More good news

I just sit here and research embryos all day long, and I came across something that made me call the embryologist today. I just HAD to know my embryo grading. I know, it's stupid, kind of like caring what your babies APGAR score is, but I wanted to know.

The news: I have 7 grade A embryos and 4 grade B. Ain't that sumthin?

I know in the grand scheme of things it probably doesn't make much of difference, but whatever. I'm happy.

Those Greenhalgh Embies

Our embryos are going strong! The embryologist called this morning and ALL of our embryos are still dividing, we have not lost one yet! We have 5 ten cell embryos, 4 nine cell embryos, and 2 eight cell embryos. The criteria for a 5 day transfer is to have 3 that are eight cells or more, so we are way over the criteria and are all set and scheduled for Wednesday morning.

Hopefully some of them will weed themselves out so we know which ones will be best for transfer. If we have all 11 it will really be a shot in the dark as to which ones will be the best 2 to transfer back. I guess it's possible that they could all be viable embryos and that they all could potentially become babies. That is not likely, but I suppose possible.

After Wednesday we will begin the two week wait - which I will refer to as the 2ww. It is going to be a stressful, long 2 weeks just waiting for the day when we see if this worked or if we go back to square one next month. Although it wont really be square one, because I will have the embryos already and all I will have to do is go in and have them transfered in. No egg stimulating, no retreival surgery, just the progesterone and the transfer. I really believe that we will get a baby, seeing how well our embryos have done. It just might take one or two or three tries. When it is meant to be... it will be.

So talk to me people - and help this 2ww get over sooner!! :)

It's good, it's good!

I was awakened this morning by my cell phone singing Eminem into my ear, and knew in my shadowy sleep that it just HAD to be the fertility clinic. I reached out from under the covers, leaving my head buried, and read the blurry screan through sleepy eyes - "CAL IVF" - the clinic. My stomach churned, what if none of the eggs survived ICSI, what if the vasectomy made Chris's sperm unusable, what if none of them fertilized.... our process could have ended with that phone call. The ever somber embryologist asked for Misty Greenhalgh... she is so professional. "This is me" I say.

"I'm calling to update you on the fertilization status of your eggs. Out of the 12 eggs we ICSI'd, 11 are showing signs of normal fertilization." Ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!! YES!!!! I was so excited, I told her that the results were beyond my wildest imaginations. She seemed surprised, "really?" she asked me - "I am a bit of a pessimist" I told her.

But the first hurdle has been crossed - the eggs and sperm have fertilized and we have normal fertilization on more eggs than usual in this process. I just have to get through these miserable progesterone intramuscular injections every night until I either get a negative test (gasp!) or until the 11th week of pregnancy. They are terrible - the shot itself was not that bad, Chris is really good at that kind of thing and he knows how to do it so I barely felt it, but about 10 minutes after the shot it started to hurt and has not let up since. I sit on a heating pad so the bruising doesn't start, and I slept on it too last night. I don't have a bruise yet, but the needle hole is pretty large and I am sort of limping around. I was minutes away from getting the suppository form, but I knew if I didn't get pregnant that would be the one thing I could blame myself for. So I am sticking it out with the shots and hoping I am going it for a reason!

More to come on Monday when I find out how the little girls and boys are progressing. Send lot of energy to Davis and to the little Greenhalgh embryos!

Recovering

I'm home from the retreival and recovering. I asked for an extra shot of pain meds in the IV before I left, and I think it is finally wearing off because I'm feeling cramps and getting nauseated.

But... I just got good news! I had 28 mature eggs! That is just amazing, a good cycle for a woman is 10. Which means my recipient and I each got 14 eggs. I just hung up with the embryologist, and 12 out of the 14 eggs survived the cleaning process and were ready for ICSI, which she performed and said it went well. She only used 1 vial of sperm, so we have 9 left!!! Tomorrow morning she calls me to let me know how the little eggs and spermies did together over night - send hope to them to multiply!

Everything is going well, I am going to take a nap. Chris just took the kiddos and the dog to the park so I can rest. I am going to enjoy the peace and quiet while I can!

I'm ready!

A day earlier than expected, I am ready to retreive. Yesterday I went to the Dr. and I have responded the best I have ever this time around. I have 31 countable follicles, with 18 measured and guaranteed to be "good." I usually am not ready until between days 12 and 15, but yesterday was day 11 and the eggs were as big as they were on days 12 to 15 in previous cycles. I also have more than I have ever had this time. Yay!

I go in for retreival tomorrow morning which means I should have the embryos transfered back on Wednesday. The Dr. told me that all my previous donations have all gone to day 5 embryo transfers.

I am convinced of 2 things, that my heating pad and my relaxation have been factors in how well I have responded to the medications this time around. I have had a huge break from the kids and have been resting for the most part of the days this week. I have been really nauseated so I have been laying or sitting with my heating pad for several hours a day. Those 2 things for me seem to have made a difference. I'm not in school so I have no stress there - so I have been pretty stress free this time around as well.

The hardest phase physically is almost over, and now the difficult mental phase is going to begin. The waiting, the hoping, the thinking. All I can try to do is not stress myself out about it working, and know that I will have the chance to try again if this cycle fails. The Dr. said he has never had a patient not have embryos to freeze for another try. So if things don't go as planned this time around I know I will be able to try again. That in and of itself is going to be the fact that saves me from undue stress this time around!

Oh. Ow.

Tomorrow is my ultrasound. I sure hope I am ready. My stomach is so big, I am retaining water and have had to take my wedding rings off. My face feels swollen. I can't wear any of my jeans. All I want to do is lay in my bed on my heating pad and read or watch TV and SLEEP. This is the worst phase of this... I know I will feel this way if I get pregnant, but the thing is I will BE pregnant. Now I am doing this and I don't know what outcome it will have, I just know I am miserable. I had lunch with a girlfriend today, it was so nice to see her but I came right to bed! I feel like a loser but I just cannot get up. I cook my kids their meals, keep Dyl's diaper changed, bathe him, and play with the kids in my room. I am just getting by doing the bare minimum right now until these eggs are out. I will get a couple of days to feel regular again before they put the embryos back and a whole new flood of emotion will sweep over me. God, I want to get out of bed but if I get up my stomach hurts so much and the nausea overtakes me, and I get all sweaty and my heart beats fast and it just sucks! Oh well - here's to the shitty part of this whole process - no pain no gain! If it didn't hurt then everyone could do it, right? I will let everyone know what the US shows tomorrow.

Starting to feel real

Well, I have been on the stims for 5 days now, and my tummy is starting to pooch out from all the stimulating going on in my ovaries. We know I am never ready until about day 12, so I don't get to have an ultrasound this time until day 11, which means I don't know how many follices there are this time. Hopefully there are many!

Last night Chris and I went to "egg class" - which is where the embryologist gives a 2 hour class that covers everything from what I am doing now through retreival and into the embryo transfer. We saw pictures of each phase our little embryo will go through, from fertilization to implantation. Pretty exciting stuff. Chris is so sure it is going to work - I am a little less sure. I guess that is just each of our nature. The other night he told me he can't wait to see me with a big fat belly - I told him it might not even happen - he told me how can I say such a thing of course it will happen - I told him how is he so sure - ........ and on and on and on. He is the forever optimist and I am the constant pessimist.

I feel normal and good, just like I always do about this time. I am getting a little less energy and I feel guilty about it. I am a little edgy with my moods, and I feel guilty about it. In a couple days I will be tired and moody and I wont care one little bit! Last night the embryologist said that we are to be in bed or on the couch on the day of the transfer and the following days and only get up to have our meals. She then said "If you don't want to go to the table for your meals, you get HIM" and she pointed directly at Chris "to bring them to you!" It was great. No cleaning, no stress, no excercise, no sex, and no orgasims are what she told us. Nothing to cause stress or make our body temps go up or down. So no swimming of any kind either. She said that she feels that an embryo will want to stay in a nice calm stress free environment. I hope she is right! So, Chris is on strict orders not to tell me anything that goes on with the boy's mother - I told him I don't want to know if she calls, texts, emails, if he talks to her or if he ignores her I want to know nothing! I am going to listen to calming music and read books and be a princess for about 3 days. If that doesn't help the embryos implant, then at least I can say I did my best. I have been taking pre-natals for over 2 months to get my body all ready to go and trying to keep all the stress out of my life that is possible. Of course some people who are mad that we are having a baby are deliberatly trying to stress me out - but I refuse to allow it. This baby is my top priority right now!

Next week will be retreival - the end of next week that is. And 3 or 5 days later we will transfer. I wont know if it will be day 3 or day 5 until day 3. We make that decision on the morning of day 3.

Until next time...

Regularity

There is not much news to report. Things are pretty normal right now. I am on Lupron and off the birth control pills, and I start stims on Sunday. I should be ready for the retreival sometime around the 29th, and then the transfer 3 or 5 days after that. Then we wait for the pregnancy test! I am so not looking forward to that time in my life. I am going to wonder about every symptom I have ("I must be pregnant!") and then self-doubt ("No, I always feel this way after a retreival.") It is going to suck. But if we get a baby then it will all be worth it, the waiting, the hoping, all of it.

I should have more to talk about after I start the stimulation meds on Sunday. Then it will be really like I am in cycle - growing those eggs and making sure they are healthy.

Ciao ~

My first appointment today

Everything went great! I was expecting to get a shot today like I have received the last few times I have been a donor, however since I am doing this cycle to get pregnant they were unable to give me that same shot. It's not a big deal, it just means I have to give myself two shots a day instead one this time around. That is something I had to do in some of my prior cycles. I start those shots on Sunday and my stimulation meds the following week.

I had lots of questions for my Dr. today since I could not sleep last night after all the excitment of the 4th of July which caused me to go online and do research since I was tossing in bed thinking about getting pregnant. That is easy to do when the love of your life is laying next to you resting his hand on your tummy. So I found out some interesting facts - such as in my last donation I had 26 follicles of which 90% fertilized into embryos!! That was so exciting because in woman who produce 10 or more follicles there is a 50% greater chance of success with IVF. Needless to say I was very pleased when he told me the numbers. He looked at my past cycles and found equal success with all of them.

I am now on a special recommended diet which is designed to provide my body with all the energy it needs to produce numerous wonderfully healthy eggs and so that I am fueled when they transfer the embryos back into my uterus. No more sugar, flour, baked goods, caffeine, or alcohol. I am most upset about saying goodbye to my starbucks - but of course it is worth it!

This is such an exciting time for Chris and I and we just cannot wait to be parents again. There was a 9 month old little boy at the bar-b-que we went to yesterday and we could not stop holding him. It felt so good to have a baby in my arms! My clock is most certainly tick-tocking away right now. I have to say that my body always tells me what it wants, I listen to it and have stayed in really good shape just by doing what my body tells me to - eating whatever it is craving and doing as much or as little as it wants to, and right now by body is screaming at me to have a baby. Hopefully I am reading the signals right and this procedure will work. But with the wonderful news about how many embryos I can expect to have, we should have enough for even a fourth or fifth try if that is necessary.

I thought of the most adorable name a few days ago also. This one I am really in love with. Cejai Dawn. Cejai after her daddy (Christopher John - C.J. is how you pronounce the name) and Dawn which is my middle name. I know I should definitly NOT be naming the baby that I am not even pregnant with yet, but this name came to me while I was laying in my bed much like the name Taylor did when I was not yet pregnant with her - or at least I did not yet know I was. My children and I have a bond that transcends this world, and I fully believe that is possible. Part of me is so sure it will be a girl, that she has been pressing her daddy and I to bring her into the world. I know that is typically a mormon belief but I love it and even though I am not religious the thought of spirits and little beings trying to get their parents to create them is so neat to me. It allows the thought that your children choose you. So little Cejai has been waiting for Chris and I to have her for a long time!! But even if I am wrong and it is a boy - that would be wonderful. I love baby boys. My son is so important to me and I do believe that mother's and son's have a vey unique and special bond.

I suppose that is enough reflection for today since I have four hungry children who want their mother to cook them dinner!

Ciao for now ~

Tommorow it starts

Tomorrow is the day that I will get my first injection that will tell my body not to ovulate. I think the birth control pills are doing a fine job of that though. It's very weird to be taking birth control pills to GET pregnant! Everynight before bed I take a birth control pill and a pre-natal vitamin, and maybe it's the philosopher in me but I really ponder that contradiction each time I do it. I am very sensitive to hormones, and the birth control pills make me blah. At lesast these particular ones don't make me gain weight and retain water like some have in the past. Anyway, we are doing great and anxious to jump this off - last night at dinner we were talking about how in a few weeks we will be sitting there talking about having a baby, or we would be sitting there talking about how everything was a waste. But it even if this cycle fails, it isn't wasted because we will have little frozen embryos that we can use for another try. In my research I have read that it is not that common for women to have over 10 good transferable embryos - I usually have around 18. So I was surprised to read that. I have such good odds at this working that I'm nervous it wont. That might be the philosopher in me too... LOL. It should work, there is absolutly no reason for it not to work, therefore it most likely wont work. I do feel a strange calmness about it, like this is really what I am supposed to be doing. I never felt like I was only supposed to have 2 children, and I have always talked (or at least thought) about having another child, so I think that I am doing what the universe wants me to do. There is a little spirit there that has been trying to get into my womb for years!! Well, at least that's a nice way to think of it.

Think of me tomorrow -
M