ICLW Jan 2011

Hi everyone! Hope you had a great start to the new year. 2010 was certainly not what I expected, but it ended on a wonderful note. We've been trying since May 2007 for our first child. We tried for over a year, before my GYN would even take any notice. I ended up doing 8 months of Clomid, to absolutely no avail. I even realized quite early on that I wasn't ovulating even when on the meds. Fast forward a few months and I basically self-diagnosed myself with Hypothyroid. It took about 2 months for my bloodwork to show what I already new. I started Synthroid and Cytomel and waited some more. I gave up on my GYN and any hope that Clomid would work and decided to see an Environmental Medicine Endocrinologist for my thyroid. He did lots of tests and put me back on allergy shots. Within 2 months I was ovulating on my own. We tried for a few more months, but nothing happened.

I decided to take matters into my own hands and signed myself up with an RE I had heard about through my GYN. We finally did another SA (we had one done previously just on counts and everything was "Normal"). This time we did more extensive testing and were finally told that we had a severe MFI issue and that we stood a less than 1% chance of conceiving naturally. We immediately started IUIs and did 3 of those back to back. Not even the hint of a BFP. We knew IVF was imminent, so we starting preparing for it in early 2010. We did our first IVF and I got 18 eggs and 16 embryos. We did a Day 7 transfer of 2 and got a BFN. A month later we did a Day 5 FET with 2 and I got my first ever BFP (urine and blood). Unfortunately by the 2nd beta, my levels weren't increasing properly and within a week they started dropping, I was absolutely devestated. By this time we had no embryos left. They used all of them just to try and get some to develop for a few days. Most of them started arresting or just stopped growing all together. Our RE said that he though we also had an "Egg Issue" and that donor egg might be in our future. We took about two month off and geared up for IVF#2. We retrieved 20 eggs and made 18 embryos. We did a Day 5 transfer with 2 (allowed 10 to grow until this day and froze 8 on Day 2). By Day 5 we only had 2 to transfer. We were told they looked wonderful. I got another BFP (urine and blood), but unfortunately the same thing as before happened. My levels never increased properly and I knew I had lost it again. We waited another month and went forward with another FET. This time we asked to do an early Day 3 transfer in the hopes that more of the embryos would survive. We only had to thaw 3/8 and we transferred 3 on Day 3. I had a really amazing first beta of 293, but 2 days later it only increased to 407. I couldn't believe it, but I held on for several more days and had a repeat done. By some miracle of God my levels increased to 1664 and we were finally able to schedule an U/S.

At our first U/S on Dec 29, 2010, we saw one beautiful sac and heard a heartbeat of 120. It was amazing! It was a wonderful end to a really hard year. So far everything is progressing really well and I'll be 10 weeks this weekend. I listen to the heartbeat on our at home doppler once a night and just can't get over that this is really happening. It still seems surreal and my anxiety hasn't gone away even though I'm finally pregnant.

Infertilify has been a huge part of my life, but I wouldn't change a thing. We're expecting our little miracle August 21, 2011. I wish all of you the best in your struggles to conceive and for those of you that finally have your miracles that your pregnancy continues to go well. I look forward to reading all of your blogs and getting to know you better. Feel free to ask any questions, I'm an open book! ((HUGS))