Given an Amazing Gift

We have been given the greatest gift. We have been lucky to conceive naturally immediately after a failed IVF. We are completely shocked and amazed, and the reality hasn't even hit me. I have known for almost a week now.

Of course when I got a BFP at 10dpo I took another in the am of 11dpo to make sure it was still there, and called the RE. my beta on 11dpo was 27. It was redrawn at 13dpo (47 hours after the first) and it was 118! that's a doubling time of 22 hours. this is either one very strong bean, or could you imagine naturally conceived twins after all the IF cycles we have been through! Only time will tell. Right now I just still need to be pinched that there are actually 2 lines on my tests and beta numbers that mean something! For reference, in my 4 other pregnancies (2 chemical one lasted 9 weeks and one resulted in my DD, my betas never ever doubled, never mind more than quadrupling!)

So much for that FET we were planning before the end of the year! So pleasantly surprised!

IVF . . . .FAIL

our 2nd IVF failed. I didn't expect it to. It worked with no issues the last time. I am having trouble wrapping my brain around it. But hopefully I will wrap it around fast enough to do a FET before the year is over. I would really like to end 2011 being some amount of pregnant.

Were Doing IVF Again!

We originally planned on waiting until the fall to do a fresh IVF again, but I was feeling so defeated every cycle that AF came. So we decided now is a better time to try it.

I went in for CD2 monitoring today, start Birth Control Pills tonight, and Lupron starts on Monday, August 1st. I am hoping this time we get to do blasts, rather than Day 3 transfers.

I will keep updating as things progress. We're still waiting on Karyotype results too, which will hopefully be back before we get to retrieval.

Sorry to leave This in Suspense

I wish I had better news to report.

The FET was only mildly successful.

On April 29th (10dp3dt) I got a positive test, faint, but there, by the next day the lines were gone again. I tested from about 5dp3dt. on my 7 and 8dpt tests faint pink lines had dried, 8dpt evening and 9dpt tests were still negative, and then the + I got on 10dpt. I think both embryos tried to implant, one a few days before the other, and neither made it.

I refused the beta, felt there was no sense since I had had negative tests for 3 days before it. I started spotting 3 days after stopping the PIO, and mas miscarrying by 5days after the PIO.

It doesn't get any easier the 3rd time around, or after already having a child. I actually have felt like I have failed the munchkin now, by not being able to give her a sibling.

What this has done though is caused me to look back at my charts, and at my history, and research. And I think this is beyond the clotting issue (MTHFR). I was actually on blood thinners for my second miscarriage too...so it couldn't have been caused my blood clots either.

I see the RE on June 7th, I plan on asking for karyotyping, to make sure we aren't potentially creating mostly genetically abnormal embryos. I am also going to ask for immune testing. I have Crohn's..and so there could be things related to that causing issues (not the Crohn's itself but other complications I have had with it). Prednisone or IVIG treatments are the way I am hoping to go. And also even considering genetic analysis of the embryos in an IVF just to make sure the embryos we transfer are completely normal, increasing our odds.

This is a tough road we all travel. I thought I had all my answers. I made it out with one beautiful healthy girl. Turns out those answers aren't the solution for try #2, but I hope to gain knowledge about my health, and the things I need to do to get more babies in my arms.

Successful Transfer!

Transfer early Tuesday morning was a success.

woke up bright and early, packed Munchy in the car, and off we went. We dropped her off at a friends, it was her first time away from mommy and daddy, and she did great. We basically dropped her and ran because we were running late.

Why do they always tell you to drink way more water than you need to. they told me to drink 1l...I drank about 400-500ml, and was super full. Transfer went at about 8am EST. They thawed 2 of the 3 embryos and one did not survive thaw, so they thawed the 3rd. We luckily had that one survive for 2 to transfer.

I feel strange about this. I am disappointed, because that means if this doesn't work we need to either try IUI's again or do another IVF cycle. I am not in the position physically, financially, and emotionally to go through a full IVF cycle. So that wouldn't happen until at least summer. we could spend the money on IUI's...maybe try that twice just to see if we can save ourselves the IVF, but I worry about wasting money on doing that.

What I mostly hope for is that this works. I was nervous for twins at first, but now knowing there isn't an embryo left, I am ok with that idea. Obviously, we will take what we can get. I'm not sure two will make me feel complete though, we will just have to wait and see.

Speaking of the wait, why do the days drag by!?! The embryos were day 3.5ish, almost 4, and that was early yesterday morning, so I am at least 5dpo now, but it goes by so slowly. I think I will try testing in a few days, at 8dpo.

I will update if there are any symptoms of note to report, basically I just feel tired and crampy post transfer.

Funny Estrace Story, and Obsessing over stats!

We will start with funny estrace story.

So we went into the clinic on CD2 to get started with the FET. I had the baseline ultrasound, saw the doc, and had bloodwork. My head was just kind of spinning with all the new information and how fast things were going to go. I saw the nurse who gave me my estrace and instructions on how to take them.

I heard 2 tabs.

The next morning I took my 2 tabs. I talked to DH about it when he got home from work, how excited I was about it and that I ONLY had to take these 2 little tabs a day. He said 2? I thought you were only supposed to take 1. So because he questioned it, his job to call the nurses.

We found out we were BOTH wrong. 2 tabs, 3 times a day. How we ever stayed straight during the IVF is a miracle. Granted we didn't have an 11 month old to chase around then either. But luckily it was caught early on, and by no intention really. And my lining was fine even though day one I only had 1/3 of the dose I should have.

Moving on to the stats.

I have completely convinced myself that our chances at pregnancy with the FET are actually GREATER than with our fresh IVF that got us our gorgeous daughter. How have I managed this...2 ways actually.

First there are the 2 schools of thought. One is that frozen embryos are weaker and more fragile, and less susceptible to produce a viable pregnancy, just due to the freezing and thawing process (if they make it through thaw). The second is that a frozen embryo that is strong enough to survive freezing and thawing, is quite likely to produce a pregnancy. I subscribe to the more optimistic second school of thought.

My clinic has stats posted on their website from 2007. I would love more recent, but that will do, I can't find more recent stats anywhere.

They have the fresh IVF pregnancy rates divided by age group, and are as follows : 51% <35, 39% 35-39, and 20% >=40. The FET stats though are just clumped together to make 33% success rate. If you were to add up the fresh IVF's and divide by 3, to produce a lumped together stat, you get 36.6%. For what its worth, I am 26(almost 27) and my embryos are 25(retrieved just a few weeks after my birthday).

So you compare fresh stat of 36.6% to the FET at 33% (these are all own egg stats too, the have the DE stats separate) With what I am sure is a margin of error of a % or 2...that is pretty darn similar.

Also, our clinic does assisted hatching of all frozen embryos, as their zona can harden and make it difficult for the embryo to hatch. We did not do assisted hatching with our IVF. So this I feel adds to our chances too, because maybe that second embryo in our fresh IVF didn't implant because it never hatched (you never know).

We transferred 2 day 3 embryos after our IVF in September 2009. Got pregnant, with one baby. if our chances are the same, or better potentially, I may be going from empty and broken hearted starting the year in 2009, to having 3 kids under 2 in 2012. CRAZY.

New Design

Hope you all like my fresh new design. I was sick of the old, wanted something cheerier.

I don't *think* anyone who knows me in real life, knows about the blog. If you do by all means let me know you have discovered my secret FET cycle. But I shared a picture of my beautiful Daughter in my header. She came from one of those 2 embryos, and that was her BFP.

We want to keep this cycle to ourselves a bit. Ready to share In real life when we want to. Our IVF and IUI's were so broadcast, which was fine, it was helpful that people knew what was going on. I just feel like I want that secret to myself for a bit. But of course, I can't not talk about it, I can't not write my thoughts down, so that what I am doing here. Mostly for myself, but to hopefully be helpful to others going through things too.

In FET news, I started the PIO last night. Man did I forget the loveliness of that. I will still take it over the suppositories, but it hurts today, and I forgot the lovely oily smell when I pee. Mmmmm, NOT. I can't wait for the call tomorrow to tell me when transfer time is! So looking forward to this!

Transfer Time!

So I went for my one midcycle appointment today. Lining is 13mm, triple striped, and 'perfect'. I started medrol and doxycycline today, start PIO tonight. And we transfer on Tuesday! They call Monday with the time.

How did this happen so fast, just a week and a half ago I went to the RE after almost 2 years to talk to him about using our totsicles, I never thought I would be entering into a transfer this quickly!

From the looks of my scan too I bet this would have made a great IVF cycle...my ovaries looked pretty full of follicles, Id guess at least 7 on each side.

There are Embies in the Air!

Hey everyone...if there is anyone!

I am so sorry I haven't been blogging. Life has been hectic to say the least!

My Baby bean is going to be 11 months old next week. The Big First Birthday is being planned. My return to work is imminent, which has be a bit stressed out. And we've decided to do a FET before I go back...which is the reason for my post.

I think having success after infertility put me in a weird blog limbo. I didn't want to blog about baby bean for I didn't want to hurt anyone out there. It was a long painful road to get her though, so I should be proud to talk about her. She is amazing, shes a jabbering, busy, destructive human being. And I love her to death.

I feel as I can identify with this world again though.

In December, when Bean was 8 months old, and my lovely friend AF had been around a couple months despite on demand breastfeeding, Hubs and I decided that we would start trying again for baby #2. We figured it was no rush since she was only 8 months, but we would try for a little bit. We tried 4-5 cycles. The first just untimes, not preventing sort of thing, but the last 4 I had been charting, OPKing, CBFMing, and everything was timed perfectly. For some stupid reason I thought we would be one of 'those' infertility patients who had no trouble conceiving on their own after extensive treatments for baby#1. I am here today to say WE ARE NOT THOSE PEOPLE. They are still mythical to me. Everything was perfect, we don't have a recent SA to say if the swimmers are ok, but they have always been fine, so I have no reason to expect anything would be wrong there. The cycles were perfect, the timing was perfect, there is no reason we shouldn't have conceived in any one of those 5 months.

Anyways...we didn't. So I called the RE. We have 3 frozen babies from our IVF we did to have baby bean. They told me to come in CD2 and we would start the road to FET.

The FET is going to be SO EASY. I am amazed with how chill it is. I started estrace 2 2mg tabs, 3x a day (funny story there I'll share later) on CD3 (this past Wednesday) and I go in on April 16th for a Lining Check (thats 11 days of some tiny pills before I even have to step foot in the clinic again...that is AWESOME) And he said to expect a transfer around the 20th or so.

We are deciding to transfer 2 embies, we transferred 2 in the fresh cycle and got a singleton, and I went at early term with her.

And I am already obsessing over stats...which is a whole other post.

But I am back oh world of infertility....

Updates

Hey everyone, if anyone is even still here that is!

I decided not to go private...there were just some crazy things going on then that made me nervous, but I figured things out and all is well!

No I am not 47 weeks pregnant! That would be excruciating! I actually have a beautiful baby girl who is nearly 10 weeks old! We had her on May 15th...and she is amazing! I know everyone says is but I never imagined a love like this ever! Its amazing, the delivery was amazing, and yet I barely remember any of it.

Im going to try to get to blogging again. I expect to be down the road to try for another baby soon again too. With my health we want to try to have our family complete before I get too sick again (Crohn's disease flares suck) So we hope we might get a surprise and be a statistic...or we will do a FET In the spring of next year before I go back to work.

If you are still here and reading leave me a comment and let me know!