We prayed and we prayed and we prayed that one day we would get to graduate from the fertility clinic. TODAY was that day!!!
I had my last ultrasound today at Dr. Griffith’s office. I have been going to ultrasounds and bloodwork every week since we got back from California. For the last 6 weeks!
Everything has been going perfectly. We are just so thankful and grateful.
Today, i’m 10 weeks 3 days and baby is measuring 10 weeks 4 days! Heart rate was 163 and baby was just dancing all around with excitement. It was so cool to see so much movement today.
I walked out of the office and was just sobbing. I think I cried the whole way home lol We are just so so sooooo happy!
We are due May 23rd 2022! My first OB appointment is next week and this is with a new doctor. I really hope I like her! I’m also hoping we get to do the NIPT testing bloodwork to check for chromosomal abnormalities and GENDER!
Updates coming soon, but for now we are just HAPPY and celebrating this awesome day!
Eric and I came home from California with an unexpected souvenir.
WE ARE PREGNANT!
Even now, staring at my cursor blink on the screen, I can’t even believe it. This is truly a miracle. We are so excited and grateful.
You’re probably wondering….how?
We were supposed to start our next IVF retrieval cycle when we got back from California. Every IVF egg retrieval cycle usually starts out with a couple weeks of birth control to suppress the ovaries before the major hormone meds. Well, I wanted to start the birth control part of it while we were in Cali so when we got back we could start the stimulation meds.
My new fertility doctor suggested I come in the day before our trip to do an ultrasound and check for ovulation.
I want to make this soooooo clear…. I DO NOT OVULATE ON MY OWN. I have pcos and unexplained infertility, so I was going into this appointment fully knowing I wasn’t going to be near ovulation.
He said if everything looked good at my ultrasound then I could start birth control while on my trip.
So I went in for the bloodwork and ultrasound and it turns out that my body was about to ovulate on it’s own. I wasn’t taking any medications to do this so I was shocked and honestly in a little bit of disbelief when my doctor suggested that I was going to ovulate. He told me to go on my trip without birth control, try naturally and we could check everything when I got back.
I was very skeptical but we decided to try it anyway. We tried not to think about it too much. We left for our trip on Saturday August 28th and I’m pretty sure I ovulated the 28th or the 29th because I was feeling very crampy those days.
Fast forward to September 7th, we had just arrived in Oceanside. I looked at the calendar and realized that it had been about 10 days since ovulation so we picked up some pregnancy tests when we went grocery shopping.
We got back to the camper and I decided to take a test. Eric had gone on a scooter ride with Brynn. I have ALOT of experience with negative pregnancy tests so I didn’t think this one was going to be any different or else I would have had Eric with me.
I took the test and it was POSITIVE. I was in shock. I took a couple more tests and literally started sobbing. They were all positive. I called Eric immediately and all I remember was saying “COME BACK HERE RIGHT NOW”. It was the best moment ever. I can’t believe we got to experience that excitement again. I honestly feel so grateful.
Since we got back from the trip, I have gone back to my fertility doctor a handful of times to check on bloodwork and ultrasounds. They changed up my medications a bit. Different thyroid pill, put me on a folic acid pill, started me on baby aspirin. I’m so thankful for my doctor because he’s really pulling out all the stops to make this a successful pregnancy.
Today was a special day because I went in for another ultrasound and confirmed that baby has a heartbeat!!!!! I’m measuring about 6 weeks 1 day which is right on time. He said everything is looking perfect.
I have been thanking God every single day since we found out. I know we are just at the beginning of all this but I feel calm in knowing that this is a miracle and I have so many people that have my back.
Until next update!
Jess <3
The day after we found out was our Disneyland day, so we bought a little souvenir 🙂An hour after we found out, so so so gratefulHappiness doesn’t even explain it
I so wish that I was writing a different blog post but here we are.
I had a pretty strong feeling that this transfer didn’t work, last week while we were camping. I had been taking home pregnancy tests every day since day 5 after the transfer.
All the tests were coming back negative, not even a faint line was showing up.
I went in to the doctor yesterday morning, 14 days after transfer, to do some bloodwork so they could measure the exact amount of HCG in my body.
I got the call at 2:30pm yesterday that my HCG was less than 5, which is a negative in the pregnancy world.
To say that we are devastated is an understatement. It feels like we are just walking down this road that doesn’t have an end in sight.
I keep telling myself that this HAS to be God’s plan. Why would he put us through all this if there isn’t a light at the end?
I’ll get back up again and keep trying because that’s what I do.
I wouldn’t even be able to get back up again and keep trying if it wasn’t for the support of my husband. Eric, I will continue to walk with you down this road and any other road for that matter because I know that if I’m holding your hand along the way, everything will be ok. I love you.
Hi guys! This is definitely a long overdue IVF update. We have lots to catch up on.
Our egg retrieval in October went excellent! We got 28 eggs.
This time around I had no OHSS (bloating or pain). My first retrieval I got OHSS and it was terrible. I was expecting to get it the second time too BUT I started drinking gatorade and eating salty foods the day before retrieval so I think that helped a ton.
Out of the 28 eggs, we had 5 make it to blastocyst (embryo). We sent off the 5 embryos to be genetically tested and 2 of them came back normal. 2 normal GIRLS!
So quick recap, we have 1 normal girl from my first egg retrieval and 2 normal girls from my second egg retrieval.
Eric and I have decided to transfer the embryo that is graded the best, which is one of the girls from my second egg retrieval. We are so hopeful.
After my egg retrieval, we decided to take 2 months off. We could have gone straight into the next transfer, but I really needed some time to decompress.
We have been trying to grow our family since September of 2018. My body needed a break after 2 years and i’m SO glad we did. November and December was the first time I have felt like myself in a LONG time.
Today, I feel a calmness around me. This transfer so far has been less dramatic in a way. The shots don’t hurt as bad and the meds all seem routine.
I will be going into tomorrow with a hopeful heart and knowing that this all has to be God’s plan.
If you could pray for us, that would be amazing.
Let’s all pray that my next update is POSITIVE in more ways than one.
Wow. The last month has been a whirlwind for me. It has taken me a month to sit down and force myself to write this post.
I feel like I have gone through so many life changes in such a short amount of time. I have been trying so hard to take it day by day but some days I find that the sadness of it all catches up to me. I know that sounds so depressing but when I started this blog I told myself I wanted to be honest. I didn’t want this to be a “highlight reel”.
Let’s start with my career.
There were lots of changes happening at my company due to the Oil and Gas climate. I got laid off on July 20th.
Most people would take that as a major financial and emotional hit to their family but Eric and I looked at it as a new opportunity for me. I am now able to stay at home with Brynn and soak up all the time with her and keep the house running!
This was one of our big goals as a family for a long time so we honestly couldn’t be happier with the situation!
The day after I got laid off, I had the miscarriage at home. It started at about 11:30am and ended around 3:30pm.
I had never gone through one before so I didn’t know what to expect. It was graphic and traumatic for me AND Eric. I’m just so glad I have Eric as my partner in life because he was there for me through it all. I wish someone would have warned me because it’s the closest thing to childbirth that I have come to. Brynn was a c-section baby so I never felt any contractions or anything like that with her.
In the last 3 weeks I have gone to the doctor 3 times to do hcg blood draws to confirm that my hcg was decreasing to less than 5.
I’m finally hcg free and just taking this month off basically. We have to wait for my period to start and then I can call my doctor to start the next steps.
The big question I have been getting is, What’s Next?
The answer to that is, my doctor wants us to do what is called an ERA test. An Endometrial Receptivity Array. It’s basically a mock transfer cycle. I will be taking all the stimulation injections and meds just like I did for my last transfer, except on my transfer day instead of transferring an embryo, he will be taking a biopsy of my lining.
This test will tell me if we transferred too early, too late or on the correct day. Nonetheless, it was a hard decision to make because that will be pushing back any chance of baby for another month. It will definitely give us some answers as to why my transfer didn’t work and what we can do to fix it in the future.
Mentally, it’s been a rough month for me. I think a lot of it has to do with stopping all the hormones cold turkey and then having to go through that miscarriage. BUT I keep telling myself it’s all going to work out in the way God wants it to be.
I’m going to do better about writing posts on here in the future. It’s almost like therapy for me to just get my thoughts out on the Internet. I feel better after lol.
Thank you again to every single person that has reached out to us the past few weeks. We can only go up from here right? 🙂
Another update soon.
Xo, Jess
I like to believe that’s our baby boy shining down on us in the top right corner <3
I keep staring at the cursor blinking on my screen trying to find the words to type.
We knew this was going to a be a long journey when we started it. Whenever I envisioned our IVF process I just thought that “it would just work”. Honestly, I never thought I would have to prepare myself for this. But, here we are.
Our ultrasound this morning didn’t go as we had planned it. The ultrasound still showed an empty sac that is measuring only 5.5 weeks along, even though we are at 8 weeks 5 days.
Doctor instructed me to stop taking all meds and to expect a miscarriage in the next week and a half. If I don’t have a period by then, we talk about a D&C.
To say that we are devastated is an understatement. I find comfort in knowing that our baby boy will get the chance to meet my Gma, Papa, Eric’s Aunt Sandy and Papaw up there in Heaven.
Thank you to everyone that has prayed for us and has been with us throughout this journey. We will take some time to grieve but we will get back up stronger than ever before.
For now, we will hug and kiss our beautiful girl and thank God everyday for blessing us with her.
To our baby boy, Mommy and Daddy love you so much and can’t wait to meet you one day. Until then, we know you are in good hands.
It’s taking a lot of positivity and optimism to write this post. I had my ultrasound today, at 7 weeks 5 days pregnant.
Baby boy only grew 3mm when he was supposed to grow 8mm. BUT he did GROW!
I knew from the start he was slow growing and my opinion on that is not going to change.
My doctor gave me the miscarriage talk. Told me to start preparing and look for any of the signs. He said we have a 1% chance that this will work (not sure where he even came up with that percentage).
I feel like I blacked out when he was talking because I was so angry that he was even telling me these words. I cut him off while he was mid sentence and shared my experience with Brynn and how she didn’t show up on the 7week5day ultrasound either.
SO, we are going to continue on my meds and I have another ultrasound scheduled for next Thursday.
I want so badly to see our baby boy on the ultrasound next week. I want so badly to see a flicker of hope. We have been praying so hard but it looks like we may need some more help! If you can find the time, please pray for us.
Thank you all so much.
7 weeks 5 days
“Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Genesis 18:14)
Let me start off by saying I would reallllllllllllly appreciate prayers this week.
We had our ultrasound last Wednesday. My doctor told me that we were 6 weeks 4 days pregnant but baby was showing to be measuring around 5 weeks.
SO this typically means 1 of 2 things. Miscarriage is around the corner OR baby is just getting a slow start.
Many of you don’t know that this is the exact same thing that happened with our beautiful Brynn. We went in for ultrasound at 7 weeks 5 days, they could see the gestational sac but no baby. My OB told me to prepare for miscarriage and a week and a half later I went back for an ultrasound and there she was, beautiful as ever!
I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’ve been clinging onto the hope that baby boy is following in his sister’s footsteps.
My dr sent me for bloodwork right after the ultrasound to check for my hcg levels yet again. Results came back that they rose to 5000! So this also gives us hope that baby boy is just growing slowly!
Our next ultrasound is on Thursday. Any and ALL prayers we would humbly appreciate!
Eric and I are overwhelmed with the amount of love and support we have received since we shared the news. Thank you so much to everyone that has reached out. We feel so blessed.
I have been to the doctor 4 times this past week and a half just for bloodwork to make sure my hcg levels have been rising.
At my first appointment, my hcg was 53! It was a relief to find out via blood test that we were pregnant!
Now you would think that I would be ecstatic about that number but what I have found dealing with infertility, is that it sometimes takes the joy away from happy moments because I am constantly WORRYING over things that I CANNOT CONTROL!
I have been learning to live in the now and be excited for any small victory. I have a long way to go but I am working on it 🙂
SO back to the HCG 😏 our doctor said that it doesn’t matter what your starting number is so long as it’s doubling every 48 hours. So I went back every 48 hours for more bloodwork!
My numbers have been as follows: 1st appt: 53, 2nd appt: 340, 3rd appt: 784, 4th appt: 1997 🥰
We are scheduled for an ultrasound on Wednesday to make sure baby boy implanted in my Uterus and then I think I will be able to breathe a little lol
Prayers and positive thoughts are appreciated!!
I hope everyone is staying safe during this time!
Love, Jess
Thank you so so soooo much to Phoebe for sending this sweet gift. Brynn was especially excited for the balloon! They are her fav 🥰
I can’t believe I actually get to type these words!!!! WE ARE PREGNANT!
654 days since we started trying again, we got a positive test!!
Today is day 14 since our frozen embryo transfer, so I went for my bloodwork appointment this morning. Everything was so quick and easy, was in and out in about 15 minutes.
My doctor called me at about 11:15am and said that the bloodwork came back POSITIVE and that my hcg level is at 53.
He said anything greater than 5 is a good start. We have another appointment on Monday to confirm that the numbers are doubling.
He also said I’m supposed to stay on the PIO injections, the estrogen and prometrium! So we will see if and when I get to stop taking those!
We still have some more hoops to jump through to make sure that baby boy is in there for the long haul BUT we are going to continue doing our best to live in the moment and just be so happy and excited about TODAY!
This is truly a miracle and I am so honored and happy that God has given us this little blessing. Even if it was with a little bit of science 😉
Thank you guys so much for the kind messages we have received the past couple weeks.
