Fluffing The Nest

After a sluggish 1st trimester, I've started off the first few weeks of my 2nd trimester with a turbo shot of energy!  I put this boost towards an early start in prepping our "nest" for our little one.

As a bit of a back story, we renovated our home last summer with a baby in mind.  We transformed our upstairs into 2 bedrooms, a living room and full bathroom.  It's the ideal space for family when they visit.  Then, we moved our bedroom furniture to the downstairs master with full bath.  Just a few feet down the hall from our bedroom is the perfect room that we designated as our future nursery, which by the way has the BEST view of the entire house.  Can't wait to rock our little one, as we gaze out at our backyard checking out the trees, flowers, bunnies & birds.  Another plus for me is that Hubby's office is across the hall from the nursery, so he's within an earshot if Peanut gets fussy.

For the last few months, the nursery has been a combination hobby room / office.  It housed everything from scrapbooking supplies to marketing plans to my digital piano.  My mission this week has been to clear out everything, move it to our upstairs storage room and sell all of the room's furniture to make room for baby.  Thank goodness for Facebook Yardsale groups.  The furniture that I have posted sold the very same day.  So, luckily, it has been very easy to get things moved.

By the end of the weekend, the room should be a clean slate for baby.  Feels awesome to be ahead of schedule.  We'll officially start decorating the nursery in July when we learn Peanut's gender.  Until then, I am giving myself a pat on the back and heading to the living room for an afternoon nap!

Enjoy your weekend!

Love Never Fails

Hard to believe that my last post was in December.  But, boy what a difference a few months can make!

Let's rewind a little to bring you up to speed on our happenings....

We kicked off 2012 with another frozen IVF cycle.  With this cycle, we began with the usual protocol of Lupron sub-q injections to suppress my system.  Then, we transitioned to Progesterone in Oil and Estradiol Valerate intramuscular injections in February.  These injections served as "boosters" to the hormones I was already producing.  After speaking with our Dr., we decided to transfer a single embryo on February 28, leaving us with 3 more frozen embryos for future cycles.  Following the embryo transfer, I was placed on bed rest for 3 days.  Hubby hooked me up with Netflix on our bedroom tv, along with picking up all of my favorite snacks.  I have to admit that it was quite an oasis.

Two weeks later, we headed to Nashville Fertility Center for our pregnancy test.  Our appointment was at 11:30 a.m. and we were told that we would have the results by 4 p.m.  To kill time during the agonizing wait, we grabbed lunch at Ted's Montana Grill in West End, where I had the BEST cheeseburger ever.  Seriously, I still dream about it.  It was that delicious.  We spent the rest of the afternoon strolling around Nashville and even stopped in to browse for awhile at Antique Archaeology.

At 4:17 p.m., the phone rang and we got the news we've been praying for....WE'RE PREGNANT!  We went in twice more that week for additional blood tests to make sure that my beta levels were rising as they should.  Thankfully, they rose perfectly!

Here is the first picture of our little peanut, taken at our 6 week visit to Nashville Fertility Center.  During this visit, we heard the baby's heartbeat for the first time.  Words cannot describe how incredible that moment was.

I am now 10 1/2 weeks pregnant with our little miracle baby.  We said goodbye to the NFC staff on April 9 and are now officially in the care of an OB.  Our first OB appointment was this morning and our little peanut is doing great!  He/she wiggled like crazy on the ultrasound and is measuring right on track.

After 3 years of IVF cycles and hundreds upon hundreds of injections, everything has fallen right into place.  This was all in his timing, not my own.

So, this is what it feels like to have everything I've ever wanted.  Thank you, Lord, for this blessing.  I'll say it again...Love never fails.

It's Been Awhile

So, I kind of flew the coop after my last post. I wanted to step away from the IVF talk for awhile and just unwind.

To bring you up to speed, we ended up canceling my embryo transfer in early November.  Unfortunately, I hyperstimulated once again and became very sick. Tremendous amounts of fluid had collected in my abdomen, pelvis and against my lungs, which caused difficulty breathing. Hyperstimulation occurs because of the sharp spike in a woman's estradiol level. This decreased my chances of becoming pregnant and I was also advised that if I did become pregnant the hyperstimulation symptoms would worsen. So, after a lengthy discussion with our Dr, we decided that it would be best to cancel the transfer.

Despite the challenges of this cycle, we are excited to say that we have 5 frozen embryos to use for later cycles! So, all was definitely not lost. I'm feeling back to normal now, after a few crummy months. I'm back to Zumba and have begun training for a 5k that Jake and I will run together in February.

Thanks for all of the calls & emails throughout this cycle. Your encouraging words meant the world to us during such a stressful time. We're blessed to have wonderful family & friends like you.

Hey Sperm, Meet Egg

The last few days have been c-r-a-z-y in the Bachman house! 

Thursday was my egg retrieval. Feeling full and anxious to get this procedure out of the way, I bopped into the surgery center around 9 a.m. Totally determined not to get sick, I came in prepared with acupuncture buttons on both wrists to help combat nausea. The actual procedure went smoothly but I did get super sick afterwards and ended up being rolled out of the restroom on a stretcher. So, they kept me an extra 2 hours for monitoring and pumped me with more IV fluids. A total of 28 eggs were retrieved.

I wanted to share the following website: http://www.advancedfertility.com/aspiration.htm  It gives a great explanation of the egg retrieval procedure and even includes a short video clip of what it looks like on ultrasound.

Yesterday, we received a phone call with a fertilization update.  Of the 28 retrieved, 22 of them were mature, meaning they were able to attempt fertilization via ICSI. However, only 7 actually fertilized. Initially, it was hard not to be discouraged by these stats but we are reminding ourselves that it only takes one. The growth of the 7 embryos would then be monitored over the next 24 hours to determine whether we will have a day 3 or day 5 embryo transfer. There are higher success rates with a day 5 transfer, since the embryo has developed into a blastocyst at this point.

Let's fast forward 24 hours...bringing us to today! We checked our IVF voicemail box about an hour ago and had a message from the embryologist. We both took a deep breath and pressed play. We were told that all 7 of our embryos are still growing!  So, we are scheduled for a Day 5 transfer on Tuesday.   Praise God! 

One Day Closer

Another monitoring visit in the books. My estradiol level is 5,217 and am still feeling pretty good. I've met the requirement of having at least 5 follicles that measure 18 mm.

:::Drum roll:::

It's game time!

Tonight, at 11 p.m. I will have 2 injections of hCG (Ovidrel) -- 1 entire syringe and the other just 1/2. This is called the "trigger shot". It is timed precisely to coincide with the final maturation of the follicles. When this shot is given, those follicles release their eggs.

Screen shot of a few of the follicles on my left ovary.  Looks like a honeycomb, right?

Then, I get ONE FULL DAY of zero shots. That's right...an entire day of not being poked. During this time, my estradiol level will continue to go up and I'll go back tomorrow morning for another round of bloodwork to check it. So, we're hoping it doesn't go up too high making me sick. My egg retrieval is set for Thursday morning at 10 a.m.. No turning back now.

We can't wait until Thursday! Finally, we will get to find out how many eggs they retrieve, how many are mature and then how many fertilize. Big decisions and big excitement coming over the next week.

Thank you all so much for keeping us in your prayers. It means more than you know.  

Please, let this be the cycle that brings us the child that we've prayed so hard for.

Monday, Monday

We're seriously debating the purchase of a jet to get us back & forth to Nashville in lightning speed.  Ok, not really.  But, we can dream.  Maybe we can borrow Reba's helicopter.

This morning's appointment went well.  It was yet another monitoring visit to see how my follicles are developing and to check my estradiol level.  Thankfully, my estradiol level is still in the "safe" zone at 3,664 -- tripling since Saturday.  We are on day 10 of stimulating medications.  It was on this day in our previous fresh cycle that my E2 surged and caused me to become so sick.  So, we're counting our blessings that I seem to be in the clear thus far.  

I am growing follicles aplenty.  Jake was in charge of writing down the sizes of each as they were measured via ultrasound.  He ended up using every inch of that piece of paper, as we counted 36.  Yes, 3 dozen.  The folllicles measured on average between 16-17 mm each.  

I have been instructed to tweak my FSH dosage tonight -- reducing back to 75 units of Gonal-F.  Still on the 3 injections per day.  But, the Dr. wants to decrease my FSH for at least the next 24 hours, making sure that the follicles continue to grow but not too much that they would cause a spike in my estradiol level.

Back again to Nashville in the a.m. for hopefully our last monitoring visit.  Tomorrow's findings will determine when the egg retrieval will take place.  As of right now, they are looking at Wednesday or Thursday for this procedure.  

Just Another Saturday Morning During IVF

We went in for my 3rd IVF monitoring appointment this morning. Although we were a little grumpy that we didn't get to sleep in, it was nice having very few cars on the road during our quick trip to Nashville. Zoomed in and zoomed out. 

Everything continues to look good. My estradiol level has risen to 1296. I have more than 10 eggs on each ovary, measuring over 10 mm. Most are around 12 mm. Still instructed to continue on the same dosage -- 150 units of Gonal-F, 75 units Menopur, 5 units Lupron and 1 mg Dexamethasone -- through Monday morning.

Because of the crazy number of eggs that are developing, I'm becoming more uncomfortable each day. Hubby has noticed my "waddle" walk lately. I'm starting to notice a change in my energy level, due to the surge in hormones. I can't believe I fell asleep at 7 p.m. last night. In between my hibernation, I'm staying busy with craft projects and Lifetime movie marathons.

I'm scheduled for another visit on Monday at 9:30 a.m. We are looking for my estradiol level to increase, but not get too high, while the eggs grow to their mature size of 18 mm. As soon as we have more than 5 eggs reach the 18 mm size, it'll be go time for the egg retrieval! Based on the growth pattern so far, it looks promising that the retrieval will happen on Wednesday.

Here's to making it 'til Wednesday. I feel like I have more eggs than a mama turtle.

Back to the couch for a snooze fest...