4 and 5 days past 5 day transfer (FET#2)

I was just rereading our post procedure instructions and realized that we have to test on 11/23 - the day before Logan's birthday and Thanksgiving and I'm feeling a little dismayed. Nothing is going to make me not feel absolutely joyous and grateful on our son's birthday, but if we get back sad results it will be a lot of emotions to process over night.

I know we can do it.

A positive beta would just be so lucky for us. Luck-luck-lucky. 

4 days past 5 day transfer - tired, some pinches and pulls in my uterus. Chills. Very vivid dreams. Insomnia. Hungry in the middle of the night. Tire and get winded easily.

5 days past 5 day transfer - tired, less pinches and pulls in my uterus. Chills. Very vivid dreams. Insomnia. Tire and get winded easily. Hungry in the middle of the night - got up and ate left over pizza.

Beta is on Wednesday. Gah! Scared. Hopeful. Praying!

Not sure what to expect, some of these symptoms are similar to what I felt with Logan, but they are coming on way sooner than what I experienced with Logan.

It's going to be another long week and a stressful pre-dawn Wednesday morning at our house.

Please pray for us and for a positive beta on Wednesday.

xo Jill

3 days past 5 day transfer (FET#2)

We made it home to Minnesota safe! The roads were perfect both ways. We drove straight to my parent's house to pick up Logan. One thing they weren't telling us on the day of our transfer and the day after is that he had quite a cold with a fever. Tuesday and Wednesday he had a high fever and my mom had to give him a bath to get him cooled down, but he was on the mend and happy to see us when we got there on Thursday afternoon.

Lots of smiles and very green snot.

My mom is now sick, so I hope we can avoid catching what he has. He slept between us last night, so we might not be able to avoid it. My mom gave us half a chicken, so I already have chicken noodle soup stock simmering on the stove.

Logan has kept me pretty distracted, but I've still been keeping track of my symptoms.

Transfer day - no symptoms. Sleepy from the meds. I managed to stay on the bed for the full 20 minutes after the transfer, despite the fact that my bladder felt like it was going to explode. We went our for lunch, then back to the hotel for a nap for me. We took a light walk in the afternoon, to keep the blood flowing.

1 days past - first leg of trip home. I felt several twinges and pulls in my uterus. We stopped every two hours to walk around.

2 days past - second leg of trip home. More twinges and pulls, several little pricks. I fell asleep in the car, which is something I never do. We stopped at a beautiful rest stop in Illinois and took a walk around the lake beside it.

3 days past - Vivid dreams about a lady wearing colorful socks and an English mansion house (???) in the am, slept hard even though Logan was fretful and slept with us half the night. Hungry in the morning, despite a huge meal of spaghetti the night before. Both baby and I slept for another 3 hours after hubby went to work.

I've felt a few more twinges today, felt one just a now and felt one faint twinge in my chest. I had lots of those in the late days of my two week wait for Logan.

And another thing, I've been getting the chills. This happened this morning when Logan and I went back to bed. I got three or four cold flashes even though I was snuggled under the covers. This didn't happen until 7 or 8 days past with Logan.

So, I'm still only three days out. I want these days to go by fast and I also want them to stretch out forever, because it's so nice living in this hope.

It was so wonderful meeting our adopted embryos on Tuesday. I have been praying over the embryos from our first donor for over two years and it was so good to see them. They are fighters for sure. Carol, the embryologist, said they looked just average - that's why she thawed the other embryo from our second donors, but I just keep reminding myself that they are fighters to make the thaw and be alive. They are now where they are supposed to be.

(I looked back over my notes from Logan's transfer and he was one of two 3AB and 3AC embryos. The two from our first donors were 4AC and 4CC.)

I'm almost afraid to talk about our third embryo, because it looked perfect. I never thought I'd ever see a 5 AA embryo and that a doctor would be telling me they are transferring it into my uterus - but he/she is in there now! The picture of all our our babies is proudly hanging on the fridge.

God is doing his work in our life. I'm just praying his and my hopes line up.

I have to laugh at that because the plan he's had so far for our life is something I never could have imagined. A perfect plan.

Well, I hear my little guy waking up.

Thank you to our donors and prayers to all of you on this journey.

Please pray for our family!

xo Jill

transfer day :) :) :)

We made it to transfer day - it truly is a miracle.

Remember when I commented in my last post that there was a small amount of fluid in my uterus at my first ultrasound, well it was still there at my ultrasound last Thursday. That is not ideal and it looked like our cycle was in real risk of being cancelled if the fluid was not clear by our ultrasound on 11/14 (which was yesterday.)

To make a long story short we took the risk and drove out to Tennessee to have an ultrasound yesterday - which was clear - but if it had not been we would have had to return to Minnesota (1,000 miles) with an empty womb.

My doctor in Minnesota was pretty sure that the fluid would clear when we introduced progesterone into my protocol. So we came.

Both our cars also broke down last week - can you believe it? The starter went out on our newer car and my husband broke the emergency break on our back-up car (so the warning bell beeps the whole time we drive it.) Our repair man worked late Friday night to fix the starter on the car we wanted to drive to Tennessee, so we got here!

So many people have helped us get this far.

My parents are watching Logan and they've been sending us pictures and videos every day. We can't wait to get home to him.

FET #2 Transfer Details

Three embryos transferred at blast stage. Two from our first donors and one from our second. The two from our first donors were average quality - 4CC and 3AC. The one from our second donors was a beautiful 5AA blast.

There are no more blasts left from our first donor and 10 left from our second donor.

We are praying this is it. We know God has a plan for our family.

Thank you for your prayers. Please pray for a positive beta for us the day after Thanksgiving.

P.S. Our son's first birthday is Thanksgiving Day!

Prayers to all of you on this journey.

Jill

getting close

It's hard to believe we are only 10 days out from our transfer.

Trying for baby number two has been very different than trying for number one - obviously! I'm so busy with our little one and work and our life that I haven't had a lot of time to worry. My heart is also so full and content with our child that the gaping, bleeding hole that was there when we were going through treatment after treatment for our first child (30 months of trying) has healed. The scar is still there, though.  And I'm fearful of failure.

I'm afraid of how I will react if our transfer doesn't work the first time. Or the second time.

While these fears are floating there beneath the surface I've been prayerfully working to build up my faith and put my trust in God. I keep on telling myself: "He has a plan for our family. Before the world was even formed he had a plan for our family. It's all under control."

It's gonna suck if we undertake this struggle again and we don't get the results we hope for. The same cousins who were pregnant while we were struggling for our first are now pregnant with their second or even third baby.

And I'm going to have to see them over the holidays. I SO HOPE WE ARE PREGNANT!

I'm just going to take a deep breath and hang tight. I'm so grateful for the blessing of our son - he has completely transformed my life. I can't ever go back to those dark days when infertility was tearing me apart.

I've got to stay strong. And count my blessings. There are so so many.

Update on FET #2

• My first US and labs looked good. (Although there was some fluid in my uterus. This was probably because I was at the tail end of my period. Hope so. 
• I'm on 10 units of Lupron a day
• I'm on 1 injection of Lovenox a day
• prenatals, fish oil and vitamin D daily
• 2 estradial pills a day
•  

Soon we'll be adding in the progesterone intramuscular injections. I have another appointment for US and labs this coming Thursday. If we are cleared to proceed I'll start the progesterone and we will leave for our road trip to Tennessee on Sunday. Transfer is on November, 15.

I hope we can keep moving forward. I'm looking forward to our road trip. It's a nice buffer between the stress of work and our transfer. I have a few knitting projects and a baby quilt that needs to have the binding sew on set aside to work on during our drive. We also like to check out a few books on CD to listen to. It's a good time for my husband and I to catch up. We really enjoy hanging out with each other. We go out to eat, watch movies in the hotel.

Our son's first birthday is on Thanksgiving this year. I've started to collect the things I will need to bake his cake and celebrate.

Prayers to all of you on this journey. Please pray for us and our precious embryos.

Thank you,

Jill

FET #2 Update

I thought I'd better post a quick update.

We were matched with another wonderful donor family a few weeks ago. All of the paperwork has been signed and turned in so now we have officially adopted more embryos.

It's amazing how we have been matched with three wonderful families. I can't believe it. Every time its a miracle. I still find it hard to believe that there are families out there willing to let infertile couples adopt their remaining embryos so that they have a shot at growing their family.

I truly feel God's guiding hand in all aspects of this.

Our transfer is on November 15.

I started my lupron injections yesterday. I've been on lovenox since I started birth control over a month ago.

Milestone appointments: 

I have an ultrasound on 10/27 to make sure everything is quiet, then another on 11/10 to make sure my lining is building up for our little babies to snuggle in.

Feelings:

My heart and mind are feeling pretty quiet right now. I'm excited, but I'm also guarded. I feel so grateful that we get to try again. I'm praying that my body responds well to the protocol and we are cleared to proceed at each checkpoint.

It really is a small miracle to even make it to transfer day. 

I'm currently trying to go two to sessions of acupuncture a week. I've started to drink my raspberry leaf tea and I'm painfully weaning myself off of coffee. I'm down to one small half cup each morning.


I just need that hot zap of caffeine and sugar.

If you are an embryo donor, thank you!

xo Jill

matching process

We finally got to download the list of donor profiles on Friday. My husband is out of the country, so he spent the night pouring over them and I spent the morning. We finally shared our top choices with each other and 5 out of 10 of them were the same.

I just submitted our list of hopefuls to the NEDC. Now I guess they vet the choices and get back to us with further information.

I'm starting to get excited about our November transfer. I'm feeling like it's really going to happen. I started birth control last weekend and with it Lovenox injections to prevent blood clots. The birth control is high in estrogen and so are the estrogen supplements (obviously) that I will start to take in October as our transfer date starts to approach. Both are bad for women who have had blood clots.

My husband gets home on this Friday. He has been away for over three weeks and we are more than ready for him to be home. I can't believe we've been able to coordinate some of this with him being overseas. We've done webex meetings with our social worker.

I can't believe it's getting to the end of September. Time is moving too fast.

Logan will be 10 months old on Friday as well.

Praying for you all on this journey.

xo Jill

waiting and waiting

I'm reposting this image from Lauree's blog. It's very true for our situation right now. We're waiting to hear back on our review of our homestudy. I didn't realize that it would take so long or else I would have submitted it a few weeks before our appointment.

Infertility has really taught me patience. Well, maybe that's not true, but now when I feel myself starting to get impatient I remind myself to be patient and to wait for God's plan to unfold. There's a reason why the brakes are on now.

It may mean we will not be transferring in November. We may have to wait until January. If that's the case I just need to cool my jets and count my blessings. Every time I interact with my son I forget about this frustration and just dive in to his smiles and happy grunts.

Two years ago we were waiting for domestic infant adoption and I was so depressed because there seemed to be no end in sight to the waiting. I was desperate for a baby and I couldn't convince anyone to choose us to adopt their baby. It was heartbreaking. The fear and anxiety of  thinking "what if the birthmother doesn't like us..."

Now, I only have to wait for a few weeks to be given the opportunity to connect with families who want to donate their embryos. It's a huge blessing. I pray that we are blessed with another healthy baby.

It would be a miracle.

There are miracles waiting for us, but we have to wait.

Cooling my jets over here and immensely grateful for embryo donation and adoption (even if it takes a while.)

Prayers to all of you on this journey.

xo Jill