apple juice

Today marked the day I nearly passed out when doing a blood draw…

For starters, I didn’t get to have my usual water bottle this morning as I forgot to fill it up before I left. This wasn’t a huge deal because I decided I’d just fill it up at the clinic and drink it prior to going in. WELL – that didn’t happen. I get onto the highway this morning and everything is going smoothly until about a mile before the Royalton exit in Strongsville which is where it turned into stop and go traffic for the next 5 miles. I was still relatively early, so I didn’t start freaking out until about 7:35 and I hadn’t even gone 3 miles. I finally get past the accident and make it to the doctors 15 minutes late, which throws off everything else as I had a mandatory 9am meeting in Lakewood. So I head inside, skipped getting water, and am not super frazzled. She brings me in for blood work, and all is well until they can’t get the blood flowing – probably due to stress and dehydration. She finally gets what she needs, and goes to grab a band-aid and that is when everything goes fuzzy.

Now I’ve been close to passing out on two other occasions – once at my very first appointment and once at the IVF consult when they needed vials upon vials for all their testing. I’ve never felt this close to passing out though so Carol grabbed me an apple juice and some water. I started talking at this point just to get my mind off of things and that helped. After about 10 minutes, I was on my way. Bonus: I even made it to work on time for my 9am.

{I was going to end the blog post there, but then the fertility center called to say my progesterone was going up and was at a 38 which is great. Now I just have to twiddle my thumbs 8 more days until my beta – which I also need to call and schedule. Fingers crossed and all the prayers please and thank you.}

Advertisement

transfer

At 11:03am, we transferred a little embryo back into my uterus for safe keeping. We are praying for a sticky baby and a healthy and happy nine month pregnancy!

University Hospitals fertility center has multiple doctors under their “roof” and I’ve worked with three out of the four. However, the one who we had our very first meeting with back in April of last year and who has kind of directed us through these steps did the transfer today. It was a really nice way to bookend things, so to speak.

Unlike my dream two nights ago, the first embryo they thawed did in fact survive and had even begun to hatch, which is so exciting! The process was super quick and really cool to observe. They let us take our phones in the room, so I put Irwin on camera duty. He only got a picture of the embryo on the screen, because both of us were paying attention to everything else that was going on. After the embryo had been transferred, they rolled me back into the outpatient room and I waited there for 20 minutes before getting to leave. Then it was fry time {this is said to help with implantation}.

Before I had even gotten off the highway back home, I had a call from the hospital that, while my progesterone level was okay, it wasn’t as high as the doctor wanted it at 14.5. So tonight we up my dosage to 1.5cc. I was a little concerned when we first got the phone call, and even drove all the way out to the crocker office to talk to a nurse and make sure the shots were going in the right place. Honestly, as much as I wanted to just go home, I’m glad I went because she totally calmed my nerves by not being worried at all and telling me some people just absorb it slower than others. So I go back for another blood draw on Tuesday and hopefully levels are rising as needed. If not I’m sure they will add more medication, but time will tell.

Until then it’s time to relax! Please keep Irwin and I in your prayers and keep sending those positive vibes our way. We have 12 days until beta!

 

Baby C as a blastocyst! Isn’t he/she adorable?!

 

monday

Womp womp.

It’s Monday again. I think we can all agree that weekends need to be longer.

Can I be honest with you all for a second? I am bored, like just in general, with my life. I feel very stagnant in a lot of what I do every day, and I cannot decide if it’s because I am actually bored, or if the greyness of February is just getting to me and I need some sunshine in my life. Even yesterday as we were sitting in our church service I was thinking about how I needed to get out and do something or I was going to lose my mind. Funnily enough, I think God heard my thoughts during service because before I even took off my coat when I got home, my dad called and ended up having an extra ticket to the home and garden show, so I got to have a little daddy-daughter date yesterday. I know I have a calling for hospitality, and lately, I’ve been wanting to do more with that but I’m not entirely sure what that means. I used to do planning on the side, but my day job has sort of taken over my life and doesn’t really make that possible anymore. I’ve thought about getting more into the design side of events as well, which is where my passion truly lies. I like pretty things – can you blame me?

In other news, I am about a week into taking estrace and yesterday I could actually feel my brain telling my mouth to reign it in because of how mean I was being and it was completely unintentional, just hormones apparently. I actually cannot imagine what I am going to be like in a few weeks when I have this, the progesterone, and God willing pregnancy hormones coursing through my veins. I am just going to apologize in advance for anything I may say during that time and hopefully, it won’t be as bad as I am anticipating. After all, if that is truly the case at least I’ll have our little one hanging out in my uterus and we will be closer to bringing him or her home. I have my lining check on Friday and then we will be able to confirm and schedule the transfer date. I am tentatively scheduled for next Friday, but we will see what this week brings.