Strunk Baby Update

I have long overdue pictures for you all! Little Strunk Baby made his/her debut on December 2. We got to see AND hear the heart beating, even at 7 millimeters long!

Tomorrow we get our second ultrasound, and I can't wait to see how much he/she has grown in the past 13 days!

I'm feeling pretty good overall. I eat every 2-4 hours (just like feeding time at the zoo) and I'm trying to make healthy choices. Although I think tonight's dinner will be toaster waffles and oranges or grapefruit from my grandparents' citrus trees.

Please keep us in your prayers, particularly for peace. It's still a long road ahead and though we feel as if we've overcome the hardest hurdle, it's hard to let go of the worry and doubt.

3rd beta results

Happy Thanksgiving!

Jonathan and I are so blessed to have each other and our wonderful families and friends. We cannot believe how much extra we have to be thankful for this year!

Even though my third beta came back at 10,107 (nope, not a typo), it is still hard to imagine there is a little Strunk or two happily growing away while I go about my daily life. Other than short bouts of nausea and headaches if I wait too long after I feel hungry to eat something, I don't feel pregnant. I'm sure that will change.

I'll be six weeks pregnant on Saturday so the clinic was able to schedule my first ultrasound for next week. Even though the baby will only be about the size of a pea, we should be able to see the heart beating. I'm pretty sure it will be even more incredible than seeing the embryos "ride in" on an air bubble as we did exactly three weeks ago today.

Please think of all three (maybe four) of us on Wednesday afternoon. We hope and pray that our little Strunk is healthy and happy.

2nd beta results

I got my second beta results back on Wednesday and they came in at an impressive 683.4! This is really exciting and still puts on us on the high end of normal results for a single pregnancy. And that is absolutely fine with us! The goal going into this was one baby, and if we get two, fantastic. I'm pretty sure one is plenty though! As I mentioned in my last post, beta results are supposed to double every 48-72 hours in early pregnancy, and our doubling time right now is 33.24 hours. Yahoo!

Also, my thyroid (TSH) levels showed no spike from the pregnancy. That means I won't need additional medication for now. My PTT levels showed nothing in the way of scary clot time. I was just over normal levels, which is to be expected on the heparin. I haven't had any symptoms from the heparin injections other than bruising (normal) and dizziness once in a while.

We got for one last beta result on Tuesday. I was told that there isn't any specific number they are looking for and that the clinic just checks the levels once a week until the ultrasound. My ultrasound will be scheduled for sometime next week -- it's getting closer! We can't wait to hear the heartbeat!

Think of us on Tuesday as we have our last blood work!

First beta results

I have my results back from my first hCG level (beta) test and they are: 251.5 mIU/mL! When I spoke with Nancy today, she said this is a great first number. My progesterone was also right on track with a level of 36.13, a great for first trimester pregnancy. This means I am without a doubt pregnant. Forget the 13 positive pregnancy tests I've taken so far! :)

I go back again tomorrow for more lab work and will hopefully have it back by tomorrow afternoon. They will do another beta test, but this time they will also test my thyroid and partial thrombin time (PTT). The thyroid test is just to be sure my thyroid hasn't spiked due to the recent pregnancy. The PTT test will detect how long it takes my blood to form a clot. This is because I am still taking the blood thinner, heparin, since transfer on 11/5.

We are praying with all our hearts that tomorrow's beta level comes back at no less that 402. At a miniumum, hCG levels in early pregnancy need to double every 48-72 hours, with no less than a 60% increase in two days. Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we wait for this critical piece of information. If all goes well, we'll have an ultrasound as early as the first week in December!

Enough with the medical dictionary! In FUN news - I love being pregnant! In the four days we've known, I've received four gifts! I get to have a baby and be showered with attention and presents?! Fantastic! Sign me up! Seriously though, it has been so great seeing how much this meant to other people. And I've wandered through Target's maternity and baby isles this weekend, feeling like I belonged there. It was an uplifting feeling and though I didn't buy anything, I almost cried on several occasions.

Again, thank you for your prayers up to this point and we ask you for more. I'm going to do that a lot in the next 9 months!

It's finally happening!

So most of you, if not all, are aware that Jonathan and I (mostly me) are pregnant. But only a few of you know that Jonathan knew before I did!

When my alarm went off at 4:15am yesterday, I did my pregnancy test as I have been doing since last Sunday. When I saw the control line and no second line appeared, I put the test on the windowsill and went back to bed. I normally throw the test away and I have no idea why I didn't. When my alarm went off again at 6am to remind me to give myself my heparin injection, I got up and went to the guest bathroom to do just that. Jonathan got up and used the master bathroom. When I got back, Jonathan asked me, as calm as can be, "Did you take a pregnancy test this morning?" I told him I had. He then asked, "Did you look at it?" I said yes and asked him why he was asking. He said "no reason" and got back in bed. Then I went to use the bathroom and saw that the "negative" pregnancy test was now positive! I said "I think there's two lines!" and Jonathan told me he thought that was the case and had even looked at the instructions on the box but was worried he might somehow be wrong if I had already looked at the test. He knew I would have woken him up if I had seen the second line.

There was a little bit of drama next as I explained to him that the test results are only valid for ten minutes, and it had been nearly two hours since I had taken the test. So I took another, and it was positive! Five pregnancy tests (and three different brand names) later, we finally started to believe it. I think the real kicker for us was when we took a digital test that read "pregnant" as clear as can be. There's no wondering if you're imagining lines on those things! That was right before we attended a baby shower yesterday afternoon. It made for a much more exciting shower for us!

Today I've only taken three tests. I'm sure I'll take many more this week. My blood test is scheduled for tomorrow and I'll have those results on Tuesday. Then I'll go again for a follow-up blood test on Wednesday or Thursday to make sure the hCG levels are doubling. Doubling hCG rates will calm fears of a chemical or ectopic pregnancy. I'll keep you all posted on those, as I am sure many of you are almost as anxious as we are.

There's still a lot that can go wrong at this point, so we need your prayers more than ever. What we are certain of is that this is a step in the right direction. We are thanking God for this blessing and ask that He continues to keep this pregnancy on a healthy track.

Update on the popsicle kids

We heard from our nurse today that an additional one out of the five embryos were added to the eight blastocysts from Thursday. The four others stopped growing. It's nothing to worry about though; combined with last cycle we have 13 embryos frozen, 10 of them blastocysts! I'm not sure how many FET (frozen embryo transfer) cycles that equates to, but at least it gives us the opportunity if this cycle is a bust. We certainly hope to not have to think about that for a few years when it's time for a sibling!

Grade-A blastocycst transfer

FANTASTIC NEWS! We walked into the transfer room today having absolutely no idea how our 15 embryos were doing. There was a picture of them up on the computer screen, but we had no idea if they were healthy.

When the embryologist came in, he said that they were absolutely "gorgeous" BLASTOCYSTS! They made it to blast stage!

When the doctor doing the transfer joined us (it's a full room: me, Jonathan, ultrasound tech, embryologist, endocrinologist) he said again how "gorgeous" our embryos were. I asked him how many they were going to transfer because I knew that our doctor's protocol for this cycle had said "up to three" embryos. That's when the endocrinologist and embryologist both said that there was no way they'd transfer three because the embryos were of such great quality. He showed us how thin the outer shell was on each. The shell starts out thick, and as the embryos get ready to literally hatch out of it, it thins out. This means that they didn't have to help them hatch out, they're taking care of it on their own!

During the transfer procedure, the doctor said I had a little bit of bleeding still left over from the retrieval, but nothing to worry about. Again, I got to see our two "kids" (or the air bubble they were riding on) travel right into my uterus on ultrasound. So very cool. I was instructed to start taking the heparin tonight so I get to wear a really awesome *cough cough* bracelet just in case something happens to me and I'm unconscious and can't tell medical personnel that I am on blood thinners.

I know everyone wants pictures and I aim to please, so.... tada! If they look different from last time, it's because they are. Like I mentioned in my post from a couple days ago, they change a lot in 48 hours, or at least have the potential to. It's a completely different animal (see the Eight-Celled Children post from September if you want to compare). These are more like 100-150 celled-children.

If you can see the dense cluster of cells (easier to spot on the left embryo, at about 10 o'clock), those cells will become the baby. The scalloped cells on the outer edge will be the placenta. Pretty neat to realize that each one of us starts out this way.



As for the fate of the other 13 embryos, 8 were fantastic enough to freeze today and the other five will be observed for a couple more days to ensure that they could survive freeze. I should have an update on their status early next week. I am excited that we have 12 total embryos frozen as of today, 9 of them blastocysts. I would love to see the other five make it as well, but I'm extremely happy with our "stash."

I really really really cannot thank you all enough for your support. We are so very blessed not only to have this opportunity to pursue our dream, but to have incredible friends and family to back us up. I have received so many countless phone calls, emails, comments, and text messages and we never, I mean never get tired of them. I wish we could name a kid after each one of you. :) The pregnancy test will be on November 16, so keep thinking of us!