Mother of Ten

I have talked to a lot of people on the last few days and weeks about our babies in the freezer. It seems that people are not sure what to think about them. I have gotten a lot of comments along the lines of "They probably all won't take, you won't have 10 children".

It has made me think long and hard about what those babies mean to me. And maybe this is just coming from an overstimulated, super hormonal woman, but these are my feelings.

All 9 of those babies are alive. They are all humans. As a Christian, I believe life begins at conception, and these babies have lived and grown 5 days after conception before they have been cryopreserved.

It is hard to fathom that someone microscopic is alive, and just as important as any other baby.

So comments like "It is doubtful that all of them will work, anyways", are hurtful. I would never say to a pregnant woman "You could easily miscarry that baby" or "Your baby could be still born".

Are those possibilities? Of course they are. Anything could happen at any time. I fully understand that my babies might not survive the thaw, that they might not implant, that they could miscarry early. Any of those things will be considered a loss for me, and I will be devastated.

As crazy as it seems, I WANT all those babies to survive. One of the things we understood when deciding to do an IVF is that we could end up with a lot of embryos to freeze. And we decided to be commit to giving all of those embryos a chance at life. Nobody will be discarded, nobody will be forgotten about. If that means we have a large family, then we have will have a large family. Something I have always dreamed about, but never thought it could be possible with infertility. 

Recovery

Wednesday morning I woke up and felt a bit better, I thought things had finally started to turn out. But after breakfast I was feeling worse than ever. I was starting to get cramps in my diaphragm, it was very hard to breathe, I could not get comfortable. And then I had a panic attack. It was very scary when it hurts to breathe. 

Lucky for me, the panic attack pushed up my urgency, and I finally got an ultrasound and my abdomen drained in the afternoon. They drained 2.5 litters, which was apparently only half the fluid in there. 

The drain hurt much more than I thought it would, but the relief was immediate. I could finally breathe again. 

I spent a few more hours in the hospital and finally got to go home! 

Every day after that I felt better than the next, until Saturday. I got the flu. It was awful, but I was sure glad I got it when I was feeling better. Eric had gotten it the week before when I was really feeling the OHSS so I was glad I didn't get to me until later. 

Today is a week since the drain, and I feel pretty much back to normal. I know my ovaries are still pretty large, so I still have to take it easy for a while. I am kinda bummed because I was just getting back into running, and I won't be able to do that for a while. 

Thanks everyone for your support and prayers! 

IVF

Confession. The reason I wanted to blog again is to get this all off my chest. Each day I have put It off, there is more and more to say! I will try to keep it short. 

We doubled the meds for our second IUI attempt. My body overreacted, which is apparently typical of PCOS. We were given the option to cancel or switch to IVF. We chose to switch. While more expensive, it would have been our next step anyways if this IUI didn't work. 

About a week into the meds I started to feel bloated and nauseous. This past Wednesday we had our egg retrieval and they got 22 eggs. 

I felt fine right after the procedure but once the pain meds wore off I was in a lot of pain. 

Thursday we found out that 17 eggs fertilized. I was starting to feel very uncomfortable and bloated, but hopes it would go away. 

Friday I woke up feeling worse, and I had has a terrible sleep. I called the clinic in the morning to see if how I was feeling was normal and they advised I come to be seen. 

At the clinic after much waiting got an ultrasound and the doctor said I had a lot of fluid accumulating in my adbomen as a result of Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome (OHSS), and he wanted me to get admitted to the hospital to be drained. 

Well there was no beds available, so he advised I go home and come back in the morning. We decided to stay the night in the city so we didn't have to do so much driving. 

Saturday morning we called the clinic and were advised to go to HSC emergency to get an ultrasound and get drained. We waited there for 5 hrs only to find out I didn't have enough fluid to get drained, so we went home. I got some t3's to take home. 

Saturday we also found out that all 17 of our fertilized eggs were growin/dividing. She said 40% would turn into blastocysts they could freeze. 

Sunday I was relatively comfortable with the T3's. By Monday afternoon my bloating had gotten so bad that I was having a hard time breathing or getting comfortable in any position. I called the clinic and my doctor wanted me to get admitted to the hospital. 

So last night we packed up and I checked in. I got X-rays, bloodwork and an IV. 

Today, Tuesday, I waited for an ultrasound. And I waited. And waited. Until it was too late to get one. I am stuck here for another night, and hoping I can get an ultrasound and be drained tomorrow. 

I have gained 20 lbs of fluids since Friday. I am very uncomfortable, nauseous and I can only eat very small amounts at a time. My back is hurting whether I sit, stand or lie down from the pressure.  I cannot wait to have relief. 

On the bright side, today we heard that we had 9 embryos make it to blastocyst stage to freeze! Meaning I am now mother of 10! 

They will be transferred at a later date, one at a time. Whenever I am feeling better. It will take several months before I am back to normal. 

I hope that means that I am done with fertilty drugs forever! 

A Failure

Back in January I posted that we were going back to Heartland. 

We were surprised how fast we got in, and even more surprised how fast they got us in for a cycle. Everything seems to be going smoothly. 

At our appt. the Doc went over IUI and IVF info, and was kind of trying to steer us towards IVF. We opted for IUI because it worked on the first try last time, surely it would work like that again. 

Well, not so much. I did about 13 days of injects, wasted 1000's of dollars and our cycle got cancelled. My body didn't respond to the meds at all. For Tallet I had 3 follicles that grew, this time I had nothing. 

We were fairly laid back about this cycle, assuming it would work but knowing in the back of our minds that we got incredibly lucky the first time. 

I was crushed. It was so much harder than I expected to have a failure. It is unreal how all the old feelings crop back up again. Infertility sucks, and the suckyness doesn't go away after you have one babe. 

This will be a struggle for the rest of our family growing years, and that is hard to accept. Friends around me continue to get pregnant with the greatest of ease. I thought it would be easier to deal with once I had a child of my own. But it isn't. 

I'm Alive

I am still around. Everyone once and a while I come back to this lonely blog and think that I need to start blogging again, but I have never gotten around to it!

Things have been busy around here with photography, an online fabric shop and a sewing business, PLUS raising a toddler! So blogging has not been #1.

But I do miss it, and I said I was going to come back.

Soon.

I promise.