HCG still looking good 12-20-10

I went in for my second blood test today. My HCG level came back at 2247. They had just wanted to make sure it doubled since the last test (which it obviously did), and said there was nothing negative about the fact that it was that much higher. The nurse who called me thinks it's an indicator of 2, but doesn't want to get my hopes up in case it isn't. Another interesting thing about this number...last time on day 16 (same day as this test), my HCG was only 255.

Positive Blood Test! 12-17-10

The blood test confirmed the home test! It came back positive. My HCG was 381 (and today was one day short of two weeks after the transfer). Last time around, my HCG was only 89 on the two week marker after the transfer, so they were very happy with this number. They also told me it could indicate more than one baby, or just one very healthy pregnancy. Either way, I am thrilled!!

I cheated 12-14-10

It's very light, but I'm optimistic!

Embryo Transfer Date 12-4-10

Well as usual I'm a little behind on posting. I actually got a call on Thursday, two days before the transfer. They had opened the incubator and were giving me status on the embryos so that we could decide how many we wanted to put in and how many we wanted to freeze (if they were to the stage they could be frozen). Remember the scale is 1 is the best and 4 is the worst. On Thursday we had 4 level 2's, 4 level 3's, and 1 level 4. After talking to Dr. Kristiansen, we decided to put in the best 4 again.

We got to the office Saturday morning, and at that point, the embryos had not been doing as well as they had on Thursday. At that point there was just 1 level 2, and 8 level 3's (the only one that actually improved was surprisingly the level 4). Anyway, we did the transfer and headed home. At that point the remaining 5 embryos were not to the blastocyst stage, so they could not be frozen yet. The lab would continue to watch and they would either stop growing or make it to that stage and be able to be frozen. I just heard from the office that they did not make it, so again we were not able to freeze any embryos. So...the pressure is really on and it is going to be a long two weeks. Last sperm sample and still no frozen embryos. We're pulling for the 4 guys that got transferred Saturday morning :)

Fertilization Results 11-30-10

Only 9 of the 16 eggs were successfully fertilized. Not as many as we'd hoped, but still 3 more than we had fertilized last go round. Now it's just waiting until the embryo transfer on Saturday morning.

Egg Retrieval 11-29-10

After Saturday's appointment with Dr. K, my egg retrieval got pushed up by two days. I had it this morning, and they were able to get 16 mature eggs (twice as many as last time!). That was the good news. The bad news was that when they thawed the bad sperm sample (of the two we had left), they were not able to use it and had to unfreeze our last sample. Luckily it was fine. Now we'll wait until tomorrow to find out how many of the eggs were successfully fertilized and then more waiting for the embryo transfer on Friday. More to come soon.

Thanksgiving 11-25-10

Update soon.

Round Two 11-9-10

Well since I've finally registered as negative for pregnancy, we can start round two of IVF. I've been taking birth control for three weeks now (protocol), and tomorrow I will start my Lupron shots for a week. Next will be a week of Lupron and FSH, followed by a week of Lupron, FSH, and Menopur. The egg retrieval is scheduled for 12/1, and the Embryo Transfer is scheduled for 12/6. I am not excited about starting over with all of the shots (and paying for all of this) again to say the least, but my fingers are crossed :)

Chicago 11-4-10 through 11-7-10

What an awesome birthday present! We left on Thursday to head to Chicago for the weekend with Amy and Scott. We got in late, so we checked in and hit an Irish pub called Kerryman for a few drinks before heading back to our hotel (we got a great deal at the Palmer House). Friday we had an awesome breakfast across the hotel at 55 and then headed to be in line for the opening of the Sky Deck (clear observatory of the old Sears Tower). It was a lot more scary than I thought it would be! Next we took an architectural river cruise of the city. It was a bit cold. We had awesome Chicago pizza at Gino's and then headed up Michigan Avenue for some shopping. We hit the huge and beautiful Macy's on our way back to the hotel. Before dinner we headed up to the Signature Lounge on the 96th floor of the John Hancock building. Awesome drinks and awesome views. Next we ate some fondue and Italian tapas at Quartino and then ended the night listening to music at the Redhead Piano Bar which was a blast! Saturday we got up and at at the Corner Bakery before heading over to Millennium Park for some sightseeing. From there we went to Navy Pier to take a ride for some views on the carousel. We checked out the stained glass museum and were very sad to find out that the Beer Garden was closed for the season. Next we made our way to Water Tower Place to eat lunch at the Mity Nice Cafe. It was excellent. Very interesting navigating through the food court to get to it though. Next we decided to skip the Museum of Science and Industry and take a bus tour of the city and then split for the LSU game/shopping at Macy's. We did happy hour in our hotel lobby and a lot of people watching including a wedding (one of many we saw during the weekend). Next we took a limo (thanks guys!) to Buddy Guy's Legend's to hear some blues. From there (per a recommendation from the bar tender) we headed to The Wit hotel for drinks on their half inside/half outside rooftop bar. The view was great, but it was crowded and cold, so we moved on. Next we went to Hub 51. At this point we were pretty famished so we decided to eat. Good think because the food was amazing! Sunday we continued out bus tour, ate lunch at Giordano's, and then swung by Macy's (third day in a row) to see the lighted Christmas tree and the Fur Vault (crazy!). We had a wonderful weekend!



Halloween 10-31-10

We had a fun Halloween weekend. Beth was in Towne Friday night. She picked up dinner for us and we hung out getting some of the food ready for our party on Saturday. Saturday morning we joined Amy for the Heart Walk in the neighborhood. Kim had us over for a feast after the walk with tons of food and then a full dessert table including a chocolate fountain..the girls were in heaven! Saturday night we had some folks over for our Halloween party. Sunday we vegged and then ended up taking a boat ride and boating up to the pre-trick or treating cul-du-sac party. Fun weekend!



Beth's Our New Houstonian 8-10 through 11-10

What luck?! Beth's new job has her working in Houston every Thursday through Saturday of the fall. We have been able to see some GT games together, cook, go out, and even walked the Towne Lake Heart Walk last weekend. We could not have gotten luckier!

                                               

Dog Days of Fall 9-10 through 11-10

Genetic Counseling 10-8-10

Today we went to the Baylor College of Medicine to meet with a genetic counselor. She went through the lab results from the D&C and showed us that the baby had 47 chromosomes instead of the 46 that everyone should have. There were 3 copies of chromosome 7. This is an uncommon occurrence that is not passed down genetically in families. You never hear about babies having this abnormality, because it always results in miscarriage. The counselor went through our family histories as well, and did not recommend any further genetic testing or even pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). She said if we wanted to do some blood tests for peace of mind, that we could test to see if we were carriers for cystic fibrosis (CF) or spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) and get chromosome testing done. I called Dr. Kristiansen's office and got all three added to my blood work for my appointment on Monday. As long as I'm not a carrier of CF or SMA, there is no reason for Brett to be tested. We'll both have the chromosome testing done. Again, she didn't even recommend this, but we figure we might as well. If it turns out that either of us is a carrier, then that will be an easy indicator for us to go ahead and do the PGD.

We were surprised to hear that the counselor did not necessarily recommend PGD because of the possible side effects. We had not really researched it since we had to reason to before, so we didn't realize there were downsides to it. The first aspect of the testing that makes the $5K not really sound worthwhile is the fact that most labs do "fish" testing and only test about 7-10 of the 23 pairs of chromosomes for abnormalities. Chromosome 7 is not one of the ones that gets tested, so PGD would not have prevented this miscarriage. There is a new type of testing called "array" testing which tests all of the chromosome pairs, but since it is new, not all labs do it and even the ones that do don't necessarily do it well. In other words, the results could be that they could only effectively test half of the embryos or something like that. The other downside to PGD is the fact that by removing a small sample of each embryo, it could actually cause the embryos to stop growing or not have as good of a chance at implanting in the uterus. For these reasons (and the fact that the counselor did not recommend it), we will probably skip the PGD on the next round barring any abnormal results from our blood testing.

The last piece of news from the testing...two X chromosomes for the 23rd chromosome pair. It was a girl.

Lab Results Are Back 10-6-10

Monday we went in to Dr. Kristiansen's office to meet with her about moving forward, do an ultrasound, and check my blood work. It turned out my uterus lining was still too thick to start the month of birth control and get moving toward the next IVF cycle. I got a first call today from the doctor's office telling me that my HCG was still high so I would need to wait two weeks and then have my blood work done again to check if it has gone down. I got a second call a little while later that they had received the pathology report from the D&C. It turns out that the baby had Trisomy 7. The nurse told me that we needed to schedule an appointment with the Baylor Genetic Counselors to discuss the lab results and how to move forward. Of course this means that we will most likely be adding $5,000 to our next IVF round to do pre-genetic testing on the embryos to make sure that none of the embryos we implant have any diseases. I was a little bit surprised with today's news to say the least. More info to come on Friday.

Pipestem 9-29-10 to 10-3-10

We had a wonderful time this year as always...here are just a few of the pics from the weekend :)