Something to freeze!!!!

They called with our cryo report a day early. We have two 6-day embryos in the freezer!!!!! Four more must have arrested since Sunday. That's ok though, beggars can't be choosers. I'm so thankful to have something to fall back on. But, as my eternally optimistic friend Sara reminded me this morning, I can only focus on the positive. That means....we have future siblings in the freezer!!! Oh. That sounds kind of bad. And weird. But you know what I mean;-)

Now...my obsession of the day, prior to that call, was what in the world is going on down there in uterus-land??? Today should technically be implantation day. I spent a few minutes in bed this morning, visualizing 2 little embryos (no, not 3 b/c I don't want to be selfish. and yes I am serious)...holding hands, walking around in there on their little stick legs/feet trying to find a nice spot to camp. Specifically, I was envisioning embryo 2 and 13. No idea why. And yes, in my visualization they DID find a spot, and sat down like they were in a really fluffy bed:-) And they talked to each other. 2 told 13 that they had to find a spot b/c mommy really wanted them to hang around. And though they felt bad for 12, and didn't want to leave him/her behind, they needed to move on and do this for mommy.

People, I am serious. This was the scenario in my head this morning. If this doesn't work, will someone please check me into the hospital?

ANd because I am a visual person, here is what is *hopefully* going on in there right now (X 2).

3 embies are back home:-)

We had a 3dt today. We got the call early, that we were set for today. I immediatly got upset, b/c we both assumed we'd have a 5dt, just b/c we had 11 embryos. Dan was laying next to me during the call and the first thing he said after I hung up was "wow, they must be dying off quickly." Um, thanks for that. Actually, it's the exact same thing I was thinking, he just chose to voice it.

Prior to transfer, we had to take Sally (foster dog) back to the shelter. We just can't deal with her right now, and I need to be as stress-free as possible so she was the easiest stressor to eliminate.
Dan and I bickered all the way to the RE office. (Most of it was my fault-I was picking fights). I started blubbering the second we walked into the building. Once we go to the office and into the prep room and changed into our gowns I started sobbing. It was just too much stress. I just couldn't understand what happened to all of our embryos, and was finding it difficult to be optimistic. I kept thinking it would never work and was a waste of another $12k. Dan just kept shoving kleenexes at me. I'd stop for a few minutes, then start sobbing again. Dr. K walked in during my breakdown.

I couldn't even get out why I was so upset, so Dan told her. Then he started crying!! Poor Dr. K. SHe got down on her knees in front of me and assured me the embryos she was going to transfer were "beautiful" and "clear". I asked what happened to the others. WHen she looked at my chart, she had the same question herself so she called the lab. Turns out, b/c we wanted to transfer 3, they wanted those 3 back in me ASAP. There are actually 6 more still growing (so only 2 died over the past 2 days). I'm hoping that we can freeze 2-4 of those 6...but won't know until 3/20. Plus, as Dr. K reminded me, my uterus is a much better incubator than a petri dish.

Once she calmed me down off to the OR we went. Dan got to go and we saw them plop the embryos into my uterus via cathetar. I have a severely tilted uterus (it actually points toward my back). For this reason, I took Valium this time, to calm my muscles in hopes of my uterus doing what it is supposed to. I took 1 an hour before, and 1 30 minutes before. That's probably also why I was so emotional.

THey also did assisted hatching on all 3. This is where they use a laser to make a small pin point hole into the shell, so the embryos have a better chance of making their way out of the shell and into a nice cozy spot in my uterus.

We named them with IVF #1. We chose not to name them this time. We are, however, calling them 2, 12, and 13, which is the way the lab labeled them.

AND, when I got home, I was just getting ready to call a friend to tell her all was well. SHe texted me right before, saying she was in labor and her baby Evan will be here today!!!! We joked that hers is coming out and mine is going in:-)

So that's my story. Beta is 3/30, one day after our 6th wedding anniversary.

ANd here are our embies:-) The top 2 are 8 cell, and the bottom one is 7 cell.

11:-)

I got the fert report call!!! We have 11 embryos growing in a little petri dish down the street:-) We're SO excited!!!! This is the same # we had with IVF #1. This time though, they all fertilized naturally (without ICSI).

They'll call tomorrow with a tentative ET time for Sunday. They won't disturb the embryos tomorrow. Early Sun morning they'll pull them out to see how they are doing. Based on how many are still thriving, and what stage they are in, we'll either do the 3day transfer on Sunday, or the 5dt on Tuesday.

Sometimes it just hits me...

Friday afternoon, trying to get motivated to be productive. I decided to tackle my desktop. Yes, I am one of those people whose computer monitor is super cluttered with lots of Word docs, Access files, etc. Of course I open each file prior to deleting or moving, and I can usually tell what something is by what I named it.

Then I come to a picture, without an obvious name. Hmmm...what could this be? It was a picture of my two transfered embies from IVF #1 in May. Embies # 7 and #9 (according to the embriology lab) to be exact.

Sigh.

Sigh again.

Sniff.

Sniff. sniff.

I finally closed the picture, but I didn't delete it or move it. I'll keep it where it is for a while.

pity party weekend

I've been feeling sorry for myself all weekend. On Friday, I was surprised with the news that my cousin is pregnant. Apparently this was a well kept secret and my grandma spilled the beans. I was ok at first, it wasn't a shock really. THen as the day went on I just got more and more upset. Jealousy I suppose? I just want one. One child. That is ALL I am asking for. Is that too much? I slept most of the day on Friday out of some sort of depressive funk, I guess.

Last night, Dan and I celebrated our 10th anniversary of the day we met:-) We went to our favorite restaurant. It was nice; I brought up a serious IF discussion with him, which he was very open to, thankfully. I won't discuss it here, yet...but I'm hopeful that we may have another option.

Someone posted on the nest a few days ago about missing their embryos. I didn't respond to the post, but I've been thinking about it all weekend. It seems crazy to miss embryos...but I do. I miss that they are not in a lab growing, cells dividing. I miss that they are not in a freezer waiting for me. Most of all, I miss that they are not inside me, growing and thriving. It's a weird sort of loss, but it is there. They were something that Dan and I created, and they are gone now. All of them. We had 5 healthy embryos and now they are gone. It makes me sad.

To top it off, the FET period from hell arrived this morning. I will not go into details...but I think it's the worst period I have.ever.had.

FET is DONE!!

Wow, it was pretty emotional. I got teary eyed just walking into the RE office (Fertility Person in hand and Angie bracelet on). We had to wait a little bit before being taken back. Then, we got in our "outfits" and were ready for Dr. K. She came in with a picture of THREE embryos!!! I was shocked. One of them looked different from the other two, in that there was no zona surrounding the cells. So Dr. K called the embryologist to get some info. Embryologist said she had seen healthy pregnancies result from an embie without a zona, so...we put all THREE back in!!

Once in the procedure room there was a bit of an issue, as expected, with my tilted uterus. The intern doing the u/s had some trouble identifing the uterus. Dr. K asked the expert u/s tech come down to help. We got to see the catheter in, and then once the embies were ready, we actually saw that pop out of the cathetar. Plop, plop, plop...there are THREE embies inside me.

Back in recovery room Dr K came to say all went well and I just lost it. She gave me kleenex, told me I'd done all I could do. SHe was almost in tears too, which made me cry harder. After she left, embryologist came in to wish us luck and I asked her a bit about the embie without the zone. She said sometimes it happens during the thaw when the zone separates from the cells, but there was no reason to think it was "bad."

Beta is Sept 24! They are only making me wait 12 days instead of 14. I was shocked at that too.

Without further adieu, here are the Stancey's!!! Sorry for the upside down scan, but it's not like they'd look any different right side up:o)

Still no period

Hmmm. It's Friday afternoon, and no hint of spotting. I guess the pessimistic side of me is thinking my LP is just extra long b/c of Clomid, but it never has been before. I still don't really expect to get lucky, so I'm just biding my time, getting anxious every time I go to the bathroom. Fun stuff for sure. If I haven't started by Monday, I will test. That will be a long enough wait, and if I were to be pregnant, it should for sure show up + by then. If not, I'll call my RE nurse and see if she can give me some meds to kick start AF. So for now...I just wait.

I plan on staying busy this weekend. I have a quilt to finish for a wedding in Sept. I don't except to finish it all, but should get a good head start.

I may post some pics on here too, to make it a little more interesting. So much good news on the Nest today. While I am thrilled for everyone, I can't help but wonder when it's going to happen for me. I have waited long enough. I told a co-worker about my IVF today. I wasn't going to, but it just came out. She's pregnant and due next week!!! She had so many questions, and was so supportive. I showed her the pic of our transferred embies. I'll try to upload the pic here. Just think...3 more of those little guys (or girls!) are waiting patiently right now:-)