CD 2 – Moving Forward and Refusing to Give Up

First of all, I want to thank everyone in the RPL blogosphere for all your support and prayers over the past couple weeks. Thank you also to my family and friends. All your love and support has been my lifeline through this entire process. I apologize for not updating all of you sooner. I have to admit, I was feeling pretty lost. I really thought our one good embryo would take, so it was a complete shock when it didn’t. Even with our 2 negative betas (and 3 negative HPTs), I kept thinking it must have been a mistake and somehow I was still pregnant, but my period arriving with a vengeance yesterday put those diffusional thoughts to rest. It’s done. I accept that now, but I refuse to accept that this journey is done for us. I just can’t be. We met with Dr. J on Wednesday to discuss what happened and talked about our options. They weren’t great, but there still are some options, so thank God for that! He had no explanation for why our embryo didn’t take. She was only a moderate grade embryo which could have been an explanation, except that we did PGD, so…Continue reading CD 2 – Moving Forward and Refusing to Give Up

Officially Not Pregnant

I had my confirmation blood test today and it was still negative. It’s official. Our little embryo didn’t take. I’m completely devastated. I really thought this work, and I never allowed myself to think of the alternative. I know, bad idea, but I just didn’t want to let the negative thoughts in. It was as though I thought if I kept a positive attitude, I could will the final result to be positive, but that obviously wasn’t the case. So… what do we do now? Good question. I honestly don’t know. We have an appointment with Dr. J on Wednesday to discuss our options, but I just don’t know what we can handle anymore, financially or emotionally. So we’ll see. For tonight, I’m drinking some wine because I can and trying to not think about the future and what we should do right now. I just need a night where I’m not thinking about having a baby, or all my losses or anything. I’m tired of it all. Thank you everyone for all your love and support. I feel a little stronger dealing with all of this now then I have in the past with all my losses and other…Continue reading Officially Not Pregnant

6dp5dt – Losing Hope

Well a lot has changed in the past 3 days. I wish I could say it was for the better, but unfortunately, that’s not the case. I have been feeling a lot of cramping that’s gotten steadily more noticeable in the past couple days and my breasts were starting to get really sore. I thought this must have been a good sign, so I decided to do an FRER HPT, yesterday. I know I shouldn’t have. The nurse specifically told me not to, but I know FRER is really sensitive and can detect the smallest traces of HCG, and I told myself from the start that I would test a day or two before so I could prepare myself. Well it was negative. And I did another test this morning and it was negative too. I’m devestaded. How can I be feeling all of this and it be negative? I guess it could be the progesterone, but I didn’t feel any of this before the transfer. It’s so messed up. I know it’s not over until the beta tomorrow, but I’m not too hopeful anymore that the result will be different with the blood test. I know this is why the…Continue reading 6dp5dt – Losing Hope

3dp5dt FET

Today is 3dp5dt (3 days past 5 day [blastocyst] transfer). Well actually it’s the 4th day since my transfer, but it seems that the first day is counted as day 0, or at least that’s what the consensus seems to be on all the sites I’ve looked at. What does this really mean? Not too much yet. I still have 4 days until my first beta, but I really have a good feeling about this. Quite literally – I’m already feeling stuff! The first 2 days, I just felt really tired. The first day was probably from lying around all day after my transfer, but then we drove out to Temecula on Saturday for our friends’ wedding and even though I did absolutely nothing except sit in the car, and then sit at the wedding (I didn’t even dance), I felt exhausted all day. The wedding was so beautiful. It took place at the Wilson Creek Winery and it was absolutely magical. However, it was hard for me to fully enjoy it because I was so tired, and it’s always weird being the only sober person in a room. So I left the festivities at 10:30 when the wedding was…Continue reading 3dp5dt FET

TWW Days 4 and 5 and the Day Before the Big Day

Tomorrow is transfer day! Woohoo!  I’m so excited and anxious, I can barely contain it. In just a couple of hours, I’ll go to sleep (please let me sleep), and when I wake up, I’ll finally be going in for my transfer! We have one normal embryo. Our one shot at this, our little embie girl. To say there’s a lot riding on this is an understatement, but I have so much optimism that this is going to work. Please, please let me be right. I honestly don’t know how I’ll be if it doesn’t, but I can’t think about that right now. Right now, I only have room in my thoughts for her. For that single rose blooming on that vine. She is our little bloom and I just feel in my heart that this is going to work. And at least I know I have done everything I could to make it work. The rest is out of our hands. The plan for tomorrow I’ll empty my bladder before I leave the house. Then I have acupuncture at my fertility clinic at 9:30. Then once acupuncture is done, I’ll start drinking water to get a full bladder, and…Continue reading TWW Days 4 and 5 and the Day Before the Big Day

FET Progesterone Day 2 / 2WW – Care Package #2

Today is my second day of progesterone suppositories. So far it’s all going fine and I’m not noticing any progesterone symptoms yet. Other than a mild, achy headache, I feel pretty good. This is great news, because hopefully it means I won’t confuse pregnancy symptoms with progesterone symptoms. Other than that, I’m doing pretty good. Just getting so anxious for this to happen!  Work is also pretty slow right now so I don’t have that as a distraction though, just for this week and maybe next, I don’t really mind. I work from home doing freelance Graphic Design and Web Design. I only worked 3 hours today, which is good and bad. I never want to say no to a new project because I don’t know when the next project/contract will come along, so there are days when I’m working from 6am – 8pm, but then when it’s really slow, I worry because I don’t know how long the lull will last, so I never really enjoy it when I have time off. However, just for the next couple weeks, I’m happy it’s slow. Even though it gives me more time to think about the events to come, I can…Continue reading FET Progesterone Day 2 / 2WW – Care Package #2

Progesterone Day 1- 2WW Day 1?

Five months ago, at the start of my IVF/PGD journey, a good friend of mine sent me a care package. I first talked about it in my Sharing The Love post back in September. You can click on the link above to read the original story, but to sum it up, she sent me a care package with 14 individually wrapped packages for every day of the 2 Week Wait, with an inspirational quote on it. She sent it to me right after my first egg retrieval so I would have it for my 2WW, but then we decided to batch my eggs and do another retrieval before proceeding with PGD, so I put the box with all the packages away in my spare room (hopefully soon to be nursery) and waited. Now five months and a new year later, I am finally ready for my transfer! However, I wasn’t sure how the 2WW works with FET because my embryo is already a 5-day blastocyst and we’ll be transferring her on Friday after I’ve been on progesterone for 6 days, so I figured since today is the first day of the progesterone suppositories and the medication is mimicking what my…Continue reading Progesterone Day 1- 2WW Day 1?

FET is a go!!!

First of all, thank you all for your support and encouragement, and thank you especially to those of you who checked in with me before my appointment today to wish me well. All your positive thoughts and wishes have really helped me through this long wait! I’m sorry I took all day to report back on my appointment. I just haven’t had a spare moment to sit down and write until now! I had a lunch date with a couple girlfriends after my appointment, then I had several errands to run, and work to do when I got back home. Then I was finally sitting down to write my update about an hour ago when my hubby got home from work and distracted me. He’s off to a weekend long bachelor party camping trip up at Big Bear Mountain so I wanted to spend a few minutes with him before he left. He was so happy he was practically giddy. He walked in the house and picked me up off the couch and asked “We’re good?”. He already knew because I had texted him earlier in the day, but and I laughed and said, “Yes, we’re good! We’re a go!”,…Continue reading FET is a go!!!

FET Schedule

I met with Dr. J today, and everything looked good on the ultrasound and blood test, so we’re a go! Here’s the schedule the nurse gave me: Jan 8th – Jan 13th: 2 mg Estrace (Estradiol) morning and night (2/day- orally) Jan 14th – 18th: 2 mg Estrace (Estradiol) morning, noon and night (3/day – orally) Jan 17th: Monitoring Appointment to make sure I didn’t ovulate. Dr. J said 85% of women taking estrogen won’t ovulate. We want me to NOT ovulate. If I do ovulate, even on the estrogen, we’ll have to stop this cycle and start over next cycle, but with suppressant injections of Lupron. Why not just do the suppressant injections now? I asked Dr. J this and he said he would rather not give me any more hormones then necessary so we’re trying just the estrogen for now. So fingers crossed the estrogen works and I don’t ovulate! If I don’t ovulate, then we’ll continue with the cycle with the following protocol: Jan 19th – until determined: 2 mg Estrace (Estradiol) morning and night (2/day – orally) 200 mg Progesterone capsules morning, noon and night (3/day – vaginally) Jan 22nd Azithromycin – to prevent infection from…Continue reading FET Schedule