Recap Part 1
A lot has happened over the last few months, so I thought I would write a recap of our first frozen embryo transfer (FET) cycle through seeing my first ever two pink lines! As most of you know we found out May 15th that our first fresh cycle failed. While I expected those days to be filled with sadness, there was an unexpected peace that filled my heart and mind instead. I think after so many years of negative tests, it just seemed logical that IVF wouldn’t work. There were very few tears, and lots of conversations about starting our next IVF cycle. Thankfully my body started a natural cycle on its own just three days later. I went in to my fertility doctor and to my surprise, she said we could do our FET right away. At our clinic most FET cycles are timed with a natural menstrual cycle. This allows the doctors to place your embryos back when your body would naturally be preparing to carry an embryo. A natural FET also involves wayyyyy less medication and monitoring appointments. Monitoring appointments are scheduled around your natural ovulation. After lots of home ovulation tests, I tested positive on June 3rd and my doctor schedule our embryo transfer for June 9, 2017.
On the day of the transfer, I felt so much better than our previous transfer. During our first IVF cycle, I was still hurting from surgery and nauseous from the last five days of medicine and barely eating. Our second transfer, I felt like I already knew what to expect, and my body was starting to feel back to normal (as normal as possible when you’re on estrogen and progesterone hormones). I also did acupuncture at our fertility clinic before and after our transfer. We transferred our last two frozen embryos and went home to wait for our embryos to implant.
Here’s where I’m going to be completely honest with you. I didn’t tell hardly anyone that we were doing our transfer. I didn’t expect this cycle to work at all. Our embryos were slow growing and low quality. While I knew there was a chance they would work because our embryologist chose to freeze them, I really didn’t think they had much of a chance. I was thankful to have them with me, but I thought it would be another short lived pregnancy. To further ingrain this idea into my brain, I took a pregnancy test four days past transfer. I knew there was no way it would actually be positive because my embryos weren’t far enough along to be producing HCG, but still I took it anyways. I know what you’re thinking; “Why did you do that?” Infertility makes you do crazy, unexplainable things even when you know their irrational. Your heart hopes maybe you’ll be the exception to the rule, even though your brain is saying you know better. After day four, I really didn’t think much about our embryos. I focused on enjoying our summer outside with the pups and wondering what would come next.
June 18th, Father’s Day, I woke up feeling very blah and with my stomach cramping. You know the feeling you get the day on or before you start your period, well it was that feeling only dulled by the progesterone in my system telling my body to maintain pregnancy. I had been through four unsuccessful fertility treatments so I was well acquainted with this feeling. I decided to take a HPT not to see if I was pregnant, but so that I could know for sure I was not so I could stop taking my progesterone. Not only is it a horrible feeling with your body trying to start through hormone supplements, but I was already dreading another phone call with the doctor telling me I was not pregnant. All I had on hand were a couple cheap strip HPT. I took one, waited the five minutes and it was negative. It wasn’t just a little negative, there was zero second line. I wasn’t surprised, just a little sad that I had to tell Robert on Father’s Day that our cycle had failed. Robert had already made plans to visit his parents in Knoxville that day, so I told him to go and I would stay home and have an easy alone day to process everything. I had a super chill morning lounging with the pups; it was exactly what I needed.
Around lunch when I normally take a dose of my hormones, I went to go put them away so I wouldn’t have to see them on the counter as another reminder that we weren’t pregnant. I had already decided I was going to stop taking my hormones so my body could start it’s natural cycle when something in my brain said you should just double check to make 100% sure you’re not pregnant. I went over to the bathroom trash and pulled out the tiny strip test I had taken hours earlier to see my first ever two pink lines. The second line was faint, but it was there! It was one of the most shocking moments of my entire life. My first thought was this is not possible. I don’t feel pregnant. I can’t be pregnant. I threw my shoes on and drove to the Walgreens to get a “better” test. I grabbed one, drove home, and took it. It was positive!
The next set of events can only be attributed to years of infertility coupled with my crazy engineer brain. I started researching home pregnancy tests and their quality. Of course what did I find but multiple stories of false positives. I decided I needed more tests to compare results. So I hopped back in the car, drove back to the store and picked up a ClearBlue and First Response box. I’m sure I seemed like a crazy person to the cashier and people in line behind me. I felt like I needed a shirt that said, “This is not an unplanned pregnancy freak out, I’m just going through an IVF cycle.” Back at home after promising Luna and Leo their mom was not going to flee out of the house again, I found myself staring at five positive tests!
I couldn’t even cry I was so shocked. Shocked that I had no idea I was pregnant and was ready to stop taking my hormones. Shocked that my first ever positive test was finally here. Shocked that after all this time the Lord gave us this gift on Father’s Day. And most of all, shocked that Robert wasn’t home, and I was going to get to surprise him that night. I pulled together all the baby things we had bought over the years, and put them in a box with all the tests on top. I couldn’t wait for him to come home and open it. After almost three years of waiting, I was finally going to get to tell him he was going to be a daddy! Since it was Father’s Day, I spent most of the day relaxing with my family and trying really hard to keep this huge secret. Robert met me at my grandparents since I couldn’t have him finding out without me. When we got home, I rushed in and waited on him to see the box. I wish I could say that we both cried happy tears, but again we were both just in shock.
The next morning we woke up to go the doctor’s office for our first beta test. They want your HCG to be at least 50 for the first beta. If the beta is too low, there is a good chance that the pregnancy is not viable. Our day seemed to drag waiting for our office to call us with the results. We went to a late lunch, and when we sat down I saw these words on the wall, When the world says give up, hope whispers – try one more time.
I knew in that moment, no matter what we found out, it was already a great day because we were pregnant. After so many times wondering if it was time to give up, I was finally experiencing life growing inside of me. Even with five positive pregnancy tests, I was still on edge waiting for the call from our doctor when my phone buzzed. It was a SPAM call. We were both having a laugh at the Telemarketer’s perfect timing when my phone rang again. This time it was my IVF nurse Rachel telling me congratulations! She said everything looked great with a beta of 124! She told me to come back in Wednesday morning for a second beta to ensure my HCG was rising correctly.
I went in the office Wednesday to lots of smiles and quiet congratulations since there were other patients waiting. They drew my blood and again we waited. Rachel called again to let me know that my HCG had more than doubled at 340.5! This was great news, and we were scheduled to come back July 5th for our first ultrasound. However, our biggest question was still to be answered; would we be having one baby or two?!
With Love and Definitely Expecting,
Ashton
