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| My daily life for what seemed like forever - drugs, drugs, and more drugs! |
Bottom line, IVF wasn't bad, but sucked at the same time. The "not so bad" part: knowing that we were starting the process allowed us to see a light at the end of a very dark tunnel. Also, the process itself wasn't so bad - injecting myself in the stomach really wasn't as bad as one might imagine, and the egg retrieval and transfer was a breeze.
The sucky parts: IVF was in no way, shape or form covered by our insurance. We refinanced our house and took out a home equity loan. We were also lucky enough to get some donated meds from our RE (Reproductive Endocrinologist) the first time around. $9,000 later we were on our way to having a baby. And then, as could only happen to a couple who has had consistently bad luck for years, our excitement was cut short.
I was literally getting into my car to go to our transfer appointment when the doctor called. All of our embryos were gone. There was some kind of contamination - the doctor had no explanation. We had to start all over again (thankfully, we were not charged for the second cycle). This time, we got our medications at cost thanks to a family friend who is in charge of a hospital pharmacy. However, we still had to shell out another $3,000 for them (which is better than the $7,000 our insurance company was demanding).
We jumped right into the second cycle and it went just as smoothly as the first. Our RE took extra precautions, and we actually ended up with even more embryos! On August 22, 2013 we went in for the transfer.
Our RE recommended only transferring one embryo. He said that the chances of both embryos splitting was good and we could end up with triplets or even quadruplets. Yikes! However, we took a chance and decided to transfer two. It was the best decision we could have made. On August 28, 2013 at 5:15am, I took my first pregnancy test after the transfer. I knew it was technically "too early" but I couldn't help myself. I went back into the bathroom, braced for a stark white window, and there was a faint, second, beautiful pink line!
I had so many cutsie ideas in my head on how I'd break the news to my husband. My plan was to put together a "Daddy to be" basket and have it waiting for him when he got home from work. Boy did that plan fail. I was so excited when I got that positive test that I ran upstairs and jumped on him screaming "It worked! We're pregnant!" He was scared at first, thinking something terrible had happened, and then mad that I'd woken him up at 5:30 in the morning until he realized what I was showing him. Oh well - maybe the next one will get something cute.
On August 31 I went in for a blood test to confirm pregnancy and my beta levels were a nice 198. Two days later, the levels had risen to 518. Everything was going perfectly. Not to mention that I was feeling great - suspiciously great. I had zero symptoms: no morning sickness, sore boobs, fatigue, or any other typical pregnancy symptom that you hear about. Something had to be wrong.
My husband was adorable. I bought him Dude! You're Gonna Be a Dad! by John Pfeiffer. I perused a few daddy-to-be books and this one just seemed really "guy friendly". It gives new dads-to-be all of the pertinent information without requiring the help of a dictionary. Well, he started reading right away and before I knew it, the book was lying on our coffee table with a hundred post-it flags throughout. He went to the store and stocked up on saltines and ginger ale in preparation for my morning sickness (which still hadn't come) and came home one night with a Snoogle.
By this time, we had also starting arguing about how many babies were in there. He thought it was most definitely twins. I, on the other hand, knew there was just one. And on September 13, 2013 we went to the RE's office to find out. Sure enough, there was only one gestational sac and one yolk sac implanted exactly where it should have been. So far, it was perfect.
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| IVF Meds |
I was literally getting into my car to go to our transfer appointment when the doctor called. All of our embryos were gone. There was some kind of contamination - the doctor had no explanation. We had to start all over again (thankfully, we were not charged for the second cycle). This time, we got our medications at cost thanks to a family friend who is in charge of a hospital pharmacy. However, we still had to shell out another $3,000 for them (which is better than the $7,000 our insurance company was demanding).
We jumped right into the second cycle and it went just as smoothly as the first. Our RE took extra precautions, and we actually ended up with even more embryos! On August 22, 2013 we went in for the transfer.
Our RE recommended only transferring one embryo. He said that the chances of both embryos splitting was good and we could end up with triplets or even quadruplets. Yikes! However, we took a chance and decided to transfer two. It was the best decision we could have made. On August 28, 2013 at 5:15am, I took my first pregnancy test after the transfer. I knew it was technically "too early" but I couldn't help myself. I went back into the bathroom, braced for a stark white window, and there was a faint, second, beautiful pink line!
I had so many cutsie ideas in my head on how I'd break the news to my husband. My plan was to put together a "Daddy to be" basket and have it waiting for him when he got home from work. Boy did that plan fail. I was so excited when I got that positive test that I ran upstairs and jumped on him screaming "It worked! We're pregnant!" He was scared at first, thinking something terrible had happened, and then mad that I'd woken him up at 5:30 in the morning until he realized what I was showing him. Oh well - maybe the next one will get something cute.
On August 31 I went in for a blood test to confirm pregnancy and my beta levels were a nice 198. Two days later, the levels had risen to 518. Everything was going perfectly. Not to mention that I was feeling great - suspiciously great. I had zero symptoms: no morning sickness, sore boobs, fatigue, or any other typical pregnancy symptom that you hear about. Something had to be wrong.
My husband was adorable. I bought him Dude! You're Gonna Be a Dad! by John Pfeiffer. I perused a few daddy-to-be books and this one just seemed really "guy friendly". It gives new dads-to-be all of the pertinent information without requiring the help of a dictionary. Well, he started reading right away and before I knew it, the book was lying on our coffee table with a hundred post-it flags throughout. He went to the store and stocked up on saltines and ginger ale in preparation for my morning sickness (which still hadn't come) and came home one night with a Snoogle.
By this time, we had also starting arguing about how many babies were in there. He thought it was most definitely twins. I, on the other hand, knew there was just one. And on September 13, 2013 we went to the RE's office to find out. Sure enough, there was only one gestational sac and one yolk sac implanted exactly where it should have been. So far, it was perfect.
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| 9/13/13 - 5 weeks 6 days |
Another plus of seeing an RE is that once you do get pregnant, they have you come in once a week for an ultrasound to ensure that everything is going well until they release you to your regular OB (most OBs won't see a pregnant woman until they are at least 8-12 weeks along when the chance of a miscarriage drops significantly). Obviously, we weren't able to see the baby at the first ultrasound as it was too small. Our amazing nurse practitioner told us that we would be able to see the baby at the next visit and might, just might, detect a heartbeat (although she said we shouldn't expect that for another two weeks). We scheduled our next appointment for September 20 - in exactly one week.
That week waiting period was the worst. My husband had also brought home What to Expect When You're Expecting . I was also frequenting TheBump.com. And let me tell you, almost every page or post I read made me think that this baby was dead and gone. It was time to stop.
We walked into our 7:00am appointment on September 20 holding our breath. I had been mentally preparing myself for a blank screen: no baby, no heartbeat. It was all going to well and in my experience, the universe just couldn't allow that to happen. To our amazement, it was still perfect. We saw our little jelly belly AND saw and heard the heartbeat which was going at 118 beats per minute - perfect! We definitely were not expecting that and to this day, I will never forget the look of amazement on my husband's face. It's funny - the things you remember.
We went back to the RE's office one more time before they released us to our OB. This time, there was no mistaking that something was growing in there with a heart rate of 157bpm. At this point, I still had zero pregnancy symptoms other than the fact that I actually had a baby in there.
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| 9/26/13 - 7 weeks 5 days |
The OB I chose (mine had moved to Florida) was one that came highly recommended by our nurse practitioner, my GP and my aunt (along with her friend). Seriously - people couldn't stop singing his praises. I was warned about the loooong wait time I would experience in his office but assured that he would take just as much time with me as he does with every other patient. Needless to say, the office requires that you see all of their OBs (five in total) at least once, and I absolutely didn't mind that. I wasn't terribly impressed with him. Then again, everything was going so well that I really didn't require much from him. We were, however, excited to see that baby had gotten bigger!
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| 10/7/13 - 9 weeks 2 days |
**The NT scan is typically done around the 12 week mark. It involves a finger prick, a few drops of blood, and an ultrasound which measures the space/fluid on the back of baby's neck. They also look for the presence of a nasal bone. Overall, the test is to determine the chances of baby having Down Syndrome, Trisomy 18 or Trisomy 13 (all three of which are chromosomal defects).
As it turned out, baby passed the NT scan with flying colors (a huge relief) and actually looked like a little person!
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| 11/1/13 - 12 weeks 6 days |
We asked the sono tech if she had any guesses as to the sex of our baby. She looked around for a bit. At this point, I KNEW it was a girl - my husband was positive we were having a boy. Well, after a minute of searching, she showed us a little nub on the screen. While it was still early, and technically that nub could be a swollen clitoris, she was pretty confident that we were expecting a boy. I was shocked.
My first thought was that I was so grateful to be having a smooth pregnancy and especially a so-far healthy and perfect baby. But the thought of having a boy scared me. I never really thought of having a boy. What would I do with one? I envisioned my husband coming home and asking our son if he wanted to go to the driving range. Here's how the conversation would play out:
Husband: Hey buddy, let's go hit some golf balls.
Son: Ugh, dad! I just got back from my mani/pedi appointment with mom.
And then fire would shoot out of my husband's eyes and I'd be dead.
Not that I'd want my son to be feminine, but I don't know if I could help it from happening. What do boys like? Cars? Sports? Wrestling? I honestly have no idea. But I have zero interest in any of them and an especial hatred for sports and the whole sports culture that seems to reign in today's society. But that's another story.
Anyway, as I finish this post (about a month or so after I initially started it), we know that the tech guessed too early and that nub was, in fact, something other than a penis. We are having a healthy baby girl who I can't wait to take with me to the barn and see her up on horseback. I look forward to buying her her first designer handbag and spa days. But most of all, I can't wait to watch her develop, change and grow just like we did in those first few weeks via ultrasounds. Because really, it is such an amazing process.
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