The Results Are in and...

When your going through IVF, everything seems like a wait. Not to fear though, many great things have happened of which are important to share. First, we had our embryo transfer on the 15th and had two embryos transferred into my body. Here is how the this procedure went. Before the transfer, I had to drink a lot of water in order to have a full bladder during the procedure. Once in the operation room, my full bladder acted as a window for the doctor to see into my uterus using the ultrasound. The procedure was highly uncomfortable to say the least. However, it was nice during the procedure to see our embryos on a big screen TV to identify them and our names. Austin and I witnessed our embryos sucked up from the petri dish and then into a catheter before they were brought into the operating room to be implanted into my uterus. The procedure went fine, but then we had to wait until last night to hear the results of the implantation. If you are interested, take a quick detour and watch this video of how the implantation procedure is done:


After this, we had to wait ... and wait ... and wait for what seemed like eternity: two weeks. I had to remind myself each day that I was one day closer to finding out if the embryo transfer was successful. The final days leading up to the pregnancy blood test were so intense. I experienced a lot of lower back pain, off and on, and I couldn't tell if it was pregnancy symptoms or menstrual pains. I was a mess. I couldn't do much else besides try and sleep off the pain. Austin jumped in and helped support me around the house so we could keep up on the housework. Austin helps around the house anyway, but with my pain and aches, Austin took on even more housework after he finished working two jobs during the day.
Finally, the two week wait was over. We went into the clinic and had the nurses draw my blood. Then, Austin and I waited in Salt Lake at the South Towne Mall to hear what the results would be. Kinda funny, but we were actually outside the Motherhood Maternity store at the South Towne Mall when the infertility clinic called with the test results. Both of our hearts were beating fast and the anxiety was coming to a climax ... then we heard the consoling words that are hard to describe: Well, we got your blood results back and we have exciting news ... You are four weeks pregnant!!! This overwhelming gush of happiness, tears, etc. came over Austin and me. Whew! What a relief. After five years of trying to get pregnant: the time was finally here!

Cautious thoughts: We are not very far along, and so we are still cautiously optimistic that the pregnancy will continue and we will not miscarry. We are elated, however, to make it to this point! I continue to take my prenatal vitamin and my progesterone suppository every day to help ward off miscarriage. Austin and I will go back to the clinic on February 6th to see how many yolk sacs we have and to make sure the pregnancy is not ectopic.

P.S. In regards to our other twelve embryos that we had growing in the lab, none of them survived to be frozen. We were in shock because they were given such good report cards on day 3 of their growth. Apparently, by day 6 when they do the actual freezing, all the rest of the embryos were beginning to grow strangely and couldn't be saved. It was a great disappointment, but we are excited that we are pregnant from the embryos that were transferred into me. Stay tuned...

The Future Looks Brighter than Our Past

Austin and I have been sitting on pins and needles the past month. This second IVF attempt has been more stressful for both of us because we knew what could go wrong before egg retrieval. This time, we did a Lupron IVF protocol instead of an antagonist protocol like last time. That means we had even more shots this time around. Austin became an expert at sticking me with needles every night.

Well, yesterday we had our egg retrieval surgery and we were able to retrieve 19 eggs. Today we received a call from the clinic letting us know that out of those 19 eggs, 14 eggs fertilized normally. We are test tube pregnant! The actual embryo implantation, when they transfer the embryos into my body will most likely take place on Sunday. The clinic is now growing our embryos for 5 days in the lab to get us to the blastocyst stage. Embryos that are 5 day embryos have a greater chance of implanting and achieving pregnancy. We couldn't be more excited!

Because we retrieved 19 eggs, however, I am at a higher risk for ovarian hyperstimulation, which can be a pretty serious problem. I am supposed to drink a lot of sports drinks, salty soups, and take a medication called Cabergoline to help reduce the water retension in my stomach area. I'm just relieved to have the eggs out of my body! We will write later with how many embryos made it to the 5 day blastocysts and how the implantation went.

P.S. If interested, here is a very informative video on what happens after the eggs are retrieved during the IVF process. Austin and I had the sperm injected into the egg as shown in the ICSI process of this video.