Step #3 Prayers & Baby dust

Today I had another ultrasound & blood work appointment. My uterine lining (cells that line the womb) they like to be more than 8.0 for transfer & mine was 8.7 today. Yay! Blood work came back good as well so on to our next steps.

Medications will now include:

·      Continue Estrace three times daily

·      Start Progesterone Injections 75mg tomorrow night & continue those nightly

Friday night I will start Doxycycline twice daily & Prednisone 3 tablets daily just for 4 days through transfer day.

Transfer day will officially be Tuesday, July 16^th!!

To all of our prayer warriors please keep us in your prayers especially over the next week as we hope to begin our journey to expanding our family & giving Alston a sibling(s). There is a chance this could not work, but we are keeping a positive attitude & praying for the best outcome. We want prayers for a healthy baby regardless of the sex or number, but that we do succeed with at least one. Thank you all so much for following our sweet journey thus far once again.

Round 2 Step 2

I went back to the doctor yesterday for my ultrasound & blood work post birth control. Results came back with my lining being good, so on to our next steps.

This morning I started taking Estradiol 2mg. I’ll take one pill in the AM & one pill in the PM until July 4th, in which, I’ll increase to three times daily.

I’ll return to the clinic on July 10th for another ultrasound & blood work appointment. Further instructions will be given after that visit.

Estimated transfer date is July 16th! Please continue to keep us in your prayers during this round of IVF & that things will continue to go smoothly for us.

Day #1 of IVF round #2

As I start day #1 of my tiny little IVF advent calendar, I’m feeling excited. I know you're probably thinking she's excited over taking birth control pills?! Crazy right. I’m sure the fact that we are finally on our way to creating another tiny miracle has a little something to do with it.When I started this blog over two years ago, I was confident I was going to become a mommy. I knew the journey wasn’t going to be easy (or ideal for that matter), but I believed it to be possible. I had hope…I had faith…I had determination. Then came  failure, after failure, …each time, chiseling away at any grain of confidence that remained.

As I sit here today writing this, officially a mommy of an almost 2 year old, I feel obligated to reinforce the need to persevere on this journey. I like to reference back to one of my favorite quotes by Sigmund Freud “One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.” If you’re still struggling, it may be hard to understand this at the moment. I know what you’re thinking, believe me. How can such a tough journey, filled with so much heartache ever be considered beautiful?

The truth is, all of it is beautiful…

Your development of strength as you move through disappointment and failure

Your connection and bond with “strangers” who understand

Your acquired tolerance of pain and ability to recover

Your unbreakable relationship with your significant other as you lean on each other for support

Your sacrifice

Your hope

Your faith

It’s all beautiful, even if you can’t see it right now- - 

PUSH through this girl YOU GOT THIS!

Do I wish the stars would have aligned sooner for us? Absolutely! But when I consider the person I’ve become over the course of the hardest year of my life, I can’t help but feel thankful for my struggle. I am grateful beyond measure and I was more equipped to be a mother than ever before when that time came. Those who struggle with infertility learn not to take the little things for granted. As such, I am celebrating every .single. milestone.

I hope those of you still struggling will have the same opportunity to one day look back and appreciate the misery you gone through. Giving up is easy, BUT you’re stronger than that!

When I started this blog as a personal journal, documenting my journey to motherhood through assisted reproduction, I never (in my wildest dreams) could have imagined the impact it would have on others or the abundance of virtual/local friends it would bring to me. An exercise in therapy, turned place of encouragement and support for so many others just like myself.

This outlet and your readership has given this journey so much more purpose, and I’m truly grateful to have connected with so many beautiful people just by writing this blog. I’ve learned through this experience that in the infertility community, there are no strangers, only friends you haven’t met yet.

If you found your way here out of desperation, in search of hope, looking for a good laugh (or a good cry), wanting to feel understood, or simply out of curiosity…you’ve come to the right place. Dealing with infertility is so often a secret and shameful battle. You’re NOT alone! In fact, 1 in 8 people know exactly how you feel. Choosing to be an open book about my personal struggle to conceive was one of the best decisions I made during our infertility journey. Honesty and vulnerability has made way for new friendships, sanity and raised awareness throughout the past 3 years of our lives.

I truly believe we go through things for others. That said, I hope you will be inspired to share your story one day too…but for now I hope this blog is a source of support for you & I will continue to keep all of my infertility sisters in my prayers daily as you go through this journey of life.

We are BACK... Round #2

Hey guys! We are BACK & ready to get round 2 started. We had planned keeping our babies close in age from the beginning. I have planned to have an April baby ever since Daddy had his wreck in April 2007 which is his birth month, too! 

    In January we went for our first consultation visit at the fertility clinic since having Alston. Basically this visit was to discuss dates & times for everything to happen in order for us to do another transfer in time for us to have a baby “hopefully” in/around April 2020. 

     Dr. K gave us a transfer month of July. Before going any further, I had to have an SHG (sonohysterogram) procedure done (previously I had a HSG done in which I’ll further explain the difference below. They are very similar!) because I had a csection with Alston. In other words, they needed to be sure no scar tissue had gotten in my tubes to cause delays in our process. This test is very important because it is the most common cause of miscarriages. I was prescribed an antibiotic to take twice daily starting the day before the test & to last through one day after the test.  We received our test results today & everything is normal & looked great per the nurse. HOORAY! 

THE DIFFERENCES:

Hysterosalpingogram (HSG)

Is an X-ray where they inject radiographic dye into your uterus. This travels into and through the fallopian tubes if they’re clear. Other issues it can find are: injuries, abnormal shape or structure, polyps, fibroids or adhesions. This one is usually more accurate as they take pictures of different angles and the x-ray allows you to see more clearly what’s happening.

Saline Sonohysterogram (SHG) or more commonly known as “the water test” 

They inject sterile water through the uterus for an ultrasound. It is a non-radiologic method of assessing fallopian tubes and uterine shape but is typically less expensive. There’s no exposure to radiation and because no X-ray equipment is required, the procedure is usually done in the office. The water test is usually done for a follow up, eg if the HSG spots an abnormality the saline test can detect if it is polyps or fibroids.

In my opinion the SHG was a lot less painful than the HSG I had done the first round of IVF. 

We are praying we will get to follow along with our schedule this summer we made in January with no bumps along the way! Prayers also for this transfer to be just as successful as our first one. We will not be starting anything else until this summer; therefore, it will be awhile before another update but I want to be as transparent with you guys as I was the first time. It helped us along with us helping others by sharing our story! ♥️

We Are Expecting 💗💙👶🏻

 

We went for our very 1st Ultrasound today. It was a mixed emotions kinda day but in the end-- We are still extremely blessed. We got the news we did lose one of our embryos but the other did stick. So our baby looked wonderful & the nurse said his/her heart rate was perfect at 132bpm (beats per minute). Our due date is expected to be on June 15, 2017! Thank you again for all the continued prayers & blessings we've recieved this far on our journey & we cannot wait to show off our little miracle to everyone! 

13dp

Here we are at 13 days after Transfer Day-- Can yall believe I just took my first "at home" pregnancy test?! Yep, it killed me but I did it. 

Here ya go: ((Look at how perfect those 2 lines are))

This past Saturday was our last appt we've had & it was good news again. My Beta (which is a blood pregnancy test) went great. At our last appt it was 95 at this appt on Saturday it was 266. It suppose to go up 60% which it did plus some! Whooo Hoooo!!

Next Step: We thought we would get to see/hear our precious babies this week, but unfortunately we were wrong. Our 1st ultrasound appt will be on Oct. 24th. At that appt I should be 6 1/2 weeks. If this has taught us anything-- it has definitely been PATIENCE!! It is the key to this whole process. Prayers & Baby Dust still needed. Thanks in advance. 💙👶🏻💗🙏🏼

💙PUPO💗

We have some very exciting news to share:

We got amazing news from our appt today! My levels are exactly where they needed to be with my bloodwork. We are told PUPO meaning we are still Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise!! 💗💙🙏🏼👶🏻

Thank you to all who have text,called,Facebook messaged us, prayed for us etc! Our prayers are working & being answered so keep them coming. We appreciate each & every one of them more than we could ever thank y'all enough for doing. 

Next steps:

Saturday morning I have another appt for bloodwork to be done to keep checking on the babies. (At this point we are still assuming 2 babies until we have an ultrasound to prove us otherwise) 

Following that appt they will schedule us an appt next week for our very first ultrasound & to hear our sweet babies heartbeats! So keep those prayers & baby dust 💙👶🏻💗 coming we still got answers to be heard🙏🏼🙏🏼