I wanted to document everything in a journal format to print out someday, so to start - here's a timeline of how everything happened...
PLANNING FOR A BABY:
Babies were first mentioned between Russ and I before our
second date even happened! We were talking on the phone one night and I asked
him if he was done having kids or if he’d be open to having more. He luckily
said he’d be open to having more! If he had said he was done I’m not sure what
would have happened between us, because I knew I wasn’t done with just one
child of my own! As our dating got more serious we even talked about what we
would name our future children. We were at his work one night when the NRG
manager (at the time) was talking about his grandson named Deacon. Both of us
thought that name was cute. As for a girl… it started off as a joke actually…
that we would name a baby girl “Abby” after Abby Runyan who set us up. I say it
started off as a joke because not long into our dating, Abby emailed me to ask
how things were going, and Russ helped me reply to her email, saying that we
were planning a fall wedding and that we were going to name our first daughter
together “Abby”. Well, I actually think the name Abby is so cute, and Russ
thought so too. Abby was always a name Auburn planned to use for a baby girl
but she’s done having kids and didn’t use it, which makes the name up for
grabs!
When Russ and I got married, we decided to wait about a year
before trying to have a baby. We didn’t really do anything about really
preventing a baby from coming but still nothing happened. Around September
2010, a little less than a year after our wedding, we decided it was time. So
for the next year we tried for a baby with no luck! We did insemination 3 times
in the fall / winter of 2011 … again with no luck. It was a frustrating time to
say the least. At the start of 2012, we made a plan to take a break from all of
the infertility doctor appointments and save our money for a try at IVF if it
came down to that. I hoped that by taking my mind off of getting pregnant for
awhile, that I would become pregnant – since I’ve heard that happens for so
many people. Well, I can’t say that I really ever took my mind off of it. When
you want a baby so bad it’s not easy to just forget about it for any length of
time. We planned to go back to the doctor in the summertime if nothing had
happened.
PREPARING FOR IVF:
As soon as June rolled around, I called and made an
appointment to see Dr. Moffit at ARMS (Arizona Reproductive Medicine
Specialists). We met with him in mid-June and told him we were ready for IVF
and didn’t want to waste any more time. He gave us instructions and a timeline
of what to plan for. As we read through the IVF information booklet, we
realized that we had a lot of decisions to make – decisions we didn’t realize
existed.
First, we had a decision to make
about the financial side of things. There was an option to pay for one round of
IVF OR a chance at 3 “fresh” rounds and 3 “frozen” rounds, with a 70%
money-back guarantee if you didn’t take a baby home with all of those tries.
The second option was twice as expensive as the first option. From all the
testing we had undergone in the previous year, Dr. Moffit thought that I would
have a pretty good egg supply but couldn’t guarantee anything. We prayed to
know the right decision and we both felt like we could go with option number 1
– to pay for 1 “fresh” cycle and see how that went. (A “fresh” cycle is when
you implant an embryo without it ever being frozen; and a “frozen” cycle is
when one of the embryos that were frozen are thawed and then implanted.) When
Russ and I made our decision, we counted on having some embryos that could be
frozen for future tries, because a frozen round of IVF was really not too
expensive.
The next decision that I thought
was a difficult one to make… was the decision on what to do with extra embryos
when we were done having kids. When there are embryos to freeze, you can keep
them frozen for as long as you want (there is yearly storage fee for them). The
3 options were: discard them; donate them to research; or donate them to
another couple who didn’t have embryos of their own. Russ immediately said that
we should donate them to another couple. I was hesitant because I could imagine
myself wondering where those embryos ended up. I could imagine seeing a little
kid who looked like us, and wanting to find out if he or she came from a
donated embryo!! Russ thought I was crazy! I thought that maybe we should
donate the embryos to research. I talked to Dr. Moffit about this decision,
since he is a member of the church and I thought he could give me some advice
or direct me to an article that help me make a good decision. Dr. Moffit said
that the church has never published anything on embryos but all of his other
LDS patients have decided to donate their extra embryos to another couple. This
answer that Dr. Moffit gave me made my decision for me. I still felt like I
might wonder about our embryos but I felt peaceful about the decision to donate
them to another couple – like that was the only decision and I didn’t need to
feel torn about it.
Finally, the last difficult
decision to make… was how many embryos we would transfer. Dr. Moffit thought we
should only do 1, because I had a good chance of 2 turning out to be babies and
it is not always safe to have twins. I wasn’t sure my body, with my bad back,
could handle twins. However, I knew I was in a position that if we ended up
with twins… I could probably handle it not matter how hard it was! Russ was
really leaning towards transferring 2 embryos. I couldn’t decide so for the
time being I decided on just 1 but the nurse told me we could always change our
minds and sign new paperwork for transferring 2 embryos.
As things progressed over the next month and we got closer
to the IVF start date, I was really excited. I wasn’t nervous about anything
except for when the day would come that we took a pregnancy test. All
throughout the process of trying for a baby, I had hope that if nothing else
worked we could always try IVF. I was nervous about losing hope if IVF didn’t
work. The beginning of August was when everything would start for us, and the
nurses at ARMS had explained that as soon as we started on the medications, I
needed to take it easy and allow my body to concentrate on making eggs and
nothing else. The first week of August – we went to the lake twice and I tried
to live up every minute of being there. Without summer being over I was a
little bit sad about my lake days being over. Most of me was excited to get
started with the whole IVF process though. I started medications at the very
beginning of August or maybe the end of July. August 4th, we had a
family lake day and that night I started the shots, making it time to take
things easy. For the next week and a half I strictly followed the medication
schedule and was in the doctor’s office at least every other day, as they
monitored how many eggs I was growing and how big they were. The shots didn’t
bother me at all, it was just a little difficult sometimes to make sure we took
the shot at the exact time we were supposed to.
(This is me during the week before the egg retreival)
During my doctor appointments, the nurses and doctors always
commented on how well I was doing on the medication. They were seeing results
just like they had hoped for. This made me feel good! On Sunday August 12th,
based on what the ultrasound showed, Dr. Faber who saw me that morning, said I
was ready! The egg retrieval date was set for Tuesday August 14th… 2
days later. That night she gave me instructions on when to take the shot, and
she said that night was the most important shot of all and it needed to be
taken at an exact time. Between 9:00 and 9:15 was our window. I remember being
a little bit stressed as we took the girls home that night because we take them
home right during that same time frame. We made it back home to our house
around 9:10 and did it just in time!
EGG RETRIEVAL:
Monday, August 13th I went in to the office and
had a pre-op appointment which went fine. I was given instructions for the next
day when the egg retrieval would happen. The time had finally come! Monday
night, we took Noah over to my parents’ house so he could spend the night and
have my mom take him to school the next morning, since we needed to be at the
doctor’s office so early. Russ and my dad gave me a blessing, which gave me comfort.
I still was not totally nervous about any of the procedures, just whether or
not it would work. The priesthood blessing reminded me that Heavenly Father has
a plan for me, which is out of my control. That reminder usually gives me a
little bit of comfort and helps me to not stress about things I can’t control.
Tuesday morning we woke up really early and made it to the
doctor’s office on time. Shayna was our nurse that day and I loved her. She
explained exactly what was going to happen and assured me that nothing would
hurt. As she started my IV, she said the worst part was over. I said goodbye to
Russ and they wheeled me into the “operation room”. I remember the
anesthesiologist turning on the medication for me and the next thing I remember
was waking up in the recovery room. Russ was there with me and I was just a
little bit sore. Shayna was there to tell me that they retrieved 17 eggs! I was
so excited that they got so many. She told me that they would update me on the
condition of the eggs as they watched them. Russ and I rested for about an hour
before they sent us home. Russ stopped and picked up lunch for us then we went
home and rested for the rest of the day. I was told to only get up to use the
bathroom for the rest of the day. Russ stayed home from work with me and I
enjoyed having him there. He takes such good care of me and is the sweetest
husband. That night my mom brought us dinner and Alisse brought me my favorite
cheesecake from Cheesecake Factory. YUM! I was a little bit sore but nothing
too horrible.
EMBRYO GROWTH:
The next day, I received an update that of the 17 eggs, 13
were mature and all 13 were fertilized. I thought this was great news. They
would be updating me again 2 days later.
On Friday the 17th, I received another update. Friday was considered "day 3" and the eggs were expected to have 8-10 cells (if I remember right) to be considered in good shape. I lost my notes but I think I had 8 that looked like they should and a few others that were questionable, that they weren't ruling out yet.
At this point, I was under the impression that we would be
given one final update on day 5, the morning of the transfer; and that we’d be
able to make a final decision about how many blastocysts to transfer. Saturday
evening rolled around and Russ and I went out for date night. All we could talk
about that night was this important decision about transferring 1 or 2. Russ
was leaning toward 2 and I was probably 60 / 40 and leaning toward
1. I felt very torn. I wanted a really good chance at having one baby, and if
it turned out to be 2 I knew that I could handle it. The thing I was worried
about was having one of those eggs split to form identical twins plus another
baby. I knew that I could NOT handle 3 babies! I had read online about so many cases
where 2 eggs were transferred and the couple ended up with 3 babies. Because of
Russ’s idea of doing 2, that made me second-guess myself and consider
transferring 2. That night and the next morning, we prayed some very specific
prayers, asking that the right blastocyst(s) be chosen for transfer, and also
to know whether or not we should transfer one or two.
EMBRYO TRANSFER:
Sunday, August 19 - It was time to head to ARMS on Sunday
morning and we still had not made a final decision. As Russ drove, I did as
much reading as I could to receive any more info and enlightenment to help us
make a decision. We pulled up to ARMS and decided that we would just have to
talk to the doctor about the blastocysts and from there make our final
decision.
Dr. Moffit and the embryologist sat down with a chart to
tell us the latest update on the embryos. They said that there were 4 that made
it to the blastocyst (day 5) stage and looked good, and 4 others that they were
going to watch for one more day. We expressed that we were still trying to make
a final decision about transferring one or two and they told us that they had
already frozen 3 of the good ones and prepared only one for transfer. I was a little
bit bummed at first that we didn’t get the chance to make that final decision,
but at the same time I was so relieved that the decision was made and there was
nothing I could do about it.
The transfer was an easy process. I did not have any
anesthesia this time, and Russ got to go back into the room with me. The room
was kind of dark and was connected to the embryology lab. Dr. Moffit got me all
prepared and then said to the embryologist who was waiting in the lab, “we’re
ready”. That’s when the embryologist brought what looked like a little syringe, and Dr. Moffit did something that transferred the embryo up
inside of me. The neat part about this was that Russ and I got to see the whole
thing on an ultrasound screen. Dr. Moffit pointed out where the embryo was and
took a picture for us. This was somewhat of an emotional moment for me, because
I was thinking that if this embryo survived the implantation and turned into a
baby, Russ and I saw the moment that the baby was implanted inside of me. I
didn’t want to be too sure of success so I tried to not let myself get emotional
over it.
The little white line on the left side of this ultrasound picture is where the embryo was placed.
WAITING FOR A PREGNANCY TEST:
Besides all the medication that I was still on and the
progesterone shots I continued to take every night, the next step in the
process was the pregnancy blood test. It was scheduled for Tuesday, August 28th.
That next week and a half of waiting actually went by pretty quickly. I had the blood test
done first thing in the morning on the 28th and was told to expect a
call later that afternoon. The paperwork I had said that if I hadn’t heard from
ARMS by 4:30, that I could call them.
It was around 4pm when Russ called me on his way home from
work and wondered if I had heard anything yet. Of course I hadn’t – I would
have for sure called him first thing, whether the test was negative or
positive. I told him at 4:30 I could call the doctor and Russ tried to get me
to just call them for the next half hour. I didn’t want to be that annoying
patient so I waited until 4:30. It was killing Russ! I was so nervous to hear
the results – I had to use the bathroom A LOT that day and broke out in a sweat
numerous times. I think I had kind of talked myself into the test being
negative – probably as a way to not get my hopes up and then be totally
disappointed.
At 4:30, I finally called ARMS. They put me on hold for a
long time and finally one of the nurses (Kate) answered. I told her I was
calling for my blood test results. She said that she actually could not go over
the results with me… that had to be Dr. Moffit… but then she said “but I can
tell you that good things come to those who wait”. That’s the moment we knew.
Russ was on the phone with me so he got to hear it too. She confirmed that that
did mean the test was positive, but Dr. Moffit would be calling me soon to
discuss more with me. Kate hung up and Russ and I celebrated over the phone
with each other. I wished so bad that he had been home with me so I could give
him a big hug. I was so so SO excited, and shocked that I was finally pregnant.
This is a picture of me the day after we found out I was pregnant - making me 4 weeks along.
For the next week, Russ and I kept this secret to ourselves.
There were a lot of people that knew we were doing IVF and waiting to hear
about the results, but we didn’t tell anybody what day we would be finding out.
It got to the point that our families knew that we had probably found out, so
on Monday September 2 when we were at my mom’s house, we told my parents and
siblings. The next day (September 3) was Tuesday when we had the girls over,
and we had decided to fill them in during our Family Home Evening that night. I
actually didn’t want to tell the kids until much later but we also didn’t want
them to find out on accident by somebody else. We asked that they not tell
anyone so we could still keep it a little bit of a secret during the early
weeks, until we were more into the “safe” zone of 12+ weeks. I think the kids
were excited for the most part. Just one week earlier, Noah had been asking
that we have a baby boy that could sleep in his room, so I was really excited
to tell him he could get up with the baby in the night. I think he changed his
mind about that! Sophie said that she could take good care of the baby since
she takes such good care of Lucy.
This is a still picture from the video footage we took of telling the kids we were gonna have a baby!
