Our Baby Has a Name

Today we had our Level II sonogram and I am happy to report that our little one appears to be perfectly healthy. So in other words she has everything she is supposed to and it is all in the right place :-). That is always reassuring to hear :-). She was weighing in at a whopping 1 pound and 1 ounce. Tiny as she might be she sure is active but I love it, every jab, poke, and kick brings a smile to my face.

Ok so on to the name, I know that is all anyone really wants to know anyway :-). Her name is Annaliese Noelle. We had her first name picked for a few weeks just weren't sure about her middle but no matter the other names we would brainstorm for her middle name we kept coming back to Noelle so we finally decided Noelle it is.

Annaliese is just a name I came across on a baby name website. I loved it immediately and shared it with Chad to see if I could get him to bite off on it. At first I wasn't sure I had him convinced but I think it grew on him and now he loves it, as do I. Her name means devoted to God, which is perfect :-).

I think we will use the nickname Anna on a limited basis but prefer her to be known as and referred to as Annaliese. At first I thought we would go with Anna more often but Chad talked me into going with her full name so now that is what I am stuck on :-) except for when I talk to the twins. They can say Anna really well so we use Anna when talking to them. They love to lift my shirt and say "Anna" and kiss and hug my tummy, they are so sweet and I think they are going to be thrilled to have a little sister :)

The Journey (FET and Getting Pregnant)

I have been wanting to blog about our experience in going through our Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET), dealing w/the let down of it not working and then finding out we were spontaneously pregnant a few months later. Because of our schedules and everything that was going on in our lives at that time we missed blogging about it and I want to capture those moments good and bad before they become distant memories.

FET:

Chad and I decided we would go pick up our babies as we would like to say late last summer/early fall. I think we had a date picked originally earlier but ended up having to move it which pushed our transfer date to early October. We were ready (for the most part) to grow our family. I was ready to know what the out come was going to be. Probably one of the hardest things for me in life no matter what the situation, is living in limbo. Just ask Chad, my most common statement is "I just want to know", whatever the answer, whatever the outcome, knowing is so much easier than not knowing. Our plan going into this was if it works, yay, our family is growing, and if not we would try on our own for 1 year and then put and end to this chapter in our lives and move on (easier said than done, though). Given our plan we wanted to do our FET sooner rather than later (but not too soon), to give ourselves time to 'try' before we got too much older. Age wasn't really on our side, considering we already had issues w/primary infertility in our late 20's early 30's. So we called the doctor, set a date and moved full steam ahead. Of course in the world of fertility treatments that isn't very fast. There was a lot of pre appointments we had to have to make sure we were healthy and everything looked like it should before they would do the transfer. This time we chose to do a lot of the preliminary appointments at a clinic in Atlanta to save on travel cost but the cost of the medical procedures were still expensive...but to us worth every penny. We started a lot of the preliminary stuff in June, I had to start on birth control pills to get my cycle in line for the chosen transfer date and that was about it, we just pressed on as usual until it came time to travel to DC for the FET. The entire process was much easier than going through a full IVF, only a few simple injections which started a few days before the transfer, we showed up to the clinic at our appointment time and they transferred the embryos after they thawed. While the preparation for the FET was relatively easy, emotionally I was a mess. Looking back now I think I just knew deep in my heart that it wasn't going to work. I wanted to believe w/everything in my soul that it would as Chad and I really wanted at least one more baby, one more to add to our brood. We prayed and prayed and prayed for our little embies. And just like our first failed IVF statically everything looked great but it just wasn't meant to be. I have always heard that w/FET the most important thing is how the embryos rebound after they are thawed. Both of our little embryos survived and actually had a 90%-95% cell survival which is excellent. Right before our doctor did the transfer he questioned us one more time to make sure we really wanted to transfer both and we of course didn't hesitate to say yes, if both of our embryos are viable we wanted both of our babies w/o question. Despite the good news I left there w/a lot of doubt, something just didn't seem right, I couldn't put my finger on it but I just had this overwhelming sense of just knowing what was inevitable. But I hoped anyway, I prayed every day and every night, I analyzed every feeling just looking for a positive sign that maybe just maybe this had actually worked for us. 7 days after our transfer I took the dreaded pregnancy test and I knew the answer before hand though and I just felt so numb after the results had confirmed what I already knew.

Trying to Cope:

This news brought on a whole new wave of emotions and feelings. Something else that we would have to just get over and move on from. I felt sad and defeated, my hopes and dreams of a little brother or sister for Evan and Taryn gone and w/o hope of ever having a chance for it to happen again, our little frozen embryos were our chance to grow our family. I felt betrayed by God, how could he put us through this? Why did he give us those embryos if they were never meant to be our children? I just felt like it was so cruel, I was heartbroken and devastated and I couldn't even comprehend or express everything I was feeling. I also had a lot of guilt. I felt like my pain, feeling sad and angry said that I wasn't grateful for what I did have. I felt like crying for another baby said I wasn't thankful for the amazing kids that God had Blessed us with. I love Evan and Taryn so much and have always been so grateful for the amazing miracles they are, all I could conclude to myself was that it was my love for them and how awesome I thought they were (think they are) that made me want another. I didn't feel comfortable sharing my grief w/anyone because I didn't think people would understand, because Chad and I were blessed w/2 kids and a boy and a girl at that. That is supposed to be the American dream right??? I just kept questioning myself as to why don't I feel like our family is complete, why cant I shake this feeling. I am not sure where those feelings were coming from but I just knew that I needed to know that more (at least 1) was an option for us, I couldn't close the door on our journey this way. And I needed a real chance, not just Chad and I trying on our own for 1 year, we have been there and done that and that road led no where. So I asked Chad if he would consider doing IVF again. Much to my surprise he said "yes" instantly. I had a renewed sense of hope.

The new plan consisted of talking to Shady Grove about doing their Shared Risk program again, do the preliminary blood work and test required to get approved for the program and in the mean time Chad and I would spin our wheels and try on our own. Our thoughts at the time is we would target June for IVF. The sort of good news is that Shady Grove had instituted a new program called Shared Help which gives discount based on taxable income for many of their services including their Shared Risk program, while this wouldn't offer great savings considering the cost of Shared Risk, it was something. We were just waiting until we completed our 2010 taxes so that we could apply for the program. Of course in the middle of all of this we learned about Chad's new job opportunity in DC. But whatever, that wasn't going to stop me from planning for us it just was another work around :-). As time went on and I thought about doing IVF again, I started having a lot of doubt. We never abandoned the idea of doing IVF again, it just wasn't a simple decision to make and one I was really struggling with. I knew so much that we wanted another baby, that was never a question. I didn't even care that much about having to go through treatment again or even the cost (we hated to spend the money but I cant put a price tag on a child's life). What made the decision difficult is that once you start an IVF you never know what you are going to end up with. What if we had twins again? What if we had twins again and had frozen embryos? What if the frozen embryos take this time? There are so many unknown factors. People will say you can just transfer one embryo at a time. And that certainly would solve the issue of having twins again but it doesn't guarantee that you wont have frozen embryos left and Chad and I could never walk away from our babies. Because of the fact that we already have two kids, it makes it hard to enter into a process where you are not sure what your final number will be. I would argue w/myself and acknowledge that statistics show that most people will only end up w/1 or 2 children from any given IVF cycle but there are always those stories like the couple who had twins went back for another IVF transferred two embryos and one split so they ended up w/triplets. I just couldn't imagine having twins and triplets and I wasn't sure I was willing to take the risk. I think at some point we had to consider the kids we already have and the point is to try to enhance their life not take away from it. The question I kept asking myself over and over was, "I want another baby but, at what cost?", "what were we willing to risk" "was it worth the risk". To be honest I couldn't answer any of those questions, I wasn't ready to make a decision, I just kept thinking, this would be so much easier if we could just do this on our own :-)

Trying to Conceive (TTC):

While we waited for all of the scheduling stuff to work itself out, and getting our taxes done and so on and so forth, we thought we should get serious about trying on our own. I did some research and put Chad on a vitamin regimen that was supposed to help his swimmers, vitamins are a lot cheaper than IVF so we were willing to do anything that we thought might help. Our first month of TTC was November which obviously wasn't our month, but no big deal, I had very little expectation of anything happening for us. Despite my lack of expectation I did have a hard time putting myself fully back into that place emotionally, it was just such a dark place for me, I really didn't want to go back there and I was really struggling w/committing myself to trying and yet, somehow finding a way to stay emotionally disconnected from the process and outcome. So I was kind of grateful that our schedule in Dec, Jan and Feb didn't allow for us to try. December we were so busy w/the holidays, finishing ETSY orders and traveling that we missed our window, in Jan and Feb Chad was in DC and the kids and I were in GA so once again we had missed our window. However at the end of Feb the kids and I were able to join Chad which meant we could try again. I wasn't really sure how I felt about the "opportunity" to try, I had actually thought about just letting the days go by w/o saying anything. But, for some strange reason I had a dream about taking my ovulation test (weird, I never dreamt about this stuff) and then Chad was aware we were getting close to the window and he asked about our status so I figured I should stop being scared of trying and just do my test. Really, ovulation test are super easy to take and it was the least I could do to help our efforts. So I took the test starting on cycle day 10 and on cycle day 12 I got the positive, which is exactly when I would have expected to get it. So we had officially tried for the month.

Finding Out:

Since we tried I suppose that meant we were officially in the two week wait afterwards. Not that either one of us were paying much attention. As a matter of fact, I was playing w/the kids and Evan had jumped really hard on my stomach and I remember thinking its good that there is no way I am pregnant right now (little did I know). We were back in GA for a week before we headed back to DC for another month and life was just as usual. But then my period never showed. However, I refused to take a pregnancy test because I just knew it was going to be negative. Back in May and October my cycle was a bit late due to an ovarian cyst. The only difference between my cycles those month and this time was I didn't ovulate on time which would explain the late period. Since I had confirmed my ovulation this particular month I was really confused but still not ready to think pregnancy. I did all kinds of google searches trying to find any reason at all that would explain delayed period w/confirmed ovulation other than pregnancy. While I was able to find a lot of post from other women experiencing the same thing who were not pregnant I couldn't really find a reason for it except for a different type of ovarian cyst that happens after ovulation. This particular cyst produces hormones that keep your period from starting. So I tell myself this is exactly what is going on and I just need to wait it out. I was having some early pregnancy symptoms like nausea, cramping, and headaches but w/the exception of headaches, the nausea and cramping could have been caused by the cyst. So I went w/it. I know it would have been so much easier to just take a test, after all they are supposed to be accurate 5 days before your missed period but I just couldn't bring my self to do it. I just knew it was going to be negative and I had seen more than my share of negative pregnancy test and I was done living in la la land. I had long ago accepted my place in life and I didn't want to go back there. So I tortured myself in a new way :-) I made myself wait it out and I really was certain that any day my period would show and I would feel vindicated for not caving and taking a pregnancy test. I was going to win this time LOL, I wasn't going to let those stupid test have any more power over me. Every day did feel like a year, as the days piled up and turned into weeks, I just kept wondering when this would be over. There was a part of me that was very frustrated, why all of a sudden was I having a problem w/getting cyst on my ovary, I never had that problem before. Was every cycle going to be extra long? How was this going to affect our ability to TTC? We needed every month we could get to try and having extra long cycles wasn't helping our efforts. The nausea that I had felt early on had subsided so I felt even more sure that I wasn't pregnant until one day (it was actually the day before the twins birthday) I woke up so exhausted that morning. It was a new level of tired that I really hadn't felt before, it definitely struck me as odd. I still wasn't ready to take a test though, well at least not a pregnancy test. In all my years on the infertility forums I have heard about girls using ovulation test as pregnancy test, so I thought to myself, what harm can come from taking an ovulation test because the results wont really mean much to me either way. So I took one and it was very positive, and I thought this would do little for me but really it ended up being a big mistake because now I was really curious what was going on. Was I actually pregnant? What was going on? I hit my trusty computer to see what I could learn about using ovulation test for pregnancy test and I came across this information:

OPK as HPT

It really explained HOW ovulation test can be used as pregnancy test but I was still very skeptical but very curious at the same time. With the twins birthday being the next day I really didn't want to take a pregnancy test so we just waited it out a few more days, I was still convinced my period would show any minuet. I woke up on the twins birthday very nauseous, and feeling like I was coming down w/a cold but I shrugged it off and enjoyed my precious babies on their 2nd birthday. We had a great day...although dinner was very difficult for me as everything on the menu made me want to run straight to the bath room. Really at this point I still had a lot of doubt about what was going on but I couldn't deny how sick I felt. The next few days were rough, I had a bad cold and felt really ill all around. Finally by the end of this week I took a pregnancy test and it was positive, I took 4 more just to be sure. Chad was anxiously waiting for me to come out of the bathroom and the extra time I took to take the additional test made him nervous. He had a very uncertain look on his face as he waited for me, so thankfully I was able to tell him it was positive. I don't think either one of us really knew what to do w/the information. When I was pg w/the twins we were both just laughing and crying and so excited. This time of course we were over joyed but really hesitant to believe the information that was in front of us...so our reactions were a bit toned down. We were back in DC at this point which lucky for us is where our IVF doctor is. I contacted their office the next day and told them about our results and my nurse offered to have me come in for a blood test to confirm and of course we jumped on the opportunity. I was so far along by the time I had my blood drawn though that they had to run the test in a different media because my number was too large to run in their normal media. I was nervously waiting for my nurse to call me all morning to tell me our results. I had a number in mind, I wanted my HCG level to be over 25000, there isn't much info available for HCG numbers when you are over 6 weeks pregnant but what I did find indicated the 25000+ was a good level to have. Around lunch time my nurse called and told me she didn't have a number for me yet because my number was over 25000 and they couldn't get an accurate reading w/o rerunning the test in a different media. I was happy and relieved at this news, the next phone call from her came a few hours later and she told me my HCG level was 40,040...so this probably should have been enough information for me to feel confident that I was actually pregnant but I still had doubts. Because my numbers were so high my doctor wanted me to come in for a sonogram the next day, I was so thankful for the opportunity to get an early peak at our little one, and to confirm I was actually pregnant instead of having to wait 3 more weeks until we were back in GA and I could get in w/my regular OB. On our way to our sonogram appointment Chad looked over at me and said "if its not a baby that is making your HCG levels rise, than what is it" this is the moment that I knew I was truly NUTS. I looked back at him and said "I know I am having a hard time believing this, but I need you to believe that it is real". Fortunately I wouldn't have to doubt much longer because at our sonogram that morning I saw a beautiful little baby w/a perfect little heart beat. I could not believe my eyes. Besides seeing my beautiful twins for the first time on sonogram, this was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I was in complete amazement, awe, overwhelmed with feelings of gratitude. God surly does know how to show us his grace. Because at a time in my life when I was struggling w/my faith the most, I honestly didn't even know how to pray anymore, it seemed so pointless to me, He Blessed us w/the most amazing gift ever. I was so humbled by His love, His ability to look past my short comings, my hardened heart and Bless us so unexpectedly.

We are still amazed to this day, every time I look down and see my growing belly or feel my little angle kick I feel so amazed and overwhelmed all over again. God's love and grace run so deep more than any of us will ever understand. I just pray in the future when things don't go my way, or I am dealing w/feelings of loss and grief I don't abandon God the way I have in the past because I know now more than ever that He never abandons us.

20 Week Belly Shot

20 weeks 0 days w/baby #3

20 weeks 0 days w/the twins

I dont know why I continue to be amazed at how much bigger I was last time, I should expect it to be that way, but it still surprises me when I look at the pictures next to each other :-)

It's A Girl!!!

4th of July Weekend

We had a great 4th of July weekend. We started it off by picking Chad up from the airport and then heading to the Aquarium in Atlanta. It was crowded and not so enjoyable for me but the kids, especially Evan loved it...so it was worth the mad crowd that was there :-). We had a quiet 4th at home w/just the 4 of us but it was great anyhow. We grilled hot dogs and hamburgers, had some of our favorite side dishes and topped it off w/homemade ice cream and chocolate molten cake YUMMY!!!!