POAS Diva?! Damn Right! lol

For those who don't know POAS (pee on a stick) is just a way of saying taking a pregnancy test. lol The title of the blog is in dedication of a group of Soul Cysters I belong to who all LOVE to poas. :) Today I am 6 days post 3 day transfer (6dp3dt) and I am going NUTS wanting to POAS! I know it's too early but I feel like the tests are calling to me. Yes that sounds totally crazy but in this game of infertility and IVF it feels like everything is one long torturous waiting game.  Waiting to start cycling, waiting to start meds, waiting for your next b/w (blood work) and u/s (ultrasound), waiting for thaw and growth reports, waiting for transfer day and last waiting for confirmation that after it all it DID work and you hear the words "you are pregnant".  The uncertainty of all all is mind numbing.  Anyway, when  I got pregnant with Brayden I got my BFP(big fat positive) 9dp3dt, so I still have time but I think I am definitely going to test early.  I don't expect a BFP but I think I just need to get it out of my system and pee on something! haha.  So i guess we will see what happens and hope for the best!! Only 6 more days till my Beta (pregnancy blood work).

TTC Baby#2: Transfer Day!

I am like 2 weeks behind in posting about all the stuff that has been going on in the last few weeks. I'm slowly trying to catch up.

Hi Baby Keysers! Now get comfy!! 

Backtracking to CD1, on Oct 20th (Bray's bday), I finally got AF and our FET cycle officially began!
I'll prob make this a timeline to make it easier to explain :)

CD 2: Oct 21st: I had blood work and ultrasound on day 2 and everything looked great so they started me on Estrace aka estrogen to simulate egg growth artificially and help prime my lining for the transfer.  I was on increasing doses of that until my next u/s.

 CD 15: Nov 3: B/w and u/s for a lining check.  Everything looked perfect. E2 (estrogen) was at 850 and my lining was a nice and thick 14.

CD16: Nov 4: With the go ahead I started my other arsenal of medications in preparation for the transfer.  This includes PIEO, an intramuscular shot of progesterone in solution, progesterone suppositories, steroids, antibiotics and the 3x daily Estrace I was already on.  I also received a call from the embryologist to go over everything. The game plan was to thaw 6 embies and grow them to 3 day(since most of mine were frozen on day 1 b/c i has severe OHSS at the time of retrieval) and transfer the best two graded ones.

Being the Type A and just for organizing purposes I used the chart 

from when we did IVF with bray to keep track of all of my medication.  lol 

CD 18: Nov 6: Thaw report is in! All 6 embies made the thaw, 4 of the 6 were looking excellent, 2 were fragmented, meaning they were not dividing properly. Transfer is scheduled for 10am monday morning

CD 19: Nov 7: TRANSFER DAY! We dropped the baby off at my moms on the way to the RE office.  I had to be there at 9:15 for a 10am transfer.  They had me drink a ton of water to make sure my bladder was visible on the u/s machine. Of course my bladder was immediately overly full and I was sitting in my seat doing the "pee pee" dance. Classy I know! lol  We finally got called back and they had me get changed and gave me Valum to prevent cramping. Jason even got to "gown up" and put on the sexy hair covering and booties :) And then we wait! lol I hate sitting in the room waiting for the procedure to happen, I swear time ticks by SO slowly.  Finally the embryologist came in to go over the final embryo report. Out of the 6 the two that were preciously fragmented were not good so they were given to their research. The two we would be transferring were an 8 and a 6 cell embies. Both were considered GOOD grading. they couldn't be classified as excellent b/c they had the slightest amount of fragmentation. The other remaining two were refrozen leaving us 11 still on ice!

The procedure itself it nothing, The worst part for me was the overly full bladder. they had me try and empty only "2 cups full "  and that was SO hard to stop peeing when you have to go that bad. lol Once i was back in the room things got underway. it's a super fast procedure, they measure how far in they want to go, make the "drop" and take the cathedar back out. The embryologist looks at the cathedar under a microscope to make sure both embies are in me and not still in the tube.  It was painless and fast!  By this time the Valum had hit me full effect. They have you lay down on the slightly inverted table for 30 mins just to play it safe and I completely passed out from the meds. I am always so sensitive to that kind of medication. It always makes me dizzy/drunken-ish and disoriented, but as long as it did its job with the lack of cramping I was good!

We headed back to my moms to get Brayden and headed home. I'm now on the mandated 48 hour bed rest. It's really strict but then after that I can do normal activities with no bending at the waist and llifting over 15 lbs. The last part will be hard with Brayden being 20lb 13oz, but I'll just be careful to lift at my knees and arms when I do have to pick him up.

So now we wait... isn't that ALWAYS the case. TTC is just mean like that!  lol  I go on the 10th for b/w and u/s to check my lining and make sure all of my hormones look good and my meds don't need to be adjusting. Beta (pregnancy) blood work is scheduled for Sat the 19th. But I already planned on testing at home before that. I hope to wait until 9dp3dt (9 days after the transfer) but we will see what kind of willpower i have.  I got my positive test with Brayden that far out so that's why i figured I would start there.  :)  Wish us luck! i'm just hoping an praying this does the trick!  Brayden would love to have a little brother or sister! :)

A Comparison of embies!  

 Baby #1/#2 (good quality) Nov 7 2011  

VS  Brayden and his late twin(lost 5/6 weeks) (excellent/good quality)Jan 22, 2010

TTC Baby#2: One cycle away!! warning very TMI :)

I finally started my cycle. You gotta love PCOS (NOT!!!) and never knowing when the hell your cycle is actually going to start.  Even better it was a great cycle by my standards and was only 38 days. For me that is something to celebrate, especially when you consider my average cycle goes from 45-75 days.  But the joke is on me for celebrating because despite my "short" cycle it is HORRIBLE. (here's where the tmi starts if it already hasn't lol) Not only is the pain borderline "contraction like" and non stop but the flow is insane.  All i know is this is reason # 34543534 why I would love to be pregnant again. lol Those 9 glorious months of no cycle are a beautiful thing, and in the end you get a baby, BONUS! lol  Okay I really shouldn't complain. I talk to and know plenty of girls that NEVER get a cycle on their own with out medication so i should count myself lucky.

Back to the point... So despite the pain i am going through i am actually excited b/c this means we are almost to our FET cycle!! Since getting postponed in June it felt like it was NEVER going to come.  Now we're trying to figure out a game plan. This month we are going to induce my cycle instead of playing "Russian roulette" and seeing how things go. lol October and November looks like they are going to be so busy with Brayden's birthday, a handful of other birthday parties, Halloween, a wedding, an engagement party, then starting the holidays. In the midst of it all we are trying to fit in the FET. So the game plan is to induce my cycle really early rather than later. At my clinic the FET usually takes place on cycle day 19 (give or take based on how good your lining looks and your embryos thaw). So we are going to try and squeeze everything in the week before Brayden's 1st Birthday. I know that sounds backwards and nuts but it will actually work out best. The first 2 days I need to be on bed rest then i can go back to normal movement with the exception of the 10lb lifting restriction. That's going to be a problem NO matter when we do it with an almost 1 year old weighing 20 lbs. So i'm not even factoring that in.  Plus this way I will be busy getting ready and making food for Brayden's party so it'll all help keep my mind of the 2 week wait.  We were worried about doing it after his birthday b/c I didn't want to miss out on his first real trick or treating or my girlfriends wedding and other girlfriends daughters birthday. So here is hoping everything goes to plan. We know how I LOVE to do things smoothly! haha!!   So looks like I will be starting Provera this upcoming Saturday to get the ball rolling!  (For those who don't know what Provera is, it's progesterone pills that you take for 10 days and it induces your cycle). So now we count down!!!

Aside from planning out things we have been talking about the prospect of twins. I am actually a little nervous about this with already have one. Even after I talked to the RE months ago she still recommended we transfer 2 embryos and that's the way we are going to go.  We have two reasons for making this decision. #1, Brayden was one of 2 embryo's transferred. The second baby didn't make it past 5/6 weeks so knowing this we don't want to go through a cycle and have nothing implant. #2, we are all out of pocket at this point. My insurance through MW had covered our IVF cycle when we had Brayden. Even if I hadn't lost my job we exhausted all of our benefits and our insurance through Jason's job doesn't cover anything, not even blood work and ultrasounds! Thank you Aetna and ARI. lol Anyway, the whole cycle from pre-ivf testing, meds, bloodwork/ultrasounds package and the actual FET is about 4k. So needless to say if this god forbid didn't work (which is HAS to) we'd have to wait a long while to re-save enough for another go.  That being said, I'm still a little nervous about the prospect of twins but at this point the way we see it, it's all or nothing and what's meant to be will happen an we will make it work.  Of course I am getting way ahead of myself but we have to be realistic and open minded.  

For now we are  keeping our fingers crossed and hoping and praying for our little miracle baby #2!! 

And because every blog deserves a picture!  This little man deserves a sibling :)  

Look at that face!! Watch out ladies! 

Okay I had to post 2 ! :)