting with our Reproductive Endocrinologist (RE) in December 2008. I had tons of blood work done, as well as some x-rays and internal tests , to determine a cause. No cause was found. All of my tests came back within normal ranges, so nothing stood out as the leading cause of a problem. After discussing options with the RE in January 2009, we decided to try the least invasive methods first.
We got pregnant our very first try. We added progesterone to my daily routine and assumed all would be good to go. We were devastated by our fourth miscarriage in March 2009 at 5 ½ weeks.

We took a couple months “off” and waited until my emotions were under control again. We decided to try a bit more aggressively, and started taking injection fertility medications to increase the hormones in my system, produce more eggs, and time things right. Hoping the added hormones were the boost we’d need. We did not get pregnant the first cycle we tried.

However, we tried again the following month and got pregnant. I couldn’t believe it when I started spotting again, like all the others. This pregnancy was different, though. The pregnancy implanted in the fallopian tubes. I had surgery in September 2009 to remove the ectopic, and I lost my left tube in the process. There was also scar tissue on the fimbriae of the right tube, which the doctor was able to remove.
After this loss and surgery, we met with the RE again to decide our next steps. He said he believed we had a good shot of getting pregnant again, trying the same method we had just done. He also said that another option was IVF. We chose to try again, just with the injection meds. The less invasive (and less expensive) route.

We did not get pregnant when we tried on our next cycle. At that point we decided to go for the gusto. I was worried that if we did get pregnant while using the injection meds, then we could still miscarry. And if we did, then we would try IVF. We just decided to jump to the end now. IVF was going to be our final answer…we hoped!