Beta #2

Our beta #2 is 821!  Nurse Katie was very happy with that number, but I know it only doubled in like 65 hours.  Ugh!  Maybe we lost one baby?  Not sure.  Funny thing is that now that my brain has wrapped around having twins, I would be really disappointed if it isn't : (  I am so crazy, aren't I?!  I will really just be happy with one healthy baby.  Of course, we still may have twins.  Katie said I am definitely in twins range.  I would just think my numbers would have gone up more, if so, but we shall see.

My 6 week u/s is next Friday morning.  It is going to be a LONG time to wait!!!

Thanks for praying!
Tracey

Beta #1....

After getting my blood drawn this morning at 7:30am, Katie (the IVF coordinator) called me to tell me that the Tennessee office would be closed this morning due to the ice storm!  I am so grateful that she took my number home with her last night just in case.  So, the lab here in Atlanta had to give Katie a verbal at her home and then she turned around and called me.  It was really so considerate of them to think of me.  They could have just let me wait out the weekend and give me both numbers on Monday, but Katie said that she didn't want to do that to me.  Thank you, Katie!!!

Anyway... the number is 381!!!

Oh, so very scary fabulous : )  I am THRILLED to be pregnant with a good strong number!  But, I can't lie - having multiples with 2 more small kids in the house overwhelms me a little bit.  Whenever I am nervous and worried though and start going down the "what ifs" (like what if this is triplets? How will we afford 4 or 5 kids with me as a SAHM?, Will they be in the NICU and how will I manage that with 2 girls at home?  etc... See how ahead of God I get??), I remember a quote out of the Jesus Calling devotional that says that worry is envisioning a future apart from Jesus.  I love that!  So very true.  So, I am claiming my life verse and resting in it today "I am the Lord's servant..... May it be to me as you have said." Luke 1:38.  I know that God is able to meet every one of our needs no matter what He decides for us in the future.  I am glad He gives us 9 months to adjust and get on board with whatever His plan is!  Ha!

I am definitely feeling pregnant.  I have been FAMISHED.  I never had that this early with either of my  other pregnancies.  But, seriously, my stomach growls like 3-4 times a day.  It is crazy!!  I also already get winded a lot.  And lastly, I have some serious nasal congestion with no cold.  Supposedly, this could be pregnancy rhinitus where all the hormones make your nasal passages swell and cause hay fever like symptoms.  Katie did tell me that my progesterone level was like 65 and they just want to see it over 15!  I am hormonal, people : )

Because the first beta is high, they just want it to double by Monday.  I will let you all know!  Thanks again for praying!

Lots of Good News!

So, I know that I said that I would be waiting until Friday morning to take a pregnancy test, but today a friend gave me a leftover First Response (to be used on said such Friday) and I was then ARMED and very DANGEROUS!  Ha.  After having that one little lone test sitting in my passenger carseat the whole morning, it was like it was calling out to me to be used. : )  And, really, I felt SO pregnant!  I have had the usual cramping and added a couple of new symptoms from the previous transfers - famished often and big time nasal congestion with no cold.  So, I decided to go ahead and test.  Here is what it looked like....

Woo hoo!!  I am 6 days post 5 day transfer, so I think I am on track this time.  During our last transfer, I didn't test positive until 7 days after transfer and it was with a SUPER faint line.  And, as many of you know, my beta came back at 17.  So, here's to hoping for a strong beta on Friday!!

I held off calling Jeff when I saw the news (explanation below), but went ahead and called my parents and, of course, Jennifer, to let them know the good news.  My parents told me that they had bets on whether or not I could hold out and not test until Friday.  They know me better than I think!

Since I tested earlier, Jeff had no idea.  This left me with an opportunity to surprise him a bit.  So, I had Keller wear a "big sister" shirt and then taped the test onto his mirror with "Surprise!" written above it.  When he came home, he saw Keller, but the shirt didn't register for him.  After seeing the pregnancy test he said, "OMG!  We have never had a line that dark this early!!!"  We are a tad nervous about having twins.  On the one hand, we would get genetic siblings!  Yay!!  But, this 44 year old is already a bit tired with her 2 young ones and can't imagine adding twins to the mix.  But, we will rejoice either way.  Just happy to be preggo right now!!

The other good news is that a couple of days ago I found out that our new insurance plan that started January 1st covers infertility treatments at 80%!!!!!  With a $1000 deductible!  So, the NEDC is going to refile with our insurance and refund us some money.  I can't believe it!  Plus, they are covering all of my meds with co-pays - 60 for both Estrace and PIO.  I really am in total shock about the whole thing.  I never would have even checked if it hadn't been for the fact that my PIO was covered with a copay, which has never happened before.  Good news all around!!

Here are a couple of pictures to cover Jeff's surprise.  The picture of him in shock has been recreated for your viewing amusement!

That's it for now!  Will let you know the beta on Friday : )  Thanks for all of your prayers!

Our Last Transfer

Thanks so much for praying for us yesterday!  We are grateful.  After arriving at the NEDC, Carol, the embryologist, came and told us that they thawed all 5 of our embryos.  Two of the embryos did not survive (they were ushered straight into heaven!), and the remaining three were transferred.  They were graded a 6CC, 6AB, and 5AA.  I have to say that I am a little nervous having 3 on board as I cannot imagine being 44, already having 2 small kids, and then having triplets!  Whew, that's scary! : )  But, I am sure the chances of that are very slim.  Here is a picture of our sweet babies : )

Jeff and I left early this morning so that he could go back to work.  I am lounging around as the girls are at my parent's house.  Jeff will pick them up tonight and bring them back here tomorrow to give me some extra rest time.  Grateful as I am feeling really crampy today, typical of my previous two transfers.  Hope that's a good sign!

We have our beta on 1/25, which also happens to be my birthday!  It could be a really nice birthday gift : ) But, we will celebrate God's goodness either way.

This transfer is definitely our last.  We already felt that way before we knew that all 5 embryos had been thawed and used, but this really confirms it for us.  I am praying that we become pregnant this time.  For us and for Jennifer and Aaron.  As many of you already know, their twins are these embryos' genetic siblings.  How great it would be to have a genetic sibling connection and have the opportunity to build a relationship with them!

We don't think we will be taking any home pregnancy tests until maybe the day of the beta.  Maybe.  So, I will let you know what happens!!  Thanks for praying!

God at Work...

You all may remember in my last post that we were trying to decide on our next steps in building our family. Honestly, this decision has been the hardest decision we have had to make in our 8 years of marriage.  I think because we are in our 40s, we couldn't even decide if we still wanted to continue with trying for a 3rd child and it was also hard to imagine any third child not being Keller's genetic sibling.  But, over the weeks, we haven't felt content in settling in with just 2, so the decision became how to go about adding the third.

We had settled on embryo adoption after much discussion and prayer with the hopes of adopting some sibling embryos of one (or more) of our blogging friends.  We had gotten the go ahead with one sibling embryo from a friend, but needed at least 5 per the NEDC's recommendation.  This recommendation got us in a bit of a quandary.  We really didn't want to adopt more anonymous embryos without some genetic sibling link.  It just didn't feel "right" to us, but we only had 1 to transfer and we didn't feel comfortable moving forward with just the one.  So, I began to pray that the Lord would make our path super clear.  It all seemed pretty hazy to me at that point.  To make things even hazier, our agency for our China adoption called us for the first time in like 6 years!!  And they wanted to know if we were ready to receive our referral as it would be coming in the next month or so.  I had kinda given up on China, so the phone call brought back all of my initial feelings about adopting a child from China.

During this hazy period, we decided to move forward with both adoptions - China and embryo - while praying that God would make our path clear as to what to do.  So, we picked out some more anonymous donor profiles, but didn't feel super great about any of them and we filed for a postponement on our China referral.  While working with Lauren to pick the anonymous profiles, I found out that they don't change the donor profile number after any left over embryos have been relinquished.  Lauren knew our desire to adopt some sibling embryos of someone from our blogging community and was willing to work with me.  So, I asked Krisa if they happened to have had any embryos that they relinquished after their last transfer and she said "no", but that she believed that Jennifer and Aaron did.  You can read Jennifer's side of this story on her blog.  So, I asked Jennifer and she was really excited about the possible prospect of Jeff and I adopting any sibling embryos of Abel and Belle.  She gave me the donor number and I checked the 100+ profiles that I had at the house to see if their number was in there.  It wasn't.  I figured that it had been 2 years and that the embryos had already been used, but (just to be thorough) I decided to contact Lauren to make sure that she had sent me all of the profiles.  I specifically inquired about Abel and Belle's donor profile number.

After I sent Lauren an email inquiring about Jennifer and Aaron's embryos, she replied the next day.  This is what she said...  "I am glad you asked about that one.  It is available, but got put back on the shelf without being scanned in.  We were discussing this chart the other day to make sure that it hasn't been reserved and I think the person that does the billing put it in the wrong place.  I have attached the profile for you to view."

Is that not crazy?!  I immediately called her, of course, and she told me that if I had not asked for that profile by number, she probably would never have found it.  It had been "misplaced" by the last person who put the chart back.  And who else was going to ask for that profile by number?  To me, it was like God had set them aside specifically for us.  Lauren thought the same thing.  She told me that because this profile has 5 embryos, she knew that it would have been taken quickly had they known it was available to use.

The other cool thing is that Lauren let me know everything else that has happened with these embryos, so I was able to share all of the information with Jennifer, who has been wondering what has happened with Abel and Belle's siblings.  It has been such a God thing!

The greatest thing for me is that my heart has been so heavy thinking about all of the anonymous donor receivers and the possible relationships that could be occurring between families and siblings.  I have wondered if there was a way to connect these families together.  I feel that there would be so many benefits for anonymous genetic siblings living in different families to get the chance to know one another.  I pray that we will be able to have that opportunity with Abel and Belle.  I am also praying that somehow, someway there can be some sort of service at the NEDC to foster these types of relationships or allow the opportunity for them to occur.  If you have any thoughts, I'd love to hear them!

So, our transfer is set for January 16th.  If we do not get pregnant, we will most likely move forward with our China adoption.  Jeff and I both feel unified moving in this direction, which has not been an easy road to come by.  I can't even begin to tell you what a relief it is to finally be unified with my hubby!  Thank you, God!!  We are grateful for you and for your support and prayers over this journey.  The past miscarriage was one of the toughest losses I have experienced.  You all made the journey much more bearable.  Thanks so much again : )

Hope you all enjoy this wonderful season.  I love the magic of Christmas!!
Tracey

What's Next?

I want to thank everyone again for all of the outpouring of love and support through this miscarriage.  It really has been a rough road.  I was doing really well until yesterday when I started boohooing again after praying for a good friend of mine who was going in for her last 2 embryos (her own genetic children) that morning.  Transfer day holds so much excitement and promise!!  You know you are at least pregnant until proven otherwise and just seeing your sweet embies on the flat screen brings out all of your maternal instincts.  I just wish our transfer turned out differently.

So, what's next for us?  Well, while it is really hard right now to envision us having a third child who isn't Keller's sibling, we are still thinking of a couple of options.

1)  Our China adoption (which was started back in 2006!) will be coming up in probably 8 months.

2) Doing another transfer.

If we do another transfer, we would REALLY like to adopt some more anonymous embryos but would like the opportunity for any baby(ies) born to know their genetic siblings, even if they are living in another house.  What I am trying to say is that we would like to "partner" with someone who may have some anonymous sibling embryos left, but don't think that they will be using them or maybe have already relinquished them back to the NEDC.  This way, any baby born will get the chance to know their genetic siblings.  Make sense?  The other way of doing this would be to adopt some anonymous embies and then try to find a family for the remaining embryos.

We already have one couple who has one embryo left over after having triplets.  Dr K. and Lauren at the NEDC think that it shouldn't be a problem for us to adopt this extra embryo as it is still available.  And it would be SO fabulous to know that if a baby is born, it already has 3 genetic siblings waiting to meet him or her!  However, we need more than one to move forward.  So, if you or anyone you know would be interested, let us know!  We can tell you what information we need from there.

3) Our last option would be to do nothing and just settle in with the two sweet girls we already have.  : )

Thanks everyone!
Tracey

Heaven just got a little sweeter

We went in for another round of blood work today to see what my numbers would do.  We really wanted to avoid going to get an ultrasound, if at all possible.  We got the call around 4:30 that my hcG was now around 50 (down from 286).  We were preparing for this moment, so it hasn't been as hard as this past week has been for us.  On the way to a meeting tonight, I thought about what God's reasons could be to not bless us (and Keller) with Keller's siblings and decided that it really didn't matter what the reasons are - I totally trust that He has our best interest and His greater plan in mind.  It gave me a huge amount of peace.  I also have joy knowing that Keller's sweet siblings are in the only home they will ever know - heaven.

Thanks so much for all you have done to encourage and support us.  You are an awesome community!
Tracey