The transfer is complete!

The embryo transfer took place on Monday and everything went well.


The Dr. called us Monday around 11 am to give us an update on the embryos so that we would not have to wait until our 1:30 appointment to find out. She said that we had 2 embryos that we could potentially transfer. One was Stage 1 blasocyst in development and the other was a Stage 2 on its way to a Stage 3. She also said that we had several others that they would continue to watch over the next day as they might develop to the point where we could freeze them.


When we got to the office that afternoon we met with Dr. McKenzie to decide how many embryos to transfer (1 or 2). After talking with Dr. McKenzie we felt that transferring 1 embryo was the best decision because transferring 2 would have given us a 40% chance of twins. Transferring two has its benefits though because it basically doubles your chance of success, but we felt that after weighing the risks vs. the benefits it was better to transfer just one.


When the embryologist came into the room with the incubator he gave us a printout of what the 2 embryos look like under the microscope. Since 8 am that morning the embryos had both grown to Stage 3 so they were now both the same size and stage of development. Chris asked him how they were going to decide which one to transfer since we were only transferring one. The embryologist was not yet aware that we were only transferring one so he had to take the incubator back out of the room and look at them under the microscope again to determine which one was the best.


We got to watch the entire procedure on the ultrasound. It was all a very surreal experience. Now we just have to pray that it worked!

Tomorrow is a big day!

We celebrate 7 years of marriage tomorrow.

It seems like yesterday; well maybe not yesterday, but it doesn't seem all that long ago that we were living in Arlington planning our wedding.

When the day finally came it seemed like it went by so fast but we enjoyed every minute of it. Luckily, one of the best things we did was hire a fantastic videographer who captured everything from us getting ready for the ceremony up to us leaving the reception in the limo. We occasionally watch the DVD and show it to Kaitlyn which is always fun because she always wants to know where she was during the wedding. Hmmm, how to explain that to a 4 yr old...

Anyway, 7 years later I finally have all of our pictures from the wedding scanned onto a DVD and ready to be made into an album. That's right, we still don't have a wedding album. We have all the pictures and the copyrights and I know exactly what I want in an album and who I want to make it, now it is just a matter of making the investment and getting it done.

There is one thing that is worse than not having your album done after 7 years of marriage...not having your dress heirloomed yet. I still have it hanging in the pink plastic bag it was hanging in on the wedding day. I am making sort of a mid-year resolution that I have got to get my dress heirloomed this year. I guess that is something I can research while I am in bed for two days straight :-).

Tomorrow is also the day I will have the embryo transfer.

We were scheduled for Saturday but it was postponed until tomorrow.

Saturday morning Mom came over to watch Kaitlyn for us while so that we could go to the Dr. We were pretty sure it wasn't going to happen on Saturday, but as of 8:15 we still hadn't received a phone call telling us not to come, so we headed towards Dr. McKenzie's office since our apptmt was at 9:00 in the Memorial City area.

As we were driving down Cullen and I was chugging bottles of water (per the Dr's instructions) because they want you to have a full bladder when they do the transfer, the phone rang. It was the nurse saying that we needed to wait until Monday. As of Saturday, which was 3 days after the retrieval, we had 12 embryos with 7-9 cells and a 3+ rating and since they were so close in size they couldn't differentiate the best from the rest. There were also 4 smaller embryos that only had 4-5 cells so those will probably degenerate.

Here is a picture of an 8 cell embryo, I imagine ours look similar to this :-).

I don't understand that much yet about how they "grade" the embryos but here is some information I found on the internet.

Embryos should be at least 2 to 4 cells at 48 hours after egg retrieval and preferably about 7 to 10 cells by 72 hours. The cells in an embryo are also referred to as "blastomeres".

From reading this information it sounds like the 12 embryos that are 7-9 cells are right on target. The nurse said that this is a very good result. We will get to sit down with Dr. McKenzie tomorrow before the transfer and she will review the grading with us and give us all the details on our embryos.

I was actually a little relieved that we weren't doing the transfer on Saturday, I wasn't sure that I was ready to be on bed rest just yet and I had forgotten to put my bottles of water in the refrigerator to drink. I know, I know, it's a little crazy but anyone that knows me knows I can't stand to drink room temperature water, especially not when I have to chug it because I have to have a full bladder for the procedure. That is why we always have half empty bottles of water in our refrigerator because as soon as it gets warm I put it back in the refrigerator. This is something about me that after 7 years of marriage still drives Chris crazy.

So now the transfer will take place tomorrow at 1:30 PM and this time we are prepared...

the water is already in the refrigerator, I have 3 movies to watch while I am on bed rest and Kaitlyn is going to Mee Mee's house after breakfast in the morning and we are excited that the day is finally here!


One last story and then I am off to bed...
Chris and Kaitlyn were talking earlier and I guess Chris must have asked Kaitlyn if she wanted a little brother and she said something funny so Chris brought her to the kitchen to tell me why she didn't want a little brother and she said
“because they eat meatballs with their hands and they are grossy posey”

I just died laughing.

It is moments like that when I know that going through all of this to have another baby is definitely going to be worth it!

Even better news...

The nurse called this morning and said that they actually retrieved 22 eggs, they found 2 more when sorting through the fluid they retrieved with the eggs. 21 of the 22 were mature, meaning that they measured between 15-22mm in size. 16 out of the 22 fertilized so we have 16 eggs that are in the incubator now and we are scheduled for an appointment at 9:00 am Saturday.

The nurse said to stay by the phone Saturday morning because there is a good chance they will cancel that appointment and let them grow until Monday in order to differentiate the best egg from the rest.

So I think Monday will be the big day. I will be on 2 days of bed rest after the procedure, which I plan on enjoying by watching movies and resting. Mom is going to take the little one off our hands for Monday and Tuesday because it is hard to explain to a 4 year old that you can't get out of bed for 2 days. She will enjoy getting to spend time with her Mee Mee too and Mom will get some much needed time off!

Tomorrow Chris gets to start playing nurse and injecting me with progesterone in oil every day for the next 2 weeks, at least. If we get a positive pregnancy test I will continue taking the shots every day for 6 weeks. I can't say I am thrilled about having to take an intramuscular shot with an inch and 1/2 long needle everyday but it will be worth it if this all works out.

We are praying for a successful transfer! Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

We got 20!

Today was the retrieval and they retrieved 20 eggs. They are going to fertilize them and put them in the incubator and tomorrow they will call and let us know how many actually fertilized.

So I am sitting in bed recovering and I have to say anesthesia is a great thing. I don't remember anything from the actual procedure, I don't even remember getting sleepy. The whole procedure took maybe 20 minutes and then I had to stay in recovery for 45 minutes before leaving.

The transfer could happen as early as Saturday, but will more likely take place on Monday. Since they retrieved so many it would be hard for them to tell on Day 3 (Saturday) which one is the best so they will give them a few more days to grow and look at them on Monday. Hopefully we wil have 1 super star fertilized egg that is ready to go on Monday.

Wish us luck...

Today is the big day! Chris and I are about to leave to go to the Dr. so that they can do the retrieval and retrieve the eggs to fertilize. Based on how everything goes today, how many eggs actually fertilize and get to the appropriate stage, we will either do the transfer on this Saturday or next Monday. After the transfer I will be on bed rest for two days.

Keep us in your prayers!

Where we are at now

I haven't updated the blog in a while to tell all of you where we are at now.


Chris and I are about to start the process of in vitro fertilization (IVF). After seeing one reproductive endocrinologist for 5 months and several failed attempts to get pregnant and complications from all the medications, it looked like we were heading towards in vitro fertilization as our best option for getting pregnant. Chris and I decided to get a second opinion and consulted another reproductive endo, Dr. McKenzie.


After meeting with Dr. McKenzie, Chris and I felt more comfortable about IVF and decided to begin the process with Dr. McKenzie. After much waiting, this month begins our first attempt at IVF; and if it works the first time, hopefully our last.


We are so thankful to have this option, even though we never thought this was a road we would have to take and we are looking forward to adding a new addition to our family.


We feel so blessed that we were fortunate enough to have Kaitlyn. I can't imagine what it would be like to go through this journey to have our first child. She gets us through all of this because if we start to feel discouraged we just have to look at her beautiful smile and remember what a miracle she is and we know that we will again be blessed when the time is right.

Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers in the coming weeks. It looks like the egg transfer may take place around the 1st of July.