Fresh Never Frozen: 5 months of survival and now 5 weeks to go!

Sunday, December 16, 2012

5 months of survival and now 5 weeks to go!

My neglect of this blog the last five months is definitely a reflection of how sick I have been during this pregnancy! I've tried not to complain too much because being miserably pregnant was our goal.;) The first trimester was rough as I was still having daily Lovenox injections, steroids, hormones, baby aspirin, folgard, and prescription multivitamins. The extra chemicals in my body added to my sickness, but also helped us maintain the pregnancy. Not a day went by that I didn't remind myself of that. The second trimester was the worst for nausea and vomiting, but getting off the blood thinners, steroids, and extra hormones certainly was nice. Now at almost 32 weeks and into my last trimester, I'm so excited there is light at the end of the tunnel. While I'm feeling better in some ways (no more vomiting), other discomforts have begun (aches, pains, heartburn, etc.). I have already put on 50 pounds! My nausea is the kind that needs to be fed.;) The babies, which are BOYS, have been developmentally perfect so far. At this point I have very frequent doctor visits (ultrasounds, stress tests, etc.) and the goal is to let them cook as long as they can.

I'm kicking myself for not posting the day we found out their genders. I found out at 14 weeks back on August 16th. I didn't think they'd be able to tell and had brought my son and daughter with me thinking it would be a quick, uneventful appointment. My mister was at work! When the u/s tech asked if I wanted to know genders, I said "of course!" She told us Baby B first . . . a boy! My big kids were thrilled! Then, she took a little longer determining Baby A, but announced he was also a boy! I was shocked, but my eyes went straight to my 5 year old daughter . . . she was beaming! Phew! My son was of course thrilled and we immediately called my husband who was also thrilled. For some reason, a boy/boy combo hadn't crossed my mind! I figured they'd probably be boy/girl or girl/girl. Once I absorbed this combo, I was also very excited! I don't do well with girl drama and how seriously cute are two boys going through life together!;)

Anyways, I hate that I haven't been better at documenting this miracle pregnancy for our family! On the flip side, I'm so grateful that we have survived this pregnancy and will finally be welcoming home our little fellas next month. My big kids have been troopers and learned to be a little more independent when I couldn't get out of bed or off the couch. My husband has also been very patient with me and had to pick up a lot of the workload at home while continuing to run his business. After all that we have been through the last several years, I feel like bringing these babies home will be like making it to the top of a very tall mountain!;) I cannot wait to nurse babies all day and night and maybe get a shower in the late afternoons. I cannot wait to feel their two little heads in my neck and to see if they look alike. I cannot wait to see my big kids attend to their every sound and movement. My son already grabs my belly and says, "don't worry, we're going to get you out of there!" I know they'll be good helpers. I cannot wait to be recovered from my c-section of my two little breechlings.;) For now, I still feel like a lot needs to happen in the coming weeks to get ready. While the road to the point has been long, the end of this pregnancy has come quickly! I do not want these boys spending one second in the NICU. So grow babies, grow!

They've certainly come a long way from being our only two little embryos in a petri dish in a lab!!! Here are some of their latest photos in 3D back at week 28:

Baby A

Baby B

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Our Infertility Journey

In 2007, right after our daughter was born via a very easy VBAC delivery (vaginal delivery after a c-section), we were wanting another baby. Not right away, but eventually.;) We really never prevented pregnancy and in 2009 we had a surprise pregnancy, followed shortly by an early miscarriage. This was my first miscarriage, so I was not too concerned since women seem to have them all the time. By 2010, after really "trying" to conceive nothing was happening. My ob/gyn prescribed a little clomid to get the ball rolling but nothing happened. Then, we added in several months of IUI's (aka artificial inseminations), which also never worked. We were feeling discouraged and did further testing to find out that my mister has a severely decreased morphology putting us in the 1% chance range of conceiving naturally. The summer of 2010 he had a varicocele repair surgery in an attempt to fix his problem. There is only a 50/50 success rate for the surgery and we ended up in the 50% that do not respond to the surgery. We took a break from everything for a while, had a 10 year anniversary trip to Maui with a little Clomid and got pregnant. At the 8 week ultrasound there was no longer a heartbeat and I miscarried for the second time. At the beginning of 2011, we decided to take things a step further and consult with specialists. We decided to pull out the big guns after being told we'd easily conceived doing IVF with ICSI with chromosomal screening. The IVF cycle was hard and didn't go as well as planned. We ended up with only one little boy embryo who was genetically perfect. We were thrilled at the news and even had positive pregnancy tests following a frozen embryo transfer. Shortly after, I miscarried for the third time. I got very depressed and had my first experience with situational depression. Months later after a visit with my doctor, a terrible visit with an adoption agency, the clouds lifted, and we decided to try IVF one last time. I knew there was no way I could do it a third time physically and we certainly couldn't do it again financially, so our second chance was our last chance. There were many set backs as we had to cancel the second cycle after discovering a suspicious (as in cancer suspicious) ovarian cyst right before preparations for our embryo retrieval. I had surgery and everything turned our fine, but we were feeling discouraged as the cancer scare was terrifying and we had to wait 4 months before returning our focus back to IVF round 2. Round 2 didn't go exactly as planned, but the end result included the transfer of two great looking embryos. I'm certain that I will hold a baby again one day, and only then will we be able to say that the journey was all worth it!