11w3d: Graduation

I have graduated. I am no longer a fertility patient. I am still in shock that we have made it this far.

Our stats:

• Lefty Lucy (I don't know if it's a girl, it was just easier to remember who was on the left and right :)) is 15.8 mm long which measures at 11w6d (3 days ahead of schedule) and a heartbeat of 185 bpm.
• Righty Tighty is not far behind. Righty Tighty is 15.7mm measuring at 11w6d and has the same heartbeat of 185 bpm.

Lefty Lucy

Righty Tighty

I already see some personality traits..

Lefty Lucy likes to perform with a loud heartbeat. Lefty Lucy even did a little show and kicked during the ultrasound. My 4 year old was in awe about the movement and said, "How cute!" I actually felt Lefty Lucy start to flutter with 4 little taps at 10w3d. I thought I was losing my mind, but when I felt it again the following day, I knew that Left Lucy was going to be full of action during the day. 

Righty Tighty likes to hide with the quieter heartbeat and was pretty mellow during the ultrasound. Righty Tighty looked pretty relaxed. At 10w5d, Righty Tighty started to move and shake too. I actually feel Righty Tighty move more in the evenings.

The doc says they are both about 2 inches long. Amazing. Grow, little aliens, grow. 

10w0d: Milestone

It's a milestone day today. Today is my first day of being injection free. I've been a hormone addict since the beginning of October. I have graduated to being a regular preggo person. Yay!

Hopefully, being pokey free will last awhile. I'm wondering if I will end up being on 2 months of bedrest with steroid injections. If that is so, I will be seeing up again Mr. Needle in May. Just stay in there lil ones, keep on cookin.

Major craving alert...I can't seem to get burgers, fries, and pickles off of my taste buds. It's so bad, but then again it's so good. 

8w3d: Itsy & Bitsy

Itsy and Bitsy are 2 happily growing embryos. As of today, I am 8 weeks and 3 days along with twins. Itsy measures at 17.2mm which translates into 8 weeks and 3 days. Itsy has an awesome heartbeat of 171 beats per minute. Bitsy measures at 18.6mm which translates into 8 weeks and 5 days. Bitsy has an amazing loud heartbeat of 180 beats per minute. Both are growing at the perfect rate.

Bitsy & Itsy

Itsy is floating upside down

Bitsy resting in a hammock

 I love that they are both doing well. I don't love the pregnancy symptoms.Would I trade the pregnancy symptoms for not being pregnant? Absolutely not, I still feel blessed. I would be lying if I didn't say I was miserable, physically miserable.

Things are that are helping: 4 different nausea medications, sea bands, acupuncture, and eating ginger chews. But my goodness, being an incubator to 2 amazing little aliens is challenging.

I have morning sickness 24/7. I am out of commission once the sun goes down. I have the worse indigestion which I have never experienced in my life. It turns out that the stomach sphincter is pretty much asleep due to the overload of progesterone that is surging through my body. With this sphincter muscle being asleep, it is always open which means food is always coming up rather than going down. I've made attempts to experiment. I eat, don't eat, eat like a bird, eat a lot, take medicine, go to acupuncture, the end result is the same - it equals me hugging the toilet every night. Luckily, I've only had to used the work toilets once for that purpose, so I am pretty fortunate my worse symptoms are at night and my husband is still around to help me. I hope by the time he leaves for Afghanistan close to my 12 weeks, I will be able to function.

6w3d: Pair of Blessings

I think last night had to be one of my longest nights ever. I kept thinking about the idea of having to consider selective reduction if there are three growing in my belly. The feeling haunted me all night because our ultrasound, the confirmation, was this morning.

At the ultrasound, we (me, my husband, my 4 year old, and my mom) held our breath and gasped as we watched the picture on the screen. We saw 2 black holes (sacs) with 2 little flickers of light off to the side (heartbeat). We have twins. I think I'm going to tear. God really knows what you can handle. He has doubly blessed us. The fraternal twins are a healthy 6 weeks and 2 days old. They have a heartbeat of 108 bpm and 118 bpm.

So our spare that was hanging with the pair was reabsorbed into my system - the vanishing triplet. Hopefully, I won't have any surprises at 10 weeks and start to bleed like when I lost the twin 5 years ago. It was a depressing and confusing moment because I didn't know the plans of the vanishing twin.

No matter what we are still bless with our 4 year old and our twins.

13dp5dt: It's Trips!?

GOOD NEWS: So we finally got the call we were waiting for, the call went like this..."Hi. Your numbers look good. OMG! Your beta is 1602. You might have twins with a spare!" That means ALL THREE wonderfully beautiful in vitro fertilization (IVF) embryos have survived. ALL THREE are growing happily in my belly. I am officially pregnant with multiples at 4 weeks and 4 days. As IVF goes, everything has been such a waiting game. Now here we are, we have with definite numbers. OMG! The next wait is the ultrasound to see if the triplets or the strong twins will have amazing flickering heartbeats on the ultrasound. This will be an amazing birthday gift at the end of November.

BAD NEWS: If indeed 3 embryos grow, our doctor suggests we consider selective reduction. What is selective reduction? Selective reduction is when you terminate one of the embryos in utero at 10-12 weeks. Due to the medical and health risks of having triplets, the doctor makes sense.  Selective reduction was awful to consider on the day of the embryo transfer - the goal was to be pregnant not get rid of one. I cried before the embryo transfer just thinking about it. People are blessed to be fertile and they don't even know it. We have to buy babies, pray, and work so hard to get this far. I was shocked thinking about having to kill one when have come such a long way. I was convinced that our abnormal chromosomes will follow us and all 3 would not grow. Boy, was I wrong. Hopefully, like with our first experience, we will have a twin that becomes a vanishing twin and cannot grow on it's own. Then we will not have to make this awful decision. My husband feared that I would have to make this decision on my own while he is in Afghanistan for a year. We are given what we can handle - I pray this is something that we don't have to handle.

HISTORY: IVF is a waiting game. You wait to get your period to start your medications/injections (10/17), you wait for the eggs to grow, you wait for the good day for an egg retrieval (10/26), you wait to see if the egg and sperm will hook up and make embryos on it's own or through injection, you wait for the embryo transfer day (10/31), you wait for the first (11/10) and second blood test (11/12) to confirm the pregnancy, and then you wait for your ultrasound (11/26). November equals the longest month ever.

11dp5dt: 600!

Eleven long hours of an awful wait, we got the news we were waiting for...my blood test results. Beta = 600! I am in shock! This could mean we will have twins or more. Next blood test will occur on Saturday. We need the numbers to double for a successful pregnancy. No stress :/ Can acupuncture help at this stage?

FYI. I had score of about a 100 in my past successful IVF and a 30 in my unsuccessful IVF.

9dp5dt: POAS

I couldn't help myself... I POAS and it was a BFP. What a relief! All these night sweats, wierd cravings, and growing uncomfortable body parts mean something more than just injectible hormones doing it's work. Now let's see those beta numbers - could it be one, two, or three? Stay tuned.

5dp5dt: Blessing In Disguise?

When your husband leaves for deployment right after a successful IVF, is that a blessing in disguise? If it happens once, I could understand that view. But history is repeating itself 5 years later, is it still a blessing in disguise? I am on 5dp5dt of IVF. My beta is on 11/10. My husband was told he is going on deployment for 1 year 2 weeks before we had to start stims. Let's just see if this is another miracle waiting for us.