Weekly Update

It's been a couple of weeks since I wrote.

That first weekend after our miscarriage was hard. I wrote my last message on Friday and on Saturday I woke up feeling heavy and sad. I'm glad it was the weekend and that Brad was here to help me and L. It was a very rough weekend.

Monday we met with our doctor. He explained to us that he really couldn't see any reason why we weren't pregnant. He said that there were no red flags and that our embryos were great quality and we should have been able to have a healthy pregnancy with them. He assured us that it wasn't a problem with the uterus, everything is looking great there, but that most likely it was just a fluke. Even with high quality blastocysts women still only get pregnant two-thirds of the time. We just fell into the unlucky third.

The good news from all of that is that there's no reason we shouldn't try again. The bad news is that there's no reason we shouldn't try again. :o) We've got some options. We have three frozen blastocysts to try a frozen embryo transfer (FET) and we have insurance coverage for IUI (intra-uterine insemination) which is not as effective as IVF, but the doctor says he'd be happy to try it with us. So there are more fertility treatments that we could do. On the other hand we'd really gone into this with the idea that we'd try it out, see what happens and then move onto adoption if we didn't get pregnant. We really only tried IVF again because we really felt that we were being led in that direction to get some closure and to stop wondering if it was our doctor, or if my eggs were really just bad. We got that answer and it still didn't work, and adoption has turned out to be such an amazing blessing in our lives. Until last November I don't think that either of us ever even considered that a child would come into our lives by any other way. In the end... we're taking a month off to just think. L came to us so fast that we wouldn't start the process for the next couple of months anyway, so we've got some time. We'll see what happens...

And I can honestly say that no matter what happens we've been so blessed. The last few days I've felt more blessed than I have in a long time.

L is just growing and changing each day. I can't believe the things that she's doing now. I honestly think that I'd be happy if she stayed 19 months old forever and ever. She's learning signs everyday, and she says a new word just about everyday. I think that it's just been a good time to stand back and look at what greatness and blessings exist in my life. L is definitely one of the greatest blessings of all. She's an absolute angel (even when she's naughty).

I'll show you an example. :o)

She is totally into imitating. Brad and I have to watch what we do because she'll try to do anything we do. I now notice every time I hit Brad on the arm or yell at someone while I'm driving, because my little mirror does it too. It's also sort of satisfying that L's favorite activities seem to be the activities that I do all day. She loves to clean and whenever she finds a rag that's the first thing she does. She likes to dustbuster and put dishes in the dishwasher. Sometimes I feel like I sit on the couch all day, but L helps me to feel better about that with all her cleaning. I must be sort of a good example after all. :o)

The other day she grabbed the diapers and the wipes and her baby doll Lucy. She laid Lucy down on her mat and proceeded to "change" Lucy's diaper, which mostly meant wiping the poor doll to death.





She got the diaper out, but abandoned the idea early on.



...and decided instead to wipe her belly button.



I just think that is so cute!

Mawmaw had been with us for awhile, but Pawpaw made an appearance last week. We headed into the city one day and poor Pawpaw didn't get to do the one thing that he had asked to do, but we did get to see some dinosaurs and a giant elephant. L also got to meet a police horse named Jack. It was a great day in the city.





We were sad to see them go home.

Last weekend was the perfect weekend. Friday night Brad and I cuddled on the basement couch and watched Twilight in HD. I'm not a techie girl, but I love that HD. We snacked and watched the movie and had the best time.

Saturday morning we woke up and headed back into the city for the kite festival. A group from Brad's office were meeting down there and even though we didn't ever find them and the weather was really crummy, we had the best time. Because of the going's on down there, we had to park far away and ride a shuttle to get where we wanted to go. We decided not to take the stroller but to wear L in the ergo. It worked out great.

L on her daddy's back.



We had to walk quite a ways, probably around a mile to get to the kite festival and Brad and I both noticed how it felt good to get out and get moving. We'd been taking it so easy for a couple of months because of the IVF, that getting back to normal felt so good. It was worth the walk too, because L LOVED the kites. I thought she'd enjoy them, but she enjoyed them even more than that.























We had a great time. After we had our fill of the kites we headed up to our favorite tapas restaurant. I have to brag on my baby now. At this particular restaurant, kids eat free before 6:00pm on Saturdays. We hated to go to a spanish restaurant and order a grilled cheese (not that there is anything wrong with that :o) so we ordered the vegetable paella. My sweet baby L is such a good eater! She ate almost all of the huge plate of paella (even the cauliflower, carrots and peas, but NOT the green beans) plus chicken croquettes (my favorite) and nearly ate her weight in manchego cheese. That kid is the best eater! We even got the ice cream that came with the kids meal and split it between the three of us. It was a fantastic lunch! We remarked (as we usually do) that we never make it into the city and that we really should.

We left the restaurant and headed back to meet the shuttle. The walk was long, probably 3 or 4 miles, but we were enjoying being out. I had to stop halfway through to go to the bathroom and stopped in the old castle. We'd never been in there before (I didn't even now that you could go in) and after I did my business we headed out the back door into a garden that we also did not know was there. The magnolia trees were absolutely dripping with flowers. We had to get a few photos.





We had to take our annual self portrait with the cherry tree in the background while we were there.







It was the best bathroom break ever. :o)

L fell asleep as soon as we left the garden and headed back to the shuttle. We made it back to the car and actually got her into her seat without waking her (not easy!). We headed back to the house and had a lovely evening at home.

Sunday we went to church, went grocery shopping, came home and slept all afternoon and then went to bible study in the evening. It was the perfect end to the weekend.

This week has been great so far. The weather is getting nicer and we're able to get out. Today we went to the park with L's good friend E after library storytime and lunch with daddy. If the amount of mulch in our hair is any indication of how much fun we had (and I think it is), then we had a blast! We're looking forward to some fun things later in the week too (including a new haircut for me!).

See you next week!

pregnancy test

Well... it's sad news.

I'm not pregnant.

I took six pregnancy tests earlier this week, 5 of which came back positive, so we'd become very excited (of course!). Unfortunately we've experienced a chemical pregnancy which is basically an early miscarriage. My numbers on my blood test from the doctor's office show my hcg higher than a negative, but not high enough to be a positive. So... I was pregnant, but it's not a viable pregnancy. My numbers will continue to drop.

As for now, we go back to the doctor on Monday. I have to have another blood test to see where we are then. I am stopping my medication (which is actually a good thing) and we'll meet with the doctor to go over why this may have happened.

Warning: I'm about to get all philosophical.

The thing is it's really okay. I mean, I'm totally bummed out about it. I'll grieve the loss, but not like I had to before. Brad and I accepted a long time ago that we were not going to have biological children, and we were at peace with that and going into this cycle we were very aware of the fact that we knew it would work out positive or negative. It doesn't mean that it doesn't suck. It doesn't mean that sometimes I don't wish that I had it easier or even wonder why the heck I don't have it so easy. I just think that we went into this knowing that it would be okay whether or not we ended up pregnant.

I really and truly believe that God has a plan in all of this. I've said it before that I don't believe that God causes our suffering. I don't know why we suffer, but I don't think that God causes it. I do think that God finds good in our pain. I know that I felt in the depths of despair when we got done with our second cycle of IVF. I felt like I was suffering so badly and I wondered why God would allow such a painful thing to happen to me. Looking back on it now though I'd go through that suffering a hundred times to have L in my life. I know that she came to be my daughter through that suffering.

With that perspective, this all doesn't seem that bad. It's sad for sure, but I know that we'll have another child. This is a step on our journey.

We sit down with the doctor next Monday and decide what the next step is going to be. We can certainly use the embryos we have frozen, or do another fresh cycle, or we may just be moving on to our original next step which was adoption. We're not sure at this point what we'll do, but don't worry we'll keep you posted.

Weekly Update

It's been a long time since I updated last. We've been keeping busy though. L is loving having her Mawmaw here to play with and we've very much appreciated the help. I'm doing great, and we're just waiting on pins and needles for Friday to come when I go in for the pregnancy test to see what has happened. We're keeping our fingers crossed, but always an open mind to the possibilities.

Now onto the photos and the (two) weekly update. L loves this drum. L got it from a friend who had outgrown it, and she's loving it. The sticks get lost every so often, however, usually under the couch, so daddy got out a pair of his real drumsticks for L to use last week.



It's funny how quickly the weather changes. The last time I posted I had photos of the 5 inches of snow we received. That was a Monday, and by Saturday it was nearly 70 degrees and we couldn't resist going outside. We headed to the dinosaur park, one of our new favorite destinations.





There are plenty of fun things to do there.



L loves to slide. This was her first trip down this slide, and I'm glad that she went sitting down. L flew off the end of the slide and landed with a thud on the mulch at the bottom. She's a tough kid though, so she just got right up and went on her way.



After that Mawmaw was always there to catch her.



We had a great time.



Now I just love this photo. It's a great sassy face. She has them, and for now they are still cute.



Yesterday I woke up feeling good. I was so ready to get this house back in shape after two weeks of being down and out, and so that started by washing the covers on the cushions on the couch. While I had everything up I vacuumed the cheerios out of the couch and set the dustbuster down without thinking much of it. L found it and took it right back over to the couch, which was quite a feat since it's about as big as she is, and took up where I left off. It was too cute.



When L sees the camera now she says, "cheese!" (though it sounds more like, "teeees!") This is her "cheese" face.



Now, if you ask her to smile you get this face.



That kid is too cute!

See you next week!

Embryo Transfer

Things have continued to go well for us through the final phase of this process. Of the 16 eggs that were retrieved last Tuesday, 14 were mature. 10 fertilized and became embryos.

Traditionally, embryo transfer would occur on day 3, which would have been Friday. The nurse called Thursday and scheduled our Friday appointment and gave us the news that there was a possibility of waiting until Sunday for blastocyst transfer. This was unbelievable news for us. In certain cases, if there are many high quality embryos they will wait until day 5 when the embryos have developed into blastocysts. This helps them to see if one or two of them are going to develop better than the others. It's encouraging to know that pregnancy rates are much higher with blastocyst transfer (mostly because the very best embryos are chosen and transferred).

Friday morning the doctor called. I was surprised, because normally we only get calls from the nurses. The doctor was so excited to let us know that all our embryos were doing so well and that we'd wait for Sunday for blastocyst transfer. He discussed the pros and cons of a single or double blastocyst transfer. Because success rates are higher with blastocyst transfer often it's either all or nothing in terms of pregnancy. Either everything transferred will implant and grow, or nothing will. In our case the trouble is that the statistics don't really work for us. He said that since we had two failures, that maybe transferring two would be best. He ended telling us that either answer was the right answer and that he was just so pleased with how strong our embryos looked.

We wrestled with the one or two question Friday and Saturday. We talked about the advantages of doing one, with the risks of worrying that we'd have none. We talked about doing two because we definitely didn't want to repeat the process. We talked about a lot of things, and eventually we decided that we'd transfer one, freeze the remaining blastocysts and then try two if one didn't work.

Sunday morning we went to the office. I had acupuncture first, and then chugged a ton of water. The doctor came in to talk to us about our embryos. All of them, but one, were still doing well and growing. The doctor went through a lot of terms I didn't know about embryo development, but basically what I got was this... In the beginning when embryos are only 4-8 cells, the cell mass is clearly visible. As they develop a "skin" develops around the cells and fluid develops in that skin. At that point the cell mass is impossible to see clearly, but some stages in development are easy to see. The cell mass eventually compacts and there are a bunch of names for different stuff that happens, but when the cell mass gets to be right around 64 cells, it becomes clear again and is at the blastocyst stage. All of our embryos still had their "skin" on but two of them were in the early blastocyst stage, while the others were not quite so far along. These were the two clear frontrunners. The doctor informed us that if our two strongest embryos were a bit farther along (all the way to the blastocyst stage and easy to see into) that they would recommend transfer of one, but because they were only early blastocysts, they could not effectively grade the embryos. They only recommend single transfer for the very highest grade embryos, so they recommended that we transfer two. We laughed because we'd had this all planned out and then of course, our plans were not what we were doing. It's just another example of how in our family planning NOTHING ever goes the way we planned it. ;o)

After the transfer, I went for more acupuncture and we went home. I'm now confined to my bed for 48 hours, and then very light activity for the rest of the week. I can't pick up L until Sunday. I do not know how that is going to work out, but I'm just so thankful that my mom is here to help. I know that L is going to be fine no matter what, but I already miss our daily routine.

Now we wait... Pregnancy test will be on the 20th in the doctor's office. We're hoping for the best! The office will call us on Wednesday to let us know if the other embryos continued to develop, or if they've ceased. Those that reach the blastocyst stage will be frozen, and since they don't have to transfer them, they have all the time they need to "grow up."

Thanks for everyone's prayers and support. I know more than any other time that God is with us through this process and always has been since the beginning. I know that when I think about the poor egg quality diagnosis that we had that was clearly wrong that I'm honestly thankful for it. Our family is just the way that it's supposed to be. How can I argue with that? Anyway... your prayers are all truly felt. We have so much peace however this works out.

OH... and I almost forgot. Statistically speaking many more boys are born from blastocyst transfer. We may end up with twin boys. Ha! Maybe we should all say a prayer for that!

Weekly update coming... I'm chained to my bed and the camera is downstairs...

Egg Retrieval

Hello everyone!

Thanks so much for your thoughts and prayers. Yesterday started very early. Brad and I headed to the surgery center and I got changed into my very fashionable peach gown and hair net and waited for things to get started. I was most nervous about the IV (have you SEEN those needles? I've been a human pincushion for a couple of weeks but that thing is HUGE.) and they got that started early and started some fluids. After that it was mostly waiting until it was time to go back to the operating room. I remember sitting on the table, putting my knees where they belonged and then... lights out.

When I woke up I was back on the stretcher I'd started on and Brad was sitting beside me. We had to wait for brain to recover a bit before we could go. The nurse gave us the good news. We got 16 eggs! The most we've ever gotten before is 7, so maybe something in the new protocol worked! We'll see. They can't tell us anything about quality or maturity before we go, they just have to get everything together and let the magic happen.

so... today we're waiting. We should know sometime today, probably around noon or so, how many of the eggs successfully fertilized and how many embryos we have. We won't know until later the quality of those embryos.

We'll keep you posted!

Weekly Update

Hi everyone!

It's been too long! It's been a crazy couple of weeks for us and so we had a little bit of an absent week last week, but we're back!

L has had a great couple of weeks. She seems like she's talking all the time and we can even understand some of it. The two words I can think of that she's learned recently are "cheese" which sounds more like "teese" and "thank you" which sounds more than "tan do." It's really cute that I get the camera out and L grins and says, "teese!"

She's very into mimicking anything (oh. my. goodness.) and loves to clean up. She'll get any rag or napkin she finds and wipe down the table or the floor and even found the broom this week and decided to do a little sweeping. It's not exactly helpful, yet, but I'm hopeful!





Today we woke up to a wonderful coating of snow! Brad wasn't off of work, but decided to do a little from home this morning. We were glad to have him around and eventually he couldn't resist taking L out in the snow.





We got L bundled up with probably way too many clothes, but we couldn't find her mittens! She didn't seem to be too concerned.

Last time it snowed, L was not interested at all. She would sort of look at the snow, but didn't want to touch it or walk in it. I thought that was going to happen this time.





Going down the stairs in the snow, she was looking at her feet like "what in the world?"



...but she seemed to warm up pretty quickly after Brad got the shovel out. I think that she decided that it was a lot like sweeping.



Brad tried to get L interested in snowballs.



I don't know that she was too interested, but her daddy demonstrated what you do with them.



Luckily, I was inside taking photos through the glass door. Brad always said that zoom lens would come in handy!



She did eventually touch the snow.



In true L style... she had to taste some!



She apparently didn't mind though, because she was happy to keep on playing in it.



Daddy was worried that her hands were too cold, so he put his gloves on L. She knew just what to do!





It was a great morning of fun in the cold.



After they were both cold and covered in snow, Brad brought L in the house.





L clothes were wet, so she hung out in her long johns while she watched her daddy shovel the walk. He's not quite as cute (maybe he should get one of those hats with the tassels on each side) but he does shovel quite a bit faster. ;o)



As for my IVF cycle it's going really well. (Many of our friends and family know our story and it can be found here if you don't.) Because we're doing a completely different medication protocol with a completely different doctor, I have no idea what to expect.

My cycle has gone really well. My estrogen levels rose way too fast at first (a good sign since the first two times they could hardly get them to go up at all) but the doctors quickly got them under control. I have several good looking follicles and I'm going for my egg retrieval tomorrow morning. Then Wednesday they'll call us with the number of eggs that were fertilized and then either Friday or Sunday we'll go back for embryo transfer. Up to this point there has been plenty to do. There were injections to take and acupuncture to go to, and things to keep my mind busy (not that an 18 month old doesn't keep your mind busy). Now we just pray and wait. We'll keep you posted.

See you next week!