IVF- Round 2

For starters I would like to offer up our gratitude to all of you for your kind words and love and support yesterday! We are truly blessed to have you all in our lives.

As of yesterday, most of you are all aware of our exciting news. And if you haven't heard, you need to watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crRP-1Sng5E

We have had several people ask us if this was a miracle or if we had to do IVF again. Well, it would take a huge miracle for us to have children on our own, so we went to our next option and did a frozen embryo transfer. I wish we could do it the fun "old-fashioned" way, but for us it's more invasive and expensive.

Our journey of IVF round 2 started in 2014. It takes a lot of planning mentally and financially. Fortunately, our doctor (Dr. Foulk at Utah Fertility Center) now does IVF cycles in St. George every 3 months, so this round was really nice not having to travel to Pleasant Grove. We were going to do our transfer the first of the year of 2015, but we weren't ready. We wanted to wait a little longer for the next cycle to roll around. When that time came I went in for my water ultrasound in April. That ultrasound checks your uterus and ovaries for any polyps or abnormalities. That day I had a blood clot in my uterus and thankfully they were able to remove it right there. The doctor told us those can be very serious sometimes if they don't pass themselves, and it can lead to a big procedure to remove them. If they are there long enough they can calcify and cause problems.   

We got our schedule calendar for me to start my meds in May and went over our IVF cycle plan with the PA. There are less procedures during a frozen embryo transfer, but the shots are more brutal. I received my medications on June 4th and started them the next day. I have to do them in the backside of my hips in small areas on either side that get tender very easily. I have to get one shot EVERY morning, and another shot every Tuesday and Friday nights. My hips are full of knots and are so sore, but it's all worth it in the end. I only have one week left of them!! YAY!!!

Day 1

My meds. I went through a lot more than this, but this was the start!

Ignore my body!

I had several blood draws to check my estrogen levels and a few other ultrasounds to check my lining to make sure it was thick enough for a transfer. Everything was right on schedule and looking great.

Ready for transfer

We had our transfer on June 24, 2015. I have a story about one of our embryos but I will wait till the end to tell you about it. They thawed 3 embryos and they put in the one that looked the healthiest. Yes, we only put in ONE this time! After the transfer, I had to be on bed rest for 3 days straight, and I was restricted to lift anything over 20 lbs. Well that went down the drain soon after Dusty returned to work due to the fact that our boys weigh over 30 lbs. each and I had to lift them in their cribs and car seats. But my body was so used to it that it didn't even phase me or the embryo.

 

It was also difficult to take it easy having our boys birthday party and the 4th of July the following week after our transfer, but I did my best to not lift and to take it as easy as possible.

On July 5 (Sunday), I went in for a blood draw and I had to wait till the next day to hear if my blood draw showed I was pregnant. I got a call that morning and it was great news!! The PA informed us I was pregnant and would have another blood draw the following week to confirm the pregnancy. I went in a week later and got a call the next day that the numbers were excellent! Dusty and I were so excited! We had to wait 2 weeks for our first ultrasound, and it was a long 2 weeks. I was so anxious to see our baby and to make sure there was a heartbeat and that we were in fact...pregnant.

 

We had our first ultrasound on July 23, and I teared up seeing that little heart flickering and then when she turned the sound on. The sound of it was so comforting and amazing. Our baby was doing well, and had a good-strong heartbeat.

 

That night Dusty and I set up our camera to do our "announcement" video to show our families the next day. (They had no idea we were even thinking of doing IVF again). The next day we went to Fredonia to reveal the news to our families. They were in shock!! They weren't expecting the exciting ending and it even had my mother-in-law in tears. They were all excited for us.

We had our 2nd ultrasound yesterday, August 6, 2015 and the baby is still doing amazing and has a good strong heartbeat. It's looks like a little gummy bear. We took Paxtin and Channing with us to this ultrasound and they were both mesmerized by the heartbeat, they loved listening to it and watching the baby move around. Pax kept saying "baby" "baby"! I am 9 weeks and now I start to see my OB/GYN who delivered Pax and Chan. My due date it March 11, 2016!!

 
We are very excited about our upcoming addition. We will NOT be finding out the gender until the baby arrives. I have always wanted a surprise gender and this will probably be our last baby, so we are doing it. It will be fun and make delivery day even more exciting.  

Now a short story of one of the embryos they thawed and didn't use. Once this little embryo (below) was thawed, it didn't have a lot of mass (meaning it wasn't very healthy). They decided it wasn't the best one for transfer. So they picked one of the other 2 they thawed that had more mass and was healthier. Well after our transfer, the embryologist went back into the lab and this little embryo had split...meaning IDENTICAL TWINS!! The doctor said they probably wouldn't have survived this transfer round because of the small mass of the embryo. In all his years, the embryologist had never seen that happen before. The doctor informed us that if they would have transferred that one during our first cycle when it was healthy, along with the other embryo, we would've had TRIPLETS (because that one would have split)!!! Holy smokes!!! So the moral of the story is...we were meant to have twins one way or another and we are so blessed we got Paxtin and Channing!!