OMG it worked, we are pregnant!!!!!!

 

The secret is out, we are Pregnant!!!! I know there is a rule to not tell anyone to soon, but we have a different situation. Our situation is called, " the blog". Since we blogged our whole IVF process and trip to the Czech, it is very hard to not tell anyone our testing results. We knew the risk getting into the blogging world ,but we have enjoyed every minute of it. I was not due to test till Monday morning but as most women, I was very anxious. Also, Nathan is leaving for the summer to work at Navy Pier in Chicago. He is a boat captain. Needless to say, we need the money after all these rounds of IVF and for our upcoming new life with a baby. I tested 4 days early which is 10 days past transfer. When I woke up at 6 am this morning, I peed on a pregnancy stick. The test line showed up before the control line , I knew then our lives were going to change forever. I immediately woke Nathan up and showed him the stick, he was so excited he screamed like a man. I was still guarded, I wanted more proof. We headed to the doctors office and we were there by 8 Am for blood work. I asked to have the results STAT. We needed the results today because Nathan is leaving tomorrow morning for Chicago. By noon we had the results of the blood work, IT WAS POSITIVE!!!!!!! My HCG level was 209!!! A normal HCG level is 50-426. We are right in the middle. Our doctor wanted to schedule an ultrasound already. I have an appointment at 8am on June 6th, on my dads birthday!!! During this ultrasound we will find out if both embryos implanted or just one. As you all know I am wishing and hoping for twins, but we really just want a healthy baby. I am not having many symptoms yet. I notice I am peeing a lot more but that is about it. No nausea yet, maybe I will be lucky and have none. I am currently 4 weeks and 1 day. Yes, this is very early so we must still keep in mind I am at risk for a miscarriage. I do have faith that God is good and will keep me pregnant.

We made it home with Czech babies on board...... Hopefully!!!!

We made it back home yesterday after traveling for over 18 hours. Tired was an understatement but the mission was accomplished. We were able to transfer 2 embryos back into my uterus. Unfortunately, the other 2 embryos did not survive. Or final report from the clinic stated that those embryos were not freezable. We were disappointed that we were only able to get 2 viable embryos out of this round of IVF. On the other hand, we are very blessed to have those 2 embryos. We are very pleased with the quality of the inseminated embryos and we have great hopes and it is currently burrowing and is making itself a home for the long haul. I will get a blood pregnancy test around June 6.

Our 2 week vacation in Europe has come to a close. We have many stories and experiences that we will never forget. Thank you all for your supports and prayers. I know that God has great plans for Nathan and I. I'm confident that we will be parents very soon. We will keep you all updated and will upload pictures soon.

 

No turning back now!!!

 

 

It is done the transfer is complete!!!!!!! We met with the doctor this morning before the procedure to go over how well our embryos are doing. We did not get great new but good news. One of our embryos has stopped dividing, it is still at 7 cell, so that one is out of the running. The other one is still dividing but it is at 12 cells. They said that they are going to keep it in the petri dish till tomorrow (day 6). If it improves in quality they may freeze it, but chances are it will not survive. So we are down to 2 embryos left. One of them is the Valedictorian of the class, it is a blastocyst, stage 1!!!!!! This might not sound awesome to you but in the fertility world this is the best. A blastocyst is an embryo that has developed through all the stages. It does not rely on the egg for nutrition but is making its own nutrition and it has cellular divided to the point of tissue rather than individual cells. The tissue is dividing, half for the placenta and half to the fetus. When the blastocysts is at this stage it is hours from hatching and looking for a nice cozy spot to implant into the uterus. Now the grade 1 is important also. To be a grade 1 blastocyst it has to be the correct number of cells, equal sized cells and minimum to no fragmentations. ( fragmentation is cells that have not joined the tissue formations, and are randomly floating in the cells= no good) As they say we have one perfect one, ( that one takes after me, hehe). Now for the last one. That one is a little slower but not out of the race yet, he is a close second. This little one is just hours, and I mean like 12 hours away from becoming a blastocyst also. This embryo is a Compacted Morula (CM). In this stage of CM, it is still dividing itself into the tissue formations which is needed for the placenta and fetus. Now this one has decreased to a grade 2, which means it has more fragmentation than the other one.
After the doctors recommendations and Nathan's and my decision we decided to put the 2 best embryos in. We feel very confident that the Valedictorian is going to burrow, implant and stay for the long haul. We are hopping that the CM continues to divide into the blastocyst after the transfer. The only way of knowing is if we get a positive pregnancy test and an ultrasound a few weeks after the positive test. That is when we will know if one or both of them stuck around.
Our IVF vacation is coming to a close soon. We have done everything that we intended to do in the Czech and hopefully the best part, coming home Pregnant, as Nathan says, " The Ultimate Souvenir" !!!!!


 

Super Embryos!!!

 

Nathan and I have been so busy traveling around Europe that we did not have time to blog yesterday. I am going to include day 2 and 3 checks into this blog. Great news for our 2 day check, our embryos are making great progress. We have 1 embryo at 6 cells and 3 embryos at 4 cells. We are right on track , our hostess said, " Perfect Results"!


Today is our 3 day check. Nathan and I just received some very exciting news. You would have thought that we already had a positive pregnancy test with how excited we are right now. Our embryos are doing awesome! We have 2 embryos that have divided to 8 cells and 2 embryos have divided to 7 cells. Only 2 of our 6 retrieved did not make it, but all 4 eggs that were fertilized have still survived and are doing great. And the best news is that they are all GRADE 1!!!!!! Grade one is the highest quality embryos that you can have, and all 4 of ours are there. This is amazing to me, all 4 of our little embryos have survived and are at the top of the class. I'm going to be a little sad that tomorrow we will not get an update. I know this sounds ridiculous but I'm kind of attached to theses little balls of cells already.:) They do not check the embryos on day 4. On day 4 the embryos continue to divide but the borders are harder to see between the cells. The embryos will then be called, Compact Morula, but for our sake we will continue to call them embryos. Our scheduled transfer time is Sunday at 10 am. This is when they will put the embryos into my uterus. We will talk with the doctor about the number to put back in and the number to freeze. We are very pleased with the our trip and our embryos. I know that we would not be where we are now if we did not have all the prayers and support from our families and friends. We can not thank you guys enough. You are helping our dreams come true, and for that we are VERY grateful.

 

Good News!!!

 

We received a text from the clinic today for an update to our egg status. We have 4 eggs that are currently fertilized !!!!! This is great news!! I was hoping for super eggs and have all 6 fertilized but don't get me wrong I am very excited for the 4 that we have now. We need these 4 to continue to cellularly divide each day until the 5th day. It is very common to lose some along the way :( On the 5th day or " transfer day", we will choose how many to transfer back to my uterus. Based on the quality of the embryos on day 5 will determine how many we put back in and how many we freeze. If we are lucky we will get to put at least 2 in.

Retrieval day!!

 

Hey everyone this is Nathan. So the retreival went very well this morning. As you know we were originally told that there were 5 developing follicles, but apparently this wasn't entirely accurate. After the retreival the doctor told us he retrieved 6 eggs and they are all mature. This is great news!! Now we just have to wait until tomorrow at around 1 pm to find out how many of them were successfully fertilized. As always we got a little video before and after. I was a little worried about Rachel right after the procedure because the first 2 words out of her mouth were "pain" and "sick", but I was quickly put a little at ease because the 3rd word she spoke after recovering from anesthesia was "videotape". I forgot to mention also that the doctor said it was very likely that the transfer day would be Sunday, which would be a 5 day transfer. This is also nice because it gives us a nice little chunk of time to do a little more lite traveling, as long as Rachel is up for it. We are thinking about taking a day trip to Vienna and maybe venture over into Germany as well. Who knows!! Thanks for your love and support.

 

Day before retrieval

Caves

I am happy to say that today was a less hectic day, we took a train to a city called Blansko. Blansko is known for the Punkevní jeskyně caves. We took about an hour tour, combined with walking and a boat ride through the caves. It was very beautiful nd quite chilly down in the caves. As usual we took tons of pictures. We came home early so I could rest, I was not feeling well toward the end of the day. We have our retreival at 8 am. Our hostess is going to pick us up from our hotel at 730. Please pray for a safe procedure and that the follicles will be retrieved and fertilized. Even though they will be putting the sperm into the egg, there is only about a 80 - 90% chance that the egg(s) will become fertilized. We are very hopeful and positive that this process will allow us to have out family that we have always wanted. Nathan will be updating tomorrow, I don't trust what might come out of my mouth when I am coming out of anesthesia :):)

 

I am TRIGGERED!!!!!!!!

 

 

Here in the Czech things move fast. It seems that we are in and out of our appointments very quickly. We were only there for about 10 min today. The doctor was very pleased with the size of my follicles and lining of my uterus. The follicles are about 17-18mm and lining is 9mm. These are perfect sizes. The doctor was very postive and kept saying , " this is good, very good". Since our scans went so well we are scheduled for retreival for Tuesday at 8 am. We are very excited!! Nathan gave me my trigger shot tonight. The trigger shot is a medication called HCG which will allow the follicles to finish growing and get ready to be retreived. We had to do the shot at 9 pm tonight and retreival will be in 36 hours. We can not miss our retreival because my body will release those eggs soon if we do not beat them to the punch. That is where we are at now, waiting and staying positive till Tuesday.

We had an uneventful day, well wait I take that back. Our day started off after our appointment. We found out that the hotel that we were staying in did not have any vacancies for tonight. We were on the move again with all of our luggage that is clearly over packed and over weight, ( well according to the airlines). I still think I had more room. We had to tell the front desk that we had to take quick showers just so we could use the wifi before we were booted to the streets with no other destination. We found a cute little hotel that had great pictures of a safari themed hotel and had excellent prices. This was the first red flag that we missed, safari themed with great prices. We called a cab who took us to the other side of town, and dropped us and our bags at the doors of the hotel and sped off. At this point I still had a smile on my face. It wasn't until the aroma of musty old thai food and weird creatures on the walls did I start thinking of a way to get out of that situation. Nathan, oh my sweet husband, appeared to be tring to stay positive. I think we was hoping that this safari that we walked into somehow had white linen sheets with a giant jacuzzi tub and the smell of roses in our room, but no he was wrong. GHETTO!!!!! All the way. My only saving grace was that there was no wifi in the room, nathan can not live without his wifi which meant we were out of there. After packing nathan and all the laugage into the 3x3 elevator I had to take the stairs because there was no room in the elevator. I tried to get out of the corridor which lead to the reception area but I could not. There was no door handle but a metal piece sticking out of the door. After walking around and looking for something to jimmy the door open with I found the handle on the floor behind a chair. I had to Mcguiver the handle back on and I was off to the races and running down the stairs to get to Nathan. We found another hotel after using the wifi in the lobby and then called a cab. Unfortunatly this cab driver did not speak a lick of English. Google maps showed him where to take us. I thought we were in the clear until he dropped us off and the first words out of his mouth was "OHHHHH GYPSIES!!!!!" Nathan and I looked at each other and said, screw it, we were tired, hungry and wanted to just chill. Fortunatly, this hotel is very nice and we are pleased with our stay so far. For dinner tonight we decided to venture back out into gypsy land to find a certain underground restaurant that I had heard of. Nathan was certain he knew how to get there, so I was a good wife and did not ask any questions. Let's just say that we got off the bus 3 times and got back on the bus 3 times before we ended up about 10 min away from our hotel to finally arrive at our destination. Dinner was good and we had the whole restaurant to our selves. We are striving for a duller day tomorrow, but probably not. Ciao:)

 

 

 

 

A tale of our adventures and lessons learned!

 

Well we thought that we were going to have a slow day but I was wrong. We ended up going to Old Town Square as planned. We made it to the clock along with 100s of other people to watch the clock's hourly show. It was cute and creepy at the same time. We were able to catch some video of it, make sure you look close at the skeleton man. While we waited for the show, Nathan and I decided to take a horse drawn carriage ride through the city of Prague. It was really neat and romantic, I loved it! While we were walking back to Charles Bridge I was stopped by a man that had some sicissors and paper in his hands. I hate to admit this but I thought he was going to pick pocket us and take all our money and souvenirs. He started to cut out a profile of my face, he did a great job. The day seemed to be perfect until I was taught a very important lesson.

Our last day in Prague, no wait up to the last hour in Prague we got in trouble with the authorities. Let me tell you a little true story that I am still kicking myself for now. The Czech public transportation is based on the honor system. They do not have to show or punch there tickets when getting on the trams or busses. The people are honest about buying their tickets and not riding for free. We were on the subway and walking to our last connected train when we were stopped by the transportation authorities. They wanted to see our tickets. Now that is not the problem, we had bought our tickets the day before for 24 hours. The problem was that we were 2 hours past our 24 our mark. I knew that we were past the time but thought we could fit one more ride in. Of course we get caught being dishonest in a country who uses the honor system. I was hoping for a slap on the hand but no he wanted to see our passports and told us to follow him. Oh crap!!!!!!!!!! I immediately thought of the show " locked up abroad ". I started to pray as if I was going to get locked up in some rat infested hole in the ground with other dishonest people, but ones who do things much worse than ride free on a subway. He lead us to a sign that of course was written in Czech, but with his broken English he explained to us that there was a fine. 1000Kc but since we did not live there we got a discount. 800Kc was the discount which was about $40 a person. I was happy to pay the $80 for Nathan and I and not be locked up or never see our families again. I will admit this also, I should have listened to Nathan. He was telling me all day that we needed to get new tickets. I'm proud to know that I have an honest man with great integrity. I hate the fact that I was dishonest. God taught me a lesson today to be honest. No matter the situation I want to always do the right thing, even if it is for a 2 min subway ride. I will have to do better from now on.



 

 

 

 

A day in Prague

Prague Day 1

 

Well we made it to the infamous Prague!!!!!! It is full of culture and the feel of the old world. The cobblestone roads, architecture and rude people we are getting the full feel for Prague. It seems that Nathan and I have forgotten that we will be here for 14 days, we have been trying to fit everything in one day. Today we went to the Prague Castle which is the biggest ancient castle in Europe. We went to the Petrin tower which is a replica of the Eiffel tower in Paris and lastly we went to the famous Charles Bridge. We have found it be a challenge to take public transportation due to the language barrier and locals not jumping to help us out. Many times we have asked people if they speak English, they always say "no". It is apparent that they don't want to help us out, maybe because we look lost and are holding a map. Thanks to the wifi we have been able to get around and eventually make it to our destinations. We plan to stay in Prague till Saturday night. I have my next appointment on Sunday at 9am. Nathan is still giving me my injections daily. Today we start a new one called Ganerelix, which we will only take for one day. I am hoping that we are told tomorrow that we are ready for retrieval of the eggs in a couple of days. I realized yesterday that I needed to slow down. I was feeling a lot of pain in my abdomen, which I am suspecting that my follicles are growing. Which is good for IVF but not running around Prague. Today we have slept in till about 10am and slowly heading out, we plan to just go to the old town square. More pictures of video to come!!!!!! :):)  

Day one in the Czech

We made it!!!!!!! We arrived in Prague at 1035 this Morning, but not after a few hiccups. The flights went smooth for the most part but the currency, busses and trains were a different story. We decided to use an ATM to get Czech money which is abbreviated Kc. We very quickly found out that the language barrier is harder to over come than we thought. The ATM was all written in Czech, we played a guessing game to what buttons to push and what they meant. We ened up selecting the button for 5500Kc, to our suprise it was about $300. That was the amount that we wanted to take out so that worked out. We made it through customs with no problems. We found a ticket man that was selling tickets for the bus who spoke very little english. He dirrected us to wait for the bus for the train station. We ended up taking the wrong bus to the "metro" station. Unfortunatly the word Metro means subway, not trains. We were dropped off at the subway station where we thought that we could pick up the next bus to get us to the train station. After waiting about an hour and seeing 3 of the busses that we should have been on pass by, we knew we were in trouble. We tried to call a cab but soon realized that the phone card that we bought in the US we could not use in Prague. A few select words were spoken between Nathan and I and I almost cried, but we decided to do the only thing that we new to do. We started to head back to the airport to catch the right bus. Fortunatly, along the way to the bus we found a cab. After spending about 300Kc= about $15 we were dropped off at the train station. We took a 3 hour train ride to Brno and the scenery along the way was absolutely breathtaking, at least that's what Nathan said because I was sleeping. We met Eva, our coordinator, who took us to our hotel/college dorm room. Yes I did say college dorm room. Nathan claims the pictures online were of a much nicer hotel, with running water and electricity. J/K. None the less it will do for 2 nights, until we find a real hotel, depending on what the doctor says our schedule will be at my 9 am appointment tomorrow morning. That's all so far. We will update the next time we can find a reliable wifi hotspot. Ciao Bella!

It begins again,,,, INJECTIONS!!!!!!

     Time is flying by. We leave for the Czech Republic in 4 days!!!!!! We are getting all the last minute things ready, and the packing is in progress. Unfortunately, we had a small hiccup with the meds. I was NOT told to keep taking the birth control pills through the time of my last period. When we had our phone conference I was told then which was a week later. The coordinator called the MD in the Czech which instructed me to double up on my pills until April 29. I was also told that I might get my period, which I did with a vengeance! Everything went as planned and now on May 4th, today, I am starting the injections. I had to wake Nathan up at 0500 this morning. Not for the fact that, "If I had to be up doing this so will he", haha. No I really needed him to give me the meds. The reason we had to start the injections at 0500 is due to the time difference in the Czech. They are 6hours in front of us. I am working the next 3 days and I leave the house at 0500 so we had to stick to that time. We have to take the meds at the same time everyday for the best effects. 

    The medications are different this time. I am starting with Menopur 75units x5 each day. That means I am using 5 vials that each contain 75units for a total of 375units of Menopur a day. This is 4x more Menopur than I took with our last IVF cycle. I am not starting with the Follistem that I used then, due to my AMH level being low. AMH is the ovarian reserve, which is the number of eggs I have left in my ovaries.  I am unsure how low but not normal is worrisome to me. I guess I would just need 5 good ones. ( Nathan and I always talked about having a large family, 4-5 little ones). Look at the picture below, I received my medications from the Czech Republic but didn't think that everything would be written in Czech also. Good thing I had used this medication before and know what and how to use it. 

     Our plans are to leave the house at noon to head to the airport. Terri, Nathan's mom is going to drop us off at the airport. Our flight does not leave until 4pm, but I have medications and syringes that we have to get through the gates with. We fly out of Raleigh to NY then to Prague. We will arrive in Prague at around 1035am the next day. Our first appointment at the clinic is May 10. We will have our first ultrasound

(monitoring ) to see how many and quality of eggs I have developed from taking the medications. 

    From what we know so far. We can not use our cell phones, we will be communicating through emails and skype. We do plan to video everything and hopefully be able to upload and update our blog as we go. Keep us in your prayers for safe travel and a pregnancy. Love you guys and thanks again for all your support!!!!