Due Dates

Due dates are important. Whether it's a report for a job, a project for school, or a baby, you know that you'd better be ready when that day comes. You prepare, you do the work, so when the day comes, you are ready. Some due dates you dread, others you count down to with excitement. You know that by the "due date" you're going to have something to show for your hard work...or maybe you won't. Today, March 14, 2013, was our due date. We did the work, hard work, but unlike most other due dates, this day will come and go with nothing to show for our efforts, at least nothing to show on earth, only in heaven. I think about how big my belly would have been, whether we had carried all three, or two, or just one of our babies to term. Would we have delivered early or late? What are the sexes of our three babies? Do any of them have Jeremy's dimples or my family's red hair? We realize that one day in heaven, we will know, which is a comfort, but not comforting enough to completely heal our broken hearts or remedy the sadness we feel that today will come and go without anything to show for all we've done and experienced. We will celebrate their lives in heaven tonight, together, alone, so that our "due date" doesn't come and go unrecognized. We will thank God for our babies and for His promise of hope and a future. We may not have living children, but we are parents. Lessons learned: #1-You can do everything right, or everything that's asked of you, and still not have a positive outcome or get what you want. #2-Due dates come and go, but memories last a lifetime. #3-Some events in your life leave you forever changed.

Our babies before the transfer

Our babies after the transfer-They were there, three little blips, however short the time.

What the Heart Doesn't Show

This week marks three months since we found out that we lost our three babies. I realize that they were only medically considered "embryos," but our hearts didn't, and still can't, distinguish the difference. To us, they were our children. It was one thing to be actively trying to conceive and realize when my period came that it didn't happen that month. I've been there and know exactly what that feels like. But, it's completely different to know we've created life, seen the pictures and the ultrasound photos, and then be told they didn't survive. It's a loss. A death times three. I'm lucky enough to have some amazing friends that have been through what I'm going through to offer us support-not that I'd wish this on anyone, but it's a relief knowing I'm not alone.

One friend described it this way-you get more sympathy from a broken arm-everyone can see it's broken, asks what happened, wishes you a speedy recovery. They check up on you, ask when the cast will be removed because then you'll be well. With a broken arm, you know that in 6-8 weeks, you'll have the cast removed and your arm will be mended-as good as new, but this brokenness is deep, nothing a cast can fix and nothing with a set recovery time. People that do know what we've gone through offer sympathy and words of encouragement at first, but then I think they are afraid to ask-afraid to upset us, which I can understand. I haven't been the easiest person to be around lately. I'm horrible at hiding emotions and even worse at faking a smile. I find it's easier to stay home because anywhere else the slightest most random sight or comment can set off a wave of tears. Often I end up mad at myself because I feel like I should be better or "over" this by now. But, that would mean I was making light of this situation and that's definitely not the case. I just want to have my joy back...I know I'll eventually get there, but it's something that I can't rush. I've put away the pictures and ultrasound photos, after reading the book Heaven is for Real, I decided our three children, needed names, although I've yet to speak them aloud to anyone, and Jeremy is helping me remodel the spare bedroom that was to be a nursery. The emptiness and hope for that room is just too much for me to handle. So with a little paint and some new curtains and furniture, we'll have a Razorback/craft room soon. Hopefully one day it'll be something more, but for my sanity, I needed it to have a new purpose.

Speaking of hopes, I have an entire list of them: I hope that sometime soon I can be around children without crying or feeling an immense sense of loss. I hope I can come to see my husband playing with our neice and nephews without breaking down. I see him in them, especially those Emmett dimples, and wonder what our children look like. I also see the joy that being around children brings to him and I feel guilty that I can't give him that joy with children of our own. I hope I can again hold babies and feel the joy that I used to enjoy. I hope I can go to baby showers again and feel something other than longing and self-pity. I hope I can see pregnant bellies without thinking that was supposed to be me, but for now, I'll settle for the hope that each day my heart heals just a little more than the day before.

Lady in Waiting

I feel like so much has happened since I last wrote. We went to Little Rock for egg retrieval almost two weeks ago. Pre-op was a three-ringed circus. The nurse couldn't get my blood pressure, my first iv infiltrated, and I was caught off guard when I met the doctor that was going to do the retrieval. He was not the doctor I had met and was told would be doing all my procedures. After having my arms squeezed at least ten times, the anesthesiologist took pity on me and finally got a blood pressure reading on my forearm. It was something crazy like 96/40 but she said 'it'll do!" At that point, I didn't really care as long as they quit squeezing the life out of me. Then my iv poked out of my vein and all the fluid was pouring out into the surrounding tissue in my arm. So I ended up with an "egg", a huge fluid filled sac in the bend of my arm. It finally went away about a week ago. Again, the anesthesiologist took pity on me and put in another iv. I had been poked and prodded enough by this point and the surgery hadn't even started. I was nervous to be having another doctor do the procedure. I really liked and trusted Dr. Moutos, but now we had Dr. Batrus, whom I quickly discovered the nurses love to make fun of, for his accent and nervous laughter/tick. At least the nurses and the anesthesiologist kept me laughing with their impersonations, stories, and jokes, all at Dr. Batrus' expense. I woke up in a tremendous amount of pain. I remember crying and hurting with the worst "menstrual-type" pain ever. But I wanted to know how many eggs they had gotten. We had been told to expect between 12-15 eggs, so when they told me they retrieved 5 eggs, I was really upset. 5 may sound good to you, but I knew that didn't mean 5 embryos. We were told 12-15 eggs would give us about 10-12 embryos, which would give us 2 to use now and plenty to freeze to use later if this round didn't work or for when we were ready for more children. The reason they were only able to retrieve 5 eggs was not because I only had 5 eggs that were mature, but because they discovered that my ovaries sit behind my uterus instead of beside it and tnru go deep into my pelvis. So they had a really difficult time getting to them. That's why I was in so much pain afterwards. The doctors really had to push and contort my body to try to get to the eggs. There was a great danger of puncturing my other organs as they were trying to aspirate the eggs. So they had to quit. I understand and am grateful that they did what was best for me, but I was still greatly disappointed and fearful that we'd gone through all of this and spent all this money and with only 5 eggs, it wouldn't work. I was sick at the thought that there were other eggs there, but they just had to leave them. That was a tough pill to swallow. After recovering and being given more meds for pain and nausea, my mom and Jeremy were able to take me home. The next day, Friday, Sarah emailed us to let us know that three of the five eggs had fertilized. She was so excited and said that was fantastic. The nurse on Thursday had told us to expect half to fertilize so 3 was what we had expected, although I had been hopeful for more. This was one hurdle jumped. Now we waited for the call on Saturday about the quality of the embryos and whether they had all survived the night. Dr. Batrus called late Saturday morning to tell us we had 2-2 cell embryos of good quality and 1-1 cell embryo of good quality. He also told us that we would be having the embryo transfer done the next morning (day 3) as long as the fluid that he saw in my uterus on Thursday was gone. What fluid? This was news to me. During egg retrieval he noticed that my uterus was full of fluid, which is a common side effect of all the hormone injections. But, the fluid can cause problems with the embryo transfer and if it is still present they won't risk doing the transfer. So, he told us to be at his office at 9:30 the next morning for an ultrasound. If the fluid is gone, he will go ahead with the transfer, but if it's still there, he'll have to freeze the embryos for us to use later. we prayed that Sunday morning, the ultrasound would show no fluid. My mom, Jeremy, and I decided to go ahead and drive down to Little Rock Saturday afternoon. We got there in time to have a nice dinner at Bonefish before settling in for the night. I didn't sleep well that night. Mostly because I was worried about the fluid in my uterus and about our three embryos. We got to the clinic before 9:30 and had to wait a while. Finally they called us back for the ultrasound. Thankfully all the fluid was gone and we were all set for the transfer. Dr. Batrus recommended that we transfer all three embryos that morning because one of them wasn't as good as the other two, but he gave us the choice. If we chose to transfer only two of the embryos, the embryologist would continue to watch the third one until day 5 and then decide IF it could be frozen. When we realized that there was a chance that it might not be able to be frozen and would then have to be discarded, we decided to go with the doctor's recommendation to transfer all three embryos. We wanted to at least give them all a chance at life! Sarah told us- "your body is a much better incubator than we can ever reproduce in a lab, we put them (the embryos) into the uterus and it takes over from there." So that's what we did. The embryo transfer procedure was pretty quick painless. The nurse we had was great. She was hilarious and provided us with more Dr. Batrus humor. She kept looking over her shoulder as she would talk about him or impersonate his nervous laughter/tick because she said he's like a ninja and sneaks up on you! I had to have a full bladder for this procedure so the nurse brought me a cup water. I jokingly asked her for a margarita. So when she brought me my water, she'd stuck a bright paper umbrella in it-at least I could pretend it was a fun cocktail! Jeremy got to go back to the operating room for the transfer. Before the nurse laid my bed down flat and put my legs in stirrups, the embryologist came in to go over our embryo results with us. He explained the quality and cell division of each one and also showed us a picture of them that we'd get to keep after the transfer was finished. The doctor came in then and began the procedure. He made a comment about something, followed by his funny nervous laughter. All of a sudden, the nurse, Jeremy and I all busted out laughing. We couldn't help it. The doctor, fortunately, had no idea why we were laughing. I told Jeremy and the nurse both to stop laughing because they were going to get me in trouble because I was supposed to be lying still. I had to turn away from them and try my hardest to keep it together. A friend of mine that has gone through this same process, said she'd read somewhere that laughter after an embryo transfer is supposed to be beneficial-I sure hope she's right. The process was really quick. Dr. Batrus inserted a long wire catheter into my uterus through the cervix and then the embryologist came in with a long tube containing our three embryos. We got to watch on the ultrasound machine as the doctor inserted the embryos through tube into my uterus. Before removing the catheter, the doctor had the embryologist look at the tube under a microscope back at the lab to be sure all the embryos had been transferred back to my uterus and weren't still stuck in the tube. We heard the embryologist yell, "all clear," so the doctor removed the catheter from my uterus, printed us a picture of the embryos hanging out in my uterus and then I was wheeled back to recovery. After hanging out in recovery for 30 minutes, I was able to dress, and with pictures of the embryos and the petri dish they called home for the first three days of their lives in hand, we were out of there and on our way home. I laid back in the front seat with my legs propped up on the dash the whole three hours home, despite the nurse explaining to me that they couldn't fall out! The end of this week we have our blood test to find out if we're pregnant! Since last Sunday, I've prayed every day for patience and that His plan for our three beautiful babies includes us on earth. Until then, I'll keep praying and waiting as patiently as possible...

Woohoo

Last night was my last hormone injection! Jeremy had to give me two shots last night. The first one at 8:00 was the same cocktail of hormones I've been getting for the past week, but then at 11:00 last night, he had to give me a second and final injection. This was the HcG shot to mature my eggs. It has to be given exactly 36 hours before the egg retrieval. So excited to not be a pin cushion/dart board any longer! We leave for Little Rock this afternoon. We are scheduled for egg retrieval surgery tomorrow morning at 11:00. After the doctors retrieve all my mature eggs, they will then fertilize each one by a process called 'Intracytoplasmic sperm injection' (ICSI for short). Basically they take one sperm and insert it into each egg using a needle finer than a human hair! Amazing isn't it? Then they watch them to see how many eggs become fertilized and how many embryos eventually form. Here's to safe travels and an abundance of eggs!

Hormones, Emotions, and Ovaries, Oh My!

Since my hysterical email to Sarah last Thursday, things have been going pretty well. My labs last Thursday showed an increase in estrogen to 445. Sarah's words "It's not bad!" She said the level should slowly rise to around 1500 by Sunday. So Sunday I went back to Willow Creek and asked Jeremy to go with me. The lab sent us on a wild goose chase to get registered and checked in for the blood draw. The man from the lab gave me the paperwork and told us to go to the second nurses station. When we got there, they sent us to the emergency room. The ER tried to send us back but the nurse from the second nursing station said she couldn't do the registration, so the ER nurse took pity on us and got me registered. As we left the ER and had to walk by the nurses station AGAIN on our way back to the lab, the same nurse asked us if we'd had a tour of the hospital and if not, would we like one? Seriously??? I know I'm not skinny, but I don't look pregnant either! I quickly let her know we were here for lab work and then we were headed upstairs to get an ultrasound. I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I hate needles. The sweet lab man was NO good at drawing blood. I left there in tears and with yet another bruise, on my wrist this time. Once we got upstairs for the ultrasound, we were put in a room and told to wait. The doctor on call, Dr. Terry, came in and popped off "Hey, would you like a tour of the clinic too while you're here?" Mr. Funny Man had overheard the conversation at the nurses station downstairs earlier. After four different exam rooms, a bathroom break and two different ultrasound machines, he finally asked me: "Do you have both your ovaries?" Well, here came the tears! Yes I do, thank you very much. He was only able to find the right one and it still wasn't big enough. So after texting back and forth with the doctor that did my ultrasound on Thursday, they determined that I was "the worst patient ever" as far as being able to find my ovaries. Thank you-another round of tears. Based on my labs (the estrogen level was only 1327, "a very good rise" Sarah said, but not quite ready) and this ultrasound, they gave me more meds for Sunday and Monday night. Today, Tuesday, June 19th, I went back for my fifth round of labs and my fourth ultrasound, this time with Sarah from Little Rock. I love her! She's sympathetic, sweetly tells me my ovaries just like to hang out behind my uterus, and doesn't text and talk about me to other doctors while I'm in the room. I don't know the results of today's labs yet, but the ultrasound results were good. She gave me another round of meds for tonight, plus I have a shot of HcG (the HcG matures the eggs) waiting in the refrigerator at home, that I'll also give myself tonight, and then we'll be ready for egg retrieval on Thursday morning in Little Rock. It took my hormone levels and my ovaries a little longer than expected to be where they needed to be for egg retrieval, but we're finally one step closer! I am not complaining about this journey. If we're blessed to become pregnant, I know all of this will be worth it. I'm so thankful for the opportunity we've been given, and I try to find humor in it all!

Mrs. Estrogen

Following Sarah's plan, I quit taking the pill last Tuesday, went for labwork and an ultrasound last Friday, and began stimulation medication Saturday night. Sarah ordered my stimulation medication from a fertility pharmacy on the east coast and then they just ship it directly to me. I had a little bit of a freak out moment when the box arrived via FedEx! Holy crap! It was like a whole freakin' pharmacy! But, I organized everything and the first three nights' shots went really well. Jeremy is a really good shot giver. The medicine stings a little going in and I have a sore, bruised belly, but I am NOT complaining! -Just stating the facts. After three nights worth of shots, I went back for labwork to test my estradiol levels. They expect them to be between 100-200. Mine were 220. So, off to a good start. Wednesday night I had to start adding a third drug to my shot cocktail and then today I went back for another round of labs and another ultrasound to see how my ovaries were progressing. Now, I'm not saying that I'm not moody, but I don't even recognize myself right now. These hormones have turned me into a crazy person. I am so emotional. I can cry at the drop of a hat, go through periods where I don't want to be touched, looked at, or talked to, I'm exhausted, my feet, legs, and fingers are swollen, and I swear my ovaries have gotten their own pulse and must be the size of lemons!-not really but they sure feel that way. I finally had to email Sarah this afternoon after my doctor's appointment. I had a melt down when I realized I had gained 5 pounds since last Friday, despite a lack of an appetite and suffering from constant nausea, and during the ultrasound, the doctor couldn't find my left ovary and told me my right one wasn't big enough. So I sent Sarah a quite hysterical email and waited impatiently for her response and what I hoped would be comforting words. Her response "Okay, Mrs. Hormone-- or I should say, Mrs. Estrogen --- they didn't talk about "this part" of the hormone issues in our 6th grade girls assembly to discuss our periods! It's the hidden dirty secret of being a female-estrogen makes you lose your mind- I mean it makes you an emotional basket case. That is --if you're like most women and estrogen affects your mood. It certainly affects mine, talk about feeling like a crazy person- add estrogen to me and I am Looney Tunes. Screaming when I know I shouldn't, crying at commercials, acting a fool.Not to mention the fantastic water weight gain. Oh and those women that say they "feel so great" during IVF -- I want to punch them- nobody feels good with high estrogen unless you have some weird inability to react to high hormones--must be a genetic trait of some sort I don't have. Time to put away any salt products- and I mean all of them. You are retaining fluid from the high estrogen level and with that you are adding weight to your scale. The only way to combat is to stay hydrated, prop your feet, resist the temptation to wear non-supportive shoes (i.e. the most horrible shoes for any weight retention-the flip flop), and cut out as much salt as possible. No chips, processed foods (the highly processed ones), crackers, dips, and soda- hum? They don't taste salty! But, they have got it in there- except for the Sprite products. This too shall pass, it is hard to have this roller coaster of emotion. It is normal, please resist daytime TV and for the sake of your sanity--Do not watch Lifetime TV! You need to watch some comedy and laugh a bit. Try to decompress and understand this is out of your hands. You are doing everything right. The ovaries are not so easy to see, we do know that from prior US and exam. We can always go by rising lab levels to help us to determine the response to the stimulation. This afternoon we will have the labs and hopefully be able to relieve some of your worries. Please let me worry about the stimulation. You just try to remove yourself from stressful situations for a few days- no big family gatherings, no big work projects, and no big husband related work projects. The time I seriously thought about murder (not divorce-murder) was working on a pool project with my husband. Totally ridiculous, but it can happen. I don't want you to take to the bed for days but I want you to try and avoid those things that might trigger an episode of hysterical emotion, for me that would include- not going to a crowded shopping center and listening to all the screaming noises of the people, puts me on edge and triggers me to really want to run screaming. Step away from the Ledge---" -Sarah So I may be hormone-crazed, but at least I'm not alone and that's a comfort!

The "Life Saver"

I remember being so embarrassed when I had to start taking the pill at 16. What would people think about me if they found out? I sure wasn't taking it to prevent pregnancy. I was such a shy and naive teenager. I was put on it for medical reasons-to decrease the severity of my periods and to try to stop the growth of endometrial tissue. I was grateful for the pill's effectiveness! But, when Jeremy and I decided to start trying to get pregnant, I worried that being on the pill for so long was going to have negative consequences for our chances of conceiving. Little did I know, those pills are what saved our chance of conceiving. After I had fully covered from my surgery on May 4th, we were able to schedule our IVF class with Sarah from LR. We met with her Tuesday, May 29th. She went over how to mix the vials of drugs I'd be injecting into my abdomen each night, and showed me how to give myself the shot- yeah right! Like that was going to happen. I can't even watch someone give me a shot or take my blood, and they wanted me to do that to myself? I guess if I had no other choice, I'd have figured out a way to do it. But, fortunately the shots are just once a day at night and Jeremy is here to do it. Sarah gave us a plan: quit taking the pill on Tuesday, June 5th, have labwork and a baseline ultrasound done on Friday, June 8th, and start stimulation medication on Saturday, June 9th. So that's what we would end up doing. The second part of our conversation with Sarah was about my surgery on May 4th. I was so out of it after surgery that I don't remember even speaking to or seeing the doctor. But I guess he talked to me and also my mom and Jeremy. He told them that when he did the laparoscopy he noticed "a little bit" of endometriosis and went ahead and got rid of it. Sarah's version of the story was quite different. She said that since I had stopped taking the pill, the endometriosis had come back with a vengeance. It was severe, and had already attached to the wall of my abdomen, which is what was causing all the menstrual pain I had been feeling since I had quit taking the pill last September. She told me that with the endometriosis growing so fast, had they not removed it, the pain and severe periods, that I had suffered back in high school, would have been back soon, and I'd have been doubled over in pain and bed ridden for several days each month. My "Ah hah" moment: Sarah said that if I hadn't been on the pill since high school, we wouldn't even be here having this conversation. My reproductive system would have been destroyed, along with my chances of conceiving and carrying a child to term. The pill is what kept the endometriosis at bay for so many years. She said the pill keeps the endometriosis dormant and therefore it doesn't grow. So, instead of worrying about the side effects of the pill, I now rejoice and thank God for those little white "life-saving" pills. They didn't save my life, but I believe they saved our chances of conceiving life!