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!

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!