Back to the Real World

I'm happy to report that I have had so much improvement over these last few days.

I don't have any more back aches/pains, my belly is decreasing in size about 1/2" every day and I haven't had to take any medicine, not even tylenol, in several days.

My biggest issue now is having to get up at least 2 or 3 times every night to go to the bathroom. I was waking up like clockwork every morning at 3:30 am and staying up for an hour and I haven't done that either for almost a week.

Another huge milestone is that Steve finally gets to sleep in his own bed again! He has had alternative sleeping arrangements for three weeks now because I couldn't have him tossing and turning in the bed and I needed so many pillows to sleep there wasn't room for him anyway. Me waking up in the middle of the night would have disturbed him also. I actually feel like I've been sleeping better with him, and of course Elly, back in bed just like it should be:)

I know that I must be feeling better if I was able to get out and go shopping this weekend. My mom took me out to help me find some pants so that I can go back to work Monday. Although I am progressively "shrinking", I still have a baby bump and can't wear my normal pants. I'm not near the size I was a week and a half ago so I can definitely handle this.

It's going to be hard going back to work after two weeks hiatus but I have been working from home this entire time so I wouldn't get too far behind. I have heard a comment about "you should see all the stuff piled on your desk". I'm not excited to see what that means.

After the past three weeks, I guess back to normal isn't looking too bad.......

Doctor Appointment Update

Today I went to a doctor appointment with my new obgyn. I had to wait 45 minutes past my appointment time to go in so I hope that just means they're so good that everyone in town goes to see them.

I had a good consultation with Dr. S. She said they work with my doctor at the clinic all the time and they really like them so that made me feel good. Before I told her I was an IVF patient she said she thought I was six months along. That's even with my swelling starting to go down! She confirmed everything my doctor at the clinic said about my overstimulation and she assured me that all the medications I am on are safe. That has been my biggest concern at this point that I have been on all these meds but when you deal with hyperstimulation of your ovaries, that is a serious condition and it needs to be dealt with.

Fortunately, I began to see some progress Monday morning. I woke up and felt a little stronger and didn't need to take a pain pill all day. I did wake up several times in the middle of the night and ended up having to take a pill at 4 am but I haven't had one since then. I also have been measuring my stomach to keep track of the swelling and it appears that I have lost 2 inches. I'm getting a little better now day by day.

I'm not scheduled to have any other doctor appointments until after Derby. Right now I'm just focusing on getting past this hyperstimulation and trying to get back to work. I've tried keeping up with things at home but I tire very easily and I'm moving slow so I'll be glad to catch back up.

I just want to thank everyone who has helped us these past couple weeks. My mom has helped us so many times with cleaning, laundry, and so many more things I couldn't even possibly list them all. My sweet mother in law made sure we had fresh groceries and that Steve was taken care of on his birthday when I was in no condition to do so. Others have brought us food and just given us words of encouragement and every little bit has meant so much to us.

This weeks prayer request is for me to just get back to "normal", whatever that is:)

In case you haven't heard.......

The official results are in!

Happy Birthday Steve:)

For this child I prayed, and the Lord granted what I asked of Him." 1 Samuel 1:27

Bedrest Day 1

Well I've officially declared myself on bedrest throughout the duration of this swelling. The fluid I had drained yesterday is already coming back little by little. The more I'm on my feet, the more I can feel the pressure building up. Even if I stand up for 5 or 10 minutes, I can tell a substantial difference. I am able to lay down now which is a huge relief because I wasn't able to do that before yesterday. I think if I just take it easy for a little while then it will speed up the process.

I am a little bit of a busy body so this will be a challenge for me to sit still. It is very hard for me to let other people do things for me instead of just doing them myself (except Steve, I have no problem asking him to help me and he's probably getting tired of it!). I have trouble with simple tasks like putting on pants or socks. It's hard to stand up to take a shower but it's hard to wash my hair if I'm in the bath. Shaving my legs has not even been an option for a few days. Ha!

My Dad came to get me today and take me to Kroger to pick up a few things. I had to ride in the scooter grocery cart. I am happy to say that I didn't run into anything:) Just that little trip wore me out though so I'm on the couch for the rest of the day.

I'm going to have to take this day by day just like when I first started this process.

And no matter what, I know that my God is the same today as He was at the beginning of this process and He will continue to carry us through.

Trip to Cincy

We made a trip to the clinic today and my doctor decided that I go ahead and get some fluid drained. They ended up draining 3 liters worth of fluid. My stomach went down immediately and I haven't had hardly any back pain. I'm also not having as much shortness of breath. It's nice to have a little rest.

I had weighed myself yesterday and I had gained 25 pounds of water weight. After the procedure today I'm down to 18 pounds worth.

There is a good possibility that the fluid could come back but according to my blood work today, I should be plateauing now and hopefully it won't come back as bad.

Please keep praying that my swelling will continue to go down. Right now I have to stay off my feet as much as possible and I need to go back to work by Thursday so I can keep up with my appointments.

So today was filled with some good news and I hope there's more to come for the rest of the week:)

Eventful Easter Weekend

Sorry I haven't been able to update lately but I've had a rough few days.

Friday afternoon I started feeling exhausted and run down. By Saturday, I had grown 3" more in my stomach area. I'm running out of room to grow so now I'm expanding in my sides. Late Saturday night/early Sunday morning, I began getting upset to my stomach and having increased pains. I finally had to break down and contact my doctor at 1:30am. I told him I wanted to go to the hospital but I wasn't sure if they could do anything for me. He agreed that I could go in since I couldn't keep any liquids down.

He said he would call ahead to the er we were going to and give them instructions on how to treat me because most er doctors haven't seen this kind of condition before. It turns out that he called the wrong hospital and when the er doctor came to see me he said "oh my gosh, why does your stomach look like that!". That was encouraging. Steve immediately gave him our doctors phone number and the two of them worked it out.

I ended up having to have 3 bags of iv fluid, some pain medicine and nausea medicine. We didn't leave there until 5:30 in the morning and neither of us had been to bed yet. Needless to say, we were exhausted.

We weren't able to go and visit with anyone on Easter sunday but we were blessed with some visitors who came to see us. My mom came over to bring us lunch and she helped clean my house (Thank you, thank you, thank you, MOM) and Rebecca and Jeremy came over to bring us dessert. Thank you everybody for thinking of us while we were unable to leave the house:)

My doctor is going to call me everyday now to check on me and I'm supposed to go back to Cincinatti tomorrow for them to examine me and see if they can drain some of this fluid I am retaining. They said there is a possibility it could come back. The good news is, that I'm being told that since I am still having these symptoms, it means that the process is more than likely working. I think that makes this somewhat more bearable but I'll still be relieved to have some of this fluid subside for now. I would like to look 6 months pregnant when I am actually 6 months instead of 6 days!

Please keep me in your prayers and pray for these symtoms to subside as quickly as possible. I'm having to stay home now more times than not and I don't want that to interfere with my work. There is no one else in my office that can do my work except me so I want to be able to stay on top of it.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter weekend and I hope to have nothing but good updates from here on out!

Transfer Day Pictures

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This is where it all started--in our Petri Dish
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Me & Steve before the transfer. I told you he was too cute in scrubs!
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Mom snuck back in our room to take these pictures
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I don't think you can really grasp how big my belly is right now from this photo but it was the only one I had
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Here are our two beautiful embryos that were transferred
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Hangin in There

Today is the first day in a while that Steve hasn't been able to be home with me. I was a little upset this morning when he had to leave for work and I realized I would be on my own.

Then I had to remind myself, I am never alone.

I prayed for strength and then finally pulled myself out of bed and set up my computer in my office again. I'm happy to say that I've been working in my chair all day and I haven't had to take any pain medicine! This is a huge milestone. My doctor told me that today would be my worst day and I feel like today is the day that I've felt the best.

My routine has been to work on my laptop in my bed and I would have to alternate sitting and laying down every couple hours. I've only laid down for about 45 minutes so far today. I will make it a point to rest plenty later but this is helping me to progress into going back into the office soon.

I am still swollen and I haven't seen any evidence of that letting up yet. I've started rubbing cocoa butter on my belly because I can literally feel it stretching at times. Normally one would ease into this growing stage, but I just woke up one morning and there it was. I also can't walk standing upright. I kind of tip forward. I know that sounds really funny and believe me, it is funny. I just don't have a long enough torso and I didn't get to ease my equilibrium into all this weight I'm carrying up front.

I've had some issues with the way I look right now. I haven't wanted to go in public in case I would run into someone I know. I was afraid someone would ask me how far along I am and I would have to reply- "3 days". That would seem strange. Part of me wants to keep this to myself because it is my story. Well I am wrong. This is His story. I'm only a character in it.

"I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me". Phillipians 4:13

Transfer Complete!

*****************UPDATE*********************

We got a call this morning that our remaining 4 embryos have also made it to the blastocyst stage today and are ready for freezing!! This is another answered prayer for us as I am in no rush to go through the retrieval process again anytime soon.

Thank you Lord for your continued blessings.

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Original Post:

This morning, Steve and I were the happy recipients of two beautiful embryos!

We had two embryos that made it to the full blastocyst stage and our doctor said we had a perfect transfer. In fact, he said that everything we've done so far has been perfect so we all have done the best we could possibly do. He said we have a 70% success rate.

That was music to our ears!

I'm staying on bed rest through Monday and then hopefully I'll be able to "waddle" around better the rest of the week. My stomach is swelling a little more everyday and will continue to for a couple more days before it finally will go back down.

We took some great pictures while we were at the clinic today but unfortunately, I left my camera at my Mom's so I can't post them until I get it back.

FYI: Steve looks totally cute in scrubs!

As many of you know, today is our 6th wedding anniversary. I can't think of any better gift we could have than our embryo transfer. This has definitely been surreal. We never imagined that 6 years down the road, this is where we would be. It really makes you take a step back and be so thankful for the things that you have. It helps you keep perspective on things that are most important.

I think about how 6 years ago, all of our family and friends rallied around us to help us celebrate this new life that we were beginning together. How funny that right now, you are all still here, doing that same thing....

Thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing with us. And thank you for sticking with us for whatever lies ahead.

Transfer update

*****************UPDATE*********************
I'm feeling much better this morning! My nurse called today(Saturday) to check on me and said that I sounded fine to come in tomorrow. She told me that this bloating that I have will peak at 7 days post retrieval. That means that after next Tuesday it should start to go down. But then it will hopefully grow again:)
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Original Post:

We got a call this morning that we are scheduled for our embryo transfer on Sunday morning.

This is great news because it means that our embryos are growing rapidly and they said there was no doubt that we could wait until then.

This is something that I had prayed for from the beginning. One of my concerns was that I would be in a position where I would have to make a choice concerning our embryos. I prayed that our doctor would have a clear determination of how many we should transfer and when and that I wouldn't have to make any choices. My prayers have been answered on this situation.
Thank you, Lord.

I have a more clear picture now on the symptoms I have been having since the retrieval. I have Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome. This is very common and the level of discomfort is based largely on the number of eggs that were retrieved. A normal egg retrieval is 12-15 eggs. Obviously, 32 is more than double the average. After the eggs are retrieved, the sacs that the eggs were in remain behind and they are now filling with fluid. This is what is causing my stomach to swell. I guess I'm having a little preview of what I'll look like 5 months pregnant because that's how swollen I am. My pain in my abdomen has started to subside but now I am battling with nausea. If I actually do start getting sick then there is a possibility they will not do my transfer and have to freeze our embryos.

I need everyone to Pray, Pray, Pray!

We don't want to have to go through this. To freeze the embryos gives another battle as some of them won't survive the thawing process.

I believe that God has heard our prayers thus far and I believe that he will hear them now!

It has taken me several hours to write this post because I've been feeling sick. I am happy to report that I am now feeling much better and my doctor called me in a prescription to control the nausea. My nurse is going to call me tomorrow to check in and make sure that I'm feeling well so we can proceed.

Let's all just keep praying for smooth sailing from here.

We have 18 Babies!

Don't freak out, yet.

They were able to harvest 32 eggs yesterday! I don't remember much about the procedure but I remember a nurse coming over to me and saying they had 20 some odd eggs and they were still counting. They couldn't believe I had that many! What happened to 15?

They told us that the eggs had a 50% survival rate at this stage. We got a call this morning that we had 18 embryos that survived. That's more than 50%!

They said that the embryos were doing so good that they would like for us to try to wait until Sunday for the transfer. If we wait until then, the embryos will be at the "blastocyst" stage. That means they will be at a 100 cell count and they are much stronger and we have a 20% greater chance of a successful pregnancy (Embryos that are transferred 3 days later are only at a 6-8 cell stage). The downfall to this is that all the embryos will not make it to this stage and we might not have any to freeze. We decided that we wanted to take the extra 20% chance this time and not worry about having any to freeze. We are still tentatively scheduled for transfer on Friday and they will call us at 8:30am and let us know if they think we need to go ahead and come in for transfer or wait until Sunday. On a special note, Sunday is our 6th wedding anniversary. What a nice present that will be:)

The procedure went really well. The worst part of it for me was getting the iv. The medications they gave me worked so well that I don't remember hardly anything about the procedure or much of my time in recovery. I felt great when I left but it caught up with me last night. I'm still extremely bloated and am having trouble getting up and down and walking. I have extreme pain in my abdomen. When I talked to my nurse this morning she said it was all normal because my ovaries are so over stimulated right now (maybe the 32 eggs have something to do with it). She said I will probably feel this way for a week and that it will get worse before it gets better. Everybody please pray for a speedy recovery! I was able to work from home today but I'll need to go in the rest of the week.

I feel like we have exceeded our doctor's expectations up to this point and that things have gone really well. We are so excited to get the transfer completed and then get the LONG wait over with! I don't have anything fun planned for the wait. Any ideas anyone!!??

While I've been on bedrest, someone else has decided to milk it up too:)