Thursday, April 26, 2012
Yes, I am still alive. :)
Just a quick note to say, yes I am alive and well. Just not much to report right now! Trying to continue to be patient and I'm still feeling very peaceful. Nick is riding his bike everyday and I've been working a lot and also trying to get ready for a shower I'm co-hosting this weekend...more on that later. Thanks for the continued thoughts and prayers! XO
Monday, April 23, 2012
Where we're at...
Just a quick update... we did find out this weekend that we would not have any embryos to freeze. It's incredibly dissapointing, but we don't have much choice but to accept it and move on. I am feeling strangely calm...and as I told Nick - I'm 'giving this to God'. I don't know what the outcome will be, but I do know that I can no longer take the highs and lows so I am choosing to be hopeful but not expectant, realistic but not negative. I don't even think I'm going to take any pregnancy tests at home this time which is a huge departure from all of our other cycles. And I feel confident that whatever happens, we will handle, just as we have previously. That said, we could use a lot of good thougths and prayers this way, so please keep them coming! I am very grateful for the calm that I've been granted and hope that it continues. XOXO
Friday, April 20, 2012
And now we wait.
Everything went well with the embryo transfer...it was textbook perfect, as all of our transfers have been. Unfortunately, we did not fare as well in the embryo quality department. On our last fresh cycle in October, we had two blastocysts to transfer. Today, we only had one blastocyst and it was slightly less developed than the October ones. The rest were mostly still morulas. After a long discussion with our doctor, we decided to transfer the blastocyst and two additional morulas (the two best looking ones). They will monitor the rest of the morulas and hope that they turn into blastocysts for freezing, but the doctor said based on our previous cycles, he was not feeling positive that we would have any to freeze this time.
Transferring three embryos does increase our odds for triplets, however we have transferred (respectively) 2, 2, and 3 embryos each cycle and not gotten pregnant, so for someone with that type of track record, twins or triplets would be highly unusual. Our doctor is very conservative so I trust his advice.
It's really, really frustrating. It's not that I don't produce good embryos...I do. Just very few each time. We really thought this new protocol was going to be a game-changer and it was not. However, I have no choice but to be as positive as possible and hope for the best for the three little embryos in my uterus. Stress is the enemy so you're probably going to see me doing a lot of deep breathing this week. :)
Also, it's official. The waiting around after the transfer with a full bladder is by far the WORST part of IVF by far. I hate it more than the injections, more than the side effects from the hormones, more than the IV and more than the pain of the retrieval. Below, you see a photo of a woman desperately trying not to piss herself. :) Continued thanks for all your well wishes and prayers and extra special thanks to the two ladies that keep reminding me that if everything about this cycle is different than previous cycles...that's a good thing! XOXO
Transferring three embryos does increase our odds for triplets, however we have transferred (respectively) 2, 2, and 3 embryos each cycle and not gotten pregnant, so for someone with that type of track record, twins or triplets would be highly unusual. Our doctor is very conservative so I trust his advice.
It's really, really frustrating. It's not that I don't produce good embryos...I do. Just very few each time. We really thought this new protocol was going to be a game-changer and it was not. However, I have no choice but to be as positive as possible and hope for the best for the three little embryos in my uterus. Stress is the enemy so you're probably going to see me doing a lot of deep breathing this week. :)
Also, it's official. The waiting around after the transfer with a full bladder is by far the WORST part of IVF by far. I hate it more than the injections, more than the side effects from the hormones, more than the IV and more than the pain of the retrieval. Below, you see a photo of a woman desperately trying not to piss herself. :) Continued thanks for all your well wishes and prayers and extra special thanks to the two ladies that keep reminding me that if everything about this cycle is different than previous cycles...that's a good thing! XOXO
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Morula Schmorula
Update! And a good one at that...another of our embryos decided to start growing so that puts us up to ten...however it's only a two cell and we still have another that's a six cell so likely neither of those will make it to freeze.
However, of the other eight - five have made it to the morula stage which is the stage right before blastocyst. Blastocysts are what we want tomorrow to transfer. Plus, the other remaining three are continuing to grow and may catch up tomorrow or the next day. Yay!
However, of the other eight - five have made it to the morula stage which is the stage right before blastocyst. Blastocysts are what we want tomorrow to transfer. Plus, the other remaining three are continuing to grow and may catch up tomorrow or the next day. Yay!
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Day 3 updates
Hopefully you subscribe to the 'no news is good news' philosophy since I skipped yesterday's update. I had a crazy day at work and then got home and crashed. We did get news yesterday that the nine embryos were all still continuing to grow.
This morning, we got more details about our nine, which is as follows:
-3 9-cell embryos
-5 8-cell embryos
-1 4-cell embryo (this is the only embryo not really in play anymore)
They want to see about four 8-cell embryos on this day so we are in good shape. Last cycle on this same day, we had:
-10 8-cell embryos
-6 6-cell embryos
-2 4-cell embryos
-2 2-cell embryos
So last cycle, we had 10 out of 20 embryos in play, whereas this cycle we have 8 out of 9...I think that points to overall improved embryo quality.
In other news...I saw another amazing rainbow today...like, probably the most amazing rainbow I've ever seen. Each of our previous three cycles, we've looked for 'signs' - the paw print from Carl, the fortune cookies, a transfer on my birthday. I promised myself that I WOULD NOT DO THAT THIS CYCLE. But, I guess I am forever an optimist and I can't help but see these things as good luck. :)
Finally, I have been reading Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson and oh, friends - my sides...they are splitting. Lawson's book is a memoir of her childhood growing up in rural Texas with a less-than-traditional family including her taxidermist father (that's a father that is a taxidermist...not a father that has BEEN taxidermied...just to be clear). I was reading parts of it aloud to Nick (against his will...but he was folding laundry and kind of a captive audience) and I could barely get through some of it, I was laughing so hard. It's completely irreverent and managed to keep me from focusing on the stress of IVF for a few hours, so that certainly says something.
My transfer has been schedule for 7:30 am on Friday so send some good thoughts our way then. XOXO
This morning, we got more details about our nine, which is as follows:
-3 9-cell embryos
-5 8-cell embryos
-1 4-cell embryo (this is the only embryo not really in play anymore)
They want to see about four 8-cell embryos on this day so we are in good shape. Last cycle on this same day, we had:
-10 8-cell embryos
-6 6-cell embryos
-2 4-cell embryos
-2 2-cell embryos
So last cycle, we had 10 out of 20 embryos in play, whereas this cycle we have 8 out of 9...I think that points to overall improved embryo quality.
In other news...I saw another amazing rainbow today...like, probably the most amazing rainbow I've ever seen. Each of our previous three cycles, we've looked for 'signs' - the paw print from Carl, the fortune cookies, a transfer on my birthday. I promised myself that I WOULD NOT DO THAT THIS CYCLE. But, I guess I am forever an optimist and I can't help but see these things as good luck. :)
Finally, I have been reading Let's Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson and oh, friends - my sides...they are splitting. Lawson's book is a memoir of her childhood growing up in rural Texas with a less-than-traditional family including her taxidermist father (that's a father that is a taxidermist...not a father that has BEEN taxidermied...just to be clear). I was reading parts of it aloud to Nick (against his will...but he was folding laundry and kind of a captive audience) and I could barely get through some of it, I was laughing so hard. It's completely irreverent and managed to keep me from focusing on the stress of IVF for a few hours, so that certainly says something.
My transfer has been schedule for 7:30 am on Friday so send some good thoughts our way then. XOXO
Monday, April 16, 2012
My Ability to Obsess Knows No Bounds
So, first a quick update and then a moderately humorous story about this weekend.
Update: the doctor's office called and nine of our 15 eggs have fertilized...some may start to tomorrow as well. We are cautiously optimistic!
Story...so once the pressure of 'will we or won't we cancel this cycle' lifted, I found myself distinctly lacking anything to obsess over. Fortunately, I believe it is the job of weather people to scare the living jeebus out of all of humanity, so I quickly found a replacement anxiety...tornadoes! Before I go any further in the story, let me say - I am so glad that the tornado this weekend in Witchita didn't cause any fatalities but I'm terribly sorry for the damage it, and other tornadoes around the country did. I am not making light of any of those situations. Tornadoes are truly scary and as we saw in Joplin last year, devastating at times. The point of this story is to, well, illustrate how my craziness knows no bounds...not to make light of the seriousness of the situation.
That said, I think we can all agree that any possibility for extreme weather does seem to get the weather folk hyped up into a near frenzy...Al Roker was practically foaming at the mouth...this weekend's severe weather outbreak was no different. All I heard for 48 hours was "potential for massive tornado outbreaks", "major hail and wind damage", and "dangerous lightning". Then, they started referencing 'emergency kits'.
My only real experience with emergency kits is the bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips I keep in the pantry for uncontrollable chocolate cravings, but I quickly realized this was not the same thing. Words like 'weather radios' and 'rations' were bandied about. And of course, this winter has been completely bizarre...so all of this information added up into my head to...must make emergency kit to survive (surely) impending tornado. I don't really know what it was in me that decided this was Doomsday-worthy, but I hightailed it over to RadioShack to pick up a weather radio.
Apparently, along with all of the rest of Kansas City. The sales clerk glared at me (I waited until 3pm on Saturday to freak out...I guess the rest of the city was ahead of my own personal Impending Doom Clock) and informed me that all she had left were the non-'wake you up' weather radios. I told her I wasn't even aware 'waking me up' was an option but since I can't sleep through my cat yakking on the carpet, I didn't really foresee this as a problem. She showed me to the pile of picked over weather radios and began to catalog the various differences (Solar powered but not battery powered! Hand crank powered but not solar powered! Charges your cell phone! Flashlight! Performs minor surgeries!). Not wanting to appear ignorant of the important features in a weather radio, I did what I typically default to in shopping situations. Which is the prettiest at the best price? I'll take that one.
And so, I took my weather radio home (after having bought an insane amount of batteries, as well) opened it up and stuck some batteries in. I felt better already! Smugly, I looked down the street at my neighbors...surely, THEY didn't have weather radios and mentally catalogued which neighbors I would have to inform of Impending Doom.
Next, I needed to create an emergency kit. I scoured the house looking for emergency kit worthy items, which included:
-bottles of water
-Kashi granola bars
-a half empty bottle of hand sanitizer
-Clean clothes and a spare pair of shoes for myself (I allotted Nick some space in the kit for his own clean clothes but he grunted at me...a kind of grunt that seemed to imply I was WASTING MY TIME)
-Extra hair ties
-Baby wipes
-Extra cat food and cat food dishes
-Medicines
-Wedding photos
-Folder with our important documents in it
-Flashlights
-Extra cell phone charger
-Extra cell phone batteries
-laptop
-toilet paper and paper towels
-camera
Frankly, for a spur of the moment emergency kit, I was quite pleased with myself. However, this did take up two duffel bags...and I quickly realized I would also need to grab the cats and head to the basement along with the bags. I practiced a couple of 'cat grab and bag grab' maneuvers down the stairs and timed myself...about 45 seconds (would have been shorter but Ernie got away from me - I ended up sticking him in the back, zipping it up. I left his head out - don't worry!). I had forgotten in my calculations that the other cat, Zoe, ALWAYS heads to the basement automatically during the storms so I wouldn't have to worry about her.
I felt pretty content with my last minute preparations and settled down with Nick for a quiet evening at home. As luck would have it, my preparations were completely unnecessary, as the storms missed us almost completely. Unfortunately, Nebraska, Iowa and Kansas were not so lucky, but I thank my lucky stars that we were missed this time. In all seriousness - I don't know why I've never really given much thought to emergency preparations, but I think I'm going to work on creating a 'real' emergency kit given our location in Tornado Alley. There are some great lists on Pinterest that break up the items you need to purchase by month or week so it's not such an up-front cost. Plus, it's exactly the type of activity to distract me from embryo-update and pregnancy-test waiting. :)
Update: the doctor's office called and nine of our 15 eggs have fertilized...some may start to tomorrow as well. We are cautiously optimistic!
Story...so once the pressure of 'will we or won't we cancel this cycle' lifted, I found myself distinctly lacking anything to obsess over. Fortunately, I believe it is the job of weather people to scare the living jeebus out of all of humanity, so I quickly found a replacement anxiety...tornadoes! Before I go any further in the story, let me say - I am so glad that the tornado this weekend in Witchita didn't cause any fatalities but I'm terribly sorry for the damage it, and other tornadoes around the country did. I am not making light of any of those situations. Tornadoes are truly scary and as we saw in Joplin last year, devastating at times. The point of this story is to, well, illustrate how my craziness knows no bounds...not to make light of the seriousness of the situation.
That said, I think we can all agree that any possibility for extreme weather does seem to get the weather folk hyped up into a near frenzy...Al Roker was practically foaming at the mouth...this weekend's severe weather outbreak was no different. All I heard for 48 hours was "potential for massive tornado outbreaks", "major hail and wind damage", and "dangerous lightning". Then, they started referencing 'emergency kits'.
My only real experience with emergency kits is the bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips I keep in the pantry for uncontrollable chocolate cravings, but I quickly realized this was not the same thing. Words like 'weather radios' and 'rations' were bandied about. And of course, this winter has been completely bizarre...so all of this information added up into my head to...must make emergency kit to survive (surely) impending tornado. I don't really know what it was in me that decided this was Doomsday-worthy, but I hightailed it over to RadioShack to pick up a weather radio.
Apparently, along with all of the rest of Kansas City. The sales clerk glared at me (I waited until 3pm on Saturday to freak out...I guess the rest of the city was ahead of my own personal Impending Doom Clock) and informed me that all she had left were the non-'wake you up' weather radios. I told her I wasn't even aware 'waking me up' was an option but since I can't sleep through my cat yakking on the carpet, I didn't really foresee this as a problem. She showed me to the pile of picked over weather radios and began to catalog the various differences (Solar powered but not battery powered! Hand crank powered but not solar powered! Charges your cell phone! Flashlight! Performs minor surgeries!). Not wanting to appear ignorant of the important features in a weather radio, I did what I typically default to in shopping situations. Which is the prettiest at the best price? I'll take that one.
And so, I took my weather radio home (after having bought an insane amount of batteries, as well) opened it up and stuck some batteries in. I felt better already! Smugly, I looked down the street at my neighbors...surely, THEY didn't have weather radios and mentally catalogued which neighbors I would have to inform of Impending Doom.
Next, I needed to create an emergency kit. I scoured the house looking for emergency kit worthy items, which included:
-bottles of water
-Kashi granola bars
-a half empty bottle of hand sanitizer
-Clean clothes and a spare pair of shoes for myself (I allotted Nick some space in the kit for his own clean clothes but he grunted at me...a kind of grunt that seemed to imply I was WASTING MY TIME)
-Extra hair ties
-Baby wipes
-Extra cat food and cat food dishes
-Medicines
-Wedding photos
-Folder with our important documents in it
-Flashlights
-Extra cell phone charger
-Extra cell phone batteries
-laptop
-toilet paper and paper towels
-camera
Frankly, for a spur of the moment emergency kit, I was quite pleased with myself. However, this did take up two duffel bags...and I quickly realized I would also need to grab the cats and head to the basement along with the bags. I practiced a couple of 'cat grab and bag grab' maneuvers down the stairs and timed myself...about 45 seconds (would have been shorter but Ernie got away from me - I ended up sticking him in the back, zipping it up. I left his head out - don't worry!). I had forgotten in my calculations that the other cat, Zoe, ALWAYS heads to the basement automatically during the storms so I wouldn't have to worry about her.
I felt pretty content with my last minute preparations and settled down with Nick for a quiet evening at home. As luck would have it, my preparations were completely unnecessary, as the storms missed us almost completely. Unfortunately, Nebraska, Iowa and Kansas were not so lucky, but I thank my lucky stars that we were missed this time. In all seriousness - I don't know why I've never really given much thought to emergency preparations, but I think I'm going to work on creating a 'real' emergency kit given our location in Tornado Alley. There are some great lists on Pinterest that break up the items you need to purchase by month or week so it's not such an up-front cost. Plus, it's exactly the type of activity to distract me from embryo-update and pregnancy-test waiting. :)
Sunday, April 15, 2012
A Day in Pictures
Some scenes from today...
Post procedure snuggling with Ernie...
Rainbow we saw right before walking into the doctor's office...
More gratuitous Ernie pics...
Also, we had a call from the embryologist...they were able to fertilize 15 of our 17 eggs so that's great news! Hoping for continued good news each day!
Also, we had a call from the embryologist...they were able to fertilize 15 of our 17 eggs so that's great news! Hoping for continued good news each day!
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