SURPRISE!!
Baby #2 is due to make his or her arrival
around June 20, 2016!
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| 12 weeks, 3 days ultrasound |
Phew, what a relief to finally tell everyone! We've been keeping this secret under wraps for quite a while now - and it hasn't been easy. Especially when you've got to go through IVF. You see, you just don't wake up one day and say, "hey, let's start IVF today!" Nope, there's lots of prep work involved even before you get to the trying for a baby stage. Since we knew we wanted to try for a baby this year, I went to my reproductive endocrinologist Dr. Roach all the way back in January to get the process started. We got the diagnostics out of the way, and I was put on a monthly dose of Provera to force me to cycle regularly til May. Since we were scheduled to go on a cruise in March and to the UK in May, we knew we wouldn't do any cycles until after we were done traveling. But the week we got back home from the UK, we were at the doctor's office for preliminary appointments, which included handing them a large sum of money, a refresher on how to inject myself, and instructions for starting the IVF protocol. Sounds fun, right?
We were hoping to go ahead and get pregnant in June, so the baby would be here before either of my brothers' weddings next May and July. But God had other plans. When I went in for my baseline blood work and ultrasound, I ended up having a cyst on my left ovary, and it was making enough hormones that it would mess with the medication and the cycle. To say we were crushed would be an understatement. There was nothing to do, except cancel the cycle and wait until the next month hoping that the cyst would go away on its own.
We were hoping to go ahead and get pregnant in June, so the baby would be here before either of my brothers' weddings next May and July. But God had other plans. When I went in for my baseline blood work and ultrasound, I ended up having a cyst on my left ovary, and it was making enough hormones that it would mess with the medication and the cycle. To say we were crushed would be an understatement. There was nothing to do, except cancel the cycle and wait until the next month hoping that the cyst would go away on its own.
So July came and I headed back in for my baseline blood work and ultrasound again. This time the cyst was still there, but starting to collapse and not producing any hormones, so I was given the go ahead to start injections. After two days of injections, I went back in for another ultrasound and more blood work, but sadly, there was only one follicle growing in my left ovary and none in my right ovary, which meant there'd only be one egg. My doctor was pretty straightforward in telling us that it would be wasteful of our time and money to keep pursuing this cycle for just one egg. So, she sent us home with instructions to see if nature would take its course, and we could just get pregnant naturally. But seeing that we were pretty sure my tubes were blocked still, this was a long shot and ultimately didn't work out. In hindsight though, we were thankful that she was honest with us because it meant that we didn't run through all of the costly medication.
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| My daily medicine to inject |
We took the month of August off to recoup and reset. The RE wanted me to try a different protocol this time around to see if we might get better initial results. It involved me priming my body with estrogen for 2 weeks before we even started the IVF cycle. Luckily, it was just pills and not injections, but they still had to be taken at the same time every day. When I went in for my baseline blood work and ultrasound in September, that silly cyst was still there just taking its own time to disappear, but it wasn't causing any trouble so I was given the go ahead to start my injections. Now up to this point, we hadn't told anyone in either of our families what we were doing, and we ultimately decided we wanted to keep the whole thing under wraps and surprise everybody. The problem with doing this though was two-fold: (1) having to surreptitiously take my medications and injections and (2) finding something to do with Emma. I wasn't allowed to bring her with me to the appointments, which were at 8:30 AM up in The Woodlands, and some of my appointments were on her school days anyways. So Kevin ended up staying home with her or taking her to school on days that I had to make the trek up to the doctor, and then we'd do the car seat shuffle afterwards. After the first 5 days of injections, I had two tiny follicles in my left ovary and none in my right one (it never seems to show up to the party). So, we kept going, and 5 days later, I had 3 follicles in my left ovary that were all slowly growing. Now, it be able to retrieve the eggs out of the follicles, they have to get to a certain size (~16-18mm), and mine were measuring at 7,8, and 9 mm. That meant it was going to be quite a few more days of injections since they only grow about 1mm a day. Ultimately, I had to do 14 days of injections. Fourteen days of voluntarily sticking myself with a needle - a needle that each time was filled with $425 worth of medicine. And on days 13-16, I got to add in a second shot, Ganirelix, which is designed to keep me from ovulating too early (and makes me itchy).
Ultimately, I got the go ahead to trigger the 3 follicles to release the eggs for retrieval on Saturday, September 26th. Luckily, it was an away game for A&M that weekend, so I didn't have to worry about lugging my injections around with me like I had been doing, and I ended up having an allergic reaction at the injection site. But what we did have to worry about was what to do with Emma on egg retrieval day because Kevin had to go with me since I'd be under anesthesia. Luckily, we had concocted a ruse to dupe my parents - we had told them we needed to go to The Woodlands early that Monday morning to sign the papers for closing on our home refinancing. There was some truth in it...we were going to The Woodlands....and we did refinance our house (the week before). So they kept Emma Sunday night while we stayed at the hotel next door to the doctor's office, so we wouldn't have to worry about getting stuck in Houston traffic. When we got to the office that morning, we were taken back and I was prepped, and then the magic happened. When I woke up, they told us that they'd only been able to retrieve 2 of the 3 eggs, which was a little disappointing, but still good news.
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| Two 8-cell embryos on Day 3 |
After this, it was just a waiting game. We had to wait to see if the two eggs would fertilize and grow. We had made it to this stage before and had it stall out...so it just keeps you on edge. But all was well, and the RE's nurse texted me the next day that everything was going great! Since we only had two eggs to transfer back, the doctor opted to do a Day 3 transfer instead of a Day 5 transfer like we did with Emma because we weren't having to pick the best two to put back in. So that Thursday morning we dropped Emma off at school, drove up to The Woodlands, and had them both transferred back. Now of course that meant there would be a chance for twins, but when you're going through all this IVF mess, you're grateful for how many ever you end up with! One of the nice things about transfer day is that you get your first picture of your potential child. I kept this picture hanging inside my medicine cabinet in the bathroom, so that I could see it every day.
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| Text from Nurse Janna |
Now the big wait was on...the dreaded two week wait as it's known in IVF circles. Two weeks of questioning what your body is doing. Two weeks of not being able to take a home pregnancy test because you were shot up with hormones. Two weeks of hoping and despairing. My RE's office was really good at checking on me though - to the right is one of the messages I got from the nurse while I was at the A&M football game, just 2 days post transfer.
I was scheduled to go on Monday, October 12th for my first beta blood test. But when I started getting nauseous 4 days before on October 8th that just made me even more antsy. So unbeknownst to Kevin, I held out til Sunday before I snuck in a quick at home pregnancy test, and it came back positive! But it was so light that I didn't want to tell him and get his hopes up, and I buried it in the trash can. Monday came, and we all three drove up to The Woodlands together. Kevin and Emma stayed in the car while I had my blood drawn, and we paid to get the test results back that day. Talk about the world's longest drive home and wait for a phone call...sheesh! But they called and confirmed what I had known already - we were PREGNANT! It was such a relief and weight lifted off of us to know it had worked. I had still had to do two more blood pregnancy tests over the next week to make sure the pregnancy was progressing, but they all came back with the numbers rising.
At this point, we still hadn't told any of our family members. In fact, the only people who knew were a few work colleagues that Kevin told since he was missing a lot of work, and my friend Marcia in Nebraska and my friend Jill who was helping me plan for our Disney Cruise in November. It was kind of nice keeping the secret to ourselves, but also so hard not to tell anyone, especially since I was really starting to feel pregnancy symptoms early. We had our first ultrasound at five weeks pregnant on October 22nd and a second one at six weeks on October 29th. Although it was really tiny, the RE was able to point out the baby's gestational and yolk sac. At the second appointment, we even got to see and hear the baby's heartbeat. At this point, I was released to my regular OB, and I scheduled my first appointment with them on November 12th - a day before we were scheduled to leave on our cruise. It was a long wait in-between appointments for us, especially when you're used to getting updates weekly.
At this point, we still hadn't told any of our family members. In fact, the only people who knew were a few work colleagues that Kevin told since he was missing a lot of work, and my friend Marcia in Nebraska and my friend Jill who was helping me plan for our Disney Cruise in November. It was kind of nice keeping the secret to ourselves, but also so hard not to tell anyone, especially since I was really starting to feel pregnancy symptoms early. We had our first ultrasound at five weeks pregnant on October 22nd and a second one at six weeks on October 29th. Although it was really tiny, the RE was able to point out the baby's gestational and yolk sac. At the second appointment, we even got to see and hear the baby's heartbeat. At this point, I was released to my regular OB, and I scheduled my first appointment with them on November 12th - a day before we were scheduled to leave on our cruise. It was a long wait in-between appointments for us, especially when you're used to getting updates weekly.
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| 6 weeks, 5 days ultrasound - the baby is in between the 2 blue pluses |
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| 8 week, 3 day ultrasound - our little gummy bear |
We had decided to surprise my parents on our Disney cruise, so we had to come up with some creative way to announce it to them that we could fit into our luggage. We settled on telling them the second night at dinner. Ironically, my dad had had two bottles of champagne delivered to our room when the cruise set sail, so we made sure to have a bottle delivered to table for dessert along with a package for them from the "Fairy Godmother." Their reactions were priceless!
Once we were back from the cruise, we set up a dinner date with Kevin's parents so that we could share the news with them too. We had bought them a Mickey Mouse keychain on the boat to give them because they had been commenting lately how their car isn't really big enough to carry the three grandchildren in all their car seats. Well, if three's a crowd, then four meant it was time to upgrade! They were super surprised as well!
The rest of our family we were hoping to tell around Thanksgiving, but everyone ended up scattered to the wind for the holidays, so we had to make a couple different announcements. On Thanksgiving, my Granny Marjorie got to open up the same picture we gave my parents on the cruise. Since Philip and Ashley were coming up to the farm the day after Thanksgiving, we decided we tell them then. For them, we dressed Emma in her shirt that says, "This little princess is a big sister" and let her run around playing in the backyard with them. We wanted to see how long it would take them to figure it out. After about 15 minutes of playing, Ashley finally caught sight of the word "sister" on the shirt, and her and Philip had to catch Emma to inspect her shirt. Boy, were they surprised! And happy! I'm pretty sure Ashley was already shopping on her phone for the new baby that afternoon. With Stephen and Emily, we decided to have Emma wear her shirt while we FaceTimed them during halftime of the A&M game. Emily spotted it almost right away! Slowly, we've been telling the rest of our immediate family members, but we wanted to wait until our 12 week OB appointment to tell everyone else.
So needless to say, everyone is very happy and excited. While I don't think Emma exactly understands yet what being a sister means, she can show you were the baby is, gives it kisses, tells it hello, and sometimes even likes to brush its hair (or my tummy) while we get ready in the morning...lol. I think she will love being a big sister though!
Once we were back from the cruise, we set up a dinner date with Kevin's parents so that we could share the news with them too. We had bought them a Mickey Mouse keychain on the boat to give them because they had been commenting lately how their car isn't really big enough to carry the three grandchildren in all their car seats. Well, if three's a crowd, then four meant it was time to upgrade! They were super surprised as well!
The rest of our family we were hoping to tell around Thanksgiving, but everyone ended up scattered to the wind for the holidays, so we had to make a couple different announcements. On Thanksgiving, my Granny Marjorie got to open up the same picture we gave my parents on the cruise. Since Philip and Ashley were coming up to the farm the day after Thanksgiving, we decided we tell them then. For them, we dressed Emma in her shirt that says, "This little princess is a big sister" and let her run around playing in the backyard with them. We wanted to see how long it would take them to figure it out. After about 15 minutes of playing, Ashley finally caught sight of the word "sister" on the shirt, and her and Philip had to catch Emma to inspect her shirt. Boy, were they surprised! And happy! I'm pretty sure Ashley was already shopping on her phone for the new baby that afternoon. With Stephen and Emily, we decided to have Emma wear her shirt while we FaceTimed them during halftime of the A&M game. Emily spotted it almost right away! Slowly, we've been telling the rest of our immediate family members, but we wanted to wait until our 12 week OB appointment to tell everyone else.
As we move into the second trimester, we do have some prayer requests...
- For my nausea to ease up. I've been experience a lot of nausea (worse than with Emma) and it's just been physically draining. While I have a medication I can take for it, I can only take half the nightly dose and none of the day time doses because it just turns me into a zombie. The trade-off of course is that I feel sick (but don't actually get sick) a lot of the time, especially at night, and I don't really feel like doing or eating that much. Except for pineapples, popsicles, and Mexican food...those are my go-to eats right now.
- For my blood work to stay normal. Right now, my blood pressure and thyroid levels are stable. With Emma, I had to be put on blood pressure medicine, and I'd like to avoid it. Being pregnant, my thyroid requires extra monitoring, and I've already had my dose increased once. But I've been stable since then, so hopefully we've found the magic number for me and the baby to coexist harmoniously.
- For patience with Emma. It's easy to get frustrated with your 2.5 year old when you don't feel well, and of course, she just doesn't understand why mommy can't do this or that. Plus if you read our last post, then you know Kevin heads off to Corpus in January - so I'll be going at it alone here at home (with the help of grandparents, aunts, and uncles).
- For a healthy baby. Kevin and I are both in agreement that we don't care if it's a boy or a girl - we just want a happy, healthy baby. Everything so far has been right on track, so we'd like to keep that going! We feel truly blessed!!
Congratulations Janet, Kevin and Emma!! So happy for you!
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