Now we wait!

So, Tuesday Nov 29th was the BIG day. Transfer day!!!! I was sooo nervous I had a hard time sleeping the night before. And of course we still had the big choice to make of 1 or 2 embryos (praying that we had any to even use!). So here is how the day went!

We got to the Nashville Fertility Clinic (I don't think I've said where we have gone the entire time!) and checked in about 10:30, for an 11am check-in. I like to be early. They called us back and I had to undress waist down in the beautiful gown again. This time Ben got to wear some beautiful purple scrubs, booties, a hair net, and the mask. He looked super sexy!

So once my vitals were taken (158/89....very high for me, but I was sooooo nervous!), our nurse sent the Embryologist in to tell us the results from PGD. Out of 17 eggs they retrieved, 13 of them were mature enough for ICSI. Of the 13, only 9 fertilized. One of those stopped growing, so we were left with 8 before they tested for PDG. In the end, we only had 3 embabies that were balanced. They say 25% is the normal so we were right above that, which is great. But I was disappointed we didn't have more to be honest. Of the 3, we had 1 Grade A, 1 Grade B and 1 Grade C. The Grade C was left in the culture because it wasn't ready, and they were sure it would get to that point. (I got the call today, 11/30, that it didn't make it :(...) Grade A is above average and Grade b is average, so we had 2 amazing little embabies to use. Here is the first photo of them both :)

Grade B (left) and grade A (right)

After the Embryologist left, Dr Elben came in to help us decide to transfer 1 or both. She said with me being 23 and very healthy, she would suggest 1, only because the Grade A was so great looking. She was also afraid that by having 2 good embabies and transferring them both, one of them would split and leave us with triplets. She made a big point that we didn't want that, For health of myself and the babies. So in the end, we decided to transfer only 1. As far as I know, we transferred grade A (when I call tomorrow I will ask to verify) and we froze the other for another chance down the road.

So I took my Vicodin once all Dr's left my room, and then we just waited. We went into the OR maybe 11:50am and they got me set up and wrapped up in blankets. It was freeeeezing in there-I couldn't feel my toes! Ben was setting on a stool right next to me holding my hand the entire time! So sweet. They nurses used the Ultrasound machine to see if they could find my cervix and decided I needed to drink ever more (mind you, i had a big diet soda for breakfast around 10 and hadn't gone pee after 9:30am, plus drank a small bottle of water with my Vicodin. I really had to pee. And to drink water when you aren't thirsty? Well...it's hard). So 10 minutes later, Dr Elben came and we were ready to go. Ben got to look at the embabie in the incubator before they did the procedure. He said it was really cool. It was twitching constantly. I wish I could have seen it. The cervical stitch they put in last week helped out a lot for the transfer, although when they started tugging on it, I was thinking otherwise. I really squeezed Ben's hand for that one. But as soon as my cervix was straight and the catheter went in, the embabie was squirted in there and we were done. I'll be completely honest, it was emotional as I set there knowing that a baby was in me, it just had to latch now. We, at that moment were a family of 4, counting our fur baby :) Once cleaned up, I was wheeled back in my room and my bed was tilted back. I had to lay that way for an hour-until 1:13pm. It was a super quick process. I tried to lay there and sleep, but I was just so excited and hopeful. My mind was running wild. God willing, this was the first day I was with child. How amazing. I am so thankful science has come so far! 

I was on bed rest the rest of the day and today 11/30. It's been hard to just relax because I have things I need to do around the house, but they can wait. Ben has been very helpful, fixing food, helping with chores, and just snuggling with me. He will be a fantastic father!

I go back tomorrow morning at 10 for blood work to check my E2 and Progesterone levels. Then December 12th at 10am is the BIG DAY!!! It will be my first Beta test!!!! I am going to stick to my word and not take a HPT until after the appointment (of course I will only take the test at home if I don't get a negative at the Dr). This wait is going to kill me!!! But until then I will keep on looking at nursery ideas and making a list of baby names :)

Pre-Transfer <3

And There Were 17!!!

Well, Egg retrieval went fantastic! We got to the hospital a bit before 7 and a nurse pulled in pretty soon after us and took us upstairs with her. She had a yummy smelling dish for breakfast, which was a tease riding in the elevator with her, since I couldn't eat past 12 that morning. Once up there, I just read over paperwork with a different nurse, signed stuff, then got in a beautiful gown. It is indeed the latest fashion in hospital wear!

Told ya so :)

So I had to go empty my blatter and lay back down so the anesthesiologist could hook me up. He was a really nice guy, kinda funny yet strange. Then I had to wait on my Dr to get ready. He finally came in and asked if we had questions and then we were off. I remember them starting my medicine and going out of our room, where I saw my Dr walk in front of me to put on his scrubs. The next thing I remember was waking up back in the room with my nurse taking stats. That was some good stuff! I felt sooooo rested. Ben came back in a few minutes later from gathering his semen sample. I got a juice and some medicine for pain ( I wasn't in pain, it was like menstrual cramps really but my nurse insisted on something to help.) Then relaxed for about 30 minutes. I had to go to the bathroom (apparently 2 liters of liquid had gone through my IV drip), so the nurse came in and helped me go to the bathroom. It was hard to walk normal, I went pretty slow and kinda bent over. There was still a lot of bloating and some pressure. I had to get a cervical stitch so she warned me there would be a string that I may need to push back up inside me. I had some spotting too, which she said was normal. Back in the room she asked if I wanted some circles drawn on my butt so Ben would know where to give my progesterone shot, and of course I said yes! I wasn't trusting Ben to give me a shot! lol. It was kinda strange for her to be eye level with my butt but whatever lol. I am sure she is used to it. 

So the IVF lab Nurse came in and said we had 17 eggs!!! 17 eggs!!! How awesome is that!!! I have to call daily now to keep an update of them.

Friday morning I called and of the 17 eggs we got, they were able to preform ICSI on 13 of them, and of those 13, 9 of them fertilized!!!! Saturday morning the message said most of them looked good and Monday morning they will preform PGD on them and our ET is Tuesday at 3 pm. I am not super happy that she did not explain what she meant by MOST of them being in good shape, but I feel that if it was something to worry about, she would have told me. Today is Sunday and there was no message, kind of made me sad. I was looking forward to hearing about our little embabies! But I will hopefully get a call tomorrow!!! And I THINK we have decided to transfer 2 :) Still haven't decided 100% though :) I will defiantly keep everyone informed! 

On another note, we enjoyed a WONDERFUL few days back home in Kentucky with family after we left the hospital Thursday. I have the best families ever :) 

Quick Update Schedule

So here are my E2 levels from the start.

11/16- 286

11/18- 728

11/21- 2,271

11/22- 2,784

11/23- 4,232

Tomorrow morning, 11/24, I have to be at the Hospital at 7 am to prep for Egg Retrieval at 8am. I start Progesterone shots tomorrow as well as Medrol and some other pill ha! I found out today that I will have to have a cervical stitch. I assume this is because I have a tilted uterus, but not sure. Tuesday, 11/29 at 2pm is the current time we are doing our Transfer. The time could be earlier, we just have to stick to our phones. 

Now I am getting nervous!!

What is Estrodiol?

So I just got a voicemail saying that after 4 days of Follistim, my Estrodiol level is 286, which is really great. I have no idea what that is, so I decided to look it up. 

Apparently it is a sex hormone (hmm...never would have guessed!) that is 10 times as potent as estrone.. Except during the early follicular phase of your period, its serum levels are somewhat higher than that of estrone during the reproductive years of the human female. Thus it is the predominant estrogen during reproductive years both in terms of absolute serum levels as well as in terms of estrogenic activity. During menopause, estrone is the predominant circulating estrogen and during pregnancy estriol is the predominant circulating estrogen in terms of serum levels.

  So basically Im still not sure what all that means, but according to this chart, I'm in a good range :) 

I go back Friday 11/18 for another Estrodiol blood work and ultrasound.

Reference ranges for serum estradiol
Patient type	Lower limit	Upper limit	Unit
Adult female (follicular phase, day 5)			pmol/L
	110[5] 90% PI (used in diagram)	220[5] 90% PI
	19[1] (95% PI)	140[1] (95% PI)	pg/mL
	30[1] (90% PI)	60[1] (90% PI)
Adult female (preovulatory peak)	400[4]	1500[4]	pmol/L
	110[1]	410[1]	pg/mL
Adult female (luteal phase)	70[4]	600[4]	pmol/L
	19[1]	160[1]	pg/mL
	Thanks Wiki :)

Needles? Eh, No Thanks!

Well we are well into our IVF Cycle and I have already had my share of needles! My very first Lupron shot I really psyched myself out. I almost couldn't sleep the night before!  I gave myself the shot, and inserting fast is the key! Found that the hard way! Once in it's didn't hurt. But I did get a little bruise. My one and only. I took 10 units of this per day.

I felt off all week, like I didn't really care about anything and and I was a bit tired. But I dealt with it! Thursday the 10th was our first checkup. They said it would be about 3 hours so Ben and I took off the day. It ended up being 1.5 hours, so we just hung out together :) My BP was 150/80. My top is usually high like 128/130 at the highest. Can you say NERVOUS??? We forgot to retake it before I left. During the ultrasound, they did find a cyst on my left ovary. That is nothing unusual with my PCOS. But they want to keep an eye out on it. I had not started my period yet, so Kelli, our IVF nurse, was worried that my Estrodiol levels weren't low enough. They did the trial embryo transfer, which sounds worse than it actually was. It is like a Pap, but they put in this catheter type tube to measure the length to your cervix. This was Ben's first experience seeing anything like that lol. Anyhoo. We got our mailbox number set up before we left the office. We will call this every-time I go into the office and have blood-work to get results, and to *hopefully* keep tabs on our embabies in a few days! I was super nervous for the message to be left, because if my levels weren't low enough, our cycle was going to be pushed out further by a week or so. Luckily my Estrodiol level was 36, which is good. Not sure what that means, but I'm happy with that! And Friday AF arrived as Kelli had said it would. Sunday the 13th my new regime started. 5 units of Lupron in the Am. and 250iu of Follistim and 1 mg Dexamethason 12 hours later. 

Wednesday 11/16 and Friday 11/18 I go for more blood-work and an ultrasound. Currently our egg retrieval is going to be Wednesday 11/23 and the transfer will be the next Wednesday December 1st, as I understood. I will know more at the appointments this week. 

Now we are just trying to decide (if the Dr gives us a choice) if we want to transfer 1 or 2 embroys. It's a hard choice. So continue to pray for us :) 

We love you guys!!

Ben and Brittanie <3