Ready to go home

We had the second blood test and it confirmed that the hormonal levels were rising rapidly. My nausea was starting to reach very uncomfortable levels, which in a way gave me more hope of a successful pregnancy. I started being sick all day, with a strong urge to vomit but never actually throwing up. I was miserable. I finally told my doctor about it and he told me to get Pleniv caps which are safe during pregnancy and take 2 every night. I started feeling better in the morning (better although not entirely without nausea) but as the day progressed I got more and more sick to my stomach. The doctor told me I could take one more pill at noon.

A few days after the blood test, I woke up at 3am for a flight to visit my mother in law who was having eye surgery. I was bleeding, bright red, and with clots. At this time of day I couldn’t call my doctor and I didn’t know what to do. I showered and decided to go to the airport and then decide if I should fly or not. A couple of hours later I hadn’t bled anymore so I decided to fly. When I told my doctor about it later that morning he said that was perfectly normal, probably implantation bleeding, but I wasn’t totally reassured after reading so many times about how to recognize implantation bleeding, which didn’t look like this at all. As I didn’t bleed anymore in the following days, I started thinking that I might have lost one of the two possible embryos and the anxiety for the ultrasound increased.

Last week I finally had the anxiously awaited ultrasound. I held my breath as the doctor quietly poked inside me trying to get a good look. He pointed at the sac and the embryo, still too tiny to tell much. He took measurements and said all was going perfectly. Finally he was able to measure the still inaudible heartbeat… and there it was. At 126 bpm, the little heart was beating and very much alive. I released my breath. There was clearly just one sac and embryo. I asked the doctor if there could have been another that I lost during that bleeding and he said emphatically no. He pointed to a bruise in the sac that was nothing to worry about but was probably what caused the bleeding.

At this point, even though I’m staying at my parents house, I haven’t talked to them about my positive pregnancy. My husband and I still want to enjoy this news on our own a little longer. I recently found out my sister in law and my brother are expecting their second so their news will likely come first. They’re are about 1.5 months ahead of us.

So, with the final confirmation that we were waiting for, it was finally time to decide when to go back home to my husband. It’s been almost 2 months for us being apart and it’s getting really hard. There is also this Coronavirus outbreak in the world and borders are closing everyday. So, I’m afraid I might get stuck here for a few more months if I don’t leave now. I’m nervous about the trip, and being exposed to people in airplanes and airports, but I have to do this. I need to be with him now.

I’m 7 weeks pregnant and so far it looks like the 6-year wait is over.

Wait… what?

The two-week wait ended today. I went to have the test done in the morning and at early afternoon I couldn’t wait any longer and texted my doctor. He called me back and said “congratulations!”. My answer was “really?”. Even with the hopes in the back of my mind I was expecting a negative more than a positive. Not that I’m complaining!

Now, to me the test results look within the normal range, but he points out that a BHCG above 2000 might be an indication of multiples, which would mean a split embryo since we only transferred one. I did NOT see that coming. We were absolutely prepared for multiples. First, because of the recurrence of multiples in my family, and then, because at 40 years of age, we were going all in. We only decided on a single embryo at the last transfer because the doctor really recommended that. Boy, am I glad we did that. I don’t know if it’s possible to have two embryos and one of them splitting to end up being 3 but that would definitely be too much!

The next steps are another test in 3 days and an ultrasound in 2 weeks. After the test on Saturday we can confirm a positive pregnancy, developing well, and at the ultrasound we would be able to know for sure that there is at least one live embryo with a heart beat growing. Having had a blighted ovum before, that is going to be the actual confirmation I need.

So, for now, another two weeks to wait; but the hopes are more than rising. And if we are meant to have 2 for the price of 1, then bring them on!

The two week wait 2.0

Five days ago I went to the clinic for blastocyst transfer. The doctor shared that there were 2 eggs that had reached that point. One of them was of very high quality and the doctor recommended against transferring both. I accepted his recommendation.

Since my husband couldn’t come on this trip with me, my mother was there. On the one hand, it’s great to have a mom nearby when going through this process. On the other hand, her attitude of assuming that only a positive result can be obtained from this process, rather than give me hope, fills me with dread. A dread of disappointing her if things don’t work as she expects. I have always preferred to keep my hopes up realistically, especially after what we have experienced so far, than to hit my face against a wall every time things don’t work. I miss my husband and the privacy of just having him with me and not having to share any details that we don’t want to. But this is what we got.

On day 5, I’m feeling down because I haven’t had any spotting that might indicate implantation. However, it’s possible not to spot so I keep hoping while I wait for 9 more long days before the pregnancy test.

Against all odds… again

So, the doctor chose a good donor. One that the clinic has worked with successfully in the past. Ovarian stimulation went great and the doctor told me last Friday that he expected to retrieve at least 10 eggs.

He called me on Saturday to give me not so encouraging news. The most mature follicles exploded releasing the eggs before they could be retrieved. This is very unusual and had never happened to this donor before. They were able to retrieve 4 healthy eggs and the lab proceeded to fertilize them.

If we have any viable embryos on day 5, we will proceed with transfer of those. However, if there isn’t a successful pregnancy, the clinic will give us a donor cycle at no cost, since they are committed to obtain at least 8 eggs from a donor.

So, even though the news is not all bad, once again the odds fail for us. And we keep hoping…

Decisions

I arrived in Colombia last week and went to the clinic on Friday. After 4 days of ovarian stimulation, no eggs could be seen but the doctor thought it was still early. After 3 more days, only one very small follicle could be found, so we cancelled the cycle. At his point, we are faced with the decision, once more:

On the one hand, as I have no return ticket yet, I could wait for another month and try again with my own eggs. The downside is that it means I’d stay away from my husband for at least 2 more months, and the chances continue to be very low. We have tried 4 cycles of stimulation and 3 of them yielded no eggs at all. The one cycle where we got two perfect eggs was very encouraging but it doesn’t seem that the odds are in our favor.

On the other hand, we could start right now with a donor cycle. It means that in 2 weeks I could be having a transfer and in one month, a confirmed pregnancy, assuming it all works well. The probabilities of this to work are much higher, however, we already tried a donor cycle in which not a single embryo survived, against all odds.

After much discussion, mainly with the pressure of time (time apart as well as time lost in this process), we decided to try the donor cycle. The doctor is looking for an ideal donor to stimulate so we have fresh eggs. This is supposed to increase slightly the chances of success, but it also means that we don’t know from the beginning how many eggs we will be able to fertilize.

I don’t know how to feel now. It’s really a combination of hope and sadness and impatience. It seems our process has not followed closely the expected odds so we can only hope. If this cycle doesn’t work, that would be 2 IVF cycles spent and 2 more to go. Will we finally become parents in 2020?

Here we go again

After talking with our doctor, we decided that I need to buy a one-way ticket home and stay until we exhaust our options. It means that I’ll return to the US pregnant… or ready to start the adoption process.

My parents came over the holidays and brought me a cooler full of medicine and needles so I can start the cycle here and arrive in Colombia with them a couple of days later. So, in two weeks I’m flying there and I have no idea when I’ll return. My husband cannot take any more days off so I’ll be going through it alone this time, which is frustrating. But we have to do what we have to do, and at least I can work remotely so we can do this.

I’m 40 now and this is our last chance…

Back to square one

The two-week wait was hard but I kept my hopes up. We returned to the US really hoping that it was 4 of us in the return flight. Finally, the day for the pregnancy test came and I had already purchased a home kit. As soon as I woke up I tested and got a negative response. This was already disappointing as I had read about “false positives” being really common due to the added hormones in the body during fertility treatment. However, I had requested from my local doctor that a blood test be ordered to be sure. We went to the lab on Saturday morning and were told the result would come back late afternoon. I checked my email and notifications a million times in the next 36 hours, until finally on Monday morning we got the result back. HCG measured at 14, which is considered indeterminate for a regular pregnancy, but almost certainly negative for an IVF pregnancy.

The fertility doctor told us there would not be a pregnancy this time, but we should repeat the test a week later anyway. Against all odds I kept thinking that as long as I wasn’t bleeding, I could still hope. And this morning, 4 days after the test, I started bleeding…

Back to zero, start thinking about scheduling the next trip and start all over again. We knew from the beginning that we probably needed more than one IVF cycle, which is why we got the 4-cycle plan.

From the last cycle, we had started with 2 of my own eggs and 6 donor eggs, my two eggs and 4 from the donor were successfully fertilized, and none of the donor’s eggs survived to maturity, which was really puzzling to the doctor. It gave me hopes to think that the odds were so much in my favor that only my two eggs had developed. But now that they are gone, we have no frozen embryos.

I’ll be 40 years old in a month and I won’t have a happy news to share with my family over Christmas.

The two-week wait

On day 3 the doctor told us that our two fertilized eggs are perfect. Not just fine, but perfect! It means that they have no fragments at all, and they have 7 and 8 cells, which is a good number. They are referred to as 7-0 and 8-0. We are ready to proceed with the transfer.

We got to the clinic at 9 to prepare for the transfer at 9:30. I get a robe and booties and get sent to the same cubicle where I was when we had the egg extraction. My husband is with me this time and he’s wearing scrubs.

At 9:30 we go into the OR and next to it there is a window into the lab. They show us the two eggs on the screen and the doctor explains how perfect they are. We have decided to transfer both. I lie on the stretcher and my husband seats next to me. He can see the ultrasound on the screen as 7-0 and 8-0 go into my uterus. The procedure goes very well and I’m moved back to the cubicle. I have to stay there for an hour and they set my head slightly lower than my hips. After this time we are released with no major recommendations, just avoid intense exercise and sex.

In two weeks we’ll have a pregnancy test and see if our last chance to have kids that are biologically mine is going to become true. Of course, anything can happen after successful implantation, but let’s not think of that.

I don’t know how many times in the past 6 years I’ve gone through the two-week wait, but this time, after knowing that two fertilized eggs are indeed inside me, my anxiety and hopes are much higher. I want to start reading about pregnancy and I have to refrain myself by remembering last time I did that. I can do all that after the pregnancy test and then keep hoping for the best.

Hopes are skyrocketing

We just heard from the lab that my two eggs have survived unfreezing and fertilizing. It’s only the 1st day but it’s exciting news. We will wait for day 3 and decide if we do implantation on that day or wait two more days for development. There are also 4 fertilized eggs from the donor so we have started with a total of 6.

Not much else to say today… I’ll have more news soon.

There is always a first

So, we’re back in our home country, going through one more cycle of this process. We were expecting that the same process that produced a few eggs two months ago, would yield similar results and we would have enough eggs to go for the IVF.

Unfortunately, the treatment did not produce the same results. This time my ovaries produced no eggs at all. Empty tiny ovaries were all we could see in the ultrasounds.

As we are here for just a month, we had to decide how to finish this cycle. We could simply stop here and try again later, which means to organize another international trip, or extend this one. Or, we could continue with a fertilization of the 2 eggs we have stored and if successful, we could leave with a developing embryo already implanted.

As we have been told how low the odds were for 2 eggs to begin an IVF cycle, this is a hard choice. It means spending an IVF cycle out of the 4 we get, with a low chance of pregnancy. In my mind I already know that we won’t get much out of my ovaries, so after that, the option is to take donor eggs. So, I asked the doctor if we could try an IVF cycle with my 2 eggs AND donor eggs.

The doctor looks at me and says no one has ever asked him that. He thinks it is a good idea, but would need to check with the lab. To me, it’s a logical process, to increase the odds by having more eggs.

The other question is if my endometrium is ready, since we weren’t preparing for implantation, and ovarian stimulating drugs have a detrimental effect on the thickness. Yes, typically, a local patient would just wait for the next month, but with our traveling plans, it’s not as easy. Exams are ordered and the doctor goes to do research and get some questions answered.

After the weekend we get an answer to our question. We can try the cycle with two sets of eggs, own and donor. The only condition from the lab is that they’re not mixed so we know which one is being used. It makes sense to me. It means that if we get a single viable embryo from my eggs, we will try with that one alone.

The doctor has found two matching donors of frozen eggs, since we don’t have time to start a stimulation now for fresh eggs from a donor. They have 6 and 10 eggs and we have to choose one of them. The smaller amount come from a younger woman, which the doctor thinks is a better option.

I’m excited that we are moving forward with the IVF process this time and am really hoping to travel back to the US with one more passenger inside me…