A Look Back: Our IVF Timeline

April 2011- called Dr. Isaacs to get started, gather all info. we needed, and began birth control and Synthroid

May 27- began taking a baby aspirin daily along with Synthroid, birth control and vitamins.

May 30- met w/Dr. Isaacs to get schedule and order all medications (even for Daniel)

June 2- appt. for ultrasound & blood work (all was good)

June 6- stop birth control

June 10- appt. w/Dr. Isaacs for ultrasound & blood work. Began shots daily (2/day)-Daniel begins his antibiotic twice daily for 7 days. Me: off of caffeine.

June 11- shots and I told Daniel I’d be glad to make his antibiotic into liquid form so he could have a shot too and not feel left out. J He politely declined.

June 12-13- shots and other meds

June 14- shots, other meds, and appt. to check follicles (at least 20 or more present and all were measuring 11mm or below). Also had blood work done to check estrogen level (high- reduced meds in shots)- began a shot of Ganirellix to keep from ovulating.

June 15- shots and Ganirellix

June 16- shots, other meds, and appt. to check follicles (24 total & all measuring 10mm-16mm) Daniel gave shots as usual this day, but for some reason it seemed like he was stabbing me. He always looked at me with puppy dog eyes and asked if he did ok. When I’d respond he’d always say, “I’m sorry. I love you. Thank you for going through this for us.”

June 17- shots and other meds

June 18- shots, other meds, and appt. to check follicles- Begin Lupron @ 10 p.m. ( I know we said we weren’t going to do Lupron, but the nurse assured us that this time it wouldn’t be as strong and not have the same side effects.)

June 19- no regular shots, but last Lupron @ 10 a.m.

June 20- egg retrieval (28 eggs!)- pretty bad cramping afterwards and very bloated feeling. Gas pain was HORRIBLE & couldn’t comfortable enough enough to sleep until about 3 a.m. Daniel rolled over just after I’d dozed off and kneed me in the rear, not on purpose, but oh how painful it was?!

June 21- take Estrace a.m. and p.m. Liz called from the lab to tell me the success of fertilized eggs. 14 ICSI and 10 fertilized; 14 conventional and 10 fertilized. These are awesome results, but not to say they’ll continue to grow. Liz will call me daily to discuss the progress of the embryos with hopes of transfer on Saturday.

June 22- 18 embryos today 2 looked abnormal yesterday w/3 nuclei and that leaves us with 18 embryos. Liz says they’re doing really well.

June 23- feeling more like myself today. I guess laying around all day yesterday helped. All 18 embryos still growing & ½ of them look great. I even went for a short run and it felt great!

June 24- All 18 still growing with transfer tomorrow @ 9 a.m.

June 25- Valium @ 8 and a full bladder. Transfer was a breeze. Transferred 2 embryos and have a picture. Bed rest today and for the next two days.

June 26- bed rest, lots of TV, reading, and napping.

June 27- bed rest and same as yesterday – a bit of a meltdown today due to a bad case of the “what ifs”

July 1- blood work looks great. Progesterone:30 and they wanted it to be at least 20; Estrogen was 227 and they wanted it to be at least 200.

July 5- blood work @ 9 a.m. Beta HcG 489; Progesterone: 36. WE ARE PREGNANT!!!! I pulled out old pregnancy tests from so many years of trying and took one. J It was fun to see it say “pregnant”.

July 6- took another pregnancy test- still pregnant. J

July 7- blood work today- #s look great! HcG should double every 48 hrs: Today it was 1,280. Keep growing little ones!

July 9- We went home to Meridian today to take Moma and Poppie a “house warming” present and Daniel’s mom an early birthday present. When we told both our parents, I read our intro into our journey & allowed them to open their presents. Both were shocked and ecstatic!

July 10- Madz was having a not so great day today and had accidentally dropped Stephen’s grilling plate that Linden gave him for Father’s day. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to travel to have a long visit with her in Tuscaloosa this summer so I decided to make her “not so great day” a little better. She kept asking me to say it again so she could make sure she heard me right.

July 13- Beta HcG: 23,489; Estrogen 699; Progesterone 29 (I’m still taking the progesterone shot nightly.)

July 21- 1^st ultrasound to determine how many embryos took. TWINS!!! Hearing and seeing both heartbeats is the best sound ever! No more Dr. Isaacs. We will miss them!

August 10- ultrasound with regular OB. All went well! Still two heartbeats (178 & 181).

August 19- no more progesterone shots. NO MORE SHOTS period!!! Yahoo!

August 22- ultrasound… all is well. Heartbeats were great (168 & 171) and babies are growing and MOVING great.

Praise God from whom all blessings flow….

Memory Lane

Before we began this whole IVF process, Daniel and I had to do some serious praying because we didn’t want to be doing this because we wanted it so bad, but we so desperately wanted and still want to do what He wants us to do. Sometimes it’s hard to distinguish between your own feelings and what God is trying to tell you. We also had to save our pennies. A lot of them! We knew going into this that it would take a toll on us both emotionally and financially. December 2009, was a scary month for us since I was on a Lupron shot in hopes of “killing” any endometriosis that was still there. Lupron made me a completely different person. A person who no longer wanted to be around anyone else and a person who even had a thought of taking her own life. That is NOT me! So with that being in the back of our minds, we decided to pray our way through this process.

We promised each other that if Lupron was going to be in the picture for IVF that we’d be ok with not following through. We also promised each other that we would continue to let God use this to bring us closer to each other, but more importantly, closer to Him instead of letting it be a wedge between us in our marriage.

In the beginning of the process, Daniel and I took a beach trip with my sister, Madz, and her sweet little family. As we were on our way back home, we were listening to K-Love radio and “Blessings” came on. That song really hits home with me because what if trials of this life are our mercies in disguise? Makes you think, huh? Another song came on the radio by Third Day, “Cry Out to Jesus”. This song makes me want to kick myself because how often do we think and try to do things on our own, but just when it doesn’t work out the way we had planned, we cry out to Jesus? We cry out and say we’re sorry for not trusting Him in the beginning, but if we are truly sorry wouldn’t we simply trust Him in the first place? I need to follow the advice I give my students all the time when they say “sorry” for doing wrong. If you are truly sorry, you wouldn’t do it again.

Now that I’ve given you a brief introduction to our journey through this, I hope you enjoy taking a trip down our “memory lane”, and we ask that you continue to pray for us. By no means is this journey over. So, we ask that you pray specifically for strength, encouragement, faith, hope, and love.