"I hear Congratulations are in order"!

I heard that a lot yesterday at the family reunion......but it was never followed up by the actual "Congratulations"....does anyone know that by saying, "I hear Congratulations are in order" that the person is in fact at that moment saying Congratulations? Just saying......

It's only been 1 1/2 weeks since my last post, but due to the frequency of the prior posts and the hub-bub surrounding said posts, it feels like MUCH longer. I hadn't planned on posting again until I had something to "report", but I've been requested to keep up to date!! Okay...fine by me, posting is therapeutic to me, while I'm sure it's entertaining to you!! LOL.

There's not a lot to report......we will be 6 weeks tomorrow (from what the doc told me last week), so....my prior post was incorrect. In any case, we are steadily pushing 2 months!!! What am I experiencing? Well, I haven't had any mood swings or outbursts......I haven't had any sickness......no weight gain (yet)......but I am increasingly tired!! I am sleeping a little better at night, in the beginning I was having such horrible cramps and pelvic pain, but that's all seemed to subside, I haven't had to take any Tylenol in over a week. My breast are definitely tender and more full.....I am already wearing a bra when I sleep at nigh.....heaven help me, but we went to the Mall on Saturday to look for "maternity bras" (which by the way I didn't think were ANY different that a normal bra) and I thought, "hum....I better look for a DD, I'll be growing soon".....to my horror, when I picked it off the rack, I had this horrible picture of the cup fitting over my head!!!!!! DD is a BIG CUP!!! Needless to say, I decided to wait on buying a new bra!! Hum....what else? I have noticed that at times I seem to have a permanent "lump" in my throat, I feel that I may burst into tears at any time. I'm sure that's half associated with the pregnancy and 1/2 associated with the sleeplessness at night.

For those of you who have talked me through the last couple of weeks and shared your experiences, I thank you. PLEASE, keep sharing - not only does it help to know what to expect, but "chatting" with you all helps to pass time.

I don't have much else. By what I've read so far, we'll be in a holding pattern for a few more weeks before we see any more developments. OH!! BY THE WAY - I almost forgot. We have an ultrasound on September 13 (two days after we get back from vacation).....it's not yet prenatal, it's called a "confirmation of pregnancy" ultrasound. They just check to make sure that the pregnancy is viable and that there is a sac and a fetus. We won't be able to hear a heartbeat yet, but we will be able to SEE IT!! There's a upside to the appointment and a downside.....the upside is that we find out at this appointment if we are having 1 or 2!!!!! Depending on the day, I have different opinions on how many are in there. Today, I think there are two in there. The downside.....John will be traveling in Europe during that appointment and won't be home until the 21st of September......so sad. My mom is going to go with me. We meet with a physician after the ultrasound and will hopefully get a full report....wish us luck!!

We leave on Saturday the 4th for our beach vacation in North Carolina. I can tell you, we are EXTREMELY excited......My poor husband is in desperate need of a vacation......

Fairy Tale Ending?

I sure hope so!! It's official....WE ARE PREGNANT!! In fact, the nurse told us that with our numbers (anything >5 measures, they look for at least 50, we were at 213) it was a "very positive result"! WOOO HOOOO!! We are both shocked, excited, elated, nervous, and relieved!!

Sorry it took me so long to post, but we had to notify the fam first - and kind of (it's hard) trying to keep it on the D.L. for a few more weeks, since we are so early yet.

I can't figure it exactly, because we became pregnant via less than conventional methods, but closest to my calculation, we are approx. 5 weeks today!

So, again.....thanks for all of your love, support, and quirky advice.....we love you all for it, and for the people you are!!!

Operation Make Fallon Baby is a success!!!

I am a BIG FAT LIAR!

Well, I've said all along that I wasn't going to "sneak a test" and what did I lay in bed scheming about this morning? What day I'm going to sneak a test!! LOL! So, nothing final until Thursday, but what a nice way to start off a week!!

"Hurry up and Wait"

So, we are in the middle of our waiting period and desperatly looking for other things to keep our thoughts otherwise occupied. John traveled for work yesterday and today so he's keeping busy. I went to a movie with a friend last night and then slept probably the best I have in the last week or so! Sorry honey....I ususally don't sleep well without you, but I needed it last night! We have a full weekend ahead of us to keep us busy (cook out with the Gergens Friday and Irish Fest with the Blecks on Saturday).....and then before you know it, next week will be upon us and we'll be getting our results. I can tell you that I have a very good feeling!!

Anyone have any suggestions on how to clear our minds?

The Eagle has landed

Today was implantation day for the Fallon's. Of the 6 embryo's that were not frozen we had 3 strong candidates, 2 of which were implanted today. The 3 lagging embryo's have 1 more day to catch up. If they catch up they will be frozen along with the 1 remaining strong embryo. We will have our blood test to see if we are pregnant on August 19th. The procedure went very well and we are optimistic. Keep us in your thoughts and prayers and we will update all when we hear the good news. Thanks again for those of you have offered us your support. We appreciate it.

Tomorrow - the end of one journey

We just got the call from the Lab. We are set for our transfer for 6:30 tomorrow morning. Very apprehensive....even more so since they had NO information besides that for us. We don't know how many embryos made it, we don't know the quality of the embryos, we don't know how they divided, how they were graded.....throughout this whole process, the power of knowledge has made us feel a little more comfortable than if we were just blindly going along......in this case, we have no other option. I called back to see if they could give me any additional information and she said no - she didn't know anything more. She (the nurse) then said, "what I typically tell people is 'no news is good news', I can tell you that since they haven't called you before now, that means at least 3 are still going strong". She said that they would have more information for us tomorrow about the two embryos they'll be placing back in, and an update on the remaining embryos besides those we transfer.

So, in short.....I'm not going to call everyone, text everyone, email everyone.....K.I.S.S. (keep it simple stupid) - if you are reading this, you are our faithful followers and it is your prayers that have and will continue to carry us through...please pray for us, and wish us well. We are hoping to finish this journey and move on to the next.....more rewarding and a HECK of a lot MORE fun! I can't tell you how thankful and blessed we are to have people like you in our lives. You've all be so kind and caring, we can never repay you for your support.

LOL!

Well, I haven't posted since we got our results last Friday, and reading through that last post, for a split second I thought, "who posted this? John?"......that extreme excitement and optimism was so out of character for me, I didn't remember it was me!! This journey has been so full of ups and down and expectations and disappointments, I thought I was immune to extreme swings...guess not!! LOL....to read that, you would have thought we won the lottery!

No calls from the Clinic all weekend. That's supposed to be a good thing. If the embryos weren't surviving or doing as well as they wanted, they would have called us in for an early transfer. So, while I am DYING to know how the little eggos are doing.....I guess I can wait until we receive our instructions today.....come on, hurry up already! Not sure what time our transfer will be tomorrow (hence waiting on pins and needles for this phone call), they did say that if there were any retrievals, they would go first. Months ago they did a "mock transfer"....just to get an idea of how the actual transfer would go....where things are, distance to the center of the uterus, make sure nothing was blocked......I have kind of an idea of how things will go tomorrow. Best part....John gets to don a pair of scrubs and join me!! (That, and they'll give me a Valium to relax me.....not sure why....but hey....who am I to complain). That's all I know right now.

Oh....we had Drake overnight on Saturday.....That makes 3 overnight visits from the nephews within the past month.....Coming off of that, we definitely DO NOT have "rose colored glasses" when it comes to thinking how parenting will go, but it reinforced the fact that we know we can do this, we know we will do good, and most importantly, we know we are ready. John was a tad nervous on Saturday when we couldn't get Drake to sleep (as was I) and he said, "we have absolutely no idea what to do with a baby - we know nothing"! I told him, "that's okay....we aren't supposed to". :)

OMG!

WOW! I am more posititive, upbeat, excited about our news today more so than any other news we've had during the past year of infertility treatment. The report.....

29 eggs retrieved. Although Dr. didn't know how many would be healthy, viable, mature eggs we ended up with

27 (!!!!!!!) eggs fertilized and

24 (!!!!!!!!!!) which fertilized normally!! HOLY BALLS!!! So excited right now. In all the research I've done, I have NEVER seen number that high!! So, they took 18 fertilized eggs right off the bat and froze them. We'll work with the 6 remaining embryos and hope that the two that go back in are healthy and "stick"!!! If any are left by day 5 besides what we put back in, they will head off to the freezer as well.

I don't think (actually I KNOW) we could have possibly received any better news today!!! Gone are the nerves.....we are ready to become parents!!

Retrieval Day

Things went very well. Beth is at home resting comfortably. We had 51 follicles and they retrieved 29 eggs. These are both excellent #'s. The magic # is 12 fertilized eggs. Hopefully we will exceed that. They will let us know the fertilization rate tomorrow. Then we will see how they progress. We are looking good to do the blastocyst stage transfer which has a higher success rate. That would put implantation most likely on Tuesday. We will keep our faithful followers posted. Say a little prayer. Thanks for all of the support!

Okay, I lied....here I am again

As I sit at work, I cannot find the ability nor the inclination to be productive. I am so precoccupied by tomorrows events that I just can't concentrate. On one hand, I am not nervous at all about the procedure and am extremely excited to report for surgery tomorrow morning at 6:30 a.m., but on the other hand, a million new thoughts are occupying my mind. We are really hoping for 12 or more eggs in order to to the 5 day transfer which carries a better success rate, and while we know that we had 22 measurable follicles yesterday, we have no idea how many eggs we will actually get. So, worried about that and thinking, How many will actually make it to day 5, will there be any left to freeze.....I REALLY hope this works the first time.....I know lots of people who say, "oh.....you'll just have to try it again if it doesn't work"........part of me thinks.....this is it~ our one chance.....of course the fact that we'll have used up our lifetime "bucket" of infertility coverage with our insurance doesn't promote positive thoughts for a second round.....but I have to admit that me saying I WOULDN'T do it again right now may not be accurate A. We don't know how this cycle will turn out and B. My "DH" and I haven't yet had that Crucial Conversation.....anyway.....I thought that posting would be a good chance for me to get some of my frustrations out of my head and maybe make room for some more positive thoughts......like the fact that we could be taking a baby home on April 28, 2011!!

And!!! I learned a new "infertility" term today. After our transfer we will be PUPO (Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise)

Something Fun~

As I've said before, if you know me, you know that I am a master googler....and I look EVERYTHING up. What I've learned about infertility is astounding and I thought I'd give you a little peek into the world of infertility!! As you can see, this was a HUGE learning experience for me when I first started to do my research. At least I use real words and terms to explain what's going on.....some of these other ladies are just plain CRAZY....read on.

The last year of our life - infertility speaking :)
Me: Perfect
DH: Perfect
2 Furbabies - Zoe and Champ
TTC: > 1year

We first met our RE in June of last year. They recommended Clomid for 3 - 4 cycles beginning on CD 5 - 9. This was the only medication I had SA from, major HF. We were then told to do BD when the OPK told us we were O. During all three cycles I didn't have to POAS because AF came. Once we moved on to IUI we were still doing the Clomid and we added on a couple of shots - and after eachIUI procedure, we were faced with the TWW which was pretty much hell. This time I was actualy able to POAS a couple of times, but got BFN and AF came shortly after that. Now we've moved on to IVF and things are 100X more involved/invasive/confusing than anything we had done before. We've finally finished with all of our injections (or will tonight - we take our HCG trigger tonight) and we will have our ER on Thursday with our ET on either Saturday or Tuesday. Then, we have to go through the TWW again (suck) and then we'll actually have a BT (I highly doubt I will be able to abstain from POAS though) as a PT this time. We are praying for a BFP - so please send some Baby Dust this way!!


DH: Dear Husband
Furbabies: Pets
TTC: Trying to Concieve
RE: Reproductive Endocrinologist
CD: Cycle Day
SA: Side Affect
HF: Hot Flash
BD: Baby Dance (sex)
OPK: Ovulation Predictor Kit
O: Ovulating
POAS: Pee on a Stick (pregnancy test)
BFN: Big Fat Negative
AF: Aunt Flow (monthly cycle)
IUI: Interuterine Insemination (placing sperm into the fallopian tube - to "help" it along)
TWW: Two Week Wait (amount of time before pregnancy test would work)
HCG: Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (will tell my body to release eggs made)
IVF: Invitro Fertilization (Fertilizing an egg with sperm and replacing an embryo into the womb)
ER: Egg Retrieval
ET: Embryo Transfer
BT: Beta/Blood Test
PT: Pregnancy Test
BFP: Big Fat Positive
Baby Dust: Thoughts and Prayers
Follicles - fluid which contain eggs (not all follicles contain eggs)

Yep, Last day of shots!

Just got the call. We will trigger tonight! 8 p.m. give or take 5 minutes (this one is very time sensitive) and then we report to Methodist for our retrieval at 6:30 Thursday morning. They said it should take 45 minutes to an hour and that I'll be asleep for it. I just sent my sister-in-law a message and asked if she could do our shot for us. I think both John and I would both feel a ton better if we had a professional do it....and then she can tell our baby, "I had a hand in your making"! My E2 level came in at 4,658 which could very well explain why I'm not feeling the greatest......that's a lot of hormones! They said that tentatively, right now we can look at doing a 5 day (wooo hooo) transfer based solely on the amount of follicles I have, but we won't know for sure until the 6th when we see how many eggs were actually retrieved and how the fertilization process went. Wish us luck for lots of eggos! I'm a bit in shock! It's time to really get down to the nitty gritty! The next post you see will most likely be from John giving an update on how the retrieval went......

Last day of shots???

Had more blood drawn this morning, will have to wait until this afternoon to see how the results turn out. The ultrasound this morning didn't show much more than yesterday. Again, we'll have to see what they say. Yesterday they said I was "So Close", so hopefully the minor changes we saw today are what we needed to move forward.

Speaking of moving forward.....I am officially TERRIFIED! I was up all night last night just obsessing.....over doses of medicine, over calculated days, and most of all.....the final (trigger) shot tonight. It's an IM and the needle is huge....and JOHN HAS TO DO IT!! So....pretty nervous about that. And after everything is said and done, I had that one fleeting second yesterday where I thought, "what happens if this works"? Meaning, we've been so wrapped up in schedules, timelines, medicines, appointments, procedures, etc. for over the past year.....we've (more so I) haven't even had the chance to say, "what happens if we're pregnant"? So, now I'll be able to focus on the fact that we are actually going to be parents!!

Keep you posted.

8/2/2010 - Results

Just got the call. Besides the follicles that are measuring, my E2 level came in at 2,412 today. So.....they said close, but not yet. Back to the two shots tonight and return in the a.m. for blood and ultrasound. Kind of okay with it (prolongs the scary trigger shot) kinda ready for the next steps. They did however say that they think tomorrow I'll be ready to trigger. That means we will most likely have our retrieval on Thursday and our transfer either Saturday or Tuesday. Not much else....this really is a waiting game. Changes day to day.

Starting to get a good feeling!!

So, I'm not sure how the blood results will come in for the day, but after my ultrasound, I'm feeling pretty positive. Yesterday John updated on how many follicles we had and today.....there are a ton more!! I had 4 on my left ovary yesterday - and I got to thinking....hum....there are so many more on my right ovary....and that's the side I do my Stimulating shot.....I wonder if I did it on the left side if it would be a more direct route and get those puppies to grow over there....so, last night I tried the Stim shot on the left side and today......there were 10 follicles on the left side!!! WOW! And the right side measured 8 follicles. They ranged anywhere from 13 to 18. There were still >10 on each side that weren't measuring. I know that not every follicle contains an egg, but I am really hoping and praying that we are able to get >12 eggs so we can do the 5 day transfer and still have some left over to freeze. Will keep you posted. Should have my message around 3 p.m.
Wooo Hoo!

Good way to start the week

Beth and I woke up for an early morning ultrasound and some blood work. Without further adieu here are the results. Beth had 12 measurable follicles, this is huge improvement since she had none on Friday. Her e2 estrodoil level shot up from 585 on Friday to 1345 today! All in all this is excellent progress and we are right where we need to be. So after Friday's scare we are back on track. We need to stay on the 3 shots a say routine today and most likely tomorrow. That means hopefully we will do the HCG shot on Tuesday and go in for the procedure to harvest the eggs on Thursday. Depending upon the # of eggs harvested and how the fertilization progresses we will either do the implantation of the fertilized eggs on either Saturday or Tuesday. We are hoping for Tuesday, as the success rates go from ~50% to ~65% with the later stage transfer. But that is in Gods hands. We are relieved with todays results and are exhausted from a stressful week. I can attest that IVF really is an emotional rollercoaster ride, and I can only imagine how hard it has been on Beth. She has been a trooper. She has handled every obstacle thrown our way and I am truly blessed to have married such an incredible person. Thanks Baby, you truly are the greatest.