PUPO

PUPO - pregnant u til proven otherwise.

This is a saying that my trying to conceive friends use and it helps to bring a smile from my face and keeps my attitude positive.


Today I am 3 days past. 5 day transfer. I had my transfer on Sunday and it went amazing. I had two eggs that were 4AB. The only better quality is 4AA so we were ecstatic. We also had 2 embryo's to freeze of similar quality. The doctor was very happy and implanted both so I am PUPO!!!

Currently I have no symptoms. Maybe a couple twinges now and then but after symptom spotting for 2.5 years I've learned to pretty much ignore everything unless its something of epic proportions.  So I'm praying that I'm in my last two week wait for a while and I'm praying even harder for both of these embryos to stick.

Six more sleeps until my blood work, so here's to some symptoms and being able to hold out on peeing on a stick! 

Egg Hunt

Well the much awaited day arrived. My DH and I went to the hospital in huge anticipation of how many eggs they would retrieve and fertilize. They brought us in and gave us full scrubs and sat me in this very comfy chair with heated blankets and gave me an IV. When it came time for the procedure I received a local anesthetic that made me sleepy and some pain meds. It turned out to be pretty painful and they had to administer more drugs. At the very end they told me they had retrieved 11 eggs!!! They brought me back to a waiting room where I rested for about 30 min. while DH gave his sample. Lol

We went home and I lay on the couch all day. I felt awful. I could barely walk and my innards were killing me. It was not an experience I want to have to repeat very often.

On top of being in pain I had a severe headache and had contracted some sort of flu/cold. I was coughing, sneezing, blowing my nose every 10 minutes and I couldn't sleep to save my life......but I have tried to tell myself that if this led to me getting preggers I wouldn't complain. So I am taking everything in and trying to stay positive.

After an awful night of sleep I received a call that 7 had fertilized and that I would be doing a 5 day transfer!!!! The world couldn't have been a happier place for me that day. 

Two Sleeps...

To all of my followers....if there are any of you out there....only two more sleeps until my egg retreival.

I had my day 7 appointment on Thursday. This appointment was just a standard bloodwork and ultrasound appointment.  It's hard to know where you stand at these appointments as the doctor doesn't say a whole lot.  I have yet to hear any news on my levels (bloodwork) and he doens't say a whole lot about my follicles other than everything is looking good.  The nice part is that I can see how many follicles there are and the size of them as well as my lining on the ultrasounds machine and because of my research I know that my numbers are good.  As of this day I have around 15 follies and my lining is an 8. Yeah!

I went back for my day 9 appointment on Saturday and I had a couple of follies that were greater than 20mm (which means I could potentially do my trigger shot) however the doctor said that I only had 2 that were ready and I had many that were around 17mm so we would gain more by waiting more day. So I was told to take Menopur and Orgaultran for one more day and then I would trigger the follwoing night and do the egg retrieval on Tuesday. I also had to go back into the clinic for day 10.

Today I went in for my day 10 appointment to make sure that everythig was still going according to plan.  I had an absolute terrible sleep last night due to some crazy back pain, I ended up taking two Tylenol through the night just to try and get some sleep.  I asked the doctor about it and he doesn't seem to think that it is from the medication.  But I also have a little bit of a sore throat so I am praying that I am not coming down with the flu....
So I was a little nervous for today's appointment as I knew I would find out if I was able to do a fresh transfer or not.  During the ultrasound I saw that my lining was around 10mm (AWESOME!) and I had lots of follies all very mature.  He obviously hadn't had the results of my bloodwork so he couldn't tell me for sure if I would be able to do a fresh transfer or not. 

After the ultrasound the nurse sat down with me and explained that I would probably do a fresh cycle and that if I DIDN'T hear from her then I would take my HCG (trigger) and do a fresh cycle. I went home praying not to hear from the nurse. 

At about 1:30pm my phone rings, it's the hospital. My stomach absolutly sank, I couldn't believe I wasn't going to be able to do a fresh transfer.....BUT she was just calling to let me know to only take 1/2 of the HCG shot as my estrogen levels were still in good range but were verging on the side of high and they don't want to overstimulate.  YEAH!!!!

If everything goes perfect the doc will do the tranfer a week from today and then 9 days later do a pregnancy test....

Sticky thoughts!!!!

It Has Begun

Well I went for my ultrasound and blood work on Friday to make sure everything was in working order. Turns out it was!!! I started 225ui of Menopur on Friday night. I wasn't too sure how I would feel about giving myself a needle and mixing up the meds but it turns out its not that bad.

The first couple days I actually didn't feel much going on with my body but by day 4 I was feeling a little bloated. Day 5 I had my next ultrasound where they measured my lining and my eggs. My lining was 6mm which is small but as it was only day 5 I wasn't too concerned. On the up side I had 15 follies!!! 10 on my right and 5 on the left, measuring from 7mm-14mm. Yeah!!! So because one follie was 14mm (close to ovulation) I was prescribed Orgalutran - which is an antagonist and stops me from ovulating.

After my ultrasound I met with the embryologist who just explained to me a little about the fertilization and implantation process. He explained to me that because I'm in the lowest age category that I'm a perfect candidate for only a 1 egg transfer. BUT I know I will do two, if I am lucky enough to have two good embryos. My DH are more than okay with the idea of twins - not to get too greedy but we would love to have twins. (I'm probably going to kick myself in the ass for saying that! Lol)

I went home that evening and gave myself both needles....ugh. The Orgalutran hurt going in and left a small rash and I felt really crappy all night. My stomach was bloated, my pubic area was swollen and I had a feeling of pure discomfort.....but oh well, I will do whatever it takes. As I'm sure being pregnant (especially with twins;)) is going to be no cake walk.

It's now Thursday and I'm just at the clinic waiting for my day 7 bloodwork and ultrasound. Wish me luck!

O.M.G.

I have been away for a few days as I travelled home and settled into my nest....or as my DH and I like to call it, 'our shoebox.' lol  (We live in this tiny condo for the moment as neither of us are ever home. Our plan is to get pregnant and buy our home this summer or fall).

The big news today is that my period showed up and I am scheduled for my first ultrasound and bloodwork testing tomorrow morning!!! If everything goes according to plan I will be starting my injections tomorrow night.....so fingers crossed that it goes smoothly!

I went and picked up my medication yesterday, I am going to be on 225IU/vol of Menopur, which I'm told makes me a very 'cheap drunk' according to my RE. he he. I'm a little nervous about doing the mixing of the meds and I have no idea how I am going to feel about giving myself a needle in the stomach?! It should be quite the challenge...but my mindset is to embrace it all and just be happy that science allows me to do all of these crazy things in order to pro-create.  And on the upside at least it's not bathing suit season so I don't have to try and hide my 'track marked stomach.'

I honestly just can't believe that it's finally happening, it seems so surreal to me that in a couple of weeks I could have baby/ies growing inside me. OMG

So my plan is to spend tonight with my DH and have my 'last' glass of wine for the next year (yes - positive thinking) and pray my little heart out that this process runs smoothly.

FINGERS CROSSED!!!!!

What-If?

The inspiration from today's post comes to me from this amazing group of ladies that I am so fortunate to be a part of. It's a group of ladies that have either been through and/or are going through the the IVF process. They, as well as other ladies on the site, have been my outlet and support group through my entire TTC process, and without them I wouldn't be where I am today. So thank you ladies! (I would mention your names but I am sure you want your annonymity)

What-If?

This is the voice in my head that is constantly nagging away. I envision this little red devil sitting on my left shoulder continuously yelling these so called 'What-If profanities' in my ear.

"What-if the stimming doesn't work?"
"What-if you get lots of eggs but none of them fertilize?"
"What-if your egg quality is terrible?"
"What-if they fertilize and your lining sucks?"
"What-if they don't stick and there are no eggs to freeze?"

And honestly the list is never ending. These questions cause stress, the stress that is supposed to be avoided at all right now. This in turn causes more "what-if's?", and now this has escalated so bad that at this point the 'devil' has me convinced I'm going to end up barren, divorced, broke and miserable for the rest of my life. Ugh.

As long time TTCers we tend to focus so much time and energy on getting pregnant, and sometimes this is completely unavoidable.  The hours spent in the doctors office waiting for ultrasounds, blood work, medications etc and the dreaded tww in which we (or at least I do) count down the minutes to a potential BFP. It's in this time that the day dreaming happens or the 'daymares' as I like to call them in which the sneaky little S.O.B. works his way onto your shoulder and never shuts up.

The aforementioned is how some days end up. One small question turns into a giant avalanche with me laying dead underneath an entire mountain of snow.

The trick is to squash the little bastard before he completly takes over. The mind is a very powerful thing and if he asks you, "what-if the stimming doesn't work?" You tell him to sit the eff down, shut up and move on. This is my trick anyways.....I have a little party in my head to celebrate my victory and continue on with my day.

Mind, Body and Soul

 

                                                     

 

You know that feeling that you get the night before your wedding? Your body is this mass of energy – okay, okay I know it always is – but your stomach is full of nerves and excitement and your brain is going a million miles a minute: making sure you remember your vows, and realizing that everyone will be staring at YOU for once. Knowing that you are going to spend the rest of your life with ONE person! OMG….

This is how I feel today.  I feel like I am embarking on this life changing journey, that tomorrow when I wake up everything is going to change. This all may sound a bit over dramatic being that a) all I am doing tomorrow is starting Estrace and b) I am still a month away from only potentially being pregnant. However, as of tomorrow I am viewing my body as a vessel that will hold the most precious gift that I could ever ask for so I am going to do EVERYTHING in my power to ensure that it’s as healthy as I can make it. 

When I first started TTC I didn’t really think too much about my body or my health – Phase I. I just knew that when I got pregnant I wouldn’t drink, smoke and I would try to each as healthy as I could, anything that happened before conception was fair game.  And I would say that this behaviour is probably the norm.

 A year into my journey I decided that maybe it was the way I was treating my body that we weren’t pregnant yet – Phase II. So on my 30^th birthday I made it my mission to get healthy. I lost 40 pounds I cut my drinking down substantially, I ate a million times better and started watching my caffeine intake and I quit smoking (except for the occasional one). I had decided that I didn’t want to put my life completely on hold because the journey could take quite a while and I still needed to live life.

 I am now past that point – Phase III.  I would consider myself a pretty healthy person but I still have some vices and in order for me to be completely at peace with this process I need to get rid of those vices.  I have spent 2.5 years ttc without success and now we are counting on science and a large sum of money to make our dreams come true so no matter what the outcome is I want to know that I put everything I have into it.

So tomorrow I start Estrace for 7 days or until I get my period (whichever comes first). When AF arrives I will be calling the Dr’s office and booking my first ultrasound for 3 days later to see how everything looks and it will be then that I start my injections.

 On Friday March 22, I am heading home from work on a leave and I am going to focus on my mind body and soul and I am hoping that by doing this that it will increase my chances of getting my long awaited bundle of joy.

For those of you out there reading this may you join me in a prayer to help me be the best version of me that I can be so that my family can grow from two to three (or maybe four…hehe).