August ICLW

Welcome to my little piece of the blogging world. I haven’t been here for very long but the benefits I’ve reaped have been wonderful! I am so grateful for the support I have received.

Currently, I am in the middle of a whole new type of TWW. I am going through my second round of IVF…we have two frozen embryos right now and are waiting for the results of the PGD testing. I am really hoping we’ll have results at this time next week. We had to send a blood sample this week in order for the lab to map out our chromosomes as a part of the testing for the embies.

Here is more about us and our journey:

·         I suffered three early miscarriages between October 2010 and July 2011.

·         After the 2^nd miscarriage I had the blood work done for the RPL panel and had an HSG. Good news was all was clear on the HSG…bad news? I have a Robertsonian Balanced Translocation. In a nutshell, the long arms of my 13^th and 14^th chromosomes are fused together. I have all of the correct genetic material but it becomes a problem when trying to conceive.

·         Found an RE in the area based on the recommendation of one of J’s co-workers. His wife gave birth to a healthy baby girl after 5 rounds of IVF that resulted in 3 losses.

·         I did not respond well to the meds in the first round of IVF in May so it was turned into an IUI. BFN L

·         2^nd round of IVF produced 10 follicles that resulted in 4 eggs at the time of retrieval. All 4 were mature and all 4 fertilized with ICSI. After 5 days 2 were biopsied and their cells were shipped to NJ for testing.

·         We have a 66% chance that each embryo will be healthy. When I think of that other 34% I just think of the quote above to remember we have a good chance of having at least one healthy embryo. We feel like we’ve already struck out enough and now it’s our chance to hit a home run. (Grand slam if both are healthy!)

·         We live in South TX…all of our friends and family live in MA. It gets lonely for both of us at times. Blogging really helps take away some of the lonely feelings.

·         We have 2 golden retrievers who make us smile each and every day. I don’t know how we would have made it this far without them. I think they have become therapy dogs for us. J

I look forward to reading and commenting this week and getting to know you a bit better.

Happy ICLW!

16 more days

Not that I am counting or anything...

Last Thursday I went in for the IUI. It went okay...I was pretty disappointed that Dr. A was not the doctor who was performing the procedure. It turns out he was disappointed as well...he called that evening to apologize for not being there and to see how I was doing. It felt like he was sincere so it really meant a lot to me. He also said the numbers looked great. He said J deserved a gold star! It made me breathe a sigh of relief as the doctor we saw said the sample looked "pretty good". I could not get the words "pretty good" out of my head until I received the call from Dr. A. It ended up taking the doctor three times to get the catheter in there correctly. By the third time the tears started streaming down my cheeks; J whipped out his phone and pulled up pictures of our last trip to Belize. It was a huge help! Now we are in the longest 2ww ever in our TTC history. We were scheduled to go in for bloodwork on June 18th but that is not possible as we are traveling for the memorial service for J's dad. So June 20th it is...we get off the plane and head directly to the dr's office.

I did a pretty good job staying distracted this weekend - basketball definitely helped. Now to stay distracted during the work week. Work does not really provide enough of a distraction.

More monitoring

Yesterday was another monitoring appointment to make sure I was responding to the higher dosage of meds. I am happy to say that I responded! I was so relieved when the doctor measured a 16mm follicle... the largest seen the other day was a 13, so I was pretty happy. Then after a bit more poking and a little more pressure she found a 20mm!! I was shocked! The doctor seemed really positive after the exam and told me that 20mm was the ticket. Our IUI is scheduled for Thursday morning.

I am going through so many different emotions right now. J said it best when he compared to what we are up against as to being up to bat in the 9th inning. It's as if the doctors and nurses are super excited and positive telling us we are going to hit a home run and they forget that we've already struck out 3 times. We still have a chance of passing along the Balanced Translocation to this baby which most likely means another miscarriage. I am not trying to be a Debbie Downer but it's always in the cards for me and it scares both of us. I am going to keep saying my prayers and stay positive. Maybe, just maybe this time it will be my turn!