Miracle Birthday 2014

Posting this because:

- I did this just now

- I've never seen a "successful" one before

- I wanted a more "traditional" proof of our miracle especially since making it happen had us traveling down an unconventional path

- I just want to ;)

Even if I first found out officially about a week and a half ago, I still wanted to pee on a preggers stick. I want to see that positive second line - the more conventional way that people find out they're on the way. It was as satisfying as I imagined. I loved it. Loved looking at it. Loved waving it around at my husband. Loved it. 

Love the little one finally finding its way and is burrowing into my uterus. 

Love love love. 

I didn't want to update sooner because.... well, I guess a part of me was still "waiting for the other shoe to drop". Infertility traumatizes in so many ways and I am surprised to experience this weird sense of "bracing" for the miracle to be taken away. Getting disappointed way too many times does that to you. Failing too many times can make you start to doubt if you deserve to succeed. A part of me wanted more proof, before I could allow myself to write these words. 

By no means am I over it - this sense of "bracing" - but I do feel like the unbelievably good news has started to sink in more and more each day. Especially - most especially - during the milestone little victories whenever we have a blood test and ultrasound (now every 5 days) to make sure the baby is growing well. One good side in IVF is the constant monitoring. I find myself waiting for the next check to put my mind at ease that everything is going well. 

We've told some people but not too many - just family, very good friends who've been with us in this journey and of course, as a matter of necessity, my colleagues because they needed to understand my frequent skip-outs and absences. 

We've also allowed ourselves to dream - to imagine, to think farther ahead. We've also started saying "baby" instead of embryo. And saying "baby" sends so much joy into my heart- more than I can ever express. 

I know there's still a long road to go from here. I'm only 5 and a half weeks along, and due to my immunologic issues, there are many things to manage. But I am all prepped for it. Injections of heparin have to be done daily. And those shots can hurt. They can look innocent like this -

But they can cause bruises on the stomach as bad as this --

(Don't be too alarmed. Since then I've learned to inject very very slowly, as in over 3-4 minutes, and to wait 10 seconds before pulling the needle out. But still, this mother fucker of a bruise still freaked me out when it appeared hahaha)

On top of that, I need to double up on acupuncture and to continue my LIT rounds. Pricey when they all pile up, but no money has ever been more worth spending. 

What else... Not much symptoms so far but I know it's still early. The only big one so far is the cramping in the early morning, enough to wake me up. I just find myself talking to the baby, telling it to go ahead and keep growing and not worry about the cramping. Mommy can take it all and much much more just to make sure he/she is healthy and growing strongly. Nothing else matters. 

Love. 

This has been the best birthday, best month, best time of my life. I can't find enough words to describe it - truly a dream come true. 

Thank you so much. 

Thank you. 

My heart is full. 

PUPO take 2!

Okay, I mentioned before what PUPO meant, right? In infertility lingo, it means "pregnant until proven otherwise" and this is a term that women use after undergoing an embryo transfer, because technically, you have a living embryo in your uterus but then it's too early for you to know for sure if it took and if the pregnancy has officially begun. Anyway...

So yesterday was my FET. I arrived at KATO at 11am to get my blood drawn for my progesterone level. My last blood work showed that my P4 levels were on the low side of normal so the doctor said we have to check again on FET day to make sure I was making enough progesterone. It was a bit of a wait as there was a marked increase in the number of women who were there at the same time. So Dennis and I took turns playing games on the iPad (I’m currently obsessing on Diner Dash 2015, try it!) to pass the time. After an hour, the doctor went to me and said “we’re a go!” Hoorah!

So the next step was for the embryologist to thaw my lone blastocyst (which took 7 days to achieve blasto stage, coming from a semi mature egg that went through IVM or in vitro maturation) and see if it can survive enough for transfer. We were sent off to lunch and told to come back in an hour. Nerves in my midsection once again!!! I prayed that my dear little fighter could survive the thawing process. I knew it developed slowly back in June when we did the retrieval (if you want a reminder of how this part of the story unfolded, go to this: http://mylittlesanctuary.blogspot.com/2014/06/embryologist-consult.html)

I guess it’s due to being only half-mature at the egg stage and I read somewhere that the energy for an embryo to go along the dev’t stages all came from the egg. Ironically though, this particular blasto originally had a companion – a second egg cultured to blasto stage using a mature egg. I would’ve assumed the mature contender would make a stronger blast but surprise surprise, it disintegrated on day 6. My little fighter of a semi-mature egg turned slowly into a blast by day 7 and held on! Wow! The embryologist was initially concerned about its slow dev’t but it made it on Day 7 and was sent to be frozen. So that brings my frozen inventory to 2 : one blast and one day-2 embie. Then I found out I had autoimmune conditions that I had to address first before doing the transfer phase. So my two snow babies were frozen from then on until October when my LAT scores finally went up.

Okay, so back to my FET story. We came back from lunch early and waited anxiously for the thaw report. We were called in after a few minutes and were told that yes, our little fighter made it to thaw and the embryologist subjected it to laser assisted hatching or LAH as they called it because they felt its outer shell was harder than they wanted it to be, especially considering that this blast was on the “weaker” side as its dev’t was quite slow at the onset. They said this LAH step should increase its chances of implanting because the hatching part will easier. I hadn’t quite thought much about assisted hatching at that point but I felt what they said made sense. I was then led to the prep room to prepare for the transfer.

The transfer itself went well partly because I already knew what to expect. I emptied my bladder and changed into the gown and put on my OR cap in quick succession. No more tentative steps like with my first ivf. This ain’t my first turn on the merry-go-around after all. While waiting to be called into the OR, I said a prayer and found myself sobbing the words out in my head. I prayed for a safe procedure and a successful transfer. I prayed that this little fighter was going to be our take-home baby. There’s got to be a reason why it was able to hold on against the odds. I cried out all my anxiety and found a sense of calm afterwards. Just in time to be called into the OR.

The actual procedure felt a bit more painful than I remembered. Maybe because I had given Dr. Mendiola a printout of my bicornuate uterus beforehand (which I didn’t do the first time around) to guide him on where to best deposit the embryo. As a result, he seemed to have prodded around a bit before settling on a spot. I hope this was a good sign. Everything else was routine. Oh and my uterine lining was a good 10! Yay!

In the end, I got this picture of our expanding blast and got sent home with Progynova, progesterone suppositories and Dydrogesterone tabs to take until my beta day next week. That was a surprise for me as I thought it would take 9 days to do my blood test. Apparently, the LAH cut down a bit of the wait time and I test for the outcome exactly a week after. Nice. Less waiting time means less crazy time with the hormones messing with my head and my emotions and with the idle time on my hands leading me to Google stuff online that I shouldn't be reading anyway. Haha!

And here’s the snapshot of my little fighter. Say hello!

It was graded a "D" with A being the highest. I am not sure how they do blastocyst grading in KATO, as it doesn't coincide with world standards (or maybe American standards, to be precise, which uses a mix of numbers and letters in blastocyst grading). In any case, I figure, there's no use obsessing about it anyway, since I would have still done the transfer no matter what the implications of the grading may be. This little fighter will get his or her chance to grow into a baby inside me, and only fate will be the final arbiter if it makes it or not.

Hang in there, little fighter! Mommy loves you already.

Waiting for you, love!

Looks like we're a go for Tuesday's embryo transfer of our Day-5 embaby. Please pray for us that everything goes well!!

I have this superstitious thing of doing everything differently from the first ivf round, in the hopes that it leads to a different result. For instance, no staycation this time. Plus, I'll do a traditional Pinoy hilot in the abdominal area tonight as a form of prep work for Tuesday. I'm also not taking the entire 10 days off from work. I'll only be out for 4 working days, giving myself about 6 days post transfer to let the embryo implant. After that, I'll go back to the office for about 3-4 more days before the results day. I'll also do acupuncture the day after the transfer. All these things, I did differently in the first round. I know it's pure superstition but hey, what if it works?! Hehe. 

Praying for you to come along this time around, little love. Let this be IT. 

So this happened today...

I pray it's a harbinger of better things to come in the future, specifically this month as we try again to fulfill our baby dream! 

From my coworker, as texted to her by HR:

Good morning. I'm rushing to include Gladys' midyear promotion to Center Head/AVP for implementation this coming payroll. I think  you'd concur but I still need your "yes" to my sms then I'll send the panel feedback form ☺ Tks.

Grateful. 

Very grateful. 

This happens just when we wrapped up last weekend by talking about finances, cutting back and managing better. Can't help but see this as a sign that things will be alright, that Someone up there looks out for us, and that (hands together in prayer) we'll see the fruition of that which we have been wishing for for so long. 

Thank you again, my earthly boss. And thank you even more, to the Boss up there. You made this happen. 

:)