Dear Embryos

Dear Embroys,

At 10:17am this morning, 2 of the most beautiful embryos were placed inside me. It was such a surreal moment. Your dad and I were gowned up and had silly hats on and covers over our shoes on to make sure everything was clean and sterile. They had to check my bladder to make sure it was good and full to assist with the transfer, and believe me, it was!!! Dr. Honea came in the procedure room and the embryologist who thawed y'all spoke with her and gave her a picture of both of you. She said, "wow these are some really pretty embryos guys!" My heart smiled knowing that you both were pretty already! I was a little nervous before we got there because I didn't know whether or not you both would survive the thawing process since y'all had been frozen. Luckily, the doctor gave me a Valium to take at 9:00am to relax me, so I was thrilled to hear y'all did so good with the thawing process. Once I was all prepped by the Doctor and the RN the embryologist brought you both in there and you were placed ever so gently inside my uterus. Your dad could see you go in on the ultrasound machine and he smiled so big when he saw that... They gave us a picture of y'all inside me since I wasn't able to see at the time. Y'all already look so cozy in there. :) Dr. Honea held hands with us and the RN in the room and she prayed over us and over y'all and that God would grant us the desires of our hearts and that it would be His will that you both would stick and be healthy babies. I had such a peace during the prayer. Afterwards, they told me I could get right up and go home due to some new research that has just come out. Your dad drove me to acupuncture to relax afterwards and I slept the whole session and was so relaxed. I woke up and thought I was in the bed at home! I am now on bedrest at home with my feet up and your dad is fixing me lunch! I am so hopeful and prayerful that you both will stick around with me for 9 months and allow me to be your mom! I know I won't be perfect but I will love you so much and I promise I will care for you and will raise you in a Christian home and make sure you know the love of Christ! I can't even begin to tell you how much I have longed for you to stick around with me and I will do everything in my power not to let you down, so don't let me down! We love you both so much already and can't wait to find out at the end of next week whether or not you have done what you have to do to be our babies!

Love,
Mom and Dad

Embryo Transfer Monday!

We finally can get the ball rolling with this cycle. An FET cycle can be a little boring compared to a fresh cycle cause there isn't much going on but now we can get to the good stuff! Went for my uterine lining check this morning and had an ultrasound. My lining had to be .8 in order to continue and my lining was .81 so that was great! The nurse said it looked good and fluffy and ready for a baby! All my lab work was normal as well. So tonight I will start those dreaded progesterone shots... I will inject 1cc tonight and tomorrow night and then I will inject 2cc a day until pregnancy test. I will also start an antibiotic tonight. The embryo transfer is scheduled for this Monday (24th) at 10:00am! Yay, we finally have a date to look forward to! Be praying that our embryos survive the thaw and that everything goes smoothly! And obviously be praying with us that these stick this time in Jesus' name!  I have such a peace about this cycle  and I don't know why but I trust God completely and trust His perfect timing! God is faithful!

FET: a quick update

I haven't updated you guys in a while so I just wanted to write a quick update since everyone keeps asking me what's going on in the process, haha! Not much has happened since my last post. I am taking a 2mg estrogen pill twice a day and will continue to do so. I go this Wednesday for an ultrasound to check my uterine lining. It needs to be .8 in order to proceed with the transfer. If the uterine lining is thick enough, I will start the dreaded progesterone shots on Thursday night and the embryo transfer will be either Monday the 24th or Tuesday the 25th. I will know the exact day this Wednesday so be on the lookout for another blogpost. Until then, continue to pray and believe with us for a miracle or two! :) God is good!

Will the 3rd time be the charm??

Our frozen embryo transfer cycle has finally begun!!! It seemed like an eternity waiting for AF (aunt flow) to arrive but she's here and we can finally get the ball rolling. So I'm going to recap what we are doing this cycle cause I have been asked lots of questions about it. We are doing a frozen embryo transfer (FET). That means we will be thawing 2 of the 6 embryos we have in a freezer at the fertility clinic and transferring them into my uterus. This process is very short and sweet and no where near as detailed and invasive as the last 2 fresh cycles we have done. Tomorrow I will start taking estrogen twice a day (2mg tablets) and will take that for 9 days and then go in for a uterine lining check. They want my lining to be .8cm thick for the transfer but hopefully it will be even thicker! After that, I will start the dreaded progesterone shots every day (my butt is still sore from the last cycle). The embryo transfer should be approximately March 19 but could change a little. Will know for sure after the lining check. So we are hoping the third time is the charm and that 1 or both of those embryos will stick this time and stay put for 9 months! God is always faithful and we continue to trust Him and His perfect timing! Continue to pray and believe with us for a miracle baby or 2! :)

The Barren Woman

When you hear the word "barren" what comes to mind? The dictionary defines barren as unfruitful,  unproductive, incapable of producing offspring, and sterile. The Bible speaks of many barren women such as Sarah, Rebekah, Hannah, Rachel, and Elizabeth. These woman prayed and petitioned God for a child and He opened up their womb and blessed them. When I think of the word "barren," it makes me think of an old woman with long gray hair with a old broken uterus. I don't picture a 29 almost 30 year old blonde haired woman when I hear that word, but that in fact is what I am. I am a barren woman.

I lay here sleepless at 1230 am thinking about what might have been if my only pregnancy would have stuck, that child would be 14 months old now probably running around and into everything and instead of being sleepless because I had coffee at 9pm, I would be sleepless because he or she would be needing me to wrap my arms around them after waking up at 11pm and being fussy. I often wonder and ask God why did He allow me to get pregnant once and then take it away from me? As if it was a cruel joke of some kind... But it wasn't a cruel joke, it was all apart of His plan. I may never understand or know why I still lay here childless almost 2 years later but God knows why. He knows every hair on my head and every thought I think. He knows why our little sweet pea never got to meet us and why this infertility journey has been so long and so costly. If you think about it, we have 5 babies waiting to meet us one day when we walk through those pearly gates. One of which was our sweet pea and the other 4 were those beautiful little embryos that were placed inside me but never made it. I know my dad is up there right now enjoying those 5 babies and getting to be a grandfather up in Heaven. I may be "barren" right now on this earth, but I'm a mom alright, a mom to 5 heavenly babies.

 All I have right now on this earth is a promise, a promise from God that one day I will get to be an earthly mom and I will continue to pray and petition God for that promise to come forth and for my womb to open up and be barren no more! So if you read this tonight because you are sleepless due to a fussy or sick child, hold them just a little tighter tonight because you are holding treasure, treasure that God entrusted you with, and while I understand you may be tired because he or she causes you many sleepless nights, I am tired, too. Tired of having to continue to wait and be patient for my turn.... Hopelessly praying that my turn is sooner rather than later. So for now I remain a barren woman, but my faith will not be shaken, for one day Gods timing will come and He will bless me. All the money, the years, the tears, the anger, the grief, and the anxiety will all be worth it when those eyes look into mine and my heart will smile because I will no longer be the barren woman.

I've been scratched

Today I was scheduled for the endometrial scratch procedure. I got there at 11:15 with a full bladder and 2 Aleve on board to help with the pain as instructed to do so. I was called back at 11:30 and taken to a room. The last time I had this done it was painful but tolerable as I have a pretty high pain tolerance. This time, it literally felt like a knife carving out my insides. I don't cry much and when I do I really don't like crying in front of other people but the tears were just flowing down and I just lost it. It hurt so bad! The nurse said I turned white as a ghost and they made me stay lying down on the table for a while. After the pain finally subsided I was fine, having some cramping now but that is normal. Geez Louise.... I don't want to ever do that again! Sheesh! So now we just wait for Aunt Flow to show up which should be sometime around March 1. Once she shows I will start taking estrogen pills on day 2 of my cycle and the FET cycle will be underway. We are hopeful that this part of the journey will end soon and we can focus on the pregnancy journey next! Gods plan exceeds our plans and we continue to trust in His plan but praying this is His plan for us! Psalm 113:9 "He settles the barren woman in her home as a happy mother of children. Praise The Lord."

Hope is still Alive!

So today was the big appointment with Dr. Honea where we ask, "Why the heck didn't this work, again?" To be honest, last Thursday I didn't have much hope left. I felt like this just would never happen for us. But a lot can happen in 1 day and in 1 week. The healing process is in full swing, and I can't say I am completely healed by any means but I definitely am feeling much better. Dr. Honea really opened our eyes today and kept hope alive! We spoke with her in her office for an hour, followed by another hour with nursing and lab work. When we walked in she asked me how I was, I responded with "very frustrated".  She replied that she felt frustrated as well cause this was such a great cycle. First off, we found out that our remaining 6 embryos can be transferred via a Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET) for free since we are in the shared risk program. That is huge! We thought we could only do 1 FET and then we would have to pay to use the others. So that's a nice blessing in itself! She feels like there could be 3 different things that could have prevented pregnancy. Firstly, she thinks there could be a genetic issue with the embryos we have transferred so far. She said 50% of all embryos for someone my age are abnormal and would cause you to not be pregnant. Which is why it can take a normal fertile couple several months to achieve pregnancy on their own. She thinks we have just had an unlucky combination of genetically bad embryos if that makes sense...  She drew a picture of 8 embryos and 4 of them are bad and 4 are good. We have used 4 embryos so far and could have just used the 4 bad ones. Secondly, could be an implantation issue. We will do the scratch procedure again to help with that. There is a test they can do for an implantation issue but is expensive and not completely accurate so she said if next round doesn't work we will do the test. Lastly, she said some people just don't get pregnant on fresh IVF cycles for unknown reasons, but can be due to the estrogen/progesterone balance from a fresh cycle and the stress the egg retrieval can put on your body and some people just get pregnant with frozen cycles instead of fresh. She also mentioned possibly doing another fresh IVF cycle and doing PGD (genetics) on the embryos if this next FET doesn't work and we will know if there is something wrong with the embryos. Even though our embryos look perfect as far as the grade goes, that still doesn't mean they are good genetically. Another fresh cycle would also be included in the shared risk program so that would also be a nice blessing. They also checked my blood for some auto immune disorders and my thyroid levels to make sure there isn't something weird going on! So what's next?? We will do a frozen embryo transfer when my next period comes which should be in about 3 weeks or so. The frozen cycle is very short compared to a fresh cycle. I will take estrogen pills for about 9 days then progesterone shots for 6 days then do the transfer. We will use the best 2 frozen embryos we have and hopefully they will survive the thawing process and the others will remain frozen. Dr. Honea said we do not need to panic by any means and are no where near talking about other alternatives such as adoption or surrogacy. So we left with our heads lifted and some hope that maybe our dream will still happen! Thanks for all the encouraging words last week, we read every one of them and we are so blessed and thankful to have so many people praying with us and rooting for us! God remains faithful and good to us and we will continue to trust and believe in His plans for our life! I realize some of this post may be confusing to those who don't know much about this process but I will try to break it all down as we get to it in the process! :)