Another unfortunate anniversary

It’s been a year since I lost “Adrien”. Damn, time flies.  Adrien was a true miracle.  No ovulation tests, no watching my mucus, no temping, no monitoring of my cycle whatsoever.  I hadn’t done that since 2005.  It was nice to know that I ovulated on my own.  I was also nice to know that my husb and I can make a baby the old-fashion way (saved us thousands).

But Adrien was not meant to be. Adrien was a chemical pregnancy.  Adrien came to us and was gone in a week.  Today, a year ago, I was bleeding like a period, went to the urgent care center and found my hcg level to be down to <2 with nothing showing on the ultrasound. 

Dear Adrien, you were a dream.  I’m sorry you could not stay and be realized.  Instead, God wanted you in heaven with your brothers.

Welcome ICLW

Welcome and hugs! Just wanted to show some love to everyone dealing with the common thread of infertility, pregnancy loss, and high-risk pregnancies; I feel you on many levels. My husb and I have been trying to have a child together for 3.5 years. I have PCOS and a sluggish thyroid gland. Luckily, my husb can make babies. We used injectables and IUI in 2007 and was pregnant with twin boys, but lost them due to an incompetent cervix that caused my water to break at only 16 weeks (1/08). Devastated at our loss, we stuck together and ended up with a natural BFP, but had an early miscarriage in 6/08. 2008 was just a horrible year for our family. We decided to do the injectables and IUI in Jan of 09 and are now pregnant with a singleton. I have to deal with another high-risk pregnancy because my cervix started shortening and thinning at 16 weeks AGAIN! I now have a double cerclage in place and am blogging my days away until baby is born.

It’s all good…

On 2/10/09,  Beta # 3 = 1138. Doubling time 1.4 days (34 hours). AWESOME kiddo!

Finally met Dr. M today and she is super cool. We had a nice long discussion about my obstetrical history and that I want this pregnancy to have a successful outcome. She took her time which is great, plus my mom works with her @ our hospital in postpartum.

 So what’s the game plan?!
-keep the meds going (metformin and levoxyl) + suppositories (yuck)
-referral to an Endocrinologist to watch tsh/t4 levels during pregnancy (checked every trimester)
-referral to Perinatologist for the CERCLAGE, yay! She said they would place it at like 14 weeks, hopefully sooner than that.
-she’ll monitor me closely after cerclage placement and she’ll take it out at 36 weeks.
Sounds good!

She could see the brown discharge today, but she said my cervix is closed and the irritation is consistent with suppository usage so I feel better about that.  The spotting has gotten less in the last 24 hours, but we’ll see how that goes.  I go back on 3/9/09 for my official OB visit.

2/24/09  is ultrasound day at the fertility center.  Ha ha…another two week wait.

IUI#2…complete

Well it took forever to get to this point but finally the deed is done.  On cd 17  and cd 18, we did back to back IUIs.

On 1/19 (cd 16) our ultrasound showed a 21 mm follicle and 27 mm cyst/follicle (still weren’t sure) on the right ovary with 11.5 mm uterine lining.  Hormones looked good, so I did a ovidrel trigger that night.  I had my mom give me that shot, last time I did it and it hurt like hell.  This time was no problem.

1/20 (most historic day ever!) we dropped off the goodies and did the IUI 3 hours later.  I had some spotting and light cramps afterwards, but it was tolerable.

1/21 – another ultrasound showed 2 follicles collapsed, so there is a slight chance of twins again.  Uterine lining had ovulatory changes and free fluid was in my abdomen so more evidence of ovulation occuring.  Some pelvic soreness early in the morning and in my right lower quadrant, but not as bad as last time = It felt like someone kicked on my left side. So dropped off the goodies again and did the IUI 3.5 hours later. 

I took 3 Doxycycline pills to keep from getting an infection and this morning I start with the progesterone suppositories.  I really look forward to the gooey pasty stuff in my panties.

We spent also two nights in a hotel to be closer to the clinic since it is normally about 26 miles away from our house.  Kinda like taking a mini vacation  But gotta go back to work tonight. I’m not saying a word to the folks @ work.  People at work got too involved in what was going on in my uterus, especially after my husband accidently announced that we were having twins!

I did a lot of resting and kicking back these last two days so now is the two-week-wait.  We can test on 2/4/08, two days after husband’s birthday.  If God grants us this miracle, we’ll have a baby due around the time of our wedding anniversary in October. We are praying long and hard for that blessing.  Waiting is tough, but patience is key.  I’ll just keep playing my Nintendo DS until testing day.

Our NP was super nice, supportive, and explained things very well during the IUIs and the whole monitoring process. The one thing that keeps ringing in my ears that she said was “swim boys and girls, swim!”

New Year, New Day, New Cycle

Let’s make this year a good one!

Happy Angel Day Angeline and Augustin!

It has been exactly one year since we lost the the twins.  They were sadly born and died 1/9/08. I can’t believe time has gone so quickly, I still get flashbacks every now and then of events leading to their demise.  I wanted to commemorate each day of events leading to today by inflating a white balloon with scripture on each.  I opted to put scripture on one, but still inflate the balloons so that today we can let them go.  Symbolic…from 1/4 to 1/9 of fear, disbelief, decision, despair, anguish, and sadness. And that today I would somehow let some of that go by letting go of the balloons in their honor.  Plus the balloons are flying up to heaven with them. We’ll lay low tonight and light candles in their honor.

My husband and I decided to start a new IUI cycle this month after getting the green light from my recent labwork.  TSH = 1.5, great for conception!  We patiently waited for my period to start and low and behold, it started on 1/4/09  (a year ago that date my water broke @ almost 16 weeks).  We went for our baseline ultrasound on day 3 which was 1/6 and uterus/ovaries/labs looked good so the NP said it was okay to start taking my follistim 75 iu.  Last time we started @ 50 iu, but she said that I responded slowly, so they upped the dose.  I just pray that my ovaries don’t respond too much.  One embryo is fantastic, twins are nice, but triplets are super high risk with my weak cervix.

I got great news regarding the meds. My husband’s insurance is so freaking wonderful that $700 worth of injectibles was only $15.  How awesome is that!  So I’m excited and nervous at the same time.  But my resolution was to be more positive and I am thinking very positively.  Plus we’ll do it again.  We are so eager to have a child together, we keep playing the name game.   I think we’ll have a boy (chinese gender chart), but if we have a boy and girl or boy/boy we have names.  He wants a girl, if we have two girls we have names too.  “But what about…”  My husband likes finding names.

I’ m trying not to have too much pride that I will get my BFP because I don’t want to jinx it. We know I can get pregnant, my body needs help with hormones.  We also know I can carry two babies for up to 4 months with no help, so this time we are getting help with a cerclage.  I have a new OB-Gyn (Dr. M) on board who will refer me to the same Perinatologist (Dr. D) that I saw in the hospital (we trust him).  Knowledge is power and sometimes ingnorance is bliss.  But this time I love the knowledge.

I have an appointment with RE on 1/12 and 1/14 and that will determine when the IUI will be.  Hopefully next weekend so that the tww will be done by my husband’s birthday.  What a great present that would be! God willing…