Bedrest, bedrest and more bedrest

Well here I am, just hours post transfer of two beautifully thawed 5 day embryos! Everything went very well, lets just hope these embryos stick (well, at least one of them:) The guys called me several times over the past few days to wish me luck and to share their gratitude and to send thoughtful hugs and words of encouragement. I truly am very blessed to have been their chosen one to carry their precious cargo. 

During our first embryo transfer, my bladder was a tad bit under-filled, and the tech. had a little bit of trouble visualizing my uterus on the ultrasound while the doctor worked his magic. This time, I wanted to be sure that I did not make the same mistake, so after breakfast, I emptied my bladder and then chugged about 20+ oz. of water on our way to the clinic. I was still worried that my bladder wouldn't be full enough, but BOY was I quickly mistaken on that judgement call! The nurse had me all gowned up and situated on the table, when she put the ultrasound wand on my stomach and said "wow, your bladder is pretty full", I explained why I drank so much this time and she gave me the option to either A.) go and empty it part-way, or B.) opt to be catheterized after the procedure so I wouldn't be so uncomfortable while I laid at an upside down angle on the table for 30 minutes afterwards. The vivid memory of having been cathed before, without any anestheisa...youch....made the decision to empty my bladder part way, an easy one :). I felt like such a pain in the ass already at that point because I had to get off the table and travel across the hall to the room with the bathroom, but it was definitely necessary. The embryologist asked the nurse if the embryos were girls or boys, I told her that the guys did not opt to do PGD testing (which also allows the option to determine the sex of the embryos along with any other abnormalities), and the embryologist said "well, I can tell you this, they will either be boys or girls", she was a funny lady, I liked her. All staff at La Jolla are very friendly and Dr. Smotrich is amazing as always.

Once Dr. Smotrich arrived in the room and prepped me, the embryos were implanted with ease in a matter of seconds. He said his prayer in Hebrew, and I caught an English word at the tail end of the prayer......it was "multiply"......so I really hope that doesn't mean that he prayed these embryos would multiply..........I'm sure it must mean something else. 

After the procedure, the bed was angled upward so I was at more of an upside down position for 30 minutes. I had to pee so bad even before those 30 minutes started slowly ticking away. Terry tried distracting me while I seriously contemplated yelling for the nurse to come in and cath me. After about 25 minutes of that agony, the nurse came in and said she knew I was probably very uncomfortable and she wheeled me into the bathroom where I proceeded to pee the longest pee ever known to mankind. Probably TMI for a lot of you, but I was actually laughing while I was peeing because it just wouldn't stop, and even the nurse was laughing at me because she brought my clothes into the bathroom and I was still peeing. 

Now, onto 3 days of bedrest!

 

Last lining check

Looking back at my last monitoring appointment, while I've been fretting all week about whether my uterine lining would be thick enough or not, last week the tech. told me that my lining was at a .7 and I couldn't believe it! After that, the clinic increased my estrogen in hopes of helping my uterine lining to fluffen up a bit. Yesterday was my appointment to check on this progress one last time before traveling to La Jolla for the much anticipated embryo transfer. If a surrogate's lining is not thick enough, the transfer will be cancelled, or even worse, she could be declined from ever being a surrogate again (if her body does not respond to the medications). I don't even think I let the tech. insert the ultrasound wand before I asked her what my lining was this time. She doesn't have much of a personality........so I usually try to just be quiet and let her "do her thing" while I'm there, without asking  too many question. When she said ".95"......I felt my heart sink. I could have thrown up at that point. I made the comment "oh wow, that's very thin, I wonder what's going on", she responded "no, that's pretty thick, that's like almost a CENTIMETER "wait a minute, rewind.....say WHAT?! So, you mean, this entire week (which has felt like forever) I've been under the assumption that my uterine lining was at .7 MILLIMETERS, while it was really being measured in CENTIMETERS?! Phew! In millimeters, my lining is actually about 10mm, which is wonderful and fluffy! Who woulda thunk it would only take the news of a fluffy uterus to make my week :) I've been on cloud 9 ever since! Now what will I find to worry about next?

We are bound for California on Wednesday February 13th, I have another appointment on Valentine's day at 9:30am (PST) at the clinic, and the transfer will be on the morning of the 15th. For Valentine's day, Terry and I will be going for breakfast, possibly to a movie, and definitely out for a nice steak dinner. I like my red meat very rare (I'd eat it raw, really) but that's a definite "no-no" for a surrogate during pregnancy, so I'm going to savor my potential last really great tasting steak dinner before the transfer, hopefully my last great tasting steak dinner for roughly 38 weeks :) I'll be on strict bed rest for the 3 days including and following the transfer. By strict bed rest, this means that I will only be getting up to pee and brush my teeth. It wasn't as bad as I thought last time, so I'm actually kind of looking forward to it this time! Terry has been getting more and more excited (although he won't admit it :) while he's making plans for what we'll do before the transfer while we're enjoying some nicer weather. Updates to follow :)

Sticky patches and such

I had my weekly monitoring appointment today to check my hormone levels and uterine lining. By now I think you all know how much of a worrier I am. I apologize if I come off as negative or pessimistic, but I WILL find something to worry about, even though I can't stand the feeling of worrying and I hate that I annoy others around me who know that I'm worrying and I HATE hearing the words "don't worry" until I have proof that I have no need to worry :).

For those of you who do not understand all of this crazy surrogacy stuff, I'll do my best to explain just the very few basic necessary details to understand why I worry about these monitoring appointments (leading up to the embryo transfer). Every clinic is different, but most will want your uterine lining to be anywhere from 7mm-12mm thick in order to transfer embryos. Naturally, everyone's lining changes throughout their cycle, so they're constantly monitoring to see that it first thins (after a period) and then thickens. The thicker the better, usually. The estrogen is responsible for thickening a surrogate's lining. If a surrogate's lining is "too thin", they will not transfer the embryos and will have to start all over, or even worse, they will decline the surrogate and instruct intended parents to find a new one. I have seen this happen on a few occasions with surrogates who come through the agency and it is another thing I worry about (of course:) and my heart breaks for the surrogates and intended parents who experience this.

Today my lining was at .7. Please note the "." before the number 7. My first thought was "What?! That's like.......invisible!" I HAVE had just two doses of my estrogen (I inject estrogen, intramuscular, every Monday and Thursday), so I do not expect my lining to just fluffen up overnight, by any means. Last time, I was also instructed to increase my estrogen and add estrogen patches to my regime. This time, same thing, so I really hope it works again.

I'm disappointed but my fingers are tightly crossed that, come next Wednesday, my lining will have thickened quite a bit and we'll be on our way to baby baking come February 15th.

Shots....not the ones you drink :)

So far things are trucking along as they should. I have had two monitoring appointments to check my uterine lining and ovaries. I am still bleeding, some type of blood, from my very first period about one month ago. I've had another one somewhere in there, too. I will never understand the whole "follicle" thing and why the ultrasound techs spend so much time evaluating my ovaries. I know that I have several follicles; some larger than others, which I would think would be a bad thing and that I'd ovulate......but they don't seem to be concerned. My lining is where it should be and I have been on Lupron for over 1 week now and just decreased it and started the delestrogen injections (intramuscular, those are the "butt shots") on Thursday. I have been getting headaches, but nothing too terrible. I am also trying desperately to lose the stubborn few lbs. of chub around my waist and butt that I gained from the meds the last time around. I say that I gained them from the meds.........but really I just went crazy and over-indulged over the holidays and can't get rid of it like I used to be able to. As it turns out, I no longer have the metabolism of a teenager. This sucks!

Hooray for making progress with the cycle! I am very thankful every day that we have made this step in the right direction. I appreciate all of the support and couldn't do it without each and every one of you there to cheer me along! Lets hope that February 15th is our day to make this happen :)

 

Hysteroscopy

Today I went in for the much anticipated and somewhat dreaded hysteroscopy. I inserted the cytotec to soften my cervix about 5 hours before the procedure. I was told to show up at the clinic one hour early so I could take an Ativan to "relax" me. I showed up, the pharmacist asked me if I had a ride to take me home........this was never mentioned and I assured him I would be fine. I took my Ativan and went back to the room where the nurse told me she was going to give me an injection to help with cramping. I was surprised at the mention of an injection and really began to wonder what was next. This already wasn't ANYTHING like the hysteroscopy the RE preformed (which took 30 seconds and was a piece of cake........sorry if I've mentioned that about 10 times already, I just can't get over the difference). The nurse said I had the thickest "butt skin" she'd ever experienced (thanks to all of the PIO and estrogen injections I'd been doing for all that time, I now have thick "butt skin") I sent a text to my coordinator and told her that if they came back in the room with mention of an epidural or any other type of "pain management", I was going to get the hell outta there. At the rate they were going, I felt like I was being prepped for a hysterECTOMY, not a hysterOSCOPY!

I sat in the procedure room in anticipation (very nervous) for about half an hour. The nurse told me that the doctor said it would be a quick procedure and she'd even probably wind up doing it between patients. "Great!" I thought. "I can get back to work in no time!". 

The doctor came in, inserted the speculum and said "whoa, you are not spotting, you are definitely still bleeding quite a bit". Yeah, sorry about that :(. She then proceeded to inject my cervix 4 different times with Novocaine. I actually felt the affects all the way up in my face. Strange feeling! The first two were pretty uncomfortable. After I was numbed, she started attempting to dilate my cervix and said that it was "fighting her". This......was not good. Ouch. She brought in 4 other nurses along with an ultrasound machine to guide the instruments into my cervix just to dilate it so she could fit the scope through it. Here's where I started hearing the "retroverted uterus" term again. Ah, how I remember hearing that so often during my own pregnancy. Apparently my uterus is VERY tilted and pregnancy didn't fix that for me. Damn it.

Once the scope was in, I was in so much discomfort (think labor pains), but saw that my uterus looked normal (which I wasn't expecting) and "beautiful" according to the doctor. After it was all over, I felt very relieved to know that I still have a "beautiful uterus" and hope that it will go to good use again next month, but for 40 weeks this time around :)

Oh....and as for the bloated feeling that I've been so crabby about. Now that I can't blame it on my uterus, I have to take responsibility for behaving badly during the holidays and will work harder to drop the pounds. I'm up 6 lbs. from my normal weight. Not too bad, but man is it STUBBORN!

Round 2

I hope everyone has had a very happy and healthy New Year so far! I know I've been quiet for a while, but there hasn't been much to report on, aside from some minor frustration with my own body. I had the D&C October 31st and was told that I would needed two "normal" periods before we could start meds to prepare for another transfer. The embryo transfer is scheduled for February 15th with the assumption that I will have definitely had 2 regular periods and everything else in check by that time. It took me 9 very long weeks to get a real period after the procedure. I was SO happy to get it because I had been worried that the D&C had "ruined" me, and frankly I'm still a bit worried. The RE ordered me to have a Hysteroscopy (a relatively minor procedure where they use a scope that enters through the cervix, into the uterus, to show the walls) to ensure that there wasn't any scarring due to the D&C. This is a general precaution that this particular RE takes when a surrogate has had a D&C. I figured "piece of cake, he preformed this on me when I first went to the clinic". Well, I have to have the Hysteroscopy after my first period, but BEFORE I start medications. Seeing as I did not have a normal period until just recently, and I start meds on Monday, January 14th..........this gives me roughly one day to schedule the procedure, because I'm still bleeding from my period. Yay. So, just as the overwhelming excitement of actually starting to bleed, came about.......now is the overwhelming fear that it won't stop "in time". Ugh! I won't even begin to explain the story of how I had to track down the potential costs of the procedure so my IPs know what to expect.........that was both frustrating and comical, all at the same time. 

I will be going in on Friday of this week to get scoped out and seriously hope there isn't any scarring (or anything else, for that matter) that will be found during the procedure, which would delay everything, or worse, completely keep me from giving my intended parents their child(ren). 

I know I sound awfully pessimistic, and I can honestly say that I am a bit worried about everything. But after all that has happened, I just want everything to move along nicely this next time around, and so far it seems like there have been some unexpected roadblocks (my period coming late, the procedure needing to have been completed before meds start and I'm still bleeding, etc.) I'm sure I will feel much better after I hear that everything is "ok in here" on Friday :) If we need to delay the transfer for one more month, I will be just fine with that, knowing that it is "for the best".

So, the current plan is to fly out to La Jolla, CA on February 13th (with Terry as my companion again), go out for a nice dinner on Valentine's Day, and transfer two frozen embryos on February 15th with a full 3 days of strict bed rest to follow. 

I will know more on Friday, hopefully. After Friday's Hysteroscopy procedure, assuming my uterus looks normal, I will have an ultrasound and blood work on Monday, and assuming my ultrasound and blood work come back normal, I will start Lupron (a suppressant medication, given with insulin needles in the stomach) on Monday! 

Fingers crossed for great results over the next few days!!

Moving forward

The last couple of days have been a whirlwind. I still have to remind myself that I am no longer pregnant (not that I've really changed anything, except discontinued the meds). Tuesday I was told that we needed to schedule a D&C ASAP and I was able to get in to see a doctor for a "pre-op" that same evening. Tuesday night I didn't sleep, I remember dreaming about the doctor finding a heartbeat right before the procedure and I remember dreaming about the procedure over and over, and then I laid awake the rest of the night. 

Wednesday morning I went in for the D&C. The thought of what happens during a D&C and what could happen as a result, although unlikely (touching the cervix, puncturing or scarring the uterus, not getting "everything" and having a repeat, etc.) was what scared me the most. Truthfully it was MUCH better than I had expected. My mom brought me and it was done and over with before I even knew it (thanks to the anesthesia) and I went home to rest for the day while my mom took good care of me. It wasn't painful and I've had minimal bleeding and cramping, so I'm feeling pretty good. Emotionally, Tuesday was the worst day with the initial shock of realizing the loss and I think it's best that it's over with after having the procedure almost immediately so I know that we can move forward in the near future. I also think it was best so I wouldn't have to live each day in fear of the impending miscarriage. T & Y have been so supportive and caring, I can't even put in to words how thankful I am to have them as my team, they will make such wonderful parents and I can't wait to be the one to help them become a family. They made a very good point and said that the worst has already happened (the loss) so there are only good things to come, and they're right, we're very optimistic.

I go back to work on Monday, if it hadn't been for the medications that I need to be on after the procedure (made me feel dizzy, tired, and nauseous), I would have gone back to work immediately. It helps that my co-workers can understand the situation and they are very supportive. 

If all goes well with the healing, I will need to get two periods before we start meds for another cycle and prepare for the transfer (so January or February, if we're lucky!). I am ready to jump back on the horse and make these guys Daddies.

Thank you all for your kind, supportive, thoughtful, and loving words, I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate it. I'm sorry for the intended parents (now parents:) and surrogates who have suffered losses and it helps to know we're not alone and that there can be a happy ending. 

Melissa, I'll always appreciate your advice and support, thank you for the shout-out and I hope you have a blast visiting those adorable babies and their daddies!