IVF embryo transfer day

Last Wednesday was embryo transfer day. It was kinda cool because I got to watch it on the ultrasound screen. I laid on the table afterward and prayed that the embryo would decide to attach to my uterine wall. Ever since then I have pretty much been hanging out in bed and doing work on my laptop. Saturday I did collect some really good data and went to see the new X-men movie, which Dave was dying to see. The precautions the doctor gave me was no lifting more than 10 lbs, not to increase my heart rate, and stay horizontal as much as possible.

Now we wait. My blood test is next Monday to determine if I am pregnant. It's hard to wait not being able to feel anything before the pregnancy symptoms. All I can do is take care of my body and pray. Although every time I do pray I break out into crying. When Dave and I pray together and it's my turn, I cry, then he gives me a big hug. I think it's a combination of the hormones and really hoping that Heavenly Father answers our prayers so we can finally have a baby.

The embryologist took a picture of our embryo. The fertility doctor says it looks good because there are eight cells! I know everyone gets excited about posting ultrasound baby pictures, but this gets me excited about the potential of us having a baby!

IVF retrival

Yesterday was egg and sperm retrieval day. The anesthesia made me tired, but otherwise no other side effects. The embryologist called this morning to say the egg was fertilized, then Dr. Gurtcheff called to give me and Dave the pros and cons for which day the embryo transfer will happen. It looks like the embryo transfer will happen on Wednesday, which is good since I can collecting data on Saturday for my PhD.

IVF blood

I swear that fertility doctors are really vampires! Every single visit I give a vial of blood. The first visit they took enough for six vials, they only took one for Dave. This weeks tests are my estrogen levels in preparation for egg retrieval.

IVF ultrasound

Today I had my first ultrasound after doing the hormone shots. The tech found 5 eggs that could be extracted in a couple of days! The doctor had warned us that because of my age there might not be very many extractable eggs, so we are excited about 5!

This is a picture I downloaded from Google Images as an example of what eggs look like in the ovaries right before they are extracted.

Hourly Visit

My SIL's cousin got married this past weekend, so she dropped of the cuties for us to play with while she hung out with her family. 

I think she already knows how to do a selfie.

He forgot his jacket, so I gave him one of Corey's old jackets to wear. 

They are so much fun to play with.

We ate lunch at McDonald's, the girls were fighting over who could sit on his lap first.

Then we decorated cupcakes for her birthday.

I made her a pink poodle tutu since I don't know how to make poodle skirts. It turned out more poffy than I expected.

IVF drugs

This is the amount of drugs, vitamins, and injections I have been taking for the past week for the IVF process. The drugs are small so they are easy to swallow. Only one of the vitamins are hard to swallow because it is big and tastes like chalk, I've almost gagged a couple of times. I was doing ok with the injections until Sunday, then I don't know what happened, I just haven't been able to poke myself with a needle. Dave does the morning and my Mom does the evening injections. All we can do now is keep doing the routine and pray it works the first time.

BYU Dance Dept

Unfortunately two dance professors died this semester, Delynne in January and Lisa in April. It's been sad because they were wonderful women with wonderful families and they were beloved teachers and mentors.

However, as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints we believe that Heavenly Father has a plan, called the Plan of Salvation. This is why we get married (also called sealed) in the Temple, so we can be together forever with our families. It makes it easier to handle death knowing we can be again with those that we love here on earth. Plus, this is why we do genealogy, to make sure as many of our ancestors can be with us too. Sometimes people are stuck in the Spirit World (see below) for a while because they are waiting to have their Temple work done since they lived on Earth during a time when there was no Temples.

If you have more questions feel free to ask 

or ask the missionaries (that's their job).

IVF

It's been a while since I wrote about our fertility issues. After we got insurance here in Utah, we went to an OB/GYN who has a laporoscopy specialty. He said it wouldn't be worth it for me to do another surgery because chances are my fimbriae are damaged and more surgery would damage them more. So we started the IVF process. Today we got our calender with the list of all the drugs and what days to take them. I started Lupron, which is twice a day, the others start on Saturday. But as we were signing all the consent forms, one of them gave a list of food we are not allowed to eat during the cycle: curry powder, licorice, prunes, raisins, excessive use of non-absorbable antacids, paprika, benedictine liqueur, tea, and gherkins. I'm also not allowed to take ibuprofen which is annoying because I had a massive headache last night, so I needed to get a prescription instead of Tylenol and Excedrin because they don't work on my headaches. Dave also bought Coke for me since the caffeine could help, but that stuff tastes like nasty cough syrup. Dave had to go to work, so my Mom picked me up from my appointment and took me to Sodalicious for a caffeinated drink, they make me a blue bomb shell (Mt Dew with yummy flavors).

The next couple of weeks will be crazy with ultrasound appointments, blood tests, hormone shots and other drugs, egg and sperm retrieval, embryo transfer, and waiting to find out if implantation will occur. Plus I am finishing up data collection for my last PhD project. Hopefully we will be done with IVF around Memorial Day and data collection around Father's Day. Wish us luck!