18 August, 2019

A letter to my embryo

To my microscopic baby,
I adore you. I have two pictures of you and one of them is on my nightstand. I like to gaze at your not-quite-hydrated little being and marvel at how amazing you are. The RE told me you looked nice and plump right before I became pregnant with you and you were as perfect as perfect could be. I was so relieved when I heard that you had survived the thawing process. Not every blastocyst does.
I already consider you part of our family. No matter what the results of the blood draw are tomorrow, you are mine. I am so thankful for a religion that tells me that you are and always will be my baby.
Your father is convinced I am pregnant with you and I have a cautious optimism. You are a fighter. There are so many friends and family members rooting for you and I can feel their love and support. If you are meant to be, you are so lucky that you have so many people backing your existence. You are fortuitous that you have a mother and father that love each other dearly and an older sister who knows that her mommy has a baby, but doesn't quite get the difference between her baby doll and her mother's pregnancy. Your sister has been working on lullabies lately. Right before her nap, she raucously rocked her baby doll while enthusiastically singing "Baby Shark." If that's not something to look forward to, I don't know what is.
I can promise you that if you are born into our family, you will be so loved. The closer it gets to the blood draw, the less I want to do it because the more brokenhearted I will be if the results are negative. I have tried not to be as invested in this cycle. I gave more than I had emotionally to get your sister to this earth. However, I realized I cannot go through this cycle like it is simply the medical procedure it appears to be on the outside. Even though you were frozen in a lab with your brothers and sisters up until nine days ago, you are my baby and I am invested in you.

You are loved. You are special to me.

10 August, 2019

Transfer Day!

It's been a while! Let's get caught up. I had my final blood draw one week prior to the transfer (August 2). I received a call to tell me that everything looks great now! They instructed me to start on the PIO (progesterone in oil) injections as planned. I was ecstatic that the last hurtle had been crossed. I knew that unless something major happened, I would be able to do the transfer if that last blood draw came back with shining results.
Sunday August 3, we started the PIO shots. We found a great tutorial online to help us know exactly what to do with the shots. (If I had been in town for longer, my clinic would have given us a shot class so we could have learned in-person. This video was so good that both my husband and myself felt confident going into the first shot.) I am so grateful for technology so that we not only have this blessing of having children, but that we can watch a nurse demonstrate the best way to administer an intramuscular shot online.
We followed the instructions to a T. It has been a while since I have done any sort of shot (the morning of my daughter's birth). I took the fat needle and pierced it into the vial of progesterone in oil. I tipped the whole thing upside-down and drew out slightly more than 1 ml of oil. Flick the syringe so that all the little air bubbles merge at the top of the syringe and push out all the air and excess oil so that precisely 1 ml of PIO remains in the vial. Remove the syringe from the bottle and replace the grossly over sized needle with a still-large but not as terrifying looking needle. Then you get the inject it. I haven't iced the area or used a warm pack at any point. I am somewhat sore, especially as the day proceeds. We switch sides every day so one side is always slightly worse than the other.



August 9, 2019 will be a day I will always look back on with love, no matter what the outcome is of this transfer.
We had a very relaxing morning. We went to Trader Joe's to grab the food to help us last the rest of our trip and headed to a local mall's toy store. We wandered around the store and eventually bought our toddler five little animal figurines. On the way back to the car, she begged us to play in a little splash pad area. She and I had fun running through the fountains of water. Because some of the fountains had random intervals in which they would shoot out water, we were both taken by surprise a couple of times and ended up wetter than was expected.
We got back home, put our daughter down for her nap, and I tried to relax. My husband offered to give me a blessing. It was a gorgeous blessing. I felt peace and comfort. We were both very emotional by the end of the blessing. I have been trying my hardest not to get emotionally drawn into this round of IVF. I emotionally invested myself as much as possible on the road to having our daughter and I knew it was not healthy. I have not been a pessimist about this FET, I have just been a realist. A FET is not a guaranteed way to conceive a baby. The stats are higher than natural conceptions and IUIs, but it is not 100%. (My doctor gave me close to a 70% chance for the rest of my embryos.) I am in a much better place emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually this time around, but that doesn't mean anything in the grand scheme of IVF.
I have been surrounded by loving people. I was in awe by all the unsolicited and loving texts and calls I have received. I have not divulged the true reason for making a visit home to most of our friends in the mid-west. One of them gave me a hug the last time I saw her before the trip and said some words of encouragement. I had told so many people that we were just taking a trip to visit family that I was taken by surprise and it took a second for me to change my mindset. Another friend texted me right before we left. She said just the right thing that I needed to hear that day. Someone else texted me the morning of with once again, a heart-melting message.
This feeling of love and warmth should be something that everyone feels.

After I was showered and ready to go (wearing the same shirt I did on the last embryo transfer day), we packed up the car, and dropped our daughter off at my brother's house. There was a small family shin-dig going on with ten of her cousins and four adults. She immediately gravitated towards the little play kitchen. She hugged and kissed us both as we were leaving. (Side note: A few days before the transfer, my husband and I were prepping my daughter about the day by telling her that we were going to leave her with her cousins. She turned to us and said, "And Mama get a baby!" Talk about  a two-year-old picking up on more than you give her credit for.)

During the last transfer, my bladder was too full (in my opinion) and the transfer just felt like two people were pushing on my bladder in two different directions. This time, I sipped on bits of water once we were on our way to the clinic for the procedure. I estimate I drank around 8-12 ounces. It was the perfect amount this time.

We arrived at our clinic at 3:54. We were checked in by a cheerful receptionist and I was handed a green wrist band. "Is this for the ride I get to take later on?" It took the receptionist a second, but for the rest of the time checking in, we made puns about and likened the procedure to a roller coaster ride. "You can take your Valium now. That will really help the ride get going!"
I don't remember the Valium doing much for me last time, but this time, I felt slightly tipsy. When our nurse (Heidi) came back to get us, I needed support to walk straight. We headed to the same room that I became pregnant with our daughter and got comfortable. We, once again, received some good luck socks. These ones were not as cute as the Superman socks last time.


Shortly after I was ready, our doctor came in! We had not seen her since our last transfer. We adore this woman. (She also commented on the socks.) Very quickly, we were all ready to go. The embryologist showed our name written on a screen in the lab and zoomed in on the embryo. We watched a catheter grab the little embryo and it was brought into our room. Our doctor quickly did a practice run, showing us where on my lining she was going to place the perfect little embryo.



And just like that, we saw a small little blob of white pushed to my lining. The embryologist grabbed the catheter and brought it back to the lab to ensure our little one didn't try to make a home in the catheter. She came back after minute and said we were good to go! You probably cannot tell in the picture below, but next to my lining is a circle. Inside the circle is a little splash of white. That white is not the embryo, but air bubbles that were place in next to the embryo so we could see where he/she was placed.


I relaxed for around ten more minutes as the nurse came back in with a sheet of instructions. After waiting another minute, I got dressed and we slowly meandered out.
That evening, we enjoyed pizza and The Emperor's New Grove. It was a glorious day!