Latest Pics of Butch

Here (s)he is! Isn't (s)he beautiful? In the top one, you can see that Butch has a nice strong heartbeat--166 beats per minute. We got to hear it this time, too--loud and clear and GORGEOUS!

In the second one, you can ALMOST make out a bit of a "real" baby shape. The head is closest to the bottom of the picture, and you can see little arm and leg buds forming. The circle toward the top is the yolk sac, which nourishes the fetus until the placenta forms. It is now almost completely depleted and moving away from the baby. It will dissolve soon, and the placenta will take over.

Dr. Dunn told us that the chance of miscarriage is now less than 3%, so we feel very confident and excited about this pregnancy. He congratulated us on our "graduation" and released us to start seeing our regular OB, Dr. Cone.

OK, Now That I Can Breathe...

I can post an update about what's been going on the past few weeks. Talk about DRAMA...but nothing having to do with fertility/pregnancy/giving birth has EVER been normal in my life!

As most of you know, I cheated and POAS on Tuesday, April 10, a day before my scheduled beta test. I got a clear BFP, so I called Dr. Dunn's office to see if I could go ahead and come in for the blood test. Gloria said come on; no problem.

So I drove up there with Max and Teri and gave my blood. We decided to go over to the zoo and walk around while we waited for my results. I was feeling kind of crampy, but I didn't think much of it, because I had felt that way for several days and just attributed it to early pregnancy. However, when I went to the bathroom about an hour into our walk, I was panicked to discover I was (perhaps TMI) gushing blood--LOTS of it. I immediately started shaking and crying and trying to call Gloria (my nurse) from the bathroom stall. Unfortunately, she was at lunch, and the on-duty nurse couldn't tell me much more than 1) they had not yet received the results of my blood test; and 2) I needed to get the hell out of that zoo as fast as possible and get home to bed.

Teri took off and summoned the zoo shuttle to come pick us up, so thankfully, I didn't have to try to walk the mile out of there. I was in a total daze all the way home, certain that I was miscarrying; in my mind, the whole thing was over before it had ever really started, and I was devastated. However, Gloria called me back as we were walking into the house and told me my beta number was 112 (a good, strong number for that early); and she was surprisingly unconcerned about the bleeding. She told me that it's totally common, especially in women who have had as much "work done" as I have and not to worry. She said just take it easy over the weekend and come back in for another beta on Monday. Remember, this was Thursday--THURSDAY!!!--so this was much easier said than done.

Billy and I decided to go out to the lake for the weekend as we had previously planned. We figured I could relax just as easily out there as I could at home, if not moreso. I stayed on self-imposed bedrest most of the weekend, and while I continued to have spotting for the next three days, I didn't have any more major bleeding. I was still convinced, however, that I was having a miscarriage, despite the fact that I continued to get BFP's on the HPT's I was taking every morning. I know those home tests detect HCG at around 50, so I knew my number could have dropped and I would still get a positive. Something about POAS was reassuring, though, so I continued to do it. It was all I had, really, at that point.

On Monday the 14th (my BIRTHDAY, FGS!) I went back for my second beta test. This time I got the callback as I was sitting at Pappa's Seafood for my birthday lunch with my family. The news was still worrisome: my beta had only risen to 246. The good news was that it had risen, but it SHOULD have been up around 400 by that time and it wasn't. Things still did not look promising. And Gloria STILL could not tell me much other than to come back Wednesday for yet another test.

FINALLY...my beta came back at 620 on Wednesday! Gloria said everything looked good, and I could stop worrying so much and start getting excited about this pregnancy. Billy and I were so relieved that we both cried. It was just SUCH a relief, I can't even describe it.

We will have our first ultrasound on Tuesday, and I will feel much better after that. If everything is going well, we should be able to see the baby AND a heartbeat, which will make it all seem much more real. I'll post an update (and, hopefully, a picture) then...

Love to all!!!

Just One Embryo

Well, I am disappointed but not really surprised. At our egg retrieval yesterday, Dr. Dunn was able to aspirate only four eggs. He said that with so few eggs, we would most likely transfer ALL resulting embryos on the third day after retrieval, just to get them back quickly to their "natural environment." However, when the embryologist went to work on them, he noted that only three of the four were mature, and two of those had abnormal morphology. The only good one fertilized normally, but that means the result was a single embryo. One. After all this time.

We are going to transfer the embryo on Monday. It's scary, because honestly, if you look at the statistics, the odds for a single, three-day embryo are not very good. I have been pretty sad and frustrated, needless to say.

Billy has been great, though, and he has really worked hard to raise my spirits today. He refuses to see this as anything but a good omen (at least we won't have multiples!), and he kind of made me think--at this point, there should be no difference in my attitude whether I have one or ten. This one embryo is our potential child, and it deserves every ounce of positive energy and faith that we have. It doesn't make it any less important just because the odds for a successful pregnancy may not be as spectacular. I could have put back three, and THIS ONE might have been the only strong one that survived, right? I just keep telling myself that as of Monday afternoon, I am pregnant, and I will continue to treat myself as if I am until I hear otherwise.

Your continued prayers and kind words are keeping us sane. Thank you so much.

FINALLY!!! We made it!

Well, we finally made it to the end (well, almost) of an IVF cycle. I went for an ultrasound and bloodwork this morning, and my nurse called me at 3 p.m. to confirm that we will have our egg retrieval at 7:30 a.m. Friday morning (the 28th)! We are looking at harvesting a minimum of seven eggs, but there is a possibility we could have as many as ten. Billy and I could not be happier or more relieved. While we would love to have some embryos left over to freeze, all we really want is two good ones to put back next week. Just two. TWO. PLEASE!

Keep us in your prayers.

IVF #2 (Part Deux)

By the way, I looked at my stim schedule when I got home today, and I nearly fell over. Dr. Dunn has me on 225 iu of Follistim TWICE daily; the most I have ever done before is 375 per day. Then he has me adding in another stim--Menopur--on day 3. Even the most hardened IVFers I know were shocked and awed by these doses. I am going to make a MILLION EGGS!!!

Now excuse me while I go dig out my fat pants...

IVF #2 is Full Steam Ahead!

This morning I went to see Dr. Dunn for an ultrasound and bloodwork, and everything looks perfect. I have twelve antral follicles, and they are all exactly the same size, which is a good starting point. He gave me the go-ahead to start my two days of diluted Lupron on Saturday. I will add in the stims on Monday. If all goes according to plan, I will have my egg retrieval on Saturday, March 29. Keep us in your prayers, because this is IT. We're done, emotionally AND financially.

IVF #2 Back on Track

Well, for those of you who have been wondering, we got the go-ahead this past week to begin a new IVF cycle. Dr. Dunn has ordered a new protocol this time around, different from anything we have tried before. It's called a "flare protocol," and it is much more aggressive as far as the number of eggs it will (hopefully) yield. For you techies who actually care about this stuff, here is how it works, according to http://www.ivf.ca/flare.htm:

In this type of stimulation, the Lupron (or other GnRH agonist) is started on cycle day 2 in the same menstrual cycle that eggs will be retrieved - instead of starting it a week prior to the start of menses. This protocol takes advantage of an initial "flare-up" response of FSH and LH release from the woman's own pituitary gland that usually occurs in the first 3 days of Lupron administration. Continuing Lupron for more than 3 days temporarily suppresses the pituitary gland so that it has very low output of FSH and LH.The FSH product (e.g. Follistim, Gonal-F, Repronex) is then started on the following day (day 3). Lupron will stimulate release of a large amount of FSH (and LH) that will jump-start (flare-up) the follicles to promote a better ovarian stimulation, with more mature follicles and more eggs to utilize with IVF.Birth control pills are usually given for the month before the flare so that there will not be a leftover cyst (corpus luteum) that could become reactivated by the high LH levels at the onset of the flare stimulation.There are variations to the protocol. This is one example:

1. Birth control pills for 1 month (I will be taking them for three weeks, starting 2/22.)
2. Stop birth control pills - no meds for 2 days
3. Start Lupron on the third pill free day. We use a 50ug dose of Lupron twice daily -AM and PM- for these flare cycles. 50ug is a very small dose as compared to the usual Long Lupron protocol dose of 0.5mg (500ug). The Lupron needs to be diluted by the pharmacy or the doctor's office in order to be able to inject such a low dose.
4. Start injections of the FSH product (once or twice daily) on the day after starting Lupron
5. The Lupron is usually continued at the same dose until the HCG trigger shot is given.

Our egg retrieval is tentatively scheduled for March 30; and if all goes according to plan, our embryo transfer will happen 5 days later. I should be able to get an accurate HPT result by my birthday on April 14. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME (I hope)!!!

Curses! Foiled again!

For those of you who have been following our continuing saga of infertility...our most recent cycle was cancelled on Monday. This is our second cancellation since October (the FOURTH time over the past few years of dealing with this), so I'm getting used to it. The lagging follicles did grow quite a bit, but so did the three big ones--so much so that Dr. Dunn advised not trying to do a retrieval of so few mature eggs. Back in October/November, we got cancelled because my body would not respond to the suppression drugs, no matter what they tried; this time, they obviously suppressed me TOO much. The bottom line is, it's a no go this month. Dr. Dunn wants to try again next month using a completely different protocol.

HOWEVER, there is GOOD NEWS: Dr. Dunn and his staff are phenomenal, and he has declared our situation to be a personal challenge for him. He feels like because he helped us before to conceive Max that he can definitely do it again. I told him that was great, but we are tapped out financially; $3000 to $4000 more for new drugs is simply out of the question (we have no insurance for infertility treatments). He told me not to worry--he will get his nurses working on it, and they will make sure we get enough donated meds to try at least one more time. He told me he already has enough Lupron and at least two 900 iu cartridges of Follistim for me (almost $1500 worth of free meds right there!!!), and by the time I'm ready to start again, they can probably have it all covered for us. God bless 'em!