Looking good

I went and had my blood drawn again yesterday to make sure things were progressing in the right direction. Here are yesterdays numbers......

HCG: 2,563
Progesterone: 219.2

It's a wonderful feeling to have everything progressing the way it should. I do feel better about everything, but until I see that heartbeat (or beats) I won't be able to feel at ease about this pregnancy. I haven't decided if I should go back on Friday or just wait until Tuesday to have my levels tested again. To me, next week is the big test. The last 2 times, week 6 is when things started taking a turn for the worst. If we can just get through next week, I'll be able to take another weight off my shoulder.

I can't wait for the first ultrasound!! It's scheduled for April 9th, our 7 week mark.

I also found out that I have a UTI. This is my first one and they are not fun! The office called in some antibiotics for me, so I'll start taking those today.

No doubt about it!

I finally had my blood test today. It's funny because I've already had 2 positive HPT but it wasn't until I could see what my levels were that I would really start to get excited. I had my blood drawn at 7:30am and was expecting a call around lunch with the results. But I didn't hear back from them until 3:00pm!! At least the news was excellent; a very positive test.

Here's the break down:
HCG: 340 (min. range 50-100)
Progesterone: 181.7 (min. 15)
Estrogen: 1382: (min. 300)

The progesterone and estrogen were so high that they wanted my to stop taking them. I'm a little nervous about that based on my previous history. But I have to remember that these levels are really high and my body is doing what it's supposed to. They want me to come back in 1 week and do the blood work again and have an ultrasound in 3 weeks. I talked to my nurse and told her about my concerns with levels suddenly dropping and I convinced her to let me get my blood work done on Tuesday and Friday of next week. :)

I do feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders today. I can relax a little, but I'll still be really nervous until our ultrasound in 3 weeks.

Here are the HPT from Tuesday and Wednesday. It's amazing how much darker that 2nd line got in just 1 day!

I couldn't wait any longer to take a home pregnancy test and look what I got today!!!! I still have to get my blood test on Friday and that will help determine my HCG levels, but this is a huge relief!!

I've officially been impregnated!!

The big day finally arrived and we had our embryo transfer on Monday. We had 2 embryos that were grade 2 with at least 6-8 cells, so they decided Monday was the day. The whole process was really quick and pretty painless. In fact, it was very similar to an IUI, but done in an OR with a creepy table and huge stirrups. We got to watch on the TV as the embryologist sucked up the embryos into a catheter and brought them into our room. That was pretty neat to actually see them. They gave us a picture of them to take home with us. How neat to be able to see how human life starts out. Hopefully one day we'll be able to show that to our kids! They wheeled me back to the room and I laid flat on my back for 45 mins. and then we went home. They recommend you stay on modified bed rest for at least 24 hours and I had no problem doing that.

It's weird that I can say I did IVF and it's all over. I can't believe how fast those 6 weeks went by!!!! Now I just have to survive until the blood test on the 19th!

All those shots led up to this.......

I had my egg retrieval yesterday and everything went pretty well. I was really nervous about the pain of the procedure, but the anesthesiologist was amazing and I didn't feel a thing. I did have a heard time waking up from the anesthesia (like always) and it took us a couple of hours to leave. The nurses were wonderful and gave me two doses of anti-nausea and some good pain meds. Unfortunately I still got sick and managed to punk twice before we left, once on the way home and twice at home. Gotta love being knocked out! Once I was home and resting, I started to feel much better. Chris is a great nurse!

The dr. came in and told Chris that they got a total of 11 follicles. A little less then I thought, but they said it was still a great number. This afternoon I got a call from the nurse and she said that out of the 11 follicles they got, only 7 were viable. Based on what they saw from the sperm sample the embryologist decided to do ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection; www.advancedfertility.com/icsi.htm) and injected the sperm directly into the 7 eggs. They said they have a 75% fertilization rate so we were only expecting 5 eggs to fertilize. I was pretty disappointed because even if they fertilize, there's still a chance they won't all make good embryos and even less of a chance they'll all freeze in cryo. Luckily we have the best embryologist and they were able to fertilize all 7 of them! The nurse said the chances of that happening were very low and we were very lucky to have that happen.

So tomorrow I start taking a new batch of various pills and progesterone gel. I'm schedule for the transfer on Monday, but it may get moved to Wednesday; depending on how the embryos look. Here's to thinking good baby thoughts!!!!

Retrieval set for Friday!

I got good news when I went to the dr. today; we're doing the retrieval on Friday!!!!! I have 14 follicles that measure over 14mm, the minimum for retrieval and most of them are at 16mm-20mm. I can't believe it's finally here! I gave myself my last shot tonight at 8:15 and we have to arrive at the surgery center at 7:00 Friday morning. I'm looking forward to tomorrow; the first day in 3 weeks I won't be injecting myself. The dr. reassured me that this would be a pain free and fairly quick process. It's crazy to think that by Monday or Wednesday of next week we'll be doing the implantation. Hopefully I'll be sharing more good news on Saturday when I get the fertilization report.

Horrible Weekend

This past weekend I caught that terrible stomach virus. I spent the first 14 hours vomiting, every hour! The next 36 hours were spent with awful stomach pains, the need to vomit but couldn't and extreme headaches. I have never been this sick in my entire life! I was very worried that being this sick would somehow interfere with the IVF process, but luckily my doctor said it would have no effect on it. The really crappy thing about being this sick and doing this at the same time is that you can't stop giving yourself injections. I remember hugging the trash can and having Chris prep the syringe for me so I could quickly inject myself beofre vomiting again. Not a pretty picture! I was so sick on Sunday that I wasn't able to go to my dr appt or get my blood drawn. I'm so glad that I have an understanding dr and she let me wait one more day before I had to get off the bathroom floor and come into the office.

Monday's visit revealed some unexpected info.....we were very close to the retrieval date. We picked up 3 more follicles and they were all growing very well. The uterine lining looked nice and thick and my estridol levels were progressing nicely. Based on that info, the dr. thought we might be doing the retrieval on Friday morning! She wanted to see me back on Wednesday to do another ultrasound to be sure.