Thankful...

Monday, I flew to Dallas, rented a car, and drove 2.5 hours to Wichita Falls, TX. We are planning for Ivy to deliver the baby there because it is the closest major hospital across the TX line from her (she's in OK). We need to deliver in TX from a legal standpoint. It was her first appointment with her new OB and they did an ultrasound. Here is our sweet one...

I don't care how long I live and how many prenatal ultrasounds I see...they will always amaze me. Ivy is now 12 weeks along and baby is measuring 12 weeks 2 days. Heart was pounding away at 169bpm and looked perfect. The nuchal fold looked great. We saw the chambers of the brain and even fingers :) It was so amazing to watch that screen. I was just overwhelmed with thankfulness. 

Then today, Blaine came home from school and told me that he was given an assignment to write an essay about a person who changed his life. He chose to write about his little brother, Abram. I cannot really describe what hearing that felt like. Sure, they fight like cats and dogs and have all the normal sibling angst, but at the root of it all even Blaine knows how fortunate we are to have Abram in our lives. 

Too often I go through my day to day and don't reflect on what our journey has been like since I lost my ability to carry children. When, Blaine was born, Aubrey was 14 months old. My sole focus was survival and any spare minute of sleep I could find. I was not thankful. I loved my children, but seriously, I was not thankful. Brandon and I both made a conscious decision to cherish every moment with Abram and enjoy him...something we didn't do with our first two. With all that infertility and April 24, 2004 took from me, it gave me something far greater...thankfulness. I now know what it's like to long for a child and dream every night for years of their face. The longing and aching for a little head to smell. I don't know if I would have ever gotten to that place had I not been forced there. I know it could have happened; I just don't think it would have. I don't know if my older children would have gotten to that place either. They have something their friends don't: a greater appreciation for their younger brother, an understanding of the trials we sometimes have to walk through to get something far greater than we could have imagined. They have learned much younger than most that sometimes in life you have to make sacrifices, pray really hard, and be willing to do whatever it takes to see your dream come to life. And, for that, aaallllll that, I am thankful. 

New Year, New Beginnings

Happy New Year (from the worst blogger on the face of the Earth)! So much has happened since my last post. I was so tied up with Christmas and family that blogging became last on the list. So, here's my attempt at a catch up.

Ivy, my Brandon, and I met in Dallas on December 11 for the ultrasound. Here's what we saw...

One absolutely beautiful, exactly on target at 7 weeks 1 day, baby with a heart rate of 144bpm. There really is nothing like that sight. Overjoyed is the only word to even come close to the emotions we were all feeling. Dr. E. said the bleed looked to be just about gone and he felt the pregnancy was very stable. Music to our ears! He released Ivy to her OB's care and told her to quit her medications at 11 weeks. We exchanged lots of hugs with the staff at ARCC and said our see-you-in-a-couple-years (remember, we have two frozen maybe babies there). It was a wonderful day.

So, here we are. Ivy is 10 weeks 1 day today and still feeling pretty green (Zofran has helped a ton). She has 6 more days of the crazy med regimen she's been on for months and her first OB appointment is January 14, 12 weeks, for an ultrasound and meeting with a Nurse Practitioner. I am going to fly up to Dallas and then drive the rest of the way to Wichita Falls to be there for that. I cannot wait to see how our baby has grown! Our official due date is July 29. I cannot wait!

Ivy came to visit us in Houston for the first time last weekend. We had a great time! Friday night we had a get together with some of our surrogacy friends. It was so much fun. Then Saturday, Ivy and I went shopping at a large outlet mall here. It was so fun to watch her try on maternity clothes and we just enjoyed the time together. 

Saturday night, Ivy, my Brandon, Kelly, and I went to the Rockets/Thunder game. I am a huge Rockets fan and Ivy loves the Thunder. Talk about a blast (even if the Rockets lost)! Kelly and I took this picture while in Las Vegas in August...

We recently decided that we will try to recreate this picture everywhere we go. Here we are at the Rockets/76ers game on December 19. We decided this on the fly and obviously forgot what the original picture looked like...

And, then the Rockets/Thunder game on December 29. This time we added Ivy to the middle in her James Harden beard (if you don't get that, you are not an NBA fan). I cannot even describe how hard we laughed. Even if no one else thinks we are hysterically funny, we do so it's okay.

I love, love, love my Kelly and Ivy!!!

Life on the Rollercoaster

Maybe that's what I need to change my blog name to. I keep hoping eventually the rollercoaster will stop and let me off though. One of these days...

Well, our first ultrasound was November 1. We have about a 4 hour drive to Irving and Ivy has a little over a 3 hour drive. On our way there, she and I were talking. We both said we'd be absolutely shocked if we saw two little ones, considering her beta numbers. When we got to the clinic, they took us straight back. Dr. E and our nurse, T, were equally excited as us, I think. Ivy laid on the table and T began. It seemed like an eternity before we saw anything but I'm sure it was only a few seconds. Then, into view was one perfect gestational sac and a yolk sac within it, exactly what you want to see at 5 weeks 4 days! Ivy looked at me and said "One baby, Heather!" Dr. E immediately said "I think you're speaking too soon. We still have half your uterus to check out!" Just then, T shifted the ultrasound wand slightly and into view...a second sac!!! Dr. E said "See! I told you!" Ivy's reaction was hilarious. I'm sure mine was just as funny. I jumped out of my chair and got as close to the screen as I could. I could not believe my eyes. With a better look, Dr. E explained that the second sac was not as well defined and was slightly smaller. He said there was no way to know whether it was a twin in the process of catching up, a twin in the process of vanishing, or a dreaded SCH (sub chorionic hematoma= a blood pocket very common in IVF pregnancies). Looking at the embryos, one was smaller than the other. Looking at the betas, from one to two did not double. From two to three it more than doubled. A twin in the process of catching up makes the most sense. After the initial shock, we all believed we had two babies. We scheduled a follow up ultrasound to check heartbeats for Dec. 14, 7 weeks 4 days.

Ivy has had the normal 1st trimester exhaustion and a little more than normal nausea and vomiting. Dr. E called her out something to help her keep her food where it belongs and things were getting better. Then came Friday. I'll save everyone the details but it involved a LOT of blood with absolutely no warning. She pulled herself together and called the nurse. After a million questions, the nurse said it sounded like a textbook SCH. Even knowing these things are common does not help. Ivy's had some bleeding off and on since but nothing like that initial bleed. Thank God! In light of that, our second ultrasound has been moved up to tomorrow, the 11th. We are expecting that the second sac we saw on the 30th was actually the bleed and are all praying for a healthy baby and heartbeat tomorrow.

I have a peace I really can't explain...the peace that surpasses understanding. In August when we found out we were not pregnant, Brandon wrote an email to his family telling them the news. In it he said, "We don't understand why we felt so strongly that we were to go down this road only to have it fail." My heart was in a million pieces and those words summed it up. Four months later, I feel like God has revealed one of the answers to me. Ivy and I have known each other for four years online: surrogacy support boards, facebook, email. We matched for this journey at the end of May. I've felt I've known her for the last four years but the way our relationship has grown in the last four months is remarkable. She is one of my closest friends and we talk and text about all kinds of things. Of course, I wish we would have gotten pregnant in August, but in light of everything, I'm so thankful for the extra time to get to know Ivy better. It really is a sweet, sweet relationship that I cherish. Coming to terms with losing the ability to carry your own child is not easy and entrusting someone else to do it is not something everyone can do. The friendship that goes so far beyond this life that I have with Dawn and now, Ivy, is such gift though. I am thankful.

Beta Catch Up

I have been a horrible blogger. I've been on an emotional rollercoaster, have one really sick kiddo, and there was Thanksgiving in there too. Those are my excuses anyway :)

So, to catch up, our first beta at 9dp5dt was 59. Pregnant! Then, there was the beta 48 hours later at 11dp5dt, 107. Betas should double every 48 hours although the acceptable window is 48-72 hours. We made that but it was still enough to give us all pause. I'm not going to lie, when the nurse called and told me the number, I burst into tears. I was terrified we were losing the baby or it was a chemical pregnancy. We started out a little low and then to have it not double...well, it was scary. We decided to do one more beta another 48 hours later to see what was happening, and drumroll please...we needed 214...we got...290!!! So, our doubling time between beta 1 and beta 2 was about 55 hours. Doubling time between beta 2 and beta 3 was only 33 hours! And, if you cut out that middle beta and look at an overall doubling time between beta 1 and beta 3, we're down to just under 42 hours! We all breathed a major sigh of relief with that one!

So, Ivy's hpts continue to get darker and we have our first ultrasound this Friday at 5 weeks 4 days. We are all so excited to see who is in there! Whoohoo!

Amazing...

what one day and a ton of prayer can do...

If you can see that second line, congratulations, your eyes are good! This was taken this morning, 5.75dp5dt and it means one thing...

WE ARE HAVING A BABY (OR TWO)!!! 

Ivy's been getting faint positives now since 3.5dp5dt but they were too light to even photograph, much less make us comfortable. With this one, we all agreed it's time to call it. Of course, we are still very anxious for beta on Monday, but this is definite reassurance that we've got someone snuggling in! Thank you to all of you who prayed for us. God is so good! 

Oh, the perils of the 2ww...

I've struggled with what to write or if I should write at all. I promised transparency though, for myself and anyone who is following along. Know that we cherish every kind word, every prayer, thought, text message, email, etc. It's just hard to figure out how to respond when we don't have an answer. We were hoping, praying, wishing for a clear positive much earlier than was probably realistic (but it does happen) and we passed that on to everyone in our lives. My mistake, completely. The truth is that, despite all my optimism, IVF is a terribly complicated process and the 2ww is pure torture. It is in no way guaranteed, even when the doctor gives you a 70% chance. There is also high incidence of what is called a "chemical pregnancy" in IVF. I had never even heard of a chemical until I entered the world of surrogacy. In August, we experienced it and it is one of the cruelest jokes that can be played. Pregnancy tests will show positive and then become negative again or they just don't darken, indicating no rise or a very slow rise in hcg (hcg should rise very quickly in early pregnancy). This is an indicator that something tried to happen and then didn't develop for whatever reason and it is heartbreaking. You see those first faint lines and allow yourself to get excited only to have them fade away. Terrible.

With that said, Ivy has been seeing those familiar, super faint lines for a day or so now. This is exactly what we were praying to avoid. We know we are still very early but it is nearly impossible not to let past experience taint expectations. So, please, please, please, friend, family member, random person finding my blog on the internet, pray that those lines darken up quickly and this is a viable pregnancy. Thank you all and we'll update when we have news. At the latest, beta blood test is Monday.  

Transfer and Embryo Update

I have a lot of ground to cover in this post and it might be all over the place, but here goes :)

Transfer was Saturday morning. Everything went beautifully. Brandon needed to be home with the kids. They had been without us for 5 days and Aubrey had a dress fitting, so my mom rode with me to Dallas. It was nice to have her meet Ivy and her Brandon and see the transfer process. She was a nervous wreck though!

The embryologist came in first and told us we had two beautiful blasts to transfer, one 4BB and one 4CB. (You can see more about the grading here: Blasts grading system) She also let me know that we had one additional blast ready to be frozen immediately! I was amazed but not as amazed as I was about to be...we also had 5 additional embryos still growing, just not quite blasts yet! From day 3 to day 5, when they expect you to lose 2/3 of your embryos, we only lost 1 embryo!!! I absolutely could not believe it. They will only freeze blasts though so they were going to watch them for one more day and then freeze what made it. More on that in a minute. The embryologist then talked with us about the chances of an embryo splitting, resulting in triplets, due to the "advanced staging" of the embryos. She made sure we were all on board and we waited for our RE (Reproductive Endocrinologist aka fertility doc). We were surprised when we were told it would be Dr. Le doing the transfer. He is the head doc at our clinic and we were not scheduled with him. When he came in, he told us he came in on his day off for our transfer because he didn't feel right letting someone else do it. That was pretty amazing. He had a very similar discussion with us and told us our chance at live birth was 70%, twins 40%, and a splitter resulting in triplets 3%. We decided we were okay with those odds and went ahead with the transfer.

Ivy was a rockstar. Dr. Le went on and on about how easy she was and we all laughed the entire time. In no time, our two little blasts, had a new home.

            An actual picture of our little guys, lovingly referred to as "Boudreaux" and "Thibodeaux" for now ;)

We then headed across the street to the hotel where Ivy would serve out her 24 hours of bedrest. I had snuck into her room before the transfer and left this there:

I got with her Brandon last week and had him send me a list of all her favorite snack foods. I filled up this giant basket with chips, candies, drinks, 34 (literally!) pregnancy tests, and an LSU hoodie because obviously she needs an LSU hoodie. Her face when she walked in the room and saw it was priceless. It was great. We had lunch there in the room with them and then headed back to Houston.

Ivy and I had originally thought it best not to test until Wednesday night but I'm dying over here! I think I've got her convinced to try Wednesday morning now. It is absolutely taking forever to get here though!!!

Now, more on our totsicles aka frozen embryos. I got the call this morning that only one of our five slow pokes made it. So, we officially have two little ones on ice! The one they froze Saturday is a 4CB (same as the little one on the left above) and the one frozen Sunday is a 6CC!!! That guy was a day slow but an overachiever! I am overwhelmed. We've never had this happen before and it's hard to put into words. Before I lost my ability to carry children, I never thought about the size of our family and how many children we would ultimately have. Now, it's all I think about. Here we were praying God would grant us one more and He went so far above and beyond that we now have 4 maybe babies out there! Also, knowing we have two frozen, of course we will wait until the baby or babies Ivy is carrying are a couple years old to let those have a shot at the world outside, but I want so badly to know them now! I honestly can't describe it. My heart overflows!