I am so thankful for a phone call I (finally) received today from nurse Mary at the National Embryo Donation Center (NEDC) where we did our frozen embryo transfer (FET) and adopted our embryos. I had repeated all my blood work on Monday at Froedtert and had been waiting to hear if my estrogen and progesterone levels were high enough to stop taking my medicine. Mary called and said we could go off starting today (i.e. yesterday)!! She said my levels were great and I didn't even have to taper off the injections or pills. I was so happy :) I'm pretty sure Clint was excited too as he won't have to give the injections twice a day anymore AND he won't have to hear me whine and moan about what a pain they are and how I can't fall asleep because I can't lay on my belly or on my sides due to bruising and soreness! Haha! What a great day-I never thought I'd be so happy! :)
I started thinking about it and I realized it has actually been since the beginning of September that I've been on all this medicine/injections with the exception of two lovely weeks "off" in between our two transfers (sept. 15 first transfer, nov. 18 second). To prep your body you are instructed to start the injections 5 or 6 days prior to your transfer and continue it for about 12-14 days until you take a Beta hCG blood test which gives you a hCG level and depending on how high your levels are you could possibly be pregnant.
Our first transfer we tested on day 10 and our levels showed <.2, basically undetectable. It was a difficult pill to swallow so to speak since we thought for sure the transfer worked and we'd have twins, why wouldn't it work? Once again our heart and dreams were crushed but we'd placed our hope and trust in the Lord and we knew we just needed to wait on his timing. We didn't have answers really but we tried to move on and just learn from everything we'd been through. The worst part was continuing to taking the injections 2x/day from Friday until Monday until Dr. Keenan could officially tell us the bad news. We had had the on-call doctor who we'd never even met tell us the results late Friday night but he told us to continue the medication.
On the bright side our second transfer obviously was much much MUCH more successful! I randomly did a home pregnancy test on Thanksgiving morning after waking up at about 6 o'clock. It was only day 8-probably way too early to do a hpt but apparently I had enough hCG for that second line to show up! I will never forget it! What an amazing Thanksgiving. Clint and I stayed home together this year, laid low and celebrated this amazing victory that we'd waited so long for! It was surreal. The best Thanksgiving we could have ever asked for!
I went in on Monday, five days later, to (hopefully) confirm the good news with a blood test. Monday was day 12 and my hCG level was at 581! Typically the doctors/nurses say they want your levels to be at least 50-100 by day 10-12 and doubling every 48 to 72 or so hours. We were hoping for a high enough number that we felt like we didn't have to worry about it being a false pregnancy or the embryo not implanting. I was praying for "at least 100, come on, at least 100! Please God!) To our surprise it was a whopping 581! Two days later on Wednesday we were nervous again as we hoped our numbers were still increasing. I again prayed for at least a doubling or almost a doubling. I was hoping for at least 800-1000 this time. We got the phone call and I nearly had a heart attack! Our hCG level had nearly tripled from 581 to 1739!!! That is when I knew we were going to have twins for sure! I just had that feeling. A couple of weeks later, December 11th, we went in for our first ultrasound with babies actually inside. I've had a ton of ultrasounds but this one was so different knowing we were pregnant and we were going to see our baby or babies! What a shock and surprise when we saw not one, not two but THREE little sacs!!!
We are so thankful to God first of all but to each of you as well for supporting us through this long journey. It's not over yet...it's just begun!
I started thinking about it and I realized it has actually been since the beginning of September that I've been on all this medicine/injections with the exception of two lovely weeks "off" in between our two transfers (sept. 15 first transfer, nov. 18 second). To prep your body you are instructed to start the injections 5 or 6 days prior to your transfer and continue it for about 12-14 days until you take a Beta hCG blood test which gives you a hCG level and depending on how high your levels are you could possibly be pregnant.
Our first transfer we tested on day 10 and our levels showed <.2, basically undetectable. It was a difficult pill to swallow so to speak since we thought for sure the transfer worked and we'd have twins, why wouldn't it work? Once again our heart and dreams were crushed but we'd placed our hope and trust in the Lord and we knew we just needed to wait on his timing. We didn't have answers really but we tried to move on and just learn from everything we'd been through. The worst part was continuing to taking the injections 2x/day from Friday until Monday until Dr. Keenan could officially tell us the bad news. We had had the on-call doctor who we'd never even met tell us the results late Friday night but he told us to continue the medication.
On the bright side our second transfer obviously was much much MUCH more successful! I randomly did a home pregnancy test on Thanksgiving morning after waking up at about 6 o'clock. It was only day 8-probably way too early to do a hpt but apparently I had enough hCG for that second line to show up! I will never forget it! What an amazing Thanksgiving. Clint and I stayed home together this year, laid low and celebrated this amazing victory that we'd waited so long for! It was surreal. The best Thanksgiving we could have ever asked for!
I went in on Monday, five days later, to (hopefully) confirm the good news with a blood test. Monday was day 12 and my hCG level was at 581! Typically the doctors/nurses say they want your levels to be at least 50-100 by day 10-12 and doubling every 48 to 72 or so hours. We were hoping for a high enough number that we felt like we didn't have to worry about it being a false pregnancy or the embryo not implanting. I was praying for "at least 100, come on, at least 100! Please God!) To our surprise it was a whopping 581! Two days later on Wednesday we were nervous again as we hoped our numbers were still increasing. I again prayed for at least a doubling or almost a doubling. I was hoping for at least 800-1000 this time. We got the phone call and I nearly had a heart attack! Our hCG level had nearly tripled from 581 to 1739!!! That is when I knew we were going to have twins for sure! I just had that feeling. A couple of weeks later, December 11th, we went in for our first ultrasound with babies actually inside. I've had a ton of ultrasounds but this one was so different knowing we were pregnant and we were going to see our baby or babies! What a shock and surprise when we saw not one, not two but THREE little sacs!!!
We are so thankful to God first of all but to each of you as well for supporting us through this long journey. It's not over yet...it's just begun!
It's so hard to have a failed cycle, but you sure hit a home run the next time!
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