Catching up! May

Yes it has been a long, busy, crazy, fun summer and yes im 5 months behind on blogging. Now that fall and the cooler weather and shorter days are moving in I might just get caught up!

May=cycle 2 of in-vitro. Lots of shots, traveling to L.A. and back. Loads of fun.

Before I started shots I started going to an acupuncturist in Cedar. Studies have shown that acupuncture can help outcomes with IVF. I think I had to try and get 8 in before they took the eggs out. I also tried to eat as much organic food as I could. Definitely not easy. It's harder to find and more expensive. I also do an acupuncture treatment right before and after the embryo transfer. I think doing these things did help too. Our embryo quality seemed better this round.
I started Lupron shots around May 5 or so. Just 1 shot a day.
5/12 Day 2 of my cycle. Ultrasound. 5 follicles on each side.
5/13 Start stimulation meds. 225 iu follistim and 75 iu menopur. Now doing 2 shots a day.
5/17 ultrasound after 5 days stimulation. 13 follicles on right. 8 0n left. 21 total. Estrogen level 405 (follicles create estrogen)
5/19 ultrasound after 7 days stimulation. 13 on right. 12 on left. 25 total. estrogen level 1539 (starting to get nauseated and bloated at this point)
5/20 travel to L.A. with my grandma Pat. Luke was really busy at work and didn't really need to be there for my labs and ultrasounds.


I found a nice apartment complex in Marina Del Rey, right on the coast and close to my Dr.'s office in west L.A. Wouldn't mind going back there again for a vacation :)



There was a cheesecake factory right across the street on the beach of the marina. It was beautiful. Needless to say we ate most of our meals there!


the marina had a playground, volleyball nets, and looked like a fun place to swim when the weather is warm. Unfortunately it was not the weather I had longed for. Temps in the 60's instead of 80's. I think I layed out once by the pool the whole time we were there




5/21 ultrasound and labs in L.A. Dr. Marrs said things looked good and ready to go! So I was instructed to do my HCG trigger shot that night so I would ovulate and the egg would detach from the side of the follicle wall so it could be retrieved. Estrogen level up to 4500. Lots of follicles means more estrogen and nausea!
5/22 lab draw in the morning then off to the L.A. temple with grandma! Luke and I went last time and she had never been. We ended up picking a session that was spanish so we got to wear the fun translator headsets :)


Lukes friends from work drove him to vegas that night and he caught a flight to L.A. and then just got a taxi from the airport to the apartment.

5/23 Egg retrieval. 24 eggs total. everything looked good and went well. Back to the apartment for some R&R.
5/24 call from the embryologist letting us know 18 were mature enough to fertilize and 13 successfully fertilized. Not as good as we had hoped but not bad. We decided to head home since now all we had to do was wait 5 days for them to grow before the best 2 could go back in.
5/26 another call from embryologist to let us know how they were doing. This was day 3 of growth in the culture. The best they can be on this day is 8 cells. we had 5 that were 8 cells, 2 that were 7 cells, 2 that were 6 cells, 3 that were 5 cells, and 1 4 cell embryo. So things were looking pretty good.
5/27 back on the road again for our 7 hour drive to L.A. We stayed in Hollywood this time. Luke's fav brazilian resteraunt and in n out burger are within walking distance of this hotel. very important :)
5/28 embryologist called us to let us know that we had 2 embryos ready to transfer and 4 that he was going to freeze. So we had 6 make it to day 5. We were very pleased with how well they did. All 5 of our 8 cell embryos and 1 7 cell embryo were the ones that made it to blastocyst or day 5. So we went to the office @ 11 and 2 embryos were transferred in then back to the hotel for some bedrest for the rest of the day!
5/29 traveled back to Utah. Bryce, Blaire, and Summer were sealed in the temple for time and all eternity, so we stopped in St. George on our way home for that. It was great. Summer was so happy.
6/1 labs to check my hormone levels. Estrogen down a bit to 2700. progesterone 75
6/3 Getting impatient. took a home pregnancy test. It was positive! hopefully its right! After I got out of the shower I noticed my stomach was really bloated and tight. Realized I had probably hyperstimulated my ovaries and thats what was causing the bloating. I called my nurse to let her know I was bloated and hurting and that I think my ovaries had hyperstimulated (usually they return to normal size after a week, but mine stayed enlarged-the size of an orange or lemon). She said as long as I could pee it wasn't anything too serious and that I could take my pain pills prescribed if I needed and that it was probably actually a good sign. I guess when you get pregnant the hormone levels increase and so this causes the ovaries to stay enlarged. Another good sign. But painful. I was supposed to eat small meals and rest to help keep the bloating and pain in check.
6/5 took the other home pregnancy test in my kit. Positive again! yay!

6/7 finally the day of my blood test! My HCG level was 124. Not as high as I thought it would be with 2 positive home tests but my Dr. said anything over 100 is a good solid number so we would check it again in a week.
6/8 Had to go back to work or call in sick so I went to work. Tried to be really careful and did good until 5 pm. started cramping horribly. had to walk out of my patients room and sit down. not good. no bleeding though. Dr. Heath happened to be there so I talked to him and he said it was probably from my ovaries still being enlarged and said we could do another blood test tomorrow and an ultrasound to see how big my ovaries were.
6/9 HCG level dropped to 66 :( and my ovaries were still huge. the size of a lemon and an orange. Both of my Dr.'s said the cramping didn't cause my HCG level to go down though
6/11 HCG level dropped again to 22. The pregnancy was yet again not progressing like it was supposed to.

I think I knew from the beginning it would be too good to be true if I did get pregnant so I guess I wasn't shocked when this happened. It was still hard. It's still hard some days. We just do the best we can I guess. My Dr. is pretty stumped on why this has happened twice now. He wasn't surprised the first time, but he was this second time. He has seen it happen before but only in older couples or in people with bigger problems than ours. He has since ran several blood tests for clotting factors and immune system antibodies that have all come back normal. I just had a endometrial biopsy last week to see if the timing for implantation is off in my body or something. The results on that aren't back yet.

So the joy of infertility continues for us. My Doctor wants to try again after these test results come back with some of our 4 frozen embryos. But I have a really strong feeling we need a surrogate. I know it seems crazy since they can't find anything wrong with me, but it's just a feeling I have. If a surrogacy would work. I would do it. My doctor doesn't think we are too that point yet, but I don't know how much time, energy, money, and embryos I want to waste to keep trying if they don't progress in my body. We are still also trying to decide if it's time to start the adoption process too. I'm just torn with my 4 frozen babies waiting for me to go there I guess. Decisions, decisions.

So this is one of the many reasons I have not had time to blog for months and maybe I just needed time to get over it. Who knows. But just so everybody knows we are still alive!