4th Time's a Charm (0dp5dt)

Throughout this cycle I kept asking myself, "How does one get excited for their fourth embryo transfer?" I may have asked you guys that too. It's the same theme I've struggled with this whole month- that overriding theme of building hope and excitement while guarding yourself against failure and grief.

I can honestly say that today? Building excitement was no problem. No problem whatsoever. We hadn't heard anything about our embryos since Tuesday, and weren't really sure what to expect. On Tuesday (day 3), we found out that all 17 were still cleaving, all were 8-11 celled, and all grade 1. Holy octomom, we had HOPE. But then again, we had a great day 3 fert report last time, so that knocked me back a little too. Hope, but not TOO much hope.

I did my pre-transfer acupuncture, took my valium, and promptly got drunk. I mean hey, I accidentally took 10mg instead of 5mg, sue me. It was awesome :)

We were quickly led back into the transfer room and brought a picture of the two embryos selected for transfer. As soon as we saw the picture, all the excitement that had been questioned for the last few weeks exploded my heart and I started crying. (shocker, me? crying?)

Meet Turtle and Penguin! (and my widow's peak)

We had a grade 1AA hugely hatching blast. In fact, the embryologist said "Hurry up and get that thing in there!" The second blast was also grade 1AA, and had just just started hatching too! Double score! We very briefly discussed whether we would transfer one or two, but decided on both based on our history of failure. And that it's probably not good to freeze something that's already started to hatch.

Transfer PDLAMBLATI* from In Due Time

I laid down and we got all prepped, saw the awesome flash of embryonic medium whooshing into my cute ute, and checked that the catheter was empty. Everything went off perfectly, a textbook transfer.

Some resting, post-transfer acupuncture, and earning karma points by calling in a small brush fire in the median in our town (on a very dry windy day), then more resting at home completed our day. I have since bribed the embie with delicious chicken quesadillas, pineapple, and a cuppy cake. I will stop at nothing to get at least one of these guys to stick around.

Funfetti FTW!

Here's hoping that finally, truly, fourth time is a charm. Beta is a week from Saturday at 9dp5dt.

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*PDLAMBLATI- Please don't look at my business, look at THESE instead!

Mmmm... Crow... (fert report)

So remember that whiny girl who was complaining on Saturday about how she only retrieved 21 eggs? Because, hey! 21 is way less than 36. Even though those 36 got her diddly squat? Yeah, her.

She's eating a healthy serving of crow right now.

We found out that out of those 21 egg-tastic ovum, 18 were mature.

Of the 18 mature, 17 fertilized.

Yeah, baby :)

Last time, of the 36 retrieved, 22 were mature, and 18 fertilized. So we're pretty much on the same damn track. Just with better bang for our buck.

I knew my whining was premature, but I just couldn't help it. I'll blame it on the hormones and anesthesia haze.

I'm recovering quite well, I must say. I am much more mobile than last time, and don't feel the need to physically hold my stomach to my body hunched over every time I get up. I was even (barely) able to sleep on my stomach the night of retrieval... not bad! I am, however, bleeding still, though I guess that's to be expected when they have to poke your lady bits FOUR TIMES to get to one ornery ovary. Not so much blood that I *need* to wear a liner, but enough that I know it's still fresh. And pink/red. (thank you baby aspirin)

The only annoying part is that it took nearly 48-hours and four colace pills for my post-op-poop. Which was frickin' glorious, I tell you. I'm down 1.5 pounds from transfer morning, which is a great sign too- fingers crossed that I escaped the dreaded OHSS!

Our check with the clinic today revealed that all 17 are still cleaving, though I don't have details on how many cells everyone has (which drives me bonkers). We'll get another report tomorrow. It's almost certainly going to be a day 5 transfer on Thursday.

Hope. I just... might... have it...

Part 2- Transfer Day (3dp5dt)

So Dr Boy is funny. He's all, That's so mean of you to just stop the story where you did! I know how it turns out and even *I* want to know how it ends!

So I apologize for making you wait. And I feel bad because some of the comments of gotten so far are going to be all "ohhhh, yeah.... ummmm.... I mean, what you decided is fine too! Swearzies!" Or you'll be judgy mcjudgersons but that's ok too.

And, we're back.

Saturday, Dec 10: After a short but restful sleep, we head in for the transfer. Still pretty emotionally exhausted from all the one-or-two talk from the day and night before, but still comfortable to transfer one embie, given the right circumstances.

Transfer PDLAMBLATI.
I call them my embry-ho-ho-ho socks :)

We (my mommasita, Dr Boy, and I) waited nervously in the waiting room, and were called back a few minutes later. I had woken up with cramps that day, worse than I had actually had on Friday, so I was kindof terrified they wouldn't let us go through with the transfer. I was overreacting of course, but still. After I'm ready on the table, Dr S comes in and gives us our day 5 embryology report.

Which threw me into a breakdown of epic proportions and a tailspin of indecision.

Of our perfect embies, the ones that were growing in mass quantities at the proper speed, had failed us. Only 1 of the 17 (!!) still growing on that day had reached blast. On effing day 5.

Sheeeeeeet.

That was not part of the plan!!! We had not accounted for that possibility in our calculations!!! We had decided to transfer one, knowing that we'd likely have a bunch of other blasts to freeze for backup.

And we didn't have the reinforcements we were planning on. The reinforcements that would qualify us for the elective single embryo transfer program (ESET- 2 free frozen cycles if this godforbid failed). The reinforcements that would make us feel secure in only transferring one.

Here are some reasons I shouldn't have started sobbing and staring back and forth at my mom and Dr Boy. And flipping out not knowing what to do.
- Our blast? It was picture perfect. And given the highest grade our clinic gives out. So it was a pretty awesome blast.
- We still had 16 others growing, a bunch of which weren't far behind. By the embryologist's guess, only off by 6-12 hrs.
- If others hit blast *that day*, we *might* be able to retroactively qualify for the ESET program.

Of course, none of that was truly sinking in. All that was going through my damn head was that we only had one damn blast to transfer and now what the hell do we do.

Dr S really asked the question that put it into perspective. In a week, when we're going in for the beta, what question would we be saying to ourselves. Awww eff-balls, we could be having twins! Or, Awww, eff-balls, what if this doesn't work.

Dr Boy decided it for us- we go with two. The fear of failure at that point in time far outweighed the fear of a multiple pregnancy. With all the things that can go wrong between morula and blast, it's no sure bet that the rest would get there. It's no sure thing that even a picture perfect embie will stick. And we were never really driven by the financial incentive of ESET to begin with.

It was completely NOT the decision that I expected to walk out of the office having made, but I'm so glad we did. So glad. I still feel a bit selfish, but what's done is done, and I know that given the circumstances, we did what we needed to do to feel confident that this cycle was handled properly, both by us and our Dr.

Meet our little embies, a *perfect* blast, and a compacting blast, whatever that means.

We love them already. More than you can imagine.
(NO! I'm NOT crying right now. I don't know what you're talking about.)

I spent the rest of the day horizontal, relaxing and watching tv, and eventually saying goodbye to mommasita who had to head back to LA LA land. It was so, so amazing to have her here for the week. I would *not* have recovered as quickly without her. And I also would have driven Dr Boy batshit crazy. 

Sunday, Dec 11: Uhhhh.... boring day. Still horizontal on the couch. More movies. And resting. And... what is that? Period crampiness? Wha wha? I hear that's a good thing, but seriously, it felt like I was about to get my period. I'm still having them, but Sunday and Monday were the strongest, for sure. 

The other entertaining part about Sunday! I had just told the IVF nurse the day before about how the PIO shots were totally not that bad, and I'm so lucky to have a Dr at home injecting me, and blah blah blah PIO is totally not the devil. Then BAM. I can't feel my ass. For serious. I guess the needle (inevitably) went through a minor superficial nerve, and as Dr Boy was rubbing the site after the shot, I realized I couldn't feel it. Awesomesauce. It's mostly just on the surface, I can still feel the deep tissue and all, but no surface feeling. At all. I changed my mind about the PIO that night.

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This is long enough so I'll tell you about the final Day 7 embryology report, and how many (if any) we had to freeze. Or you could just look on my sidebar to the right. And tell me that I'm a big baby over-reacting nincompoop. Or you could wait until I type it all up tomorrow when I'm not exhausted.

Thanks for sticking with me! Only 4 1/2 days until my beta!!!

I'm alive! And PUPO! (2dp5dt)

Get Well flowers, from the in-laws.... really pretty!

Ummm.... so I kindof dropped off the face of the IVF blogging scene, huh? I was soooo soooo tired mid-week and had my mom in town taking care of me- bad combination for keeping up with the updates! Then we had the transfer, and seriously, blogging while horizontal is effing annoying. So I didn't do it. I'll try and recap the last few days for ya'll.

Wednesday Dec 7: Called for an updated fert. report, and was told our embies were still growing strong! At 2 days past retrieval, we had 1 6-cell, 5 5-cell, 10 4-cell, and 1 3-cell embryos. A-effing-mazing. The discomfort from retrieval was getting a lot better at this point, completely attributed to the drill-sergeant I have for a mother with regards to my protein and fluid intake. Dr Boy helped too :)

EAT MORE PROTEIN! AND DRINK  YOUR WATER! Or else...

I was still relying pretty heavily on my heating pad though- I swear that thing is an egg retrieval LIFE SAVER. Oh, and the colace. Even if you think you won't have a regularity problem? Take it. I did twice a day after the Annoyed Army Wife mentioned how pleasant post-retrieval moments can be. Never had a single problem :) Also? Lupron triggers don't light up an HPT. I checked :)

Thursday Dec 8: Called for an updated fert report, and to double-check we weren't doing a day three transfer. Found out Dr S was bragging about my embryo quality at the staff meeting that day... woohoo! Brag-worthy embies!!! We had a bunch of 8, 9, and 10-celled embies at that point (morulas?). Scheduled for a Saturday morning transfer. I felt a ton better that day, good enough to go out to lunch, on a walk, and rode in the car for a bit to pick a friend up from the airport.

Bedrest sure is hard, ya'll.

Friday Dec 9: Went to work for a 1/2 day. Definitely overdid it, activity-wise, but am glad I did in hindsight. I'm bedrest BORED! Called for my daily updated fert report, and found out that we had lost one or two embies, but most were still going strong. Crazy! Amazing, but crazy. Finally confident that we avoided the dreaded OHSS, as my weight only fluctuated by a couple of pounds through the week. As of today, I'm only up 6 lbs from my pre-IVF weight. I attribute this to the rapid increase in my sugar intake. And the 36 eggs retrieved.

Friday is the day that I pretty much went crazy, though. We were finally at (side note: my dog just ate a spider. i am thankful and grossed out all at the same time) a point where we had to make the one-or-two decision. I could write pages on this, but it really boiled down to two things. One, I didn't think I could handle a BFN if we only transferred one, knowing that we didn't do "everything" possible to make this succeed. Two, Dr Boy and my Mommasita were worried about the repercussions of a twin pregnancy. Not the aftermath- we know we could handle two at once financially and time-wise. It's more the medical perspective, and the increased risk to both me and the babies. I know people do it all the time. I know that. The twitters helped a lot- I got a lot of unique perspectives from people who had been there and done that. Ultimately though, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was pushing to transfer two for selfish reasons. I finally came to the conclusion that in the long run, I couldn't live with the fact that if something happened to the babies, it would have been because I was too selfish to just transfer one.

We decided that if we had multiple good quality embies at the blast stage on Saturday morning, we would transfer one. Our clinic freezes embies once they hit blast, which meant that if godforbid it didn't work out this time around, we knew we'd definitely have good options for an FET. They give them until day 7 to reach that point before they consider them non-viable. If we didn't, we'd go with two. This decision was INCREDIBLY hard-fought and stressful. I was pretty damn irritable and bitchy all night, but after a lot of tears and sobs and tissue, both Dr Boy and I were comfortable with our decision to go with one.

Sushi nomnomnomnom....

We went out for sushi that night as my "last supper." It was amazingly delicious. Even Dr Boy ate some! I consider this a big win. We all went to bed pretty darn late, completely exhausted after all the emotional discussions that went on throughout the day.

Of course though, the more you plan, the more things get shaken up.

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I'll finish this off tomorrow... I'm exhausted and have to head back to work tomorrow!!! It's the office holiday party though, so at least it'll be a fun day :) Missed you guys!

Oh Chai! (CD15) (& fert report)

I'm feeling a bit better than yesterday. I felt considerably worse as the day wore on yesterday, which I suppose is normal as your body starts to realize that it's lady bits have been assaulted by a needle and vacuum probe. I slept horribly. I am definitely a stomach sleeper- something I attempted at 3am but was incredibly unsuccessful at. Or rather, it was highly successful as long as I didn't need to breathe, which lasted for all of 15 seconds. Sleep Fail. 

Doing better today. I don't feel like I need to hold my stomach to my body as I walk anymore. I swear, I felt like if I didn't physically push my stomach towards my body, it would fall off. It's like I had absolutely no control over my abdominal cavity. Which is also probably why I'm super sore in my ribcage just under my boobs, as I think I'm using those muscles to sit and stand more than I clearly ever did in the past. Oh, and Medrol? It gives me a case of the nausea. Real bad.

Enough bitching though.

Fertilization report is in!!! 

Of the 36 eggs retrieved, 22 were mature.

Of the 22 mature eggs, 18 fertilized.

18 fertilized eggs. I know this is an absolutely effing fabulous number of embies to start off with. <insert ungrateful remarks here> It's just a little hard when you see that it's literally 50% of where we started yesterday. <end ungratefulness> But I'm not going to look a gift embie in the mouth, I'm going to focus on the 18. Not the 36. The wonderful, positively great, worked extremely hard for 18.

Also? 18 is a very lucky number in the Jewish faith. It represents life. The symbol for it, Chai (pronounced "hi" with the weird throaty ch sound) it pictured above. It's a popular charm to wear and have around, even the phrase "L 'Chaim!" means "to life"! It's GOT to be a sign, right? Right?

So for now, I will proclaim L'chaim! as I take my PIO. And keep hoping that some of these 18 embies end up as a part of our lives in a concrete way, not just little guys trying to grow in a dish.