OB GYN

*Warning this post might piss you off and/or make you cry. It deals with unintentional pregnancies and pregnancy loss. I just need to get this stuff off my chest.*

I have been on my OB GYN rotation for several weeks and it has been really hard on me. At one point I thought maybe I would like to do OB GYN so that I could go on to be a RE, but I realized after only 2 weeks I could never surrive the 4 year general OB GYN residency I would have to do before specializing in OB GYN. In OB I saw a slew of women who were pregnant but didn't care about their unborn children. They did drugs, didn't take necessary prescription medications, and didn't take care of their chronic medical conditions that could harm their unborn children. One of the nurses said "If they loved their (unborn) babies ...xyz" and the doctor replied "well the problem is a lot of the women we see in this clinic don't love their babies." 

I saw women with a diagnosis in their medical charts of "unwanted fertility" (each time I saw this I silently raged), because these women keep getting pregnant, not wanting to get pregnant, because they failed to use birth control but continued to have unprotected sex.

At this point I was thoroughly pissed off. I think of all you wonderful ladies who would do anything to have a baby and would make wonderful mothers, but don't have your babies yet. I wish I could pull out a magical wand and put all these unloved babies into your loving wombs instead.

Then I saw several traumatic events that broke my heart. While on labor and delivery I had a patient come in in labor with a pre-viability pregnancy (but close) . She wanted her baby so badly. I could relate to her. We couldn't stop her delivery and we delivered her tiny baby, who was alive for about an hour before passing away. I was crying in the delivery room with the patient.

A few days later in procedure clinic I had a patient come in from her anatomy scan where they discovered her baby had died several weeks earlier. We had to perform a D&E. I won't go into details on this, but it was incredibly upsetting. Right after this procedure we had an add on D&C for an 8 week missed abortion. 

I elected not to take participate in or shadow at either of the local clinics that perform elective abortions. For this I am very grateful because I imagine that that would have damaged me even more.

I am really distressed and down. I know from reading IF blogs how miscarriages and losses are much more common than is discussed in society, but seeing so much first hand has really affected me. I had always thought I would be so happy when I got pregnant, and I am, but I am much more terrified then I ever thought I would be... I am praying for all of you ladies who recently found out you are pregnant that everything goes smoothly and your babies grow healthfully and for all you ladies that are still waiting that you get your BFPs soon.

Overjoyed and Terrified

Sorry to keep you all waiting. I've been waiting to write this post till I talked to one of my friends who reads this blog in person, I wanted to tell her the news before she read it. My beta from 9dp5dt was 137 and beta #2 was 238, which the doctor said was an adequate increase. Apparently, even though people talk of doubling, the cut off is more like a 66% increase in 48 hours. I am a bit nervous with 74% increase, because I have seen other women doing IVF who have had their betas triples or quadruple in 48 hours, but I am trusting my doctors when they say everything looks good.

I am in shock that I got a positive beta. I never peed on anything and I fully intended to wait till I got home from work to listen to the message with K. However, about an hour after I gave my blood at the lab I got a page from Dr. D (we work in the same hospital) that said, "Congratulations Dee! I am sorry, I couldn't wait. -Dr. D," which sent my heart into my throat, so I logged into my record and saw my first beta number. So I called K right away and told him, since I didn't want him worrying the whole day when I already knew the outcome.

I am so thankful for all of your support through this process. I don't think I could have made it this far without your friendships, support, and guidance. I know things are still very early in this pregnancy, but I hope that everything will work out.

I am simultaneously overjoyed and terrified. I feel really attached to bean sprout (as we have been referring to him/her) and I don't want anything bad to happen to him/her. (I call bean sprout a her and K calls bean sprout a him). Every time I get a cramp or pain in my abdomen/pelvis I panic. I still look at the toilet paper every time I go pee, praying not to see blood. I am calling to schedule my 7 week ultrasound today and I pray that we will see a heartbeat. I am trying to stay calm and excited.

7dp5dt

I'm 7dp5dt and doing well. I keep on going back and forth on whether I am going to test before my beta. My clinic tests on 10dp5dt so I am scheduled for my blood draw this Thursday morning, and they will call and leave a message with the result. Part of me is really anxious to test at home, because I really want to see a positive - and I want to see that positive right now! We have been waiting so long to see one. But on the other hand I know I would be devestated to see a negative, which has kept me from testing before today because I didn't want to see a negative because I tested too early. I feel like now at 7do5dt if I tested and it was negative, then there would be very little chance of it being positive with my beta.

In the past I always tested alone, with the hopes that I could suprise K with a positive, but I have decided this cycle I really want to find out at the same time as K if we are pregnant or not. I told K I wanted to test at home today with him, but he wants to wait. He thinks nothing good will come of me testing: that if it is positive there is still a chanec the beta will be low, which will devestate me, or if it is negative, I will be devestated, but there is a possibility that me beta could be positive. Plus, he says, I have waited so long already, so waiting 3 extra says for a more definitive answer would be better. I understand where he is coming from, and I really want us to find out together, so at this point I am planning on waiting till my beta (but it still is so hard, when I know that I could test right now and maybe find out I am pregnant). Even though the clinic will call in the morning with the message I will wait till we both get home from work to listen to it. Also, I don't want to find out at work where I won't be able to celebrate or mourn openly.

I am feeling pretty good. Most of the symptoms I have I had before the ET even took place or within the first 2 days after ET, so they are definately attributable to the hormones and progesterone/estrogen. My bloating and abdominal pain is finally gone - thank goodness! But I am still chugging a lot of gatorade just in case.

Break Down

I just had my first official IVF break down.

I got a letter in the mail today summarizing our embryo results. It says that they froze 2 blastocysts and discarded 4, which is very different from what I was told. 2 were ready to freeze right after transfer, and the other 4 continued to be cultured overnight, and the next day they told me they froze 2 more. I even relistened to the message I got the day after transfer and it clearly says "Good news! We were able to freeze 2 more blastocysts from the embryos we continued to culture." I called the RE lab right away and told them I had been told 2 were froze on day 5 and 2 were froze on day 6, but the lady I talked to said she doesn't know what happened the person who left the message must have read the report incorrectly and we only have 2 blastocysts frozen.

I am really upset. I know I am lucky to have 2 blastocysts, but I had been told we had 4, so its devestating to suddenly have half of our potential future children not exist anymore.

Frozen Embryos

After a dissapointing morning at work, were a physician told me that he was "against ART because if a woman can't get pregnant the universe is probably telling her something" and how he is "upset that RE's think they help people" (If only I were brave enough to respond to his comments, but I still had to work with him for several hours, and I'm not witty, so I just kept quite and gave him a look), things took a turn when I got a call from my Dr's office. They were able to freeze 2 more blastocysts! So now we have 4 frozen embryos. I know I was a little down that we only had 7 eggs fertilize but I am soo soo happy that 5 made it to blastocysts and were a high enough quality to freeze/transfer. It makes me hopeful that they are a good batch :)

I started feeling nauseous, having some lower abdominal pain and bloating, and just feeling sort of blah yesterday. Is it normal to feel this way after the ER/ET/all the hormones? I know these could be signs of early/mild OHSS so I am trying to rest and drink a lot of gatorade, but then I also wonder if it's just the cummulative effect of all the estrogen and progesterone I am taking. I haven't decided if I should call my clinic. I haven't gained any weight, which I know is the main sign of OHSS.

Last night I gave myself my first PIO shot by myself! K got stuck at work and wasn't going to get home in time so I sucked it up and did it. It didn't hurt, but when I pulled the needle out a little stream of blood started dripping down my hip/butt. On closer inspection afterwards I realized I had injected the PIO fairly close to a site where K had injected some over the last week. I don't know if that contributed to the bleeding or if I just nicked a capillary on the way in or out, but the bleeding was the only notable difference from when K does it. I might have to give it to myself again tonight, because my Resolve group meets tonight and my injection time is during our meeting. Unless, of course, I find a lucky friend who wants to do it for me :)

Transfer!

I just got home from our transfer. Everything went smoothly, and luckily I knew what to expect from my friends who have already been through this. They transfered 1 embryo - an "excellent" expanding blast. We also have 2 "good" blasocysts that they are freezing today and 4 others that they will continue to culture till tomorrow and freeze them if they can *grow little embryos grow!*. We have cute pictures of all of them :)

I listened to circle + bloom before the procedure, which was very relaxing, and in a few minutes I am going to go get a massage. After the transfer K and I got to hang out in the room for 10 minutes and it was nice. We were laughing and debating which of our characteristics our children will have. Then I stopped at the co-op on my way home to pick us up a piece of coconut cake to celebrate. It is 75 degrees here today - beautiful and sunny. I can't imagine a more perfect day then today: eating coconut cake with K in the sun with a little embryo getting comfy in my uterus :)

No vacuuming allowed

I forgot to mention my favorite part of IVF: my 10 lb weight lifting restriction that started after 6 days of stimming and continues for a week or two after retrieval. My nurse was giving examples of what was too much weight. For example, a vacuum creates 25  lbs of suction, so she said no vacuuming! And a wet pile of laundry weight 20 lbs, so no laundry :) All of this was said in front of my husband, which was great!

Egg Retrieval and Fertilization Report

The retrieval went well. I think the IV was the worst part. And not even actually the IV - The anesthesiologist said I had small veins in my hands so he put the tourniquet on really really tight and then slapped the back of my hand several time to make the veins pops out. The needle actually going in didn't hurt at all compared to the slapping lol.

At 9:30 I went pee then walked into the OR. I remember sitting on the bed, getting warm blankets put on me, feeling pressure as anesthesia went into my IV, taking a few breaths of oxygen, and then I was out. I woke up ~25 minutes later and was pretty much ready to go (although I had to wait around for 30 minutes). The pain was fairly minimal. In fact, I was feeling a lot of pressure before retrieval, and  the pain afterwards was almost better than the pressure I had before. I went home and K and I watched Brave and Wreck-it-Ralph :) I feel so lucky that retrieval went so well. I took 2 tylenol 3's when i got home per my nurses intstuctions and a few hours later I was itchy all over. I also developed the hiccups. The hiccups were horrible, so I don't plan on taking any more tylenol 3.

I just got the fertilization report this afternoon. We had 11 eggs retrieved, all of which were mature. They were able to ICSI all 11, and as of today 7 fertilized successfully and are growing in the lab. They are doing well enough that we are tentatively scheduled for a 5 day transfer on Monday. I get to call on Saturday to find out what time on Monday, as they only schedule the OR 2 days ahead of time. Then my pregnancy test is scheduled for 4/18 - only 2 weeks from today!

I was hoping for more eggs (and more embryos) given my age, but I know the Dr.'s were conservative in stimming me so that I didn't get OHSS. (I only used half of the meds prescribed to me, so I have enough follistim and menopur to do IVF again without buying anymore meds!) I am trying to stay clam and have faith. I hope that the quality of the eggs and embryos is good.  If we are lucky we might have a few to freeze.

I really really hope that I will be pregnant in 2 weeks.

IVF Day 9

Sorry I only have time for a quick up-date. Went in yesterday for another follicle check and found out I was done stimming!

Right: 21, 18, 18, 17, 17, 14, 13, 13, 12

Left: 18, 16, 14, 13, 11

Lining:  8.8

We did our trigger last night - 10,000 beta-hcg. I was terrified of the needle since it looked so big, but it hurt less than the ones I do in my abdomen. K did a really good job. Retrieval is tomorrow morning!