My Once Upon a Time...

Our third Embryo Transfer was Monday, November 27th. I had counted down the days to this date ever since they told me when it was going to be, and while I was excited, I was also having bouts of anxiety. I was so nervous about getting another negative and I didn’t want to fall in a hole again, especially during Christmas Time.  I had an ultrasound the week before to make sure my lining was on point. I asked the doctor what number he was looking for with the lining and he told me 7 and mine was a 13, so everything looked perfect. I also asked him what he recommended regarding bed rest, because I was really struggling with making a decision on what to do. You see, with Fox’s transfer (different doctor) they recommended two days of strict bedrest and I literally stayed horizontal for four full days. I heard from a lot of other people that their doctors didn’t recommend any bedrest though, because it prevents blood to flow to the uterus, so I was very confused and didn’t know what w...

My heart is heavy today, after staring at negative pregnancy tests for the  last three days. Just waiting for that second line to show up, but it  never does. I haven't taken a home pregnancy test in over four years, but  when I did, all the feelings came rushing back from a time in my life that  almost broke me. I've seen so many of these tests and it always happens  the same way. I stare at them, I hold them up to the light, trying to make  out a second line that isn't there, throw them in the trash, just to take  them out of the trash again an hour later to check again. My blood draw isn't until tomorrow, but I have no doubt in my mind that  the results will be the same. During our last cycle in February, I didn't test at home, but hearing the  bad news from that rude nurse was so hard on me, that I decided I had to  get the answers on my own terms and in my own time. Now all I want to do  is move on, but they wo...

This post could also be titled "How to waste hundreds of dollars and gain heartache by not following directions”. Well actually, I didn’t get all of the directions, but I digress.  Next week should’ve been my next embryo transfer. After our last attempt in February resulted in a negative pregnancy test, September was our first opportunity to try again, because apparently traveling and pregnancy doesn’t work in the infertility world. I remember being so frustrated when I found out, because come on, September was 7 whole months away, but there wasn’t another choice. So once again, I had my heart set on a month, that ultimately wouldn’t work out. I counted the days down, calculated my “due date”, planned a pregnancy announcement…you name it, I did it. Heck, I even planned out the glorious day of bed rest I would get and I was so freaking excited about it…if you’re a mom, you’ll understand! Ha! I started medication at the beginning of August and took a mix of ...

Here we are, a month later, and I figured I would give you an update on what’s happening. First of all, I wanted to thank everyone who commented or messaged me after my post, I definitely felt the love and support and I love this little community we have here.  We are doing good. Just trotting along and passing the time. The initial weeks following our negative pregnancy test felt weird. I had it all planned out and all of the sudden it wasn’t happening anymore and I had to shift my mindset that there won’t be a November baby, and no pregnancy to announce. Ironically, the pregnancy announcement picture I had planned for over a year, was used earlier this month by one of my good friends. She obviously didn’t know of my plans and I didn’t know of hers, so I guess that idea is out the window and I will have to come up with something new. Oh well! I was excited to have our second babies close together, but it wasn’t meant to be. I’m happy for her. I’m in a much different place th...

I had it all planned out. For over a year, I knew exactly how it was going to happen. The timing was perfect, I knew how we would announce it, I designed props for the announcement, I had it all figured out. Or so I thought. I thought this was going to be easy, after all, it was easy the first time, I had done it before and the success rates were supposedly better this time around. Turns out they weren’t.  So when the nurse called me and started to deliver her news with “Unfortunately…”, I knew what was coming. I shook my head “no” to Katie, who was staring at me expectantly. She was just as surprised as I was.  For the last two weeks I walked around thinking I was pregnant. Turns out, I’m not. I didn’t think it would effect me as much as it does, I thought I would be fine if we got bad news. I tried to prepare myself for it, I kept telling myself that it didn’t work, that we wouldn’t be lucky like this twice in a row. But I guess deep down I thought that it wo...

This post is about three years late, but I wasn't ready to share this part of our lives back then. Even some of our friends don’t know about it, not because we are uncomfortable sharing, just because it’s not something that would come up in everyday conversations. Sometimes I share our story voluntarily, and sometimes I just don’t.  If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you might remember my post about our Embryo transfer . The part we never shared about our IVF journey, was the Egg Retrieval. Because if I would’ve told you about it, I would’ve also had to tell you that it wasn’t me who underwent the egg retrieval. It was Katie. So while I carried our precious boy for 9 months, he is Katie’s biological child.  So let’s back up and go all the way back to February of 2013. We had just found out that our 7th IUI with me didn’t work and I was devastated. I had tried it all…pills, injections, changing donors, changing doctors, crazy diets and even bee stings ....

One year ago today, we were full of hope, worries and excitement.  One year ago today, this little love bug was a 5-day old embryo that was transferred into my uterus where he would make a home for the next nine months.  Here I am, one year ago, right after the embryo transfer! You can find the original post about this day here ! It's amazing, how a ball of cells can become this amazing little guy that we love more than we could've ever imagined.  Today, I'm feeling very sentimental thinking about this day.  I look at this beautiful baby and I'm so grateful to our amazing doctor and Katie. It was the end of a long, emotional journey and it ended just as it was supposed to be. We're truly blessed!

We found out that I was pregnant on Friday, August 30th, 2013. My pregnancy bloodtest was scheduled at the fertility clinic for that morning, but I knew I just had to find out the results by myself beforehand, instead of the doctor calling me with the bad news later that afternoon. At least I was sure it would be bad news, after all, that's all we were used to!  I didn't even tell Katie that I bought home pregnancy tests and I didn't tell her that I was going to take the test that morning either, because I had planned to surprise her, just in case we would get a positive result! I woke up at the butt crack of dawn that morning after a restless night, because I was so nervous about finding out. I laid in bed for a while and prayed. My prayers in the past were usually centered around begging God for a baby, but this time, it was different. For the last weeks, I only prayed that God would give me strength, that I trusted in the plan he had for me and if I wasn't pregn...

I realized that I never shared about the day that was going to change our lives, the transfer of our perfect little embryo! I wrote this in the week following the procedure, but never shared it, so I want to make sure this will eventually go in our blog book! After they took the eggs out, the fertilized them with the sperm and then put them in an incubator. The doctor retrieved 39 (!!!) eggs, which was apparently the most eggs they ever retrieved, and out of the 39 retrieved, 34 were mature and 30 fertilized successfully, so we were told that we would be doing a 5-day transfer! With IVF, they transfer the embryos back into the uterus either after 3 days or 5 days, depending on how many you have and how good they look. Of course, 5 days is better because they have more information about the embryos and can sort out the ones that don't look too promising, so we were thrilled! Our Transfer was set for Thursday, August 22 nd at 12pm. I had taken Thursday and Friday off and wa...