Making Baby G

Hi friends! Man, it has been a while! I did not put up any posts during the first phase of our IVF cycle. It was too all-consuming! But here I am! I am back! And ready to share an update! If you are following along on social media you probably know a lot of this! But I am also making this post to document our journey so far! So buckle up! I will start at the very beginning of the cycle! Here is an update on Making Baby G!

Shots!

So let’s talk shots first! The first 10-14 days of IVF are called Stims. On these days, you take medicine, shots + pills, to tell your ovaries to produce a lot of follicles. In my case, I gave myself 2 shots, gonal-F and HCG in my tummy and I took a couple of pills (antibiotic, baby aspirin, prenatal, etc.). The first, I had Josh give me the shots. Needless to say, he did not give me any more shots. The anticipation building up to him giving me the shots about killed me. It was 100% easier to give them to myself! Around day 6 you become a pro.

I did my shots in several places! A few times in the car, once in a minibus, once in the middle of playing a volleyball game and some at home. I gave my last shot to myself at my clinic. It was fun and I honestly miss these little shots. They didn’t hurt much and only took about 10 minutes to do, including prep time. I think the reason I miss them is that it was a scheduled time, every night, that I was doing something proactive to work towards baby G. My ovaries were growing, very large by the end, and it made my belly feel full. It might sound weird but I do feel a bit empty an stagnant now that everything is done and back to normal size. I ache to have something growing in my belly.

But don’t worry there are more shots in my future and they are a lot bigger and go in my bottom, so that will be fun. Stay tuned on that!

Monitoring Appointments

During stims and a few days before they started, I was at my clinic A LOT! I had 3 appointments in less than 2 weeks. These appointments were first thing in the morning and went like this. Arrive at 8 am. Check-in. Head back with Nurse Jackie and have blood drawn. Sit and wait some more. Go into an ultrasound room and have a TV ultrasound to check on ovaries and follicles. The doctor would count the follicles and measure them. He would check on my uterus and make sure everything was growing and doing well. And that was it, I would leave and head to work.

Retrievals

On to phase 2 of the process and the end of stims. Once my follicles had grown to a big enough size the clinic had me trigger. This means I take a special shot, or 3 in my case, to tell the ovaries to finish maturing the eggs and to ovulate in exactly 38 hours. That is why my retrieval is scheduled exactly 36 hours after the shot was given! Cool right? Man, did my ovaries feel huge the morning of retrieval! But let’s back up a bit.

Josh had his sperm retrieval one day before me. We went to the clinic, he got prepped and had his procedure. It took about an hour and then we went home to post up on the couch! He was such a trooper! His recovery was a lot longer than mine because of how invasive and sensitive the area is. But it went great! They were able to get plenty of sperm and they did their jobs!

My Retrieval

The next day we went in for my egg retrieval! My procedure was much shorter and we were able to get 23 eggs! Great number!! We both went home and spent the next 4 days on the couch feeling blah! But it was so worth it! We were told that we had 23 retrieved, 16 were mature and that 13 fertilized!! Freaking awesome! But then we had to wait. for 5 days to hear how many grew and survived until the freeze.

It was a tough couple of days. If you know me, you know I am a very positive, energetic, optimistic person. Well, I was not during those 5 days. I was coming down off of a lot of hormones which left me feeling very low and depressed. I was super bloated from the procedure and just plain uncomfortable. Man, I was tired of waiting on things and I really struggled to get through the days. But nevertheless, I made it! And it was worth all the struggle to keep on making baby g!

Embryos on Ice

We got the email on Tuesday that we had 6 embryos make it to the freeze!! 6 little babies waiting to be transferred when it is their time! I am SO ready for transfer! I know the stats and the possibilities and all the things that could happen but now that we are finally at this point, I can actually say I am excited! It feels like our goal is reachable at this point!

So now we are back to waiting. We are doing a frozen embryos transfer (FET). This gives my body a chance to flush out all the extra hormones and be in perfect condition to welcome an embaby on board! So we are just waiting for my cycle to start on its own and we then will be able to move onto the next phase! Transfer prep! I can’t tell you exactly what that will look like for me because I have not received instructions from my clinic for it yet. But I will let you know when I do! We can wait to get back to making baby g!

IVF Fundraiser

So most of you know that I have started an Etsy shop and that all the profits go to our IVF expenses but most of those items are girlie and focused more on Essentially Sydney. So I decided to start a separate campaign where our friends and family could help us by simply purchasing a SUPER cute sweatshirt, t-shirt, or long sleeve and all the profits will go to our IVF expenses too! There is also a place where you can make a donation if you don’t want a piece of clothing. Haha. I am so excited about this actually! There is something super special about knowing there is will be a bunch of people walking around wearing a shirt that was designed to help make sweet baby G! You can find that campaign here!

Thank you so much for your ongoing support through this crazy journey! I know that it might not always be butterflies and roses and that there might be some really hard times in our future during all this, but I will continue to share and spread awareness about infertility! Because I know my posts and words are bringing encouragement and comfort to those who will come after me! Please feel free to share my story/posts with your friends and loved ones that walk this road because it can get very lonely if you are not surrounded by people who understand what you are going through!

IVF Fundrasier