The plan Jeff and I had from the beginning was to wait a year and then get pregnant. So we started "trying" December of 2010 (10 months after we were married). Looking back now, it seems kind of silly that we were planning out our future as if we had complete control over everything! After mentioning to my doctor in February that we were planning on getting pregnant at any time, he said to come back after a total of 6 months because he believes in infertility after no success after 6 months (which now I'm so grateful he believes in just 6 months is considered infertility, when most doctors say 1 year-- it has sped up the process that we had no idea we were about to endure).
So June comes around and I was in his office curious with what the next step would be. He put me on Clomid (100 mg). Clomid is a fertility pill and they monitor you with ultrasound to see how everything looks and how big your follicles are producing. We tried 3 months of doing this, which is 3 rounds of it. After a few months with no success, my doctor felt like something else was wrong. Most normal women get pregnant quickly on this drug. So he decided to perform surgery on me to see if I had Endometriosis. This was September of 2011. After 3 hours of surgery and a painful recovery, he confirmed I had Endometriosis and one of the worst cases of it he had seen! He said, "No wonder you weren't getting pregnant! Hopefully this did the trick, if not, come back in 3 months."
Again, nothing happened during that time, so I found myself in his office again. He decided to put me back on Clomid and was hopeful it would work, because now all my insides were scraped and cleaned out from the surgery. We did a round... nothing happened. We did it again... nothing happened. By this time, my doctor was stumped and said we should stop doing Clomid, since more than 5 or so times is unhealthy on your body and he referred me to Dr. Danishmand. A fertility specialist who we came to LOVE.
We saw Dr. Danishmand in, I think, July of 2012 and went to a free seminar and were quick to be on board with the idea of undergoing fertility treatments. After a few weeks of diagnostic testing for both Jeff and I, we had a private consultation with him. After looking at the results, he said we could either do IUI (artificial insemination) which would give us about a 12% chance of conceiving OR we could do IVF (InVitro Fertilization) and we'd have about an 80% chance of success.
After some prayerful thinking and talking it over, we decided to go through IVF despite the extreme expense it would be for us. We wanted that baby! And we were willing to make that financial sacrifice for this precious child.
So, in September we began our cycle. The fertility center ordered all of my medications and had it sent to my home. I was shocked when I opened the huge box! Our kitchen table seriously looked like a pharmacy with all sorts of pills, vials, needles, syringes, etc. I had to give myself 2 to 3 shots in my stomach every night for a week and half, as well as take several kinds of pills 4 times a day. A friend from our ward, Jen Eckersley who is a nurse, was so amazing and came over to our house every night at 8pm to do my shots, because Jeff could not bring himself to stick needles in my tummy and I sure as heck didn't want to do them myself. We are so grateful that she lives nearby and took time each night to do this for us. Our last shot we had to do was the "trigger shot" which had to be given in my backside exactly 32 hours before the Egg Retrieval. So at 2am one night, sweet Jen gave me my last shot.
The egg retrieval is the surgery in which the doctor extracts all the eggs (or follicles) that my body had produced through all my shots that I had been doing. Leading up to this, I was in the office every other day for blood work and ultrasounds to monitor how many follicles my body was producing. Every woman is different and can range from unfortunately zero eggs, or all the way up to dozens and dozens of eggs (a friend of mine produced 56 follicles!). Before the retrieval, we had seen 17 follicles and Dr. D and all the nurses were pleased with that and said it's more than average. I was happy!
The morning of the retrieval, I was so nervous because I was to be put under anesthesia and I wanted everything to go smoothly. After I had woken up in the recovery room, Dr. D came in and told me he was able to retrieve 10 eggs which is less than we were hoping and that he was hopeful we would have one or two good embryos to implant.
After the retrieval, they had taken each egg and sperm to create embryos and the doctor called me every couple of days to inform us on how well (or not so well) they were developing. Each couple of days, a few embryos would not make it and our number of good quality embryos were dwindling. Our hope was to implant 2 embryos (and maybe get twins!) and then freeze the rest of the embryos to use for future pregnancies. My transfer (implantation day) was scheduled to be on Monday, Oct 1st. So the Saturday before that was the last time Dr. D had called about the embryo developments. He had told me that at that time we had 3 embryos left so far.
Monday morning we came in for the big transfer day!! This was the day, we were hoping to get pregnant! I got all dressed up in that cute gown and hair wrap. Jeff and I were so nervous. I was so happy he was there with me. Dr. D came in and informed us that we had just ONE embryo good enough to implant. We were a little disappointed at first, because we had gotten excited at the thought of twins and too nervous to put all of our money and hope into just one embryo making it. But we had no choice and hoped for the best outcome!
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Oct. 1: TRANSFER DAY!
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After the Transfer, I was put on bed rest for 3 days. I stayed at my parents house, since Jeff had to work, and they were so great and took the best care of me. My dad did NOT let me get off that recliner chair! On Thursday afternoon, Oct 4th (hours after I had gone in for follow up blood work), Dr. D called me and said what we had been praying to hear-- my levels were high and he is sure that I was pregnant!!! I was not expecting to know that soon. He said everything looked good, but he wanted me to come into the office again Saturday morning for the official pregnancy test blood work. So in I went, and they confirmed 100% that we were, in fact, expecting our little miracle baby. Our one little embryo that was left. We were so so happy. Our Father in heaven had granted us this blessing that we had been praying for for so long.
This was just the picture we sent out to our family to tell them the big news. I felt overjoyed and blessed by their love and support throughout this whole process. We have felt their prayers and we feel so grateful to have such great families on both sides who love us and were rooting for us from the beginning.
After the positive pregnancy test, I still had to give myself shots and take pills and be monitored for the first 9 weeks, then I went to my regular OB from that point on. So this is the morning we "graduated" from the fertility center at 9 weeks along. We were stoked.
Our announcement picture :)
Our little bean at 13 weeks! We call him/her the Tumbler, because it seriously does flips and bounces all over the place.
We could not be more excited about what our future holds and that we finally get the opportunity to become parents to this sweet baby. We have just felt so blessed up until now and I know prayers are heard and answered. I love my family so much for their outpour of love through this emotional process! We can't wait for June to get here!!!
