Today is my second day of progesterone suppositories. So far it’s all going fine and I’m not noticing any progesterone symptoms yet. Other than a mild, achy headache, I feel pretty good. This is great news, because hopefully it means I won’t confuse pregnancy symptoms with progesterone symptoms. Other than that, I’m doing pretty good. Just getting so anxious for this to happen! Work is also pretty slow right now so I don’t have that as a distraction though, just for this week and maybe next, I don’t really mind. I work from home doing freelance Graphic Design and Web Design. I only worked 3 hours today, which is good and bad. I never want to say no to a new project because I don’t know when the next project/contract will come along, so there are days when I’m working from 6am – 8pm, but then when it’s really slow, I worry because I don’t know how long the lull will last, so I never really enjoy it when I have time off. However, just for the next couple weeks, I’m happy it’s slow. Even though it gives me more time to think about the events to come, I can…Continue reading FET Progesterone Day 2 / 2WW – Care Package #2
Progesterone Day 1- 2WW Day 1?
Five months ago, at the start of my IVF/PGD journey, a good friend of mine sent me a care package. I first talked about it in my Sharing The Love post back in September. You can click on the link above to read the original story, but to sum it up, she sent me a care package with 14 individually wrapped packages for every day of the 2 Week Wait, with an inspirational quote on it. She sent it to me right after my first egg retrieval so I would have it for my 2WW, but then we decided to batch my eggs and do another retrieval before proceeding with PGD, so I put the box with all the packages away in my spare room (hopefully soon to be nursery) and waited. Now five months and a new year later, I am finally ready for my transfer! However, I wasn’t sure how the 2WW works with FET because my embryo is already a 5-day blastocyst and we’ll be transferring her on Friday after I’ve been on progesterone for 6 days, so I figured since today is the first day of the progesterone suppositories and the medication is mimicking what my…Continue reading Progesterone Day 1- 2WW Day 1?
FET is a go!!!
First of all, thank you all for your support and encouragement, and thank you especially to those of you who checked in with me before my appointment today to wish me well. All your positive thoughts and wishes have really helped me through this long wait! I’m sorry I took all day to report back on my appointment. I just haven’t had a spare moment to sit down and write until now! I had a lunch date with a couple girlfriends after my appointment, then I had several errands to run, and work to do when I got back home. Then I was finally sitting down to write my update about an hour ago when my hubby got home from work and distracted me. He’s off to a weekend long bachelor party camping trip up at Big Bear Mountain so I wanted to spend a few minutes with him before he left. He was so happy he was practically giddy. He walked in the house and picked me up off the couch and asked “We’re good?”. He already knew because I had texted him earlier in the day, but and I laughed and said, “Yes, we’re good! We’re a go!”,…Continue reading FET is a go!!!
FET Schedule
I met with Dr. J today, and everything looked good on the ultrasound and blood test, so we’re a go! Here’s the schedule the nurse gave me: Jan 8th – Jan 13th: 2 mg Estrace (Estradiol) morning and night (2/day- orally) Jan 14th – 18th: 2 mg Estrace (Estradiol) morning, noon and night (3/day – orally) Jan 17th: Monitoring Appointment to make sure I didn’t ovulate. Dr. J said 85% of women taking estrogen won’t ovulate. We want me to NOT ovulate. If I do ovulate, even on the estrogen, we’ll have to stop this cycle and start over next cycle, but with suppressant injections of Lupron. Why not just do the suppressant injections now? I asked Dr. J this and he said he would rather not give me any more hormones then necessary so we’re trying just the estrogen for now. So fingers crossed the estrogen works and I don’t ovulate! If I don’t ovulate, then we’ll continue with the cycle with the following protocol: Jan 19th – until determined: 2 mg Estrace (Estradiol) morning and night (2/day – orally) 200 mg Progesterone capsules morning, noon and night (3/day – vaginally) Jan 22nd Azithromycin – to prevent infection from…Continue reading FET Schedule
Cycle Day 1 – Woohoo!
Today is cycle day 1, thank you! I started to get a little nervous yesterday, when AF didn’t show up, but one day late is fine! I’ll take it! I have an appointment with Dr. J tomorrow to do a baseline ultrasound to make sure everything looks good before we proceed. If all is good, we’ll start preparing me for my FET (frozen embryo transfer). Fingers crossed! At this point, I know I’ll begin taking estrogen orally and start using progesterone suppositories. These will help thicken my uterine lining and get me ready for the transfer. I think it will also help prevent me from ovulating so we can just go straight to the transfer, but I’m not completely certain how all that will work yet. I already have the meds read to go, I just need to know when I’ll be starting. I will discuss this along with the complete plan with Dr. J at my appointment tomorrow. When I spoke with him last month, he said we would need about 18 days to build my lining to the right thickness for the transfer, so if all goes according to plan (please, please), then we should good to do…Continue reading Cycle Day 1 – Woohoo!
My Last Miscarriage
Today is the due date for pregnancy #4 and miscarriage #3. It was the last miscarriage I had, and I pray it truly is the last. Two weeks ago, when I talked about miscarriage #2, I dreaded today and thinking about miscarriage #3, but now that it’s here, I’m strangely okay. I think I have to credit it to my last minute change of attitude towards my birthday. Yesterday I turned 37. For months I have been dreading it. It’s not because of getting older. That has never really bothered me and I’ve always felt pretty young at heart (though the toll all these losses has taken out on my body and emotions has made me feel ancient at times), but when you’re trying to build a family, every year that goes by and every year you age, counts. Almost exactly this time last year, I had the go ahead to start trying again after my hysteroscopy and 8-month long drawn out process from miscarriage #2, and now it’s been another year, and another loss. The fact that I had another miscarriage in that time and the due date is the day after my birthday, had me in quite a…Continue reading My Last Miscarriage
A Relaxing Holiday
The past week has been good. Quiet, but relaxing and peaceful. Our family is scattered all over the place with my husband’s parents visiting India right now, his brother in Baltimore, and his sister and my family are all in Canada, so we were on our own for Christmas this year. It’s hard being so far away from family during the Holidays, but with everything going on with us right now, it was nice to be on our own and just relax. We spent a quite Christmas Eve at home with just us and our kitties. We cuddled up on the couch and watched our favorite Christmas movies: It’s a Wonderful Life for my hubby and Miracle of 34th Street for me, and then rounded off the evening with A Christmas Story marathon. We exchanged gifts at midnight and slept in on Christmas morning. Then, after lounging about all morning, we went to a movie in the afternoon and had a lovely dinner with another couple. We had a great meal, played games and just relaxed. It was the laziest Christmas ever. And it was perfect. My lazy Holiday continued through the entire weekend with a few get-togethers with friends and…Continue reading A Relaxing Holiday
What Should Have Been
Yesterday was the one year anniversary of the due date for miscarriage #2. It was a pretty rough day. I spent the morning moping around the house, feeling sorry for myself. If things were different, we would have been celebrating a first birthday for Christmas this year. And when I thought about that, my thoughts started spiraling down the would-have, should-have been path of all the things that could have been. If I had a normal, healthy pregnancy with my first, and didn’t get Preeclampsia/HELLP Syndrome, I would have delivered my son full term and he would be with us right now. We’d have a rambunctious 3 ½ year old boy full of joy and excitement for Christmas. If my second pregnancy hadn’t resulted in a miscarriage at 6 weeks, we would have a 2 ½ year old girl or boy. If pregnancy #3 hadn’t resulted in my second miscarriage, we would have a 1 year old right now. And if my last miscarriage hadn’t happened, I’d be going in for a c-section right about now—I can’t have a vaginal delivery because of my emergency c-section at 27 weeks with my first pregnancy (another regret)—but instead, all of these pregnancies went wrong,…Continue reading What Should Have Been
Celebrating 6 Years With My Love
Six years ago today (well yesterday now since it’s after midnight), I married the love of my life. It’s hard to believe it’s been six years already and yet we’ve been through so much together in that time, it should feel like a lifetime. It’s a true testament to our relationship that we’ve been through everything we have been, and it still feels like just yesterday that I said I do. As I think back on it all, I feel truly blessed. I will never forget that magical day, six years ago when we stood up in front of our family and friends and vowed to love each other through better or worse. And we have. I’ll never forget any of it… The amazing trips we’ve taken together so far. Adopting our kitties. The morning I took my first pregnancy test ever and it was positive, and I waking my husband up (pee stick still in hand) and telling him we were pregnant. I’ll never forget the look of sleepy joy he had on his face. I’ll never forget the anxiety and fear we felt when we were told I had to have an emergency c-section at 27 weeks. Or…Continue reading Celebrating 6 Years With My Love
And Now We Wait… Again
The past few days have been eventful and uneventful all at the same time. I got my period the day after hearing the news about our embryo, and I got really excited thinking we would be proceeding right away, but then I had my followup appointment with my doctor and I left the conversation feeling a little deflated. The most important fact is we have our one embryo and this is absolutely cause for celebration! We still have a shot at this! We’re still in the game! Before I go over my discussion with Dr, J, I just have to highlight that because this is really great news! However, my conversation with Dr. J was a little sobering and depressing… We went over my history and discussed all my previous pregnancies. We talked a lot about my first pregnancy and how even though our son didn’t survive, it was due to a rare condition of pregnancy, Preeclampsia, and not because of a genetic abnormality, so we know I have some good eggs left. And because I carried him to 27 weeks, we also know I can carry a baby and my uterus works as it should. We also know from my…Continue reading And Now We Wait… Again