Did I make the right choice?

I’m still questioning myself although it’s too late to change my mind… CD1 was thursday so today is CD4 and I cannot do the day 3 bloodwork which means I can’t do this cycle! so no matter what my mind is made up… I cancelled this months cycle… I could have gone forward but I was just so worried about having a 6 week old go to daycare…. financially I know this choice is better as well but it’s hard to say no I can wait to have another one when I know we have little embryos waiting for us in the freezer!

However that means we are waiting for Mid April for our next transfer! and right now that feels soooooooooooooooooo far away! waiting is hard but I think I made the best choice… I want baby now but by waiting it will give me more time at home after the baby is born and I think that is the most important thing… babies immune system will be a bit better and I will be well recovered, I will have a lot less stress this way and the baby will get a lot more intimate time which is important for both of us!

I know I might be getting ahead of myself and it might not happen right away but it if it does this way baby will get a lot more attention… I’m a huge breastfeeding advocate and I really want to do it again which means I’m going to have an easier time getting breastfeeding established since I’ll have a lot longer time at home with baby… if the baby is asthmatic like Dalton having that extra time at home means a healthier immune system… I’ll have more time to find a job since I’ll be graduated which will help us financially…

So even though I really want to have the baby now I think it’s better for everyone especially our future baby and Dalton that I am home for longer… so we will wait… almost 7 long long long months but it is better this way….

 

Advertisement

Not ready…

First of all I have some great news! We have 7 blastocysts!!!!!!!!!! They have been placed in the ice age, and we are still waiting on the PGS results…  all of my paper work from the surgery said I would have 2 weeks until my period started so I figured I would have atleast another week before CD1 but I was wrong it started today! I called to report my period and they asked for me to come in tomorrow for blood work and then start estrogen on day 3…

I’ll be honest I got super excited! and then instantly super conflicted… should we be doing this right now! I want to be pregnant now! I have little embryos waiting to be back in me as soon as I give the say so but…am I ready?

I have no idea! I want to be pregnant I really want another child (ovbiously or we wouldn’t have done IVF again!) but am I ready to be pregnant in this month? Am I ready to be pregnant yes! Am I ready to have a child in July? not really! I’m so conflicted, I’m not ready to make this choice! I need to make a list (oh how I love these) for doing it this month vs. spring

October Transfer

Pros

1.  I’d be pregnant now
2. children would only be 2.8 years apart!
3. I’d have a summer baby (in fact it’d be right around my birthday)
4. since I just had the hysteroscopy my uterus is polyp free and baby friendly
5. 2 kiddos under 3 (what I dreamed of before infertility)
6. kids would only have 2 school grades between them instead of 3 which means they’d get to go to elementary, middle school, and high school together (my oldest only went to elementary together kinder and 5th the same year)

Cons

1. I’d only have 8-9 weeks at home with the baby before having to do my student teaching which I can’t sub during this time so I’d have to take out a student loan just to cover the cost of living during this time…
2. I’m afraid of what the postpartum depression would be like if I had to put baby in daycare so young
3. I’d have to pump like crazy
4. might risk not being able to graduate until the following semester…
5. breastfeeding wouldn’t be established before going back…
6. daycare cost would increase before I have a steady paycheck

April Transfer

Pros

1. I’d have a January due date
2. I’d be done with college before baby is born
3. I’d get almost 8 months off with baby before having to go back to work (other than 4 days a month and baby would be with be with hubby )
4. breastfeeding would be well established, and less pumping since baby would be eating some regular foods by then…
5. Lower chance of postpartum depression since I’d be less stressed/ less mom guilt from leaving a tiny one with someone else to care for…
6. babies immune system would be stronger before going to daycare
7. more time with just me n Dalton before pregnant or baby comes
8. Dalton is more likely to be potty trained
9. daycare cost won’t increase until I am teaching

Cons

1.  It’s 7 months away!
2. Larger age gap between children
3. might have to do another sonohystogram and possible polyp removal which could be another $2200 for both
4.  So long to wait
5. might not work right away increasing age gap and chances of polyps…

The lists show that waiting would be best… but list don’t account for emotions or gut feelings and I’m not sure what my emotions or gut is telling me other than I’m not ready to make this choice but I need to make it by the time I wake up!

no news is good news?

Today my little embryos are 3 days old! I haven’t heard anything from the clinic and they don’t really like to reach out until day 5! I’m assuming that if I don’t hear from them before day 5 then everything is going good! I’m so nervous and I just want to know how my possible future babies are doing! It’s like a different kind of 2 week wait, this one doesn’t just say yes or no for pregnancy, this is the yes or no at a shot at pregnancy and baby…

I’m going nuts, I’m finally starting to feel better from the cold and from the surgery and I have a ton of stuff to do but I keep thinking about our babies!

This time has been a lot more nerve wracking because our bodies struggled to produce good quality baby making stuff! Apparently the fertility clock has really slowed down for both me n Red and this is quite literally our last shot at extending out family!

I just want to know if and how many chances we have to make a baby, even though I plan on postponing transfer until spring…

Egg retrieval…PESA… Hysteroscopy

Having 2 surgeries and then Red having a surgery has made us one uncomfortable couple today… Thankfully Dalton had daycare today and my parents were a huge help! It was pretty easy but at the same time it was very emotional…

so I’ll start with the easiest…

Hysterectomy, it went smoothly the Dr. told me I had one large one and several other polyps… to top it off I had a ton of scar tissue she said you could tell I had a hard labor and delivery with Dalton… which makes me wonder how much damage was up there for her to make that comment… She said she see’s a lot of scar tissue and dead tissue after traumatic deliveries and overdue babies which Dalton was both… but it is all cleared out and ready for when we are ready for a transfer!

PESA, I feel so bad for REd and I will eventually get him to write a post about his expierence with PESA… but the urologist came to me after wards and told me that they had to take a biopsy and the sperm would be in the tissue, I asked if it seemed promising and he said “well we either got sperm or we didn’t.” and walked away… my heart sank and I was trying my best not to panic… then the endocrinologist came into the room and said she’d only looked for 15 minutes but didn’t see any sperm yet, she said she would look for the next couple of hours but needed me to sign a consent to freeze my eggs in the case that we ended up with no sperm at all… CUE tears… I was a mess I’m getting ready to go back to the retrieval…. Red was still unconscious and I’m now terrified that we would have 0 sperm… Poor Red in 2015 they only had to poke him 2 times to get what we needed this time they poked him 5 or 6 times! Poor guy!!!

RETRIEVAL- they took me back and strapped me in leaving me to feel extremely nervous, scared, and mostly exposed as there was a cool breeze blowing on my vagina while my legs were literally strapped up… I was out before I could even really think about it too much… I woke up feeling like it was only a 15 minutes when in reality it was almost an hour (the retrieval took 15-20 mins the hysteroscopy took the longer after retrieval). Red was standing there waiting and I was so groggy I couldn’t hardly focus… The endocrinologist ran into the room as soon as she saw that I was awake to announce “I found sperm! We are all good there we will try to get your eggs fertilized” I was so happy to hear this you have no idea! I was really stressed, worried that they wouldn’t find any viable sperm! Then my RE came into the room and said “WE got 14 beautiful eggs” This was also great news because on Friday she said she thought she saw only 11 follicles so 14 eggs was better then I could imagine! They said a lot of other things and I had to ask Red later on if it was real or a dream for some of the things!

Now we are on to the retrieval two week craziness while we find out how many fertilized, how many blasts, and how many are PGS normal… Hopefully tomorrow morning I will know how many fertilized but I know it will be sometime tomorrow…

Day before retrieval

I can never sleep before a surgery! Any surgery! This time I’m feeling like crap from a nasty cold I got, I’m sure my son picked it up from daycare and was kind enough to share with me… To be fair he shares everything with me including his crackers which today he would not stop until I opened my mouth and accepted a cracker… he was very pushy about this and yelled at me to eat it… it’s funny I never force him to eat anything but he was admit that I needed crackers…

I can’t sleep I keep worrying about everything for tomorrow… I have my retrieval and I’m so excited because tomorrow we will make embryos! But I also have my hysteroscopy and I am worried about how much pain I will be in after wards… I worry about how I will handle taking care of Dalton when my body is in pain! Surgery should be over by 9 am and Dalton will be in daycare until 3 pm so that will give me some time to sleep but I’m still super nervous!

Rob has his PESA an hour before my retrieval! I’m worried about him going through that painful procedure and coming out with nothing!

I’m also a tad worried about how many and what quality embryos we will have! I’m not hoping for dozens of embryos but I am hoping that we will have good enough embryos to be able to make another beautiful human! I really hope everything goes smoothly!

I hope recovery is fast for both of us,and that we get some wonderful embryos to be able to continue our pursuit for another wonderful member of our family! Only time will tell so hopefully we get some wonderful news soon!

Getting sick?

My little one is sick… He is staying home with 2 ear infections… I have him on an array of prescriptions to help get him over this and it is so sad! My poor little guy!

But now I am wondering if I am getting sick too? My throat is a tad sore, I have zero energy! I even took a nap today and yesterday and I never nap! I nap only when I’m sick! I really don’t want to be sick! I mean seriously I am so exhausted I’m having a hard time making it through the most simple tasks!

Could it be the hormones? Or am I getting sick? I really hope it’s the hormones because I only have about 3-5 more days of hormones and I don’t have time to be sick! I don’t even know what being sick during a cycle would mean! Will it affect egg quality? Will it make recovery more difficult? Ugh this is so frustrating! I am so nervous about getting bad news and I am so hopeful for good news!

Tomorrow I have another meeting with the dildo-cam to see how many follicles are growing, and a check up on my blood work… I am nervous about having to bring Dalton with me to the dr. but I don’t really have a choice tomorrow… So  I will have my toddler in tow while I get my lady-bits checked out…

Hopefully on Monday we will have retrieval, I will have the whole week to heal and work on homework, and if I am sick, then to get over being sick!

By this time next week we should have news on our how everything will work out! I’m getting excited and nervous but mostly excited!

Lucky number 13?

Last cycle I was on a long protocol that resulted in 13 follicles… of those 13, 12 fertilized and 9 became blastocyst… 5 were pgs tested and healthy, chromosomal normal embryos… 1 survived my body and became the most beautiful little human I’ve ever known!

RE said that she wasn’t thrilled with how I responded to meds last time and this time we would be more aggressive with our meds. I am now on day 5 of stims and had my dr. appointment to check follicles… I’m not going to lie I was really worried that they weren’t going to see any follicles and I would have to cancel the cycle and start over…. Thankfully that’s not what happened, I went in for the scan and right away the dr. found plenty of follicles… 13 to be exact! She joked that 13 must be my number…

Am I crazy to think that this is a food sign? I am really hoping that it is… that it is a sign that one of those 13 follicles will be another blessing in our family… I’m am hopeful, I am excited, I am bloated from these meds and a bit nauseous from having a high estrogen count again…

So fingers crossed that on Friday that I will get good news about my 13 follicles…

As of right now it’s looking like retrieval will be on Monday or Tuesday!

Dilemmas

Went much better than day one… I managed to have everything all laid out and ready to go… no freak outs no hesitation… I hope every night goes so smoothly! I know I still have a ways to go before retrieval… the more I think about being pregnant the more I think about how we need to wait until the spring to try to do it because of how things will line up once the baby is born… logically I know I need to wait… but emotionally (which is what runs me lets be honest) I want to be pregnant as soon as possible! I really want my another baby!

so here’s the dilemma… I have 3 semesters left of school… If I get pregnant this fall then I will have a summer baby which won’t give me enough recovery time before I have to be back for my final semester which is student teaching 40+ hours a week… My daycare program will not take babies under 6 weeks ( I wouldn’t want my baby  that little there anyways) but there is no guarantee of when they would be admitted into daycare either… for the program that I got Dalton into it’s on average a 3-6 month wait! so that wouldn’t work very well for me needing to be gone 40+ hours a week… not to mention that I may not even be healed enough to go back… which means that I won’t be finished for an entire another semester and then Dalton will have aged out of his daycare program and I won’t be able to get him back into the next one for another 3-6 months which means I won’t have daycare for either child… if we wait to transfer in spring then it will put a larger age gap between Dalton and the next baby which sucks but it would give me a longer time to heal, I’d have my student teaching finished and I’d be able to have more time at home with a newborn before having to be back at work… Dalton will age out of the program still but I’d have the time off with him and a baby before having to start working and that gives me more time to find a daycare for both children…

Of course I’m worried that I’m getting ahead of myself and their is a chance that it will take longer to get pregnant then planned… I even know that there is a chance that we won’t get any embryos at all and that terrifies me… but I’m thinking all based on hope! Pure hope that we will be able to have another child, hope that it’s not going to take as many miscarriages hope that we will have another child and have a good success rate with our egg retrieval and pesa!

 

 

 

Day 2 blood test and first injections…

So apparently your FSH level can fluctuate… the things you know or don’t know… last time my levels stayed pretty neutral so I didn’t  know they could fluctuate… at my Consultation I was told my FSH level and thyroid levels were elevated and the dr. wasn’t too thrilled about it… but this time it was 8 which she wanted to see it below 10 so that’s good news that I wasn’t really expecting… to be fair every blood test this cycle has been news I wasn’t really expecting, at least this time it has been good news!

So I got the go ahead to start injections tomorrow! This is exciting and terrifying! I’m so happy we are starting again, but I’m also terrified of all the unknowns! I’m worried about what all will happen but I’m so very hopeful that we will be welcoming another little into our family soon!

It’s a much different feeling than last time… maybe it’s because last time I was a bit naive… maybe it’s from the rough journey we had but being afraid that it could be so much worse… I really worry about coming out of this empty handed… who doesn’t when dealing with infertility it’s not all sunshine, or you’d never be approaching something like IVF…

I was worried all day about my meds not getting here on time, but they showed up around 2pm… I wasn’t home but luckily my teenager got home just a little bit after they did, since it was ridiculously hot again even an hour had me worried…. by the time I opened the package the ice packs were melted but the meds still felt cool so I figured it was okay and put them back in my fridge…

I haven’t done an injection in a long time and I’m sure I’ll be pro again in no time but it didn’t go as smoothly as planned… I totally forgot how to mix the menopour and freaked for a minute when I couldn’t find the smaller needle! I did both and it was fine… I don’t think either one really hurt, it did tingle for a minute but all was fine, once I calmed down and just did it… So here we go there’s no backing out now! IVF #2 is on!

Looooong day

Today I was up early and had to be on campus super early and I was late! Not a little late oh no, if I’m going to be late I’m going to be super late! I was 40mins late!

Between traffic, construction, parking and then going to the wrong building on my giant campus I was super late!

My class ended and I had another a few minutes later then I had to fight traffic and construction before I could pick up Dalton from daycare and head back home… Traffic alone was almost 2 hours of my day!

I’m exhausted! Dalton’s coughing again and we we’re up a few times in the night. I still have homework and then another early day tomorrow! But it’s nice to be back in the swing of things! I have to get back to a good routine of utilizing my time for homework, work and family (not in that order)!

I’m glad I’m so close to graduation now! I can see my finish line and I’m excited!