Round 3! (Yes, seriously.)

We're beginning round 3 after our last embryo didn't take. It was another heartbreaking set back, but we're not done yet! I promised our IP parents that we wouldn't stop until they had their baby in their arms, and I meant every letter of that. But, let's hope that the third time is the charm!

Going through this experience has shown me just a glimpse of what many people have to go through just to have a family of their own. Each loss is heartbreaking even though it's not really my loss, and I couldn't imagine the pain that our IPs go through  every time. I have a new found appreciation for fertility specialists and the miracles that they perform every day. We love, love, love Tonya, Dr. Foulk and their amazing team, I couldn't imagine better people to work with in this endeavor!

Here's our latest video update detailing our negative pregnancy test and our next steps moving forward. Here's to round 3!

Embryo Transfer

The deed is done! We transferred a beautiful 5-day embryo. You can see the two white lines in the upper right side of the ultrasound, in between those lines is where they placed the embryo. And, of course, there's what the little embryo looked like before the transfer. Precious, right?

We're 48 hours post transfer and, other than feeling bloated, doing great! I had some cramps and a dull lower back ache yesterday along with some mild headaches, all things we're hoping are symptoms of our little embie implanting nice and snuggly! We still have one week until our pregnancy test; I'm pretty sure it'll be the longest week of my life!

Embryo Transfer Prep

With the successful completion of our embryo transfer yesterday, we decided to show the expanse of our transfer preparations. A lot of hard work, calculation, and needles go into the embryo transfer and maintaining the pregnancy itself, and more often than not most people are unaware of how the process itself works.

I'm sure most of you have seen what our calendar looks like, it's very colorful! Each color represents us starting something, stopping something, or going into the clinic for blood work, ultrasounds and other appointments; except for the pink markers, those indicate my lazy days! :) Everything on there is a task we need to complete, an appointment we need to keep, or reminding Jack that he needs to cook dinner for two nights. It's a lot to keep track of, and I'm truly grateful for our wonderful coordinator who dedicates so much time to making sure we know what we're doing and when, and for taking the time to answer my silly questions at odd hours. We love working with UFC and I couldn't have asked for more amazing people to be surrounded by!

Here is a video update detailing how we prep for our embryo transfer!

As always, please feel free to reach out to us with any questions or comments you may have! We want to get a discussion going about infertility in our society and what we can all do to help and encourage everyone around us!

One Week Countdown!

We are ONE WEEK away from our embryo transfer. This is our busiest week for this surrogacy. We'll be adding three different medications, all on different days, and all with varying intensities and duration. It's quite a bit to keep track of, but luckily Tonya, our superstar coordinator, has our calendar all mapped out!

We started this transfer cycle at the end of last month with our baseline ultrasound and blood work. All of our blood tests for now are E2 blood draws, which tests the amount of estrodiol (17 beta-estrodiol) in my body. The first baseline E2 test came back a little higher than they wanted it to be, 183 when they wanted it under 100, so the next day we redrew the test to make sure my estrodiol level was dropping. Our second result came back just they way they wanted it too, so we began our estrodiol injection that night.

But wait, why did they want my estrodiol level low when they were just going to turn around and shoot me up with that very hormone? Great question, the reason why is because they needed a baseline to measure all of our subsequent tests against. If they had used my first E2 result, which was too high, my next E2 test after I had started the hormones wouldn't have been an accurate representation of how my body was taking the estrodiol injection. My baseline ultrasound was used the same way, to show the progress my body was making in preparation for our embryo transfer.

We have weekly E2 blood draws to ensure that my body is still making the progress it needs to be making. So far, they've all been perfect. Last Friday (March 4th) we had our uterine lining check. I was a little nervous, seeing as our first lining check in our first embryo transfer showed that my uterine lining was too thin, and we had to add another hormone medication to help stimulate it. Happily, it seems my body is taking to the hormones even better this time around! Our uterine lining looked perfect, happy and healthy and almost ready for a baby!

As we delve into our one week countdown to our embryo transfer, I'll be updating more frequently as almost every day has a new aspect to it in preparation to our transfer. As always, positive thoughts are greatly appreciated and questions are always welcome! Please don't be shy to reach out at all, this is a subject that affects us all in one way or another, and I love seeing the wonderful community that surrounds infertility and its treatments!