Today is June 4, 2018 and I decided it was high time to share where we are in our IVF journey – If you want to know our history, scroll to the bottom of this page to read up on that first.
April 26th – Transferred a 5 day blatocyst that had been frozen in January and thawed just this morning
April 27th – May 3rd Longest waiting period ever!
May 8th – Bloodwork (first pregnancy test) came back with hcg level of 620….we were THRILLED, but still nervous of course, given our chemical pregnancy last time
May 10th – Follow up blood work – needed to be over 1000 level and mine was 1325! OMG! This might be our time!!!!
May 14th – One more follow up blood test before I wait for my ultrasound and it needed to have tripled…mine was 6113 so we are scheduled for our first ultrasound in 2 weeks
May 25th – First ultrasound – while we could really only see a blob that Dr Wing said was our baby…lol…we could see AND hear the heartbeat – craziest thing EVER!
June 8th – Second ultrasound schedule where we should be able to see arm and leg buds and overall growth of the sac and uterus
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We’ve gone back and forth about whether to share our journey publicly. It’s so personal, so painful, so defeating…yet…we still have hope. And so we decided to share what was going on in our lives – good and bad through my blog, and hopefully one day soon, we’ll look back on this post and say wow…look how far we’ve come.
Randy and I got married in 2011, I was 38 years old and he was 41. We had both been married before, but neither of us had children. I knew I had some issues with my fallopian tubes going into the discussion of whether we’d try, even in our older age, to have a child together. Randy’s insurance offered some fertility coverage, which is rare, but it had a lifetime limit and wasn’t a lot, we gave it a try anyway. It was a grueling year, including the removal of my tubes and two rounds of shots, meds, poking and prodding to end up with 2 embryos. We were excited, but nervous as the doctor encouraged us to have the two embryos genetically tested for a variety of reasons, including our age as genetic diseases are so prevalent in older pregnancies. We were devastated to learn that both embryos had abnormalities that are deemed incompatible with life and likely would not have even made it to a positive pregnancy test, or carried to term. We had to sign a paper to discard those embryos. Yes, throw them away. It was excruciatingly painful, even knowing that in a non- IVF lab environment we would have never gotten pregnant with these babies. But they were ours, a boy and a girl. We will see them in heaven one day – healthy and whole…I rest in that fact every single day. We took an extended break after this – I was not in a place emotionally to be able to even talk about trying again and we had decided that if we couldn’t pay for it outright, then we would not go through IVF again.
Fast forward to 2017, I’m now getting ready to be 44 years old. Ancient in child bearing years. We sold my childhood home in the summer and set aside the profits as funds to take part in a program that gives you a refund if you don’t bring home a baby. Not a consolation prize, mind you, but at least we would not lose that money AND not have a child of our own. So off we went to try again. Round one started in December and we had our embryo transfer late in January 2018 following dozens of shots, patches, meds and trips to the clinic. We waited for 2 weeks to take the blood test and were excited to hear that our test come back positive, but with a we need to recheck because your hcG level isn’t as high as we like it to be additional comment. So, we waited all weekend, trying not to get our hopes up, but since this was our first positive pregnancy test ever…that was super hard. I took a 2nd blood test the next Monday and my hcG was the same and they determined I had a chemical pregnancy. I had to stop all meds and shots and wait for my period. UGH! Talk about a roller coaster of emotions. So now we had to wait two cycles to start the whole process over again. Which brings us up to date…As of early April – we’re on to the next round, with a tentative schedule for the next transfer at the end of the month.
I’m sure I’ll come back and update here as we move forward as well as doing some posts on the journey…we’re not there yet, but praying for our miracle rainbow baby. I am 1 in 8, but we have not given up!