A transfer story

My acupuncture appointment was set for 7:30, the doctor consult at 9:00 and the transfer at 9:45. I didn’t sleep all night, partially because I was so excited and partially because I could not stop thinking about work. So I set the alarm for 5:45am because we had some BD business to take care of, per doctor’s orders, of course. (and not just doctor Google, yes, I even asked my doctor and he confirmed!) During the BD, I was thinking, now I can say that we had sex on the day we got pregnant. No causal relationship, but whatever.

Ann, our embryologist called when I just got off the acupuncture table, and said that both blasts survived the thaw and are expanding. Woo Hoo.

The two embryos were both frozen on Day 5 last May. From the numbers last time, we transferred #1 and #6. They were 5BB and 5AB. The first one is a CF carrier, and the second one is completely unaffected and not a carrier. Since we did the chromosomal testing, we know that the first one is a girl and the second one is a boy. The two we have left to freeze are both boys.

Our transfer room had two fancy chocolates on the “bed.” Such a nice touch. One blue, one pink. (Well, the pink one was actually red, but whatever, I used my imagination to make it applicable.) So we are sitting there in the transfer room. Carlos is playing with the music, and I am drinking water, wrapped up in two blankets and waiting for the valium to take effect. Carlos brought the music again this time, his Mac with itunes, so he could just pick the songs he felt best. We listened to Christian praise music in the pre-transfer, check-my-bladder time.

So since we are just sitting there, waiting. I’m thinking 10 steps into the future. I asked Carlos if we get pregnant with a boy this time, what are we going to do next time? Theoretically we would like two children, a boy and a girl. And Carlos thinks it’s ideal to have the boy first, then the girl. Which is how it is in his family. And it totally works.

We probably should be way past thinking so ideally, but clearly we're still optimistic. Anyway, I wanted to know if he'd be interested in having two boys and then trying again for a girl, which of course, would mean a fresh cycle, I am making several major assumptions this time.

#1. that we get pregnant with one boy this time, have a healthy baby.
#2,that the two boys survive the thaw next time and we get pregnant with a singleton (the assumption that the next FET would be a boy is backed up by science.).

And there are actually a ton more smaller assumptions in there. I realized I was making LOTS of assumptions and decided to slow down my line of questioning. He said, let's just see what happens this time. And he's right. So, it’s a good thing the doctor walked in at that moment to get me ready for the transfer. My bladder was full, I was open and ready, and then the embryologist brought in our babies in a catheter.

Carlos played American Baby by Dave Matthews Band. It's the perfect transfer song. The refrain is

Stay beautiful baby.
I hope you stay American Baby.
American baby.

And that's exactly my prayer and wish. Please stay for the next nine months. I can’t wait to meet you then.

twas the night before transfer...

and I am finally getting home from work past 11:00 pm.

i hate lying to my boss and co-workers. they know that i am going to a girls weekend with my college girlfriends this weekend. But of course, I'm off tomorrow, Thursday, and Friday. You, blogosphere know why. But they don't.

So, my boss says, are you flying tonight? when she sees me working late. We frequently take the redeye from the nearby big city. Instinctively, because I'm an honest person, I say, oh no, we're flying Friday. which probably leaves her wondering. Why are you taking off tomorrow and THursday, then? But she doesn't ask.

Because, really, i haven't taken vacation in a long time. My company is one of those awesome companies that gives me over 5 weeks of vacation a year. Not kidding. Yeah, you get it. But it's pretty hard to use it. i'm really hoping that next year I have a roughly 7-pound reason to use it. But i didn't use it all this year, and no one seems to think it's a big deal that i'm using it now. Actually i lose some vacation that I don't use by Agust 31. so this transfer actually comes at a good time, since it forces me to use it.

A few other random thoughts..

Sex before FET - I just learned from reading a blog and then googling that sex before FET is a good thing. Supposedly there are studies that says it helps with implantation. I hope Carlos is ready, because when I hear news like this, I take it seriously! I'm thinking we are waking up early tomorrow. Oh wait.. I mean VERY early tomorrow. I gotta be at acupuncture at 7:30.

New thought.. Medrol is nasty. Seriously, why can they not make it taste better? it's the nastiest thing ever. I gag every time i take it. I'm glad the transfer is here because it means one day closer to not taking that nasty pill anymore.

I am feeling really good about this cycle! I really feel like my high levels of estrogen caused by very early miscarriage last time. This cycle being natural (even though I am taking combo-suppositories) I'm hoping is the thing that makes my embies stick!

ohmigosh - i woke up early Satrday morning and read the LFCA.. I couldn't believe it when I saw the someone posted my news to the LFCA. what a huge JOY!! I have a pretty cool life, but I gotta tell you, that was one of the coolest expereinces ever! I do hope I get some support on transfer day and the waiting period, and I hope that my blog helps someone along the way!

ok, that's it. I'll report on the transfer tomorrow.

Transfer Report

Wow, what a day!

There is so much to write, and I'm finally getting to it. Today was really amazing!

Our appointment was scheduled for 12:30 at the fertility clinic, so I scheduled acupuncture at 11:30. The acupuncture office is less than a block away, so super convenient.

I couldn't sleep so I got up really early and got a lot of work done. I wasn't sure how much I'd be able to do today. (pretty much none, until about an hour ago, so I'm glad I did that. I did a ton of laundry and re-read my day of transfer instructions.

We got the call from RGI about 9:00 am. She gave us all the results of the PGD testing - We already knew they tested one cell from 14 embryos. (I don't think I wrote about how we got from 17 to 14, but we did.)

Anyway, I have all the stats, but basically, she told us that we had 8 embryos that they were recommending for transfer.. which is GREAT NEWS! Of course, we didn't know at that point how many of those would look good or still be dividing.

So... of the 14, 6 either were affected with CF or aneuploidy or only had one chromosome. We had one with Klinefleter's as well. (That's XXY on the sex chromosome.
It was all very very interesting, and she told us we would have the full report at the doctor's office. We were glad we did the anueploidy testing, even though we would not have done it if we weren't already doing PGD. Of course, we probably wouldn't be doing IVF at all, if we weren't doing PGD.

I didn't expect the embryologist to call (usually you just get all the news when you get there) but she did about an hour later and shared that they talked to RGI. One of the eight had arrested (stopped growing). So, we had 7 to choose from.

I went to acupuncture, and it was great and relaxing and nice to see the Dr. that we have gotten to know over the past several weeks - he was very encouraging.

I had been drinking my protein shake all morning, and I couldn't help it, when I got to the doctor's office 10 minutes early, I went to the bathroom. You have to have a full bladder for the transfer, and they had told me to start drinking 10 minutes before I got to the doctor's office, so I figured if I went now, then I could start drinking again. I knew the process of discussing the embryo options and transfer process chat with the doctor would be an hour or so, and I didn't want to be doing the potty dance the whole time.

So, we ended up waiting in the waiting room for like thiry minutes, i'm sipping my water the whole time. They brought be back for blood pressure check and bladder check. I said don't even bother - it's not full yet. Then i decided, why not, just check. I was so happy when she said, oh, you're good. You can stop drinking. I had visions of having this totally full bladder and being so uncomfortable and that was not the case at all.

So, we went and talked to the Doctor and looked at the pictures and asked all kinds of questions. He was so patient with all our questions.

We had great embryos, and ended up picking two to transfer. We picked one that was 6AA and one that was 3AA. The doctor told us they rarely give A grades to embryos. And I told the doctor that we were pretty used to getting As when they were rarely given. (Just kidding.) The first number refers to how far along in hatching the embryos. The 6 was fully hatched, and the 3 was hatching.

We just picked the two we liked the best.. but it does happen to be one boy and one girl. (Carlos was pleased that the boy was a little farther along.)

After we talked to the doctor, we were led to the transfer room by my favorite nurse.

The transfer experience was beautiful.

There were two Lindt Lindor chocolates on the bed - which I thought was a really nice touch. Carlos put in the CD he created for the occasion, and I just relaxed, thanks to the Valium I had taken 10 minutes earlier, and really just a general good, hopeful feeling.

It was just a lovely expereince. The whole thing took 10 minutes -- the nurse had my uterus on the ultrasound, the doctor put the catheter in.. It didn't hurt at all. Then my favorite embryologist comes in and brings the embryos in the inner catheter, which got inserted to the catheter which was already there.. The embryos were released into my uterus. A flash of light appeared on the screen, and it was done.

I rested right there for about 15 minutes, listened to more tracks on the Embryo Transfer CD, got dressed, and went to acupuncture again. By this time it was 3:30. I wasn't starving but was very pleased that Carlos had gone to get me some yummy lunch while i was at acunpuncture. I ate that in the car, while Carlos stopped at Blockbuster to get me two movies. He got Flash of Genius and Bride Wars. I had been wanting to see Flash of Genius and couldn't think of another one, but there was a Bride Wars poster, so I asked for that. I just wanted him to get them quickly so we could get home.

I pretty much slept all afternoon.

What a fantastic day and what a great experience this has been.

Thanks for reading - this was a long one.

Oh yeah, and we froze two today, and we'll see how many we have to freeze tomorrow.

I'll update on that and then also post photos of the embryos!