A Heartbeat Away

I think this two week wait was so much worse than the actual "two week wait" everyone talks about between transfer and first blood test.  I mean, you go from having blood tests every other day to them telling you to just hang out for 2.5 weeks for an ultrasound appointment.  I was so tempted (multiple times) to call and ask for another blood test partway through, just to be sure everything was still okay.

We had such a cute nurse this visit.  She pulled us back and asked me how I was feeling.  I told her "terrified" and she just gave me a big hug and told us how exciting everything was.  It was so nice to have her be so warm and excited for us because a lot of people at the clinic are more business like and don't like to get involved, understandably.

Our doctor was the one who came in to do the ultrasound.  As soon as she got a picture I knew everything looked good (well, it all looked good according to my limited knowledge of ultrasounds hahaha).  She was able to find the heartbeat super quick and it's crazy how you can see it pulsing on the ultrasound, even when the baby is only as big as a blueberry!

I am 7 weeks, 3 days which was further than I expected.  I looked it up online a week or so ago to figure out how far I was because I wasn't sure how to calculate it factoring in IVF.  That means my due date is July 14th!

I honestly just felt overwhelmed after the appointment.  It's hard to feel happy when you're so scared something is going to go wrong.  And how are you supposed to feel when everything you've ever wanted is finally happening?!  I'm not a very emotional person and I think I usually just get quiet when big things happen, so they probably all thought I was angry or something...I don't really know.  I just really didn't know what to say or how to feel or what to do.  It's so overwhelming.

A few days later and I think I'm feeling better about everything.  At least, I don't feel so overwhelmed now.  I'm sure that will come and go through the whole pregnancy though.

This one shows the baby's heartbeat.

This one shows the baby is 12.16mm long and is measuring 7 weeks 3 days (right on schedule!)

Eating at Shake Shack after the ultrasound.  We had a bit of time to kill before I dropped Nate off at the airport for a quick business trip.  Another reason I'm glad the appointment went well because if not, I was spending the night all alone.

The Trial Transfer

The clinic called me on Wednesday saying they needed to reschedule the trial transfer.  It worked best for me to just do it this morning (Thursday) and for me to go into work late.  I actually am covering at another office today so I felt kind of bad, but I only got there 2 hours late and they had only had a few patients, so it worked out well!

The trial transfer was actually more uncomfortable than I was expecting!  I was not prepared for it.  It was just uncomfortable because I had to have a full bladder and they've got an ultrasound pressing right over the bladder, plus a speculum going up the other way, with a probe. 

The reason they do the trial transfer is to check for polyps or anything else that may compromise the integrity of the transfer.  Polyps can develop during stims because of all the extra hormones and you can usually not sustain a pregnancy with a polyp.  

Everything went great and they cleared me to continue on with the process!  Glad I don't need any additional surgery or time to wait for this transfer!

***As a side note, after the fact...the clinic did bill insurance for the trial transfer and it was covered 100%!  Not sure if this is the same for all insurances, but Cigna at least did not have any problems.  The clinic said doing this was pretty standard so most insurances with fertility benefits should cover it.

More Ultrasounds/ Bloodwork

After you start stims (the injections) you go in for ultrasound and bloodwork every 2-3 days.  This is so the doctors can see how your ovaries look and how many follicles are developing.  They are looking not just for the number of follicles you have, but how big they are.

My clinic told me they wanted my follicles to measure 17-19mm each before they would be ready for the egg retrieval.

It really is super crazy to see the follicles on your first ultrasound and come back a few days later and visibly see how much they've grown.  The first day you see all these little black spots on the ultrasound and by day 9 or so you can only see a couple at a time because they are so big!  I want to get copies of a few of my pictures from the clinic so I can post the difference.  I have to work on that though!

 June 26

June 28

June 30

I thought I would talk about how these meds have made me feel over the last week or so.  Surprisingly, I didn't feel totally crazy!  I actually only felt sad one day and that's probably because Nate had to leave town for a few days and I was missing him.  Oh, and I watched Coco (seriously one of the best movies ever and if you haven't seen it you definitely need to!!!) which was a mistake.

I thought with my ovaries all hopped up on drugs and growing like crazy it would be a little painful.  But it really isn't painful at all!   Now, it doesn't feel normal, for sure.  It is more discomfort than anything.  It kind of just feels like my ovaries are heavy and instead of staying out to the sides (like you see in a textbook) they feel like they are hanging down.  Weird description but best I can do.

At my appointment today they said I am ready to go!  My follicles are large enough to schedule the egg retrieval!!  I'm going to do my trigger shot later tonight and the retrieval will be scheduled for Monday morning.  I'm so glad it's finally here!

Starting Shots

Ahhhh!!!  The big day has arrived!  Well, the first of many big days.

This morning started with bloodwork and an ultrasound.  I had to find someone to take the first part of my Starbucks shift this morning because I was scheduled 4:30-1:00 today and they only do monitoring appointments from 7:30-8:30.  I got there at 7:35 and there were already like 4 ladies in front of me!  I barely made it to work at 8:30 (when I told the person covering me I would be there) but I squeaked in.

I decided to do my shots at 7:30 pm.  It actually wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be!  I started with two shots today and will continue with those for a few days.  The needles were smaller than I expected and the videos are super helpful so I wasn't nervous about doing something wrong.  Okay, I was still a little nervous...I mean these are dang expensive meds so I didn't want to mess anything up!

CD3

CD3 is a pretty common term once you start down the infertility route.  It stands for Cycle Day 3.  It goes off of when your period starts.  The first day you have full bleeding is cycle day 1.  This means if your period starts on Monday, your CD3 is on Wednesday.  This is a common time for you to have bloodwork done.  At my clinic, I've had many CD3 blood draws.  I'm not a doctor and don't understand all they look for at this time, so you can do your own research as to why this is important if you're curious!

My CD3 fell on June 4th.  Perfect timing since my insurance just kicked in on June 1st!  I waste no time.  I called my clinic on the 2nd and they scheduled me to come in today.  My clinic does bloodwork and ultrasounds from 7-8:30 am.  This is so they can process the bloodwork and let you know your next steps by later in the afternoon.  I would think most clinics would have a similar process.

They called this afternoon and said everything looked great and I can start birth control tonight!