Happy Conception Day!

Happy Conception Day Blake and Leah!! It may seem a little strange to publicly acknowledge the babies conception day but I figure there was nothing private or intimate about the way these 2 were conceived, heck there was a handful of people in the room...so why not just celebrate the miracle that they are!!!

(Parent discretion advised!!)

One year ago today was our Egg retrieval. Up to this point I had been sniffing a supressant several times a day and doing daily injections that I gave myself in the stomach for the past several weeks, plus going to 7am ultrasound and blood draw appointments every morning that I even had to drag Alyssa too....Because of my PCOS things were a little wonky and we went back and forth one day we had good news, the next it was aweful news...I had 37 follicles and because I had so many, my Estrodial levels were very high which put me at risk for ovarian hyperstimulation Ohss can have some serious side effects and we were very close to cancelling the whole cycle because of it...

In the end we ended up having 37 follicles, which I might add is a very high amount, thats what happens with PCOS you make a lot of small crappy quality eggs instead of fewer, better quality ones...my ovaries were the size of large oranges and extremely tender...31 of the follicles contained eggs...19 of which were mature eggs...I was awake for the whole egg retrival, you could watch on the flat screen monitor tas they placed the eggs into the petri-dish...despite my Dr's claim of Egg Retrieval not being too bad...I found it to be pretty horrible, my poor oversized tender ovaries being poked with a needle 37 times... I was on an IV concoction of  Fentanyl ,Gravol and some other thing I can't remember but it really seemed to do nothing as far as I was concerned.
After it was over I stayed in recovery for a  few hours and wasn't feeling well at all...My heart rate dropped down to 40bpm and my Blood pressure was also very low...I blacked out and did lose my hearing for a bit..I had a few bags of IV fluid and some cookies and juice until things improved and then off home we went....I felt pretty horrible the next few days, I did end up with a a mild case of OHSS...I couldn't breathe and spent the next few nights sleeping sitting up..I was so bloated with fluid that I looked like I was pregnant already...OHSS tends to be worse if you do end up pregnant.

The eggs were left overnight in the petri dish with the "boys", they joke that they turn down the lights and turn on some nice music..haha...In the morning we got the call that we had 12 fertilized Embryos!! Great news!!!

Now I couldn't wait to see how they were doing through the night. The next morning I was anxiously awaiting the call from the embryologist, I got the call at 10am that ALL of our Embryos were of poor quality with lots of fragmentation and there would likely not be any left to freeze and that the "ONE" embryo we planned to implant 5 days later likely wouldn't survive that long and that we had better do it on Day 3 instead...I was heartbroken and devistated that we started with 37 follicles and now we might not end up with any?!!? The thought was inconceivable and feeling aweful because of the OHSS, I cried all day to Kirk that I was NOT going through this again...

Once again the embryologist called the next morning, this time with slightly better news....We were down to 8 embryos that were still growing but 2 had become better quality and were 4 cell embryos at that point...they still had some fragmentation and because of my PCOS the outer shell was really hard and that we needed to consider doing assisted hatching...We decided to do the assisted hatching, because of the quality issues and because we were doing a 3 day transfer instead of a 5 day transer (5 day transfers have better success rate) we decided to transfer 2 embryos the following day...

April 22, 2009 we went into transfer our 2, 8 celled embryos...My Dr said we had a 70% that we would achieve a pregnancy and a 40% that both would implant and we would end up with twins...The picture above is the actual picture of the embryos the morning we transferred them back...you can see the 8 cells in the middle and the smaller looking cells is what they call fragmentation...you can also see the shell around the outside of the cells which is what they poked a hole into to help them hatch...the cells come out of this shell to implant...The tiny black dots around the shells are the "loser boy" sperms still trying to get into the egg 3 days later...

I fell so in love with these 2 embryos from the moment I saw this picture, I slept with it every night and talked to them everynight for them to stick and be my take home babies...I can't imagine only having one of them now...We still have 6 more little fighter embryos that made it to freeze...I have an attachment to them like I did to these 2, and I think that is why it is hard for me to admit that our family is complete...

One year ago I was praying for these babies and today we hold them in our arms...Our little Miracles...