We Hit the Ground Running

This past Saturday, I had an egg retrieval for IVF!

Even though we hit a lot of obstacles getting to this point, it finally happened, and I am recovering well and quickly. I had to do injections for 14 days to prepare for the retrieval which included a trigger shot that I had to have my husband do for me. The trigger shot was a much larger needle than the rest of the injections (so far) and it had to be injected on my backside since it was an intramuscular injection.

I have had a LOT of appointments up until this point though and it is more than exhausting planning for things at school and making sub plans last minute (as I have already expressed my stress levels about). This past week, when things were still up in the air, I had to deal with a pretty stressful situation in which my brother saved my butt. I had an appointment on Wednesday morning where I was told I would most likely take my trigger shot that night and then have the egg retrieval on Friday. I had already taken time off for Friday earlier that week and had sub plans ready to go.

Then I got a phone call Wednesday afternoon around noon… I needed to take the stimulation medicine for one or two more days and that my retrieval was going to be pushed back to Saturday or Sunday, also I would have to go back in Thursday morning. I could deal with that and figure out the sub plans and time off, but I had a bigger problem: I was out of stimulation injections. The doctor offered to have someone on their team find some samples that I could come back to get. Then it got more interesting: I had to pick it up in their Richmond office (there were not any samples in Norfolk) and I had to pick it up before their office closed at 3:15. Also, I had to take these injections by 6:00pm. (Remember that I live in Newport News and work in Windsor).

I panicked a little bit and called my husband to try and figure this out. I had just gotten to work a little over an hour ago and if I was going to make it to Richmond in time, I would have to leave right now and find coverage for my classes. My husband was not able to leave work. I thought about how one of my brothers lived in Richmond and wondered if I could send him to pick up the medicines for me. I called my brother and, luckily for me, his classes had been canceled for the day. That meant he was free to do me a HUGE favor. I called the doctor’s office back, and finally got to a point where I could send my brother to pick up the medicine for me.

That morning I drove from Newport News to Norfolk, from Norfolk to Windsor, left work in Windsor immediately after the students left to drive to Richmond, and then drove back home to Newport News to take my medicines before my husband and I went to small group at church that night. I was TIRED that night.

After my appointment the next morning, I got the word that my follicles were finally big enough and my hormone levels were finally high enough. I took the trigger shot at 8:00pm on Thursday night to prepare for the egg retrieval at 8:00am on Saturday (it has to be precisely timed). My husband did the trigger shot for me Thursday night and then drove me to my appointment in Richmond early Saturday morning that we left for at 5:30am.

My husband cared for, and has continued to care for, me in the best ways. He made sure I was comfy, took a nap, ate foods I could handle, he has cooked and cleaned and taken care of everything as I have recovered.

Going into the retrieval, my doctor said that I had 6-7 follicles that would be possible eggs. Once I woke up from the procedure, the doctor told me that they got 6 eggs. This morning I got the phone call to let me know of the fertilization results of the 6 eggs:

5 of the eggs were mature, 1 was not mature enough to do anything with
1 of the eggs did not fertilize
2 of the eggs definitely fertilized
2 of the eggs could go either way

As of now, we are taking this as good news. I will get a phone call on Tuesday to let me know what time my possible appointment will be for an embryo transfer in Richmond on Thursday. Thursday morning they will give me a call to let me know if one of the embryos is developed enough for me to have a transfer that day or if they need to wait an extra day. The rest of the embryos (if we have any) will be frozen for us to try and have more kids later on.

I have been telling others that we are practicing cautious optimism. Of course we wish all of the eggs had fertilized, we also wish that we had a kid or two by now. The fertilized eggs still may not get to what is called blastocyst stage, so we are still praying for healthy development of the eggs that fertilized.

A quick shot of campus at my alma mater, CNU!

A Confession and An Update

If you have not noticed, these posts are being fewer and further in between. Part of that is because less is happening less often. There have been really long periods of waiting for the next thing and the next doctor’s appointment. The other part is that I have emotionally been bottling a lot up. I have not wanted to talk about how I am feeling or admit my darkest thoughts and feelings.

For those of you who do not know, we are starting the daunting journey into IVF (In-Virto Fertilization). I am in a state of whirling back and forth between being incredibly excited and absolutely terrified. I was on Provera for ten days and then it took twelve days for a period (or withdrawl bleed) to start. It should have happened between two and ten days after stopping the medication.

After I finally started, I had a saline sonogram to check for fibroids and poylps or other irregularities as well as a trial/mock transfer to prepare for the real thing. It was NOT PLEASANT. I cramped so much that I was exhausted the rest of the day. They found that my uterus looks great, but I was still bleeding even though it was day eight of my cycle, making the pictures hazy. Because it was hazy, they had to inject more saline a few more times than they were anticipating, which was the cause of the extra cramping. When they were finished with the sonogram, they did an ultrasound to check my ovaries. They saw a large cyst on my left ovary at which all three doctors in the room said in chorus, “OOOHHHHH!!!” Apparently the collapsing cyst was the cause of my period lasting so long, why it took me so long to start bleeding, and why there was still so much blood. It will probably also affect whether or not I ovulate on time.

I am currently taking ovulation tests to try and determine when I ovulate. If I don’t have an LH surge (essentially meaning I ovulated) by this Monday, I will have to get bloodwork done to determine where I am in my cycle. Depending on how that turns out will determine when I start using estrogen patches that I will replace every few days.

Once the cycle after this coming one starts (hopefully on a typical timeline) I will start the injection and medication regimen for IVF. We have already ordered and received the IVF medications. YALL. There are SO MANY MEDICATIONS. I had heard about all of the medications and the insanity that comes with it. When the box appeared on my front porch, I could not believe the Mary Poppins-esque box as I continued to pull out medication after medication.

Unfortunately, timing is not on my side. When I start injections and medications to prepare for the egg retrieval and the embryo transfer, I will have to go in every two to three days for ultrasounds and blood work to determine dosing. These will all end up happening during the first month of school, which is not exactly convenient. After having such a ridiculous year and a half at school from “you know what,” I do not want to put my students through more inconsistency. I know this is a price to pay and that finally getting pregnant is important, but please pray for my babies and for me to help them have a sense of solidarity.

Before we could even start this process, my husband and I had to watch several video modules to prepare for this process. We watched over an hours worth of material before we could sign consents and documents. I then had to watch several videos on how to mix, extract, and take the injectable medicines. Talk about overwhelming. As I watched them, all I could think about are all the women that have had to go through this already and many times. I am in awe of their strength (as well as their organization!)

In the past few months, I have had the realization that I need to confess something to myself and maybe to those around me. I am starting to become really jealous of those with babies and those who are pregnant. It did not used to bother me before; I love babies and I love being around babies!! Recently, however, I have found myself looking around me, longing to be in other’s position, thinking about how things would be if I was “normal” and had children already. I want to say again though, I am not upset to be around your babies. I am not upset to see your baby pictures. They bring me so much joy and I am sincerely grateful to have a glimpse into your life and into the life of your sweet babies. I just want to be you, to be in your position, now more than ever.

If you are reading this and you are one of my dear friends who is pregnant or has a baby, please know that I love you and your baby dearly. I do not feel anything negative toward you. I want to hang out with you and I want to hold your baby and I want to help you (if you want it!) with your baby and talk with you about how motherhood has been wonderful or awful. I want you to be honest with me and share your life with me. My jealousy is my problem that I am working through, but it does not and should not affect my relationship with you and your sweet children.

I am grateful for where we are and I am grateful that this process is on its way. We love you all and appreciate the prayers and well wishes! If things go well, we could have the opportunity to be pregnant by the beginning of October!

Infertility Doesn’t Rest

In the midst of COVID, political unrest, injustice, racial tension, and the possibilities surround the return to school, I made it a point to not release any blog posts. I did not want stories about my life to clog up the feed of what is important and good. I still am looking to keep my blog posts brief and infrequent because the quest for justice and peace does not rest: God does not rest.

That being said, I do feel like I owe some of you an update. A lot has happened since my last post regarding our infertility journey and I wanted to make this as quick and to the point as possible.

One thing I know is that my sisters and brothers battling infertility have probably felt more alone during quarantine than ever. Having to stay inside without children we so desire to fill our homes is haunting… the silence is haunting. I am the queen of distracting myself from my own feelings and the access to distractions decreased dramatically (Netflix is not as distracting as you would think.) Even when I do find something to do or try out or read, my mind comes back around to childlessness.

What has seemed like an eternity of waiting has truly been about five months of not really having a plan other than hurry up and wait. But my friends, it seems there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon:

My endocrinologist released me from his care after managing my insulin resistance and bring my A1-C to a normal level. I will stay on metformin indefinitely.
The management of my A1-C in addition to a new journey of a gluten-free diet has helped me lost a little bit of weight and for my periods to become somewhat regular, helping regulate my PCOS.
My husband’s urologist is pleased with his increase in sperm count and motility and recommended IUI to our fertility specialist. He will remain on Clomid for the time being.
Our fertility specialist left the practice and we did not find out until scheduling another appointment.
Our new infertility doctor is very sweet and is moving us forward with IUI (inter-utero insemination).
I started my period on day 36 of my cycle (I said SOMEWHAT regular) this past week, launching our journey into IUI.

The next couple weeks will be a rollercoaster. I started taking Letrozole (a hormone to spark ovulation induction) yesterday and will take it until Tuesday night. Wednesday morning I go in for an ultrasound to check on my ovaries and uterine lining. If the eggs/follicles are large enough and there is an appropriate number of them ready, I will start FSH injections at home to induce ovulation, releasing the eggs from my ovaries. Then, Lord willing, I will undergo the IUI procedure, which involves insemination using a catheter bypassing my cervix and increasing chances of fertilization.

The IUI procedure and journey seems like a lot less invasive of a procedure than IVF and much cheaper, making it a very feasible option for us. I am still not clear on all of the details, as this is brand new for us. We are so very excited for these prospects and pray for a baby in the next year. We know that like all infertility patients, this may not go as planned and it seems almost foolish to have any sort of hope or optimism, but our hope is in Jesus Christ first. We know that God’s plan for us may look nothing like what we think it will look like, but we continue to pray for God to align our hearts and desires with His plan, not our own. So far, he has not taken away our desire for children, and I have hope he might be on to something.

Sunrise on the water, Nags Head, North Carolina

The Text: An Update

We had our appointment.

I think it went really well, and I’m having difficulty processing everything that happened, but I feel good.

For my sanity and to let my brain rest, I am going to tell everyone who reads this by copying and pasting the text I sent my family and a few friends. I promise I care about these posts, but I also know some of you want to know so here it is!

We met with our new doctor and she is very kind and thorough! She is not wanting to jump to IVF yet, she said she wants to make sure she has tried everything else before going down that road. She was glad we had done so much already! She took a lot of blood from both Josh and I and is going to do hormone testing. The PCOS diagnosis stands, but she is calling it Irregular Menses for now while she gets more hormone testing done. Knowing that I was able to ovulate once with hormone therapy, she wants to try upping the dosage of Clomid and do injections. We are not going to do that yet until Josh’s hormone testing comes back. He is also being referred to a urologist to get an answer about whether his lack of good concentration and motility of sperm is due to a hormonal problem or a physical obstruction. At this point, we are kind of waiting until his appointment and the outcome of that. If the urologist says we are good to go with a little bit of hormone therapy for Josh, we will just focus on giving us both hormones. If there is something physical they can do for Josh (like if there’s a cyst or vein problem) they will handle that and see if it can help us and then just do hormones for me. If they can only do a little bit for Josh, we will try IUI (which is In-Utero Insemination, or as I casually and grossly call it, the turkey baster) after giving me hormones to start ovulation. If they can’t get me to ovulate, we will look at IVF. She answered almost all of my questions and worries about creating embryos and how I don’t want to discard any successful embryos and she said the process will probably allow for me to have 2-3 successful embryos after extracting 8-12 eggs. My AMH level is low for my age still which shows that I do not have a lot of eggs left, so she is very glad that we are addressing this now as opposed to a few years from now when I would have far less eggs. Overall, it was a good appointment, but now we will be waiting some more as we wait for an appointment to be scheduled for Josh at the urologist. Pray for a cancellation so they can get him in sooner! I am a little overwhelmed with all of the information, but I feel good about it!
My text to family

Again, I am excited about the possibilities! I also am happy to talk to anyone about this in person or over text. I love answering questions!

Thank you all for your concern and love. I will keep blogging as more things happen!