My Loves

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We're Having A(nother) Baby!

One baby.

Our due date is May 20, 2012.

The magical ultrasound machine showed one beautiful Monkey with arm and leg buds and a spine that is just beginning to develop.  We were even able to see the flicker of a heart beat.  145 beats per minute.  

Right alongside Monkey was an empty sac in which Button never even begun to grow.  My wife says that the next time we get scanned it will be gone entirely.  Absorbed back into her body.  Like it had never been there at all. 

But it was there and the fact of that has created some subtle shifts in our family.  When we were first married and dreaming of the baby who be Yogi, we weren't sure we would have more than one child.  A family of four was the largest family we could imagine.  The decision seemed to be one child or two. 

And then we spent a few weeks imagining a family of five.  It was overwhelming and scary and thrilling and something about it felt perfect.  To both of us.

So, we'll see.  There's plenty of time for thinking and planning and dreaming.  For now, we're having a(nother) baby!!!!!

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One More Week - A TTC Update

Life is good and everyone is well, but I'm still crazy on the TTC front.  Yesterday was a particularly bad day in which I was convinced that Button was gone and I was worried that Monkey might be as well, bc you know people get punished for greed.  Oh yeah, it's like that.  Ugly.  I would now be a perfect teaching demonstration for each one of the cognitive distortions associated with anxiety disorders. 

• Catastrophizing?  Check 
• Selective abstraction?  You betcha ya
• Dichotomous thinking?  Absolutely
• Overgeneralization? For sure.

The good news is that today is better and after crying to my wife in the five minutes I had to see her when she got home from work before I needed to go to Yogi's Open House last night, I seem to have let go of whatever I was hanging on to.  I'm still counting the days (the appt is next Wednesday at noon), but I feel more peaceful.  Hopefully this will last a few days.

As you may have noticed from the first paragraph, the babies have gotten belly names.  We decided last weekend to be hopeful enough to talk about them as something other than "the babies" or "the big one" and "the little one".  I know that the Eeney Meeny Miney Mommy ladies already have a Button at their house, so I hope they won't mind but if you could see the image from the ultrasound (we didn't get a file BTW), "the little one" looks just like a tiny Button.  So, Button it is.  And Monkey?  It sounded good to both us.  Case closed. 

For the next seven days we've got one Button and one Monkey and I'm grateful for that.

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Not Giving Up

I've asked a lot of you lately and now I'm back with yet another request.*  The ultrasound went well and revealed TWO gestational sacs!!!!!  Here's where it gets tricky.  One of the sacs looks entirely on track for its gestational age of 5 weeks and 5 days.  It has a yolk sac and measures for age.  The other sac is about a quarter of the size and does not have a yolk sac.  The sonographer said that it would be very unlikely for that sac to continue to develop.  She said she expects it will be a vanishing twin.  I say there are many unlikely things that do happen in spite of how unlikely they are and it hasn't vanished yet.

So....this Mama is thrilled!!!  At this point we for sure have a healthy little sac and I could.not be more excited about that.  What is also important to me at this moment is that we have another tiny little guy that is still hanging on.  If he wants to be here, we VERY MUCH want him to be a part of our family.  Please, please, please send whatever you've got to that tiny little sac.  We go back for another ultrasound in a week and if they have both continued to grow I will be the happiest Mama ever.


*I promise to pay you back with tons of adorable baby pictures.

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Got a Good Distraction?

Help.Me.

THE ultrasound is tmw morning at 9.  My wife is on call tonight which means she will be at the hospital until right before the appointment.  I am confident that Yogi will keep me busy until bedtime, but he will be snoozing away by 7:30.  I would really like to avoid scouring twin blogs and infertility message boards for beta levels, but I can't seem to help myself.  Given one second alone, I launch directly into manic research state.  No passing go, no collecting $200.

So help a crazy girl out.  What'cha got?  Know of a TV show, a good book, a funny YouTube video? 

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Surprise!

Thanks for following me over to Blogger!  I have been considering a move since around the time Yogi was born and I created a private picture share blog for family over here, but I haven't done the relocation work until now.  You may wonder, why now?

Because I am in the full throes of the kind of mania that is possible for a person who does not have bipolar illness.  Which is to say that I am consumed with whatever it is that is going on in my wife's uterus.  I've been forgetting to eat (this is VERY uncharacteristic), buzzing around the house at a million miles an hour and finding it nearly impossible to slow my mind down long enough to fall asleep.  So when my wife (who has been thrillingly exhausted lately) tucks into bed, I've been learning about how to move a blog from Wordpress to Blogger.  There are certainly worse things a person could do with their time.

But the big question is, why all the crazy?  Why now?

At first I was thinking that the answer lie in the fact that during this part of our wait with Yogi I had a job.  I was entirely too busy to be this obsessed.  But.....his wait was during Winter Break, a time that I have always marked with goals along the lines of "read novels under blankets, bake cookies and catch up on Top Chef".  I wasn't even teaching.  Now, I should tell you that I was preoccupied during that wait.  No question.  I was excited and scared and eager and counting the minutes until each ultrasound.  I was far from chill.  But since the moment I saw that 280 appear on my phone, I have been jacked.up.  That is the only way to put it.  

I guess what I'm trying to say is - something is UP around here and I'd like to know what it is.  As someone who has a lot of pride tied up in the validity of her intuition, this is a vulnerable statement to make in such a public forum, but I think there is more than one baby in there.  I really, really, really feel that this is true.  I have scoured every IVF message board and website and I know that our betas are not in the "It's totally twins" range.  They are higher than I had thought they would be based on Yogis numbers and our first early loss, but they aren't that high.  I also know that beta values and even doubling rates are not perfect predictors of anything beyond the viability of a pregnancy.  I just have this feeling.

A feeling that I'd like to think is not just called "hope".  But.... it might be.

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Any Beta Savants Out There?

1080

Holy Mother of God.

According to the calculator I found via Dr. Google our doubling time is 25 hours.

I know there is no way to know for sure until the ultrasound, but that is a week away.  Is it twins?  What do you think?!

 

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Still Sparky

Clearly this guy is still his calm, chill self.  I, of course, am not.  I think the best description of my current state is sparky.  Reduced need for sleep, increased energy and lightning fast thoughts.  A small touch (spark?) of mania.  Baby mania.

My wife went in for the second beta at lunchtime and now it's wait time and the clock.is.ticking.  I'm feeling optimistic though.  She felt pretty yucky last night and I couldn't have been happier.  ;)  Yesterday was our anniversary and I cooked jambalaya (yum!) for dinner (which Yogi LOVED by the way) and we had my wife's favorite desert of brownies with vanilla ice cream.  It was a heavier meal than is typical around here and my lovely bride spent the rest of the evening with terrible heart burn.  Yay!!!!  Even she was happy about it.

In the midst of all of this beta craziness, Yogi has been doing some fun things.  First, did you notice the picture at the top of this post?!  He looks ridiculously cute in denim, but..... babies don't wear jeans.  :(  He looks like such a big boy I can hardly stand it.  This is the outfit he wore to school on Tuesday when he went back for his first full (9-2) day.  He did cry this time when I kissed him goodbye, but I waited outside the door and he had stopped in less than two minutes.  When I picked him up that afternoon his teachers said that he had made it all the way to their actual naptime at noon without snoozing on the sly!  He did however refuse to drink either milk or water in spite of the fact that I brought his two favorite cups (this is a relative term), but I imagine he won't dehydrate in 5 hours.  At least I hope not.  Overall I think he had fun and I'm proud of him.  I am getting pretty sick of the sippy-stand off though.

I'll post the beta when I hear it.  I've still just got SUCH a strong twin feeling, but who knows.  I know you can't know for sure until you can see what's going on in there with ultrasound, but if the number more than doubles isn't that kind of suggestive?  If you have thoughts or ideas about this, I'd love to hear them.  Thanks to everyone for being so excited for us!

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Live Wire

I have felt like a buzzing, sparking live wire all day.  This is far from my first TTC rodeo, but today the wait was different.  I've been preoccupied and alternately worried and excited since the transfer, but today was something else entirely.  I haven't been this anxious since graduate school.  Yogi and I went to a play date this AM during which I simultaneously carried on a conversation with four Moms, kept Yogi from dismantling a DVD player, ran my grocery list (organized by section) through my head on an endless loop, and sat on my hands to keep from typing a small subset of the things running through my mind.  Wowza.  That level of anxiety is exhausting and thankfully no longer my general state.

But...... who cares about any of that?!!  Today we are pregnant!

It was VERY hard to wait all.damn.day, but my wife sent a text with the numbers 280 and many, many exclamation points (my wife isn't an exclamation point person so I love when she uses them and REALLY loves when she abuses them) and I didn't care what time it was.  She called immediately afterward although we were both much too excited to actually talk.

I'm doing what I can not to over-analyze the number, but.... 280?!!!  It is true that today was 11 days post transfer of a day 6 blastocsyst and that is pretty far along for a 1st beta.  However, as a point of comparison - 10 days post transfer of a 5 day blastocyst that would become Yogi, our beta (it was the 2nd) was 157.  Hard not to compare.

280 feels like a HUGE number.

No way to know for sure until the ultrasound.

Patience is a virtue.

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280!!!!!!

Shut.up.

That''s all I've got.

More later.

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I'm a Lunatic. For Sure.

So many thoughts swirling around my head.

The good news is that my Dad came home from the hospital this morning.  I would feel even better about it if the doctors had had something definitive to say about why he ended up there in the first place, but I'll take what I can get.  After all kinds of tests and blood work, they couldn't find anything that looked out of whack.  He got bag after bag of fluids while he was there though and that definitely seemed to help.  I guess the cumulative effect of all of the chemo drugs took a toll, but he is on the mend.  Whew.  That is a tremendous relief.

And then there's the fact that we have THREE MORE DAYS.  I'm counting Monday because when my wife called to coordinate the test with her OB office they told her they would call with the results on Tuesday.  TUESDAY?!!!!  They agreed to put a rush on it for more $$ (grumble, grumble), but I'm still thinking it might be close of business Monday.  The details don't really matter actually.  This wait feels endless.

But by far the weirdest thing going on around here is the fact that I am entirely preoccupied with something that I've only given the briefest thought to before.

Twins.

I have twins on the brain.  It must be because of the fact that we transferred an almost unthinkable three embryos.  I never thought about twins in any serious way during the wait after the transfer we did with two embryos.  The only thinking I've ever done about twins was in the very early days when we were moving towards IVF and having conversations about risks and being conservative and doing what we could to avoid it.  Not because having two babies at the same time sounded like a terrible thing (overwhelming, yes.  terrible, no) but because it sounded like a medically risky thing.

Now I feel a little differently.  My wife had such a strong and healthy pregnancy with Yogi and although the birth experience wasn't what we had hoped for (damn C section), I'm not as nervous as I used to be.  This is probably overconfidence, but it's where I am.  Yup.  Where I am is right smack dab in the middle of "Hoping for Twins" land.  Am I a lunatic or what?  At least I realize I'm a lunatic.  I do have that going for me.

 

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Eight More Days

Waiting is hard.  Thinking about the fact that were it not for work related travel we would have only five more days is harder.  We have agreed (and we WILL.NOT give into the urges that I know will come) not to POAS before the blood test.  Incomplete information is such a curse and the potential for getting a faint line or not having a line isn't worth the risk.

And so..... we wait.

And while we wait we have a delightfully busy Yogi to keep us distracted.  The boy is wowing us each day with new surprises.  Here are a few of his new tricks:

• Moving his hand towards the moon in his book On the Night You Were Born when asked "Yogi, show me the moon."


• Lighting up and crawling at top speed towards the ball to pick it up and bring it to Mommy when asked "Do you see the ball?  Bring Mommy the ball?"


• Occasionally taking an actual sip of cold milk from his sippy cup.  Progress!! (Dr. Wonderful said that his No Bottle goal would be 15 months so we're going with that for now)


• Sitting on the floor reading himself a book in a distinct voice that we've started calling his "book voice"


• Crawling eagerly towards his high chair when handed his spoon

Having a 1 year old changes the feel of the wait, but I'm not sure it makes it any easier.  It's still going to be a VERY long eight days.

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A Good Day

In spite of our initial early surprise, we have managed to have quite a good day.  What you see in the picture above is Yogi enjoying a celebratory lunch of peaches and tofu at one of my favorite pizza joints.  The beer and pizza slice are mine.  My wife had water thank.you.very.much because.........

ALL THREE EMBRYOS SURVIVED THE THAW!!!!!!!

Never in my wildest throes of optimism would I have imagined that.  As the doctor was showing us each one and describing their qualities it sounded like technically we have 3, but practically we have more like two and a very small amount of change.  These 3 were frozen in the same straw on Day 6 so they were not the best (which get frozen on Day 5) but someone deemed them good enough to freeze, right?

She recommended, based on the quality of the embryos and our previous history (it took three tries to get a singleton the first time), that we transfer all three.  Her exact words were "I think this would be likely to produce a singleton."  When pressed she said that although possible it would be very unlikely to result in triplets and pretty unlikely to result in twins.

And that is what we did.  We transferred three embryos.  I never thought I would be typing that.

All three of us went to the office and everyone was so excited to see Yogi.  In fact he was even invited to tour the lab with the embryologist, but he declined.  Bummer.  I would have LOVED to go on that tour.  He was also a little unhappy about the fact that Mommy couldn't hold him whenever he wanted, but he was a good sport.

We are staying with good friends and so we spent the rest of the day relaxing and visiting with them.  They even planned a little dinner party for us in which we got to meet the 3 week old son of an old friend.  I hadn't heard them arrive and so when I came downstairs to find my wife holding a tiny, tiny baby it felt like quite a good day to me.

Thank you guys for your prayers, thoughts and kind words.  The last few days have reminded me how very lucky I am to be a part of this community.

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It Begins

This morning at the hour of VERY EARLY my wife made an unfortunate discovery.  The box of progesterone that we packed for the trip contained not the hormone that plays a vital role in the implantation and general sticking around process for the embryo but a surprisingly thick (not to mention weighty) pamphlet describing it.  OH NO!!!!!

This discovery was made after spending the entirety of the day before in the car with a 1 year old.  I should pause in the dramatics to mention that Yogi was a travel star.  Of course he was.  After dreading this car time for weeks, we actually had a pretty good time.  It took us a bit longer than usual as we had to stop for lunch and a diaper change, but when Yogi wasn't napping we spent the time singing, reading books, playing peek-a-bo with the monkey nursing blanket and doing high fives.  There was almost zero fussiness.  I think we'll keep the kid after all.

But.... back to this morning.

Upon realizing this very bad oversight, my wife got on the phone and called the answering service to page our doctor.  The call was returned in minutes (oh how I love this practice) and she was reassured that we could get vaginal progesterone in the office.  The doctor went on to talk about several studies that show the differences between delivery methods at this stage in the game being negligible.   Oh how I love data in a crisis.  Not even the time discrepancy (we usually inject at 6:30AM) will be a problem.  Deep cleansing breath.

So....... as of this moment we're still in it.  Yogi is napping in the other room, the lab has yet to call and say that any of the embryos haven't survived the thaw and we are scheduled for a transfer at 11 EST.

Good thoughts, prayers, vibrations, general good cheer.  Send whatever you've got our way.

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Hope

Gearing up for the needle ceremony (the 1st day of P during TTC #2) this morning felt brand new.  There was still the drawing in the progesterone with the big needle and switching to the smaller one for the injection.  Rolling the syringe around in my palms to warm it up while my wife arranged herself tail up on the bed.  The alcohol pad beforehand and the massage into the muscle afterward.  But in the moment between stretching her skin taut and pushing in, there was the sound of this guy chattering on the monitor from the room next door.  In the 40-60 times I have moved through these very same steps, they've never felt quite the way they did this morning.

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A Funny Thing is Happening at my House

We are actively trying to have another baby, but we're not really talking about it.

Let me back up.  We have been talking about it for months, we're just not really talking about it right now.  The discussion around baby #2 started practically before my wife's maternity leave ended.  Questions of when and where and how and with what.  All the relevant lesbian baby-making questions.  We were sure that we wanted a sibling for Yogi.  There have been moments when we weren't entirely sure that we wanted to have another baby for ourselves, but the pendulum has always swung back enthusiastically towards yes.

By the time we got pregnant with Yogi we had burned through all but three of our frozen embroys.  For those of you who are new around here, we moved pretty quickly from IUI to IVF (great insurance - at the time) and were pregnant with Yogi aftter 1 fresh transfer with 1 embryo and 1 frozen transfer with 1 embryo.  He was frozen transfer #2 which we did with 2 embryos.

As of this moment, a few important things are true:

• We have 3 frozen embryos from our initial egg retrieval and fertilization


• We are out of sperm


• Our donor is no longer available

For the last two months my wife has been on estrogen (both pills and patch) and tomorrow she will be going in for a screening ultrasound.  If everything looks good, we will be traveling to our old city and our old (fabulous!!!) doctor and lab for a transfer next week.  Based on the results of the ultrasound it is entirely possibility that I will be shooting my wife in the tail with progesterone as early as Thursday morning.

The embryo thawing process is a tricky one and it is entirely possible (although I hope not likely) that none of our embryos will make it.  If one makes it, we will transfer it.  If two make it, we will transfer both.  If all three make it I have no idea what we will do.  Literally.  If no one makes it, we'll go home.  That process won't begin until the morning of the transfer, so we'll deal with the news as it comes.

I think we've both been struck dumb with how very much we want this to work and how very much of a long shot we know it is.  It's a funny thing for a woman who shares ZERO genetic material with her son to want, but I desperately want Yogi to have a full genetic sibling.  It doesn't matter to me, but what if it matters to him?  What if he struggles with the not-knowingness and it makes him feel alone or separate?  It seems to me that there might be some comfort in having a sibling that is in precisely the same boat.  Someone with whom he is entirely related.  I want this for him so much that it's impossible for me to even say out loud.

I hope these genetic relationships don't matter to him.  I hope he feels as close to me as he does to my wife.  I hope he feels like my extended family is his family.  But if he doesn't I want to be able to give him this and we only have this one shot.  I'm not sure that even makes sense, but it is precisely how I feel.

I guess what I'm saying is this:

• If you pray, please pray for us.


• If you send good vibes, please send good vibes.


• If you think fertile thoughts, please think some on our behalf.

Thank you.

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