Close Call! Breakthrough Bleeding Before Lining Check

I failed my lining check on Monday (cue complete freak out noises). I have been a basket case.

My uterine lining needed to be close to 8mm for the big lining check and it was only 5.9mm. I knew there was big trouble when I started having break through bleeding on Saturday...it continued through Tuesday, easing up to spotting yesterday (Wed). My RE looked at the ultrasound during the check and announced, "You're not ready!"  I had to fight tears.

So what happened?  Basically, my RE explained that not every woman metabolizes estrogen supplementation the same and the Vivelle patches were not enough to keep my estrogen levels up and so I began having withdrawal bleeding.  I was a complete disaster on the flight out to CA...during my layover in Chicago I locked myself in a bathroom stall to sob for 20 minutes and looked red and puffy all day (prompting a flight attendant to ask if I was sick).  I was certain my cycle would be canceled with all the bleeding I experienced.  And I cannot express how hard it is to get THAT close to a transfer and then believe it's going to be taken away.

As soon as the bleeding started I began taking estradiol, 6mg orally (2mg morning, noon, and night) and 800mg of ibuprofren. Amazingly, this did the trick and rebuilt my lining just enough to pass my recheck today.  Less than 72 hours from my failed check, my lining was up to 7.87mm...putting me close enough to the 8mm's to move forward with the cycle! I am elated and even the nurses were cheering for me when I walked out of the ultrasound room.

The clinic coordinator called me later today to tell me that I am to stop Lupron on Sunday morning, begin Progesterone (PIO) that night, continue estradiol until Saturday, and continue the Vivelle patches indefinitely...my transfer is scheduled for October 19th and I just bought my tickets!

This coming week is my 40th birthday and sincerely, this is the best birthday gift I could ever imagine. I am so thankful for this amazing answer to prayer. I can't get these DEmbies into mah' belly soon enough! ;-)  

The Donor Embryo Cycle Begins

I've never been so happy to pop a pill before...every morning since CD 3 I have been taking a birth control pill to quiet my ovaries until I start Lupron next Wednesday. The way I see it, each pill is getting me one day closer to the transfer of our little DEmbies.  Eeeeee!!

I took great satisfaction today in re-arranging my cupboard in order to accommodate and organize all my meds. It's like a doctor's office in there with all the needles and vials and swabs. My eyes widen every time I look at the jumbo 22 gauge Progesterone needles though! They are freaky big.

Here is my cycle schedule:

Sept. 8th- CD 3:  Start birth control pills

Sept. 17th- CD 10: Baseline Ultrasound at the RE's (beg for Intralipid Rx)

Sept. 19th- CD 12: Begin Lupron injections in the morning! 10 units sub q.

Sept. 20th -CD 13: Stop birth control pills (last day on the 19th).

Sept. 24th- CD 17: Reduce Lupron to 5 units. Begin Vivelle (estrogen) patches- 2 patches .1mg every 2 days.

Oct. 8th- CD 31: Fly to CA for the lining check!

~Oct. 9-14th: Donor Egg retrieval- Stop Lupron. Begin Progesterone injections - 1 ml. Continue Vivelle.

~Oct. 14-19th: Fly to CA for Transfer!

The big question weighing on my mind right now is whether to transfer 1 or 2 embryos. I wouldn't mind 2 babies, I just fear the complications of a twin pregnancy, especially when I'm already so fearful of problems with my cervix given all the disruptions to it during the miscarriages and Asherman's surgeries. At the same time, I'm very fearful that the the embies won't stick given my history of RPL and 2 really ups our chances of getting preggers. I'm praying for wisdom on this question.

Goodbye August Embryo

While it would have been amazing if we'd had a real miracle happen in our miracle month, it didn't. My betas were measured and were only 9 and then 11. I have to go back tomorrow for another blood draw to make sure they're going down to zero. It's really unnecessary since the pee sticks don't lie and they're almost negative now. But I will go back to prove to the clinic that I'm really not preggers anymore. 

While it was a completely chain yanking experience to get a lovely BFP on our last TTC cycle before the donor embryo cycle, I will say that part of me is relieved. Relieved because I would have been worried sick every single moment, waiting for the shoe to drop. I have come to believe we just cannot get our sperm/egg combo to make a baby. Period.  So, the much safer and much less scary option is to move forward with the donor embies...where healthy sperm and egg come together to make a healthy embryo. And a learned embryologist can study the embryo and see what we're dealing with before putting another embryo back into my uterus. 

I want to make another entry about that process...but for now, I am disappointed this didn't work out. And to realize we're up to 8 (known) losses is pretty stunning. I am on the far edge of the statistics, beating the odds in all the wrong ways. 

I asked DH if we could nickname this embryo "August." He agreed. We both like the name, it happened in August, and all our Angel babies are "A" names. So...goodbye dear August, I wish you could have stayed. 

Time to Play "What does this line mean?"

I got the oh-so coveted + digital today...there is something about reading the words "Pregnant" that makes it all seem real. However, I am far from comforted because I am playing the "what does this line mean?" game. You play this by peeing on pee sticks and comparing them to earlier pee sticks for ages to see if they are getting "appropriately darker."  What is appropriately darker? I dunno, this is definitely not an exact science. All kinds of things can change the lines in any given test, so it is notoriously unreliable: urine concentration, what you ate/drank, the sensitivity of the particular test, the dye amount, etc.  Do women do this anyway? Heck yeah. The reason is that over several days, lines that don't darken up are indicative of a chemical pregnancy. I've been there, done that. It is limbo time though for sure. I had some kind of progress in hcg because my FMU and SMU tests were darker than yesterday's...noticeably. And while I had a negative digi yesterday, it's positive today.  But was it enough of an increase? I don't know, I wish it were darker.  But then I had to go and ruin it anyway by taking one (okay three) tests with late evening urine tonight and they came up looking WAY lighter.  So...back to the pessimism. 

The thing is, any little bit of hope that a slightly darker test provides, can actually become crushed hope later: I've had too many losses to feel confident and to fear this hope. So instead it's like going from worry to worry. I know I shouldn't play this pee stick game, but until I get 2 beta results, it's all I have to prepare myself for what might be coming.  I should get a beta result on Tuesday and hopefully get another drawn then too.  Then I'll be in beta purgatory. But for now, I'm just playing the pee stick line game...and it's really not fun. Every time I do it, I'm filled with anxiety...if only I could stop playing. 

My Miracle Month Part II: The Plot Thickens

I am 10DPO today and as of last night, we have a BFP on our hands (above) on this, our very last TTC cycle before moving on to donor embryos. I wish I could say I'm purely happy, but I am scared to pieces and primarily fearful about this being yet another loss that will cause us to lose the wonderful DEmbryo match that we signed on the dotted line for just 24 hours prior to getting this shocking BFP.

My mind is racing..there is excitement in the sense of "Maybe this is really it...DH and I will finally get our take home baby!" and then there is the more dominant voice of "Oh no, not again, why now?? I can't handle another loss and I don't want to lose our DEmbies..we're almost there!!"

So, trying to be rational now, and here are the possibilities as I see them:

1.  This will be yet another chemical pregnancy that will only set us back a few days and we will continue as scheduled with the DEmbryo cycle. This seems the most likely thing given our history and multiple chemical pregnancies.

2. This will be a long, drawn out miscarriage cycle that will cause us to lose our DEmbryos (a double loss), and we will have to wait quite awhile before we can move on to new DEmbryos. (I can't even think about things like late term loss, a D & C or D &E, or messing up my uterus again.)

3. I feel this is the least likely scenario, but would truly be the "miracle" that we have hoped and prayed for these past 3+ years of TTC: we will actually carry this pregnancy to term and have our long awaited take-home-baby.

Obviously my main fear is around #2.  But, I have to say, no matter what happens, I will survive and no one can ever say I didn't do everything I possibly could to have a baby with DH. So, for now, I am praying, trusting, and doing everything I can to give this very early pregnancy a shot.  Lord... have mercy.

My "Miracle Month"

I was reading another blogger and she called the month before starting IVF her "miracle month" because it was her last chance to miraculously fall pregnant before jumping into IVF.  For me, this is my miracle month because it is the last month/cycle before we move on to the donor embryo cycle. I like the term because it is full of hope.  

Strangely...I have had a lot of pregnancy symptoms this cycle.  It has been over three years of trying, 7 losses, and this is the 5th and last cycle of the Neupogen/Lovenox that my RE had prescribed to help us overcome our 6 HLA matches.  Today is only 8DPO, so it's too soon to tell, but my temps have been higher than they have ever been in any cycle (pregnant or not, medicated or not), I've been having a lot of personal "classic" pregnancy symptoms that I get on pregnancy cycles: BFP dreams, cramping toes, a sore throat, runny nose, daily skin breakouts, tugging round ligament pains, gassy/burpy, and super bloated.

On the other hand, it's just too unlikely that this would truly be my miracle of a month.  It will probably be BFN or, worse, another loss that will mess up our big DEmbie cycle.  So I'm nervous...because I'm not too sure I want a BFP, they don't end well for me. But this is also our last chance...what if  we get a miracle, a REAL miracle? 

The Biology of Pregnancy with a Donated Embryo

I thought this was a beautiful read...and while it was written about using donated eggs, it totally applies to donated embryos. It was written by Cara Birrittieri and it is a list of myths she seeks to dispel...I'm listing the third one since that is the most powerful to me. Reading this made me feel even more excited about the prospect of using embryo donation for us. The booklet in it's entirety can be found here: http://www.fertilityneighborhood.com/bin_web/images/uploaded/DonorHandbook_ForWEB_v1.pdf

You probably learned the following in your high school biology class, but most of us need a review to dispel many of the myths around baby making and making a baby with a donated egg. To create an embryo that will grow into a healthy child, you need genetic material from two different gene pools. The combined genetic material instructs the developing fetus to become a boy or a girl, tall or short, have curly hair or straight, blue eyes or brown.
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Myth number 3: Perhaps the greatest myth surrounds pregnancy. Many believe the uterus is simply an incubator. Nothing could be further from the truth. The most important aspect of all pregnancies — including egg donation pregnancies — is that as the fetus grows, every cell in the developing body is built out of the pregnant mother’s body. Tissue from her uterine lining will contribute to the formation of the placenta, which will link her and her new child. The fetus will use her body’s protein, and then she will replace it. The fetus uses her sugars, calcium, nitrates, and fluids, and she will replace them. So, if you think of your dream child as your dream house, the genes provide merely a basic blueprint, the biological mother takes care of all the materials and construction, from the foundation right on up to the light fixtures. So, although her husband’s aunt Sara or the donor’s grandfather may have genetically programmed the shape of a new baby’s earlobe, the earlobe itself is the pregnant woman’s “flesh and blood.” That means the earlobe, along with the baby herself, grew from the recipient’s body. That is why she is the child’s biological mother. That is why this child is her biological child.

Many recipients ask, “Is the baby actually my flesh and blood?” Not literally. No baby is really its mother’s flesh and blood because the truth is that every fetus builds its own flesh and its own blood. Still you might wonder, “If it was my own egg, wouldn’t the baby then have my blood?” No. The baby might inherit your blood type, but would still be making its own blood, just as it makes its own skin and hair texture, and nails and teeth. Besides, with or without egg donation, the baby might have inherited his or her blood type from the father’s gene pool.

Think of it this way: every baby is a complete, self-contained, unique human being. You will meet this person when he or she is born. To try to sort out the genetic contributions at that point is like trying to break a cake down into flour, sugar, water, and yeast after it has been baked. It is now a cake, no longer separate ingredients.