Happy 21 weeks to me! I’m officially in my second half of this pregnancy and boy does it feel good! One of the things tell say about the second trimester is that you start feeling more like yourself again, and I am so thankful for that! You can ask Neil, there were times were I would say that I didn’t think I’d ever feel “good” again. Lately, I’ve been feeling better than good!
For whatever reason (probably because I was tired and or lazy) I didn’t do a great job of documenting the rest of my IVF experience, but I remember it like it was yesterday!
Where I left off from last Monday’s post, I had just been told that the embryo transfer was planned for Monday, July 21st. Saturday, the 19th, I shot a wedding. Sunday was spent at church or at the church family picnic and doing laundry. Monday morning, Neil & I left extra early and grabbed breakfast before heading to Nashville. We didn’t have to wait long before they took s back to the procedure area. I was instructed to drink 16 oz of water on the drive down and another 16 oz while I waited at the office. However, we didn’t wait long and therefore, apparently I didn’t have a full enough bladder for them to see via ultrasound to do the procedure so I waited for a spell in the procedure room. They gave me a valium, which I told them probably wouldn’t work on me (it was a lower dose than the dose that I took for Meniere’s spells and I never felt those), and started about 10 minutes later. Neil was allowed in the room with me so he witnessed it all. It only took about 10 minutes and then there was two embryos floating around in my extremely tilted uterus! We were given a print out of the two embryos under a microscope before they were implanted and then an ultrasound of them in their new home after implantation. So cool! Once I was in the car, the four day bed rest began. When we got home, Neil set me up in the living room with pretty much everything I would ever need and headed to work. Monday night, the clinic called to tell me my progesterone level was a little lower than they would like and instructed me to start an addition pill 3 times a day. That night my mom came over and Neil was off work Tuesday and Wednesday so I was hardly ever alone. Which was good because, BOY bed rest is not fun!
I completed my 4 1/2 day bed rest after they implanted the two embryos – there wasn’t much pain during that time, just a whole lot of boredom. My mother-in-law Terri, saint that she is!, came over every night to give me my shot in the hip (the same one I’d been taking) and I continued to take my progesterone via vagina insert (yea, sorry) and oral pills. I worked at the hospital the following Monday and Tuesday but, by Dr.’s orders, had to take it extremely easy.
I had done a ton of research and, because my trigger shot was Lurpon acetate based and not HCG based, I knew if I took a home pregnancy test on that Monday, that they chance of it being a false positive was very slim. I also knew that if it was negative, then possibly my HCG level just wasn’t high enough to be detected by a urine test yet. So, the Monday following my bed rest, July 28th, I took one at home pregnancy test. Then a second one, just to be safe. Then a third because when you’ve taken SOOOOO many before and always seeing a negative, you tend to not believe it when it reads positive! I fully intended on not saying anything to Neil because I didn’t want to get his hopes up in that slight off chance that all three were incorrect.
But I just couldn’t wait two more days to find out via our blood test at the clinic! He was excited, of course! We were driving in the car when I told him so we could do so much dancing, and we decided that we’d really get excited when the blood test also read positive.
Tuesday I had some light cramping and later that night, some light spotting. The nurse in me knew that was normal but the first time pregnant lady in me was scared. The next morning, Wednesday, I was nervous on the drive down to Nashville. Neil had to work that morning so my mom came with me. I knew we wouldn’t find out at the appointment – but later that afternoon, just like always, they’d call a few hours after the blood draw. Normally, we’d eat lunch in Nashville before returning home but I knew that Neil would be waiting for us and I was more than ready to get home in hope that they’d call earlier than the normal time: 3:00pm. I sure am glad we didn’t dilly dally getting home! Mom, Neil, and myself were only home for a half hour before I got the call – not only was my HCG level high enough, they were pretty sure that both embryos took. Yup! Twins!
