Prayers Needed Again...

I woke up about midnight last Sunday night and I was bleeding bright red. I couldn't get an on-call Dr at my OB's office, I didn't know what to do so I went to the ER. They saw me right away, did an ultrasound and said that the baby looked fine. The bleeding had stopped by the time the Dr saw me so he said he couldn't say where it was coming from. I woke up Monday morning with more bright red blood. I followed up with my OBs office in the morning and they said to come in first thing, since they couldn't find the ultrasound from the night before they did another one. I saw the baby and heard the heartbeat and everything looked great. Then I saw my Dr, again the bleeding had stopped and he said it could be related to the non-viable twin. He said with no guarantees he thought everything would be fine and that I may experience this bleeding off and on for the rest of my pregnancy.

The bleeding had tapered of to light spotting until this afternoon when I had another gush of bright red blood. I am still very worried. I hope it goes away soon. I go back to see the OB next Friday but if this gets worse I will probably go back sooner.

I just don't believe God has brought us this far for something to go wrong now. I know everything will be ok but it is not ok right now.

Thanks in advance for your prayers.

Graduation...

We've officially graduated from our Dr in Charlottesville and had our first OB appointment in Lynchburg on Wednesday! After several bad experiences with local doctors, I was very apprehensive about returning to Lynchburg for prenatal care. Upon the recommendation of our fertility Dr we picked a local OB. I thought our appointment went very well. We liked the new Dr a lot. Turns out he went to school with our fertility Dr. which made me feel even more confident. I had my fourth ultrasound, and at 3.2 cm the baby had almost doubled in size from our ultrasound just ten days before. The baby was very active and wiggly, I can't wait to be able to feel these tiny movements. We also heard the heartbeat for the first time, it was very loud and about 160 bpm. This will be our last ultrasound for three months.

Troy has decided he does not want to know whether it is a boy or a girl and that is ok with me so we will wait to find out in December.

Now that we are no longer "waiting for 2 pink lines" I will be looking for a new home for our blog and I hope to post about where that will be. I can't thank you all enough for all the prayers that got us to where we are. We truly know this is a blessing and a miracle of God.

And then there was one...

I had some very minor spotting a few evenings, I wasn't worried about it at all, but I called our nurse on Tuesday just to hear her say it was nothing, but instead she asked me to come in. So I had an ultrasound Wednesday afternoon and we learned we lost one of the twins. The other one is just fine. Our Dr was very pleased with its development, in fact he assured us that we have a 90-95% chance that everything will be fine (nothing is ever guaranteed).

Because our new OB won't see us until the 27th our current Dr offered to let us to come back once more, mostly for peace of mind and we took him up on it. We have another ultrasound on the 18th.

Twins!

Well as most of you know our final beta test came in at an amazing 3026. God truly answered our prayers. We went for our first ultrasound on Friday and we saw not one, but two tiny heartbeats. Yep, we are having twins. On Friday they measured a healthy 4mm and 5mm. We go back to Charlottesville on the 14th for our final ultrasound and then we graduate to an OB! I will be seven weeks on Monday. Twins are considered full term at 37 weeks so I am due on November 28.

Beta Testing, Please Pray...

Well the results are finally in and we are pregnant. However...the test they use is called a beta test, it tests for the amount of HCG in your blood. A positive test is anything over 25 but ideally between 50 and about 150. Our first test was last Wednesday 4/15 and the result was and astonishing 437. My first though was twins! If the embryo is developing normally the number should double ever 48 hours so they check twice to be sure. We went back on Friday, 4/17 and it was only 740 (it should have been 880). We went back and tested again on Monday and it was only 1261 (it should have been at least 1480 ideally 2100 since it had now been 72 hours). The nurse said it could mean we had twins and lost one or it could mean that the embryo is not developing. We go back tomorrow to test again. We need the number to be at least 2100 and if the number goes down its over. I know I don't even need to ask, but please remember us in your prayers.

Transfer & OHSS

We were able to transfer two beautiful embryos on Thursday, April 2nd and we found out on Monday that we had four more that were frozen in case we need them later.

Unfortunately, it seems I have developed a complication called Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome or OHSS. It is caused by all the meds I took to help me produce extra eggs. Now my ovaries are swollen and leaking fluid in to my abdomen, which puts a lot of extra pressure on my insides. It got progressively worse through Friday night and my Dr saw me first thing Saturday morning. He admitted me at Martha Jefferson to do a procedure to draw off the extra fluid. Although very painful, it was unsuccessful. As it turned out it was really good that I was there; I was so dehydrated no one could find my blood pressure all day and they had to use and ultrasound just to find a vein to put an IV in. They gave me a liter of IV fluids and sent me home.

I have been getting progressively better since then and returned to work on Tuesday. My Dr said if I am pregnant I will likely get worse again, but this hasn't happened yet so I am a little discouraged at the moment. All we can do now is wait. In case the news isn't good, we have decided not to share our test date.

Retrieval Day!

Our retrieval was today at 9:15 am. I think it went well, but who am I to say, I was asleep! They retrieved 18 eggs! We will know late tomorrow morning how may actually fertilized. They expect about a 70% fertilization rate. We will likely go back for transfer on Thursday, at that time the embryos will ideally be 8 cells big! If they are doing really well they will allow them to grow for two more days, and become blastocysts which are between 50-100 cells big, making transfer on Saturday.