Ultrasound #1 Reveals...

TWINS! That's right...twins...yikes! And...AH! We're very excited, but very nervous as well! I truly can't comprehend that I'm actually pregnant still...let alone that we might be having TWO babies! All they looked like were twinkling little stars in two black skies in the ultrasounds, but we got to hear two little heartbeats (114 and 120). Hoping things continue to progress as they should! Here's our twinkling stars at about 6.5 weeks:

Twin A

Twin B

2 Gestational Sacs

(shows Twin A...Twin B can't be seen in this pic because he/she is sitting further back in the sac)

Singleton vs Twin

So I've been anxious all weekend! Everyone in my discussion board thinks I've got twins in there, but I'm not sure.

I was thinking about the possibility of twins, and to be honest, I'm nervous about the possibility. It would mean more complications. More doctor's appointments. More health risks for the baby. More weight. The idea of staying at home by myself with them is a little scary...2 vs 1!

Of course there's a lot of things wonderful about twins. Double the love. Double the fun and excitement. 2 for the price of 1 in infertility costs. Hmm...I guess we'll have to see! Okay. Getting excited now! Thanks blog!

Beta Test #3

Last beta is in! Hcg was at 16,172!!! Wonderful news! If you calculate the doubling rate, it doubled only a little slower than between our last two betas. There's a little website that you can compare your betas to other peoples. It's called betabase (just google it). If you look at my betas they're on the high side for singletons and on the average side for TWINS! Wouldn't that be CRAZY??? But, I'm going to try not to get my hopes up.

As far as symptoms, I've had some cramping pretty constantly, but that could be the progesterone suppositories. I have been craving Mexican like constantly lately....mmm...chips and salsa and refried beans...mmm... okay going to go find some salsa!

First ultrasound will be next week! I'm soo anxious!

Beta Test #2

Things look GREAT!! I went in for bloodwork this morning again. The nurse who took my blood made a comment while the was doing the blood taking. She said "okay almost done. Oh I remember you! I had to dilute your sample. You're definitely positive!" Sooo, I guess my hcg levels are REALLY good! I got my results back and hcg was 1233! A little more than double! One more step out of the overly cautious zone! Can't wait for our ultrasound in a couple weeks to see how our little one is doing!!

Beta Test #1

I went in for blood work this morning to see if I was pregnant (I restrained myself from peeing on a stick at home!). To see if you're pregnant they test for the level of HCG in your blood (it's a hormone that is released into the blood stream from the baby's placenta). I got the call from the nurse right after lunch. First thing she asked me was if I'd taken a home pregnancy test. I said "no", and she said "Then I guess you don't know that you're pregnant!!" I was like "REALLY?!" Blood work was nice and high! HCG measure 548.

I called up Sung right after (he knew the call was coming today). He said "hey" and I said "hey (really down sounding)" then he said "hey" then I didn't say anything...Then he reallly sweetly said "i love you baby" and I said "I love you too" and he said "how are you feeling?" and I said "okay..." then he said "I love you" and I said "I love you too...will you still love me when I'm all big and fat?" And he hesitated, because he had to process what I was saying, but he was very pleased (cautiously)!

While this is the first big step (we've NEVER been pregnant before), we know that things could still go wrong. We have another blood test in a couple days. The hcg is supposed to double in 48 hrs, and that will tell us if the pregnancy is progressing well or if something is wrong.

So...the schedule of things for the next few weeks will be:

beta #2 in a couple days

beta #3 a week later

ultrasound #1 a week or so after last beta

and I think I'll have one or two more ultrasounds with our Infertility clinic before we get transfered to my regular OB/GYN.

What a wonderful Valentine's gift this was! (And sorry to those who saw my ":)" status on Facebook...it honestly was because Sung had totally surprised me for Valentine's day! He'd had it all planned before he even knew our results! They were just an extra bonus on top! But really, we've been trying to be really cautious about letting the news out, because we've never been here and really don't know what to expect.)

Answers...

One of the reasons we endeavored on the IVF journey was to hopefully have some answers for our "unexplained infertility". The doctor suspected it was a fertilization issue. Sung has no major issues and I'm young and healthy and didn't have any hormonal issues. SO, why couldn't we get pregnant??

Due to the fertilization suspicion, the doctor and we decided to do what is called split ICSI. In regular IVF (and forgive me if I've already explained all this), after egg retrieval, they just put the eggs and the sperm in a petri dish and "let them do their thing". With ICSI, they take a single sperm and actually inject it into the egg; therefore, just going ahead and making the eggs fertilized that way. We've been asking about what happened with all that since the embryo transfer, and finally got a call back today. The nurse said that they ended up doing ICSI on all of the eggs. Apparently, the sperm's motility quickly got worse and they were afraid they wouldn't be able to "do things naturally". Also, she said that the eggs were a little granular which means they can have some fragmentation issues. I wasn't able to get much more than that, but apparently it means that I don't have the best quality eggs either. So, no wonder we were having issues.

I WAS really hoping for an answer, but sometimes the answers hurt more than the lack of answers. I guess I'm a little in mourning for what I/we don't have. I know I need to be grateful for what we have. This cycle could work and we have 3 frozen if it doesn't (or for the future, if it does). But, it is still hard to process. At 25, you don't expect to hear about egg quality issues. Now, maybe they aren't horrible, maybe they're just minor egg quality issues. But, still, at 25...I guess I'd expect it more at 35 or 40.

Okay, there's my vent. Time to go find something salty and bad for me to supress my grief...

The Home Stretch

I had a bit of a rough last week/weekend. We had our egg retrieval Monday. I felt amazingly well after (but I think my mind I thought I felt better than my body did). I went back to work on Tuesday (def should've at least taken that day off too). But by Wed, I was feeling yucky again. Just sore and bloated feeling. I was having GI issues and thought I was having a relapse of the C. Diff, so I called my GI dr. He ordered some tests, and I just broke down Fri. I was so afraid that the results would cause us to have to cancel our embryo transfer. I was sitting in the lab waiting to pick up my stuff and I was just crying. Couldn't stop. (of course, I FORGOT to take my estrogen pills in the morning, so maybe it was a lack of balance of progesterone and estrogen...I think I'm just trying to make up excuses now...) Luckily, the GI nurse reassured me that we could still do the Embryo transfer on Sat, and if it was c. diff. we'd make sure I was on meds that I could take while preggers.

So, we went to the embryo transfer Saturday morning. They had retrieved 15 eggs on Monday. Of those 15, 12 were mature (ready to be fertilized), and 11 actually were fertalized! We got a call Thursday (day 3) saying all 11 were still growing. The stretch between day 3 and day 5 post-retrieval are the days where the strong embryos really start to show themselves (weeding out the week ones!). It's very normal to have half the number of embryos between day 3 and day 5. So, when we went in Saturday we really didn't know what to expect. Our doctor said we had EIGHT still going. 2 were REALLY good, 2 were good, 2 were okay and 2 were not great. So, they transfered the 2 REALLY good embabies! Here's a pic!!

Bet not many of you have a baby pic at this age!!! ;)

We are soo excited! The doctor and nurses were all very positive at our chances of getting pregnant. It's very reassuring. But, I am very realistic and know that it is all in the Lord's hands now.

Some of you might wonder what happens to the other 6 embryos. Well, they keep them in the lab for another day or two post transfer and they see which of those last and thrive. Then, they freeze them. It seems like our doctor likes to make sure that any embryos frozen will have a VERY good chance of surviving the "thawing" process, so they are very selective in which embryos are frozen. He told us that of our 6 we would probably only have one or two make it to freeze. Well, I got the call this afternoon. And, we have THREE embryos that were frozen!! That means, if these two embryos in me right now "don't stick", then we have another chance to try again. Frozen transfers are definitely less expensive and less intensive than the fresh cycles. So, it's definitely a nice back up solution (and takes some stress off this cycle). If this cycle works, then those frozen ones can stay frozen until we want to grow our family again!

It's been a very surreal process. Very stressful, and yet not too stressful. I've learned A LOT through the process. It's definitely brought Sung and I closer as a couple. Having to deal with this together. We are so grateful to have the means to be able to grow our family. We would love for it to be "easier" to start one (and CHEAPER!), but we're so grateful that we have been able to learn to grow closer through out this trial.

So, here's to waiting for results!!