Blood draws, numbers, more blood draws, tears, heartache, final blood draw...

So, when we last left our heroines, they were doing the HCG number counting game. Health lesson: When a woman gets pregnant, every three days, a chemical called HCG has to double in numbers. That increase in numbers indicates that the pregnancy is progressing as it should. Our first blood test rang in with a solid "20". This was our starting point. So in three days (for the math challenged), we should have at least a 40. Each time we have to go in for a test, we are crossing every possible appendage to make sure those numbers double. This is the farthest we've gotten in this process so it's like we were even more nervous...there was so much more vested now. We had a baby or two growing in there. So, three days after our first blood draw, we go in for number two....holding our breath, waiting AGAIN for the longest two hour wait in the world. Pam calls. The numbers are in. 55. Yep, that's more than doubled! Whoo-hoo. By the way, we were told that if the first three blood tests continue to increase, changes are very good that the pregnancy will "take" and continue on. We are two thirds of the way there!

The second test was on a Monday, our next one (the big one) would be on Thursday. Well, my friends, this is where things get a little sticky.

Tuesday at work, Heidi came into my office, looking very upset. I'm still on the second blood test high so I'm a little confused. She went to the restroom. There was blood. OK, let's not panic. Maybe it was from implantation? Unfortunately, we were past that stage. Some women spot and everything turns out fine. Of course, our first task was to call Pam. What do we do? What does this mean? What? What? What? Pam put Heidi on bed rest for the rest of the day and moved our blood test to the next day. I took Heidi home, hating to leave her there, and went back to work. I sat in my office thinking that this has to be normal. It just has to...

Heidi called me about 15 minutes after I got back to work. The bleeding was worse. I called Pam again...what do we do? Her response...nothing. There's nothing we can do. It could be normal. It could be something else. We would find out tomorrow with the blood test. I went back home.

It is amazing how fast the roller coaster of emotion works. It was such a quick descent into despair from that brief moment of high. How does that even happen? How can you do what it takes to reassure your wife that things will be fine when inside, you're scared as hell. How do you maintain optimism, a strong front, when you are so afraid that the few days we had being pregnant would be all we would get?

The next morning, we silently drive to the doctor's office for a blood test. We both are expecting the worse, feeling like we are prepared for it. When we walk in, no more was the excitement and hugs of happiness. Instead, there are hugs of comfort, of condolences. A very silent blood draw. We ask a couple of questions. Can there be blood and still everything be OK? Yes, that can happen. Well, what about if both embryo's took and then one ceased to thrive; could that cause bleeding? Yes, that could happen but it doesn't happen often. On to our two hour wait.

The phone rings. We need to have at least something in the 80's since we were a day early. Number is 57. Not a good sign. Only two points in two days. We were shattered, heart-broken. How could we get this far and then have this happen? How? There was such an unfairness about the whole thing. Why? Pam advised we would need to come back in for another test just to make sure it wasn't a lab error. Heidi had to continue taking her medications and shots, add a little insult to injury here.

We go back, again, the next day for yet another blood draw. As we are leaving, I asked what the chances of the lab making a mistake were. Slim. In traditional smart ass fashion, I tell Pam that calling me slim at a moment like this didn't have the same flattering effect it normally would. We go back to work. We had already spent our time mourning our loss so we went back to work. Heidi didn't even care to know when Pam called, she knew the results, there was no point in caring at this point how far the numbers went down.

Sitting in my office, I see Pam's call come through. Deep breath. Here's the moment of truth. "Hey Slim" she says. "Hey back" I say in my new melancholy voice. She says, "I said hey slim". Yea? So...your slim chance. Your numbers are over 100. What the hell? How the hell? "Hold on, Pam...I have to go get Heidi!". Conveniently enough, Heidi sits right outside my office. I call her in and we shut the door. I tell her Pam needs to talk to her because I was pretty sure she wouldn't believe me.

So, what does this mean? One of the tests were wrong but which one??? We were scheduled to go back in Saturday morning for another blood test. Well, now, Saturday morning was a really busy morning. This was the day of my 40th birthday party. This was the day we had originally decided we would announce our good news to family and friends. We just needed one more good blood test to convince us. Right now, though, we didn't know what to think, which test to believe. So, in we go...Heidi donating more of her blood, what little she must have left. We prepare to wait our two hour period...we know the drill. As we get ready for the party, which we had discussed cancelling earlier in the week but decided against it because that would mean explaining to 80 or so people what was happening. Not all of those people even knew we were doing fertility treatments. With all that was going on and going wrong, neither of us had the energy to tell that tale. So, we just decided to hope for the best and continue on with the party.

We managed to blow up Pam's phone most of the day. "Lab's slow today". "There's a machine down in the lab". "Sometimes this happens if they are busy". All day, different reasons we didn't know the blood test results. Now, it was time for the party to start and we still didn't know the results.

Party happens. Fun despite the stress...a nice break from the week. Pam shows up to the party (yes, we invited both of our nurses) and we ask her if she heard anything. Nope she says. I suspect she's being less than honest with us.

The next morning, a text from Pam. Number is 20. As suspected, Heidi was miscarrying. Because of the meds she was on, it couldn't "complete" the process. We stopped taking the medicines and a few days later, it happened. We were done. All of our hopes for this gone. Our hearts broken. Our emotions exhausted and I think we were the saddest we have ever been in this process. One more blood test is needed. Number is 5. We're done. No more baby or babies. Our most devastating week followed our most amazing week.

So, where are we now? On a break. The medicines were so hard on Heidi and her little body. The loss of the baby was so hard on her emotionally. We've just decided we need a little break, for minds, hearts and bodies. So until next time, which may or may not be at the end of October, we are on a baby making break. Time to regroup and get strong again.

The benefit, if you remember, is that we have some eggs still frozen so the next cycle should be a lot easier, less meds, no aspiration. I'm not sure what to do at this point. Waiting is hard, not waiting is hard. Thinking about it is hard. Not thinking about it is hard. It's like our lives are on hold. We're just so ready to start the next phase. Maybe this will be our Christmas gift this year. I had hoped to have it as my birthday gift, but it wasn't to be. Maybe Christmas...

Oohhmmmm....ooohhhmmmm

med·i·ta·tion [med-i-tey-shuhn] noun
1. the act of meditating.
2. continued or extended thought; reflection; contemplation.



While unproven in any medical journals, it has been proven with the birth of our beautiful Godson, Liam. Of what do I speak? Meditation. More specifically, post-transfer in-vitro meditation. What does that mean in real people terms? It means that Heidi spent the two days after the transfer in a state of stress-free, positive thinking meditation. She imagined purple ribbons in her uterus softly grasping onto the newly added embryos, helping them implant into her perfectly prepared uterus. She stared at a picture of the embryos, replete with purple ribbon, angel and baby rattle, tucked onto our wedding picture, to help her maintain her positive thinking.

She kept her little legs propped up and watched The Baby Story on TLC for forty-eight hours. Positive thinking was the theme for the week. No stress. Happy thoughts. Comfort. And healthy eating. Oh yea, we were back to healthy, organic food. Heidi's favorite thing to do...eat lots of fruits and veggies (meaning, not just corn!). The fruit bowl is full! The dinner actually had spinach in it..and she ate it! That prayer from Dr. Welden must have worked because it would take a miracle to make Heidi eat spinach! Yet...there she was, eating healthy!




So, through all of our positive thinking and meditation, we had ten long, loonnngggg days to wait before we could take a HPT (home pregnancy test, for you non-fertility challenged peeps). Now, during all of her "meditation" time, my betrothed had managed to search every possible web page involving the recommended time frame for taking a HPT after in-vitro. We had consulted our wise nurse, Pam, via text (the best way to get medical advice, by the way!). All of them said to wait the ten days. So, we did the only thing we could logically do...we took a test early. We fully expected a negative because, well, Heidi had read the entire Internet and it said not to take it too early. But we did it anyway. And it was a BFN (big fat negative, infertility acronym again). We vowed that we would ABSOLUTELY NOT take another test until the blood draw on August 12. We had learned our lesson and this time, we were committing to waiting. We vowed. That's serious stuff, people. You don't "vow" and then not stick with it. It's bad karma. So, the vow was out there and we were destined to wait.

Funny thing about the vow. Apparently, it is open to interpretation. On Thursday, August 11th, at approximately 6:00 in the a.m., I am rustled from sleep by the ever so soft sound of a paper wrapper opening. Now, for those of you who know me, you know that I can sleep through a tornado without so much as rolling over. But for some reason, this morning, the r-i-i-p-p-p of a wrapper stirred me from a deep slumber. I sat trying to realize what was happening on the other side of the bathroom door and it came to me. Heidi was in that room breaking a vow. BREAKING A VOW!!! I sat there, well, layed there...it was still six in the morning, I wasn't quite ready to actually sit up, I sat there and well, I got a little mad. I was mad because I knew, knew that if the test was negative, she wouldn't tell me. I was mad because I knew she would keep her disappointment to herself. She would be sad alone. As I sat there, I began thinking about what I would say when she crept back into bed. All of a sudden, the bathroom door flies open and Heidi comes racing into the room, screaming "Baby, it's positive, it's positive". Holy shit. Pardon my french, but holy shit. She's crying and holding the HPT, hands shaking, heart pounding and I'm confused, but not mad anymore, that's for sure. I'm shocked. Amazingly shocked. It's positive. Thank you, God. It's positive. We are going to be mommies. WE ARE GOING TO BE MOMMIES!!!!



So, we sat shocked. What now? We can't tell anyone until the blood test is done the next day. It would be just silly to announce it so early. Irresponsible really. So, of course, we do what any responsible mommy-to-be would do at 6:00 a.m. We call family. Everyone manages to answer the phone that early, likely for fear that something is wrong. Why else would someone else be calling so early? Jessica was slightly panicked, especially since I called from Heidi's phone...just to add to the suspense. I spoke in a low voice, announcing that there was something I had to tell her. She said, in a very pensive way, obviously concerned, obviously worried. Then, I said it..."Heidi's pregnant". Silent pause...then a scream of excitement. Calls to Heidi's mom and sister are similar...soft, groggy voices, then excitement, although no screams. :-) We decide we really need to wait to tell any more people. We made it until 7:00 and then called our besties, Laura and Tootie. That was it! No more people, at least not until after the blood test. Of course, it would only be fair if we told Pam. I mean, you almost have to...she has been there since step one. She was almost as vested in this as us. We debated it most of the morning. We made it until about lunch time before we broke down and texted her. Now for real, this was it! It was so hard not to tell everyone we saw at work our good news. This was the happiest we'd been in this process and we had to keep it on the DL (down low for you nerdy, non-hipsters).

So, Friday arrives. We are up bright and early to go take our blood test. We didn't actually have an early appointment, we just needed to be there early. We had already taken the day off of work, just in case. Well, jokes on them, we knew! Well, we were pretty sure we knew. Anywho...we stopped at Dunkin' Donuts to buy the girls at the doctor's office some breakfast because, well, we were just in a fabulous mood. When we got there, we were met with hugs and smiles from our two favorite nurses. It was about time...we had already cried with them, it was time to rejoice with them now. The Lab Corp dude was waiting for us when we got there. Pam took blood and put it in the magical spinner thingamajingie and waa-la...off it went for the super official results. The Lab Corp dude even called the lab to let them know he was on his way with Heidi's blood and that there was a rush! I think our cheeks were actually hurting by now from smiling so much.

Despite all of these things falling into place, it still takes about two hours to get the results back. Really? Two more hours??? So, we find a way to pass the time. We shop. We wander around a mall in Tampa because we aren't ready to cross the bridge to go back home. Still waiting. Fine. We cross the bridge and now we are at the mall in Clearwater. Walking through the mall and the phone rings. Heidi is too scared to answer it. I, being the dudely one, must man up and take the call. Caller ID confirms it's Pam. Guess what my people? It's official...Heidi is knocked up! With child. Preggars. A bun in the oven. My beautiful amazing wife is finally pregnant.

We call and/or text those few people we have told and let them know it's official. Nancy was already texting every ten minutes to find out when that damn nurse was going to call us back. :)

We decide to have a little celebratory dinner with some family and close friends. It was our first celebration feast to honor the beginning of our pregnancy.

Heidi surprises me with an early birthday gift in honor of our little baby/babies. There's a little back story to one of the gifts. When we were in Target before the aspiration, waiting for a prescription to be filled, we wandered around and made our way to the book section. I saw a book I remembered from childhood and told Heidi that when we get pregnant, this was the first gift I was buying for the baby. Well, the love of my life bought me this book as our celebration. Shel Silverstein's "Where the Sidewalk Ends". She also included a little giraffe and a onesie.

Now, we wait. My birthday is coming up and if all goes well, we plan on announcing our little secret at my big 40th bash. We can't wait. A few more blood tests to make sure everything is progressing as it should be. Again, for those of you who are fertility lingo challenged, Heidi's HCG has to double every three days. And so every three days we go back to the doctor for blood tests. Oh, and her little meds aren't over just yet. Still daily shots in the boom-boom-pow. Still a regimen of pills. We have to do all the stuff necessary to make her uterus the most perfect of places for the baby/babies to live. Yes, until we know otherwise, we refer to them as the babies. After all, there were two embryos placed back so there's a chance that both took. And we don't want to give either of them a complex later in life by not acknowledging both of them now. So the belly talking begins...we spend each day talking to her belly, encouraging the babies to grow, letting them know how happy we are that they have decided to join our little family.

Time to put the kids to bed...

Captain's Log - August 2, 2011: What does one do with a bunch of fertilized blastocysts? Well, in our case, five days later, you put them back where they came from...or as the title says, "put the kids to bed". So, for five whole days, we listened to progress reports about the fertilized eggs. We kept our fingers crossed and when the morning of the transfer came, well, we got delayed. The embryologist wanted to wait just a wee bit longer and have the transfer happen in the afternoon, giving the embryos a little more time to develop. Perhaps a few hours isn't very long in the whole scope of the history of the world, but when you are waiting to make a baby, a few hours is almost a lifetime.

So 3:30 finally comes. We've had lunch. We're ready. This is it. Time to become mommies! We get to the doctor's office and you can just feel the excitement in the air. The nurses are just as excited as we are. Just a little aside here, if I haven't mentioned it yet in a past blog, I want to mention it now...we have the most amazing nurses imaginable. They have cried with us. They have been happy with us. They have answered our questions. They have been there every step of the way, being reassuring, informative, silly when necessary, being available by text no matter what time a random question arose, just the most amazing couple of gals we could ever have hoped for (they're names are Pam and Tana by the way...they are identifiable by more than just the moniker of "Our Nurses".) Back to us, so we were in the waiting room, which was unusually crowded that day, trying to sit still, but oh my gosh, seriously? Are we eight year olds going to Disney? Because that's how it felt. Funny little story...one of the office gals comes out to us and advises us that Dr. Welden has an intern in the office today and wants to know if we would be okay if he observed the procedure. I laughed a little because, well, boys aren't supposed to see Heidi's who-ha. It is the golden grail, people...it is not just "there" for everyone to see! Of course, that wasn't Heidi's feeling. She said, "Well, everyone else has seen it, what's one more person." What? Does she have no respect for the sanctity of the...oh, nevermind, fine. He can observe. I do manage to tell the office gal, however, that if he so much as touches her or stares too long, he should be advised that I have no problem body tackling him right in the procedure room. She promises to relay the message.

So, it's finally time. A little later than scheduled, but that's ok. Just a little longer for our little embryos to grow and at this stage, every hour matters. We go back to the lab and get to see our potential future child/children on a little screen. Five beautiful, perfectly developed (textbook, if you believe our fabulous embryologist)embryos. We take a moment to recognize the gravity of this. These could be our child or children. There they are...on the screen. They were in a little refrigerator and could only be out for a few moments, but there they were...on a TV screen. Quite frankly, who gets to see this? Most women get to see a line or two on a stick after they had a little slip. This is no slip for us. This is the most intentional thing we've ever done! And there was the proof...looking amazingly, well, amazing. What? What you say? You want to see them? Why, your wish is my command! Our first public picture of our potential child/children...




So, the kids are alright (ironic reference to a movie we saw at the beginning of this process). Now, we prepare for the procedure. This one is a lot easier than the aspiration. It's actually very similar to IUI, only the embryologist is in the room with with a tube full of our potential heirs. Actually, only two of our potential heirs are being placed back into the motherland (hahaha...the best reference ever!). The other three are being frozen in case, well, you get it. In case. After the transfer, Dr. Welden asked us if we wanted to pray. Now, if you know us, you know that we are not religious folk. We tend to be very spiritual, but not religious. However, if there was ever a moment when prayer seemed appropriate, this was it. We were making a baby, a miracle even when done in the traditional sense. We were not traditional. As such, we definitely needed any extra divine intervention we could get. So, there we were...the mommies to be, Dr. Welden, Dr. Clark, an intern afraid of being tackled by a lesbian and Pam the nurse. We all held hands while Dr. Welden said a little prayer. And yes, my friends, I cried. I cried with the hopes and possibilities and anticipation that only someone trying so hard to make a baby with the woman she loved could cry with...I just did it a little more quietly than the heaping sobs you would have expected. I was touched. Deeply.

So, after putting the kids to bed, we hung out for our standard twenty minute wait, thinking about what this meant. This was our first in vitro and hopefully our last. Our chances were increased with this. Statistically, this was our time. It was what we had fought so hard for. It's what Heidi had endured so much for, her tiny little body taking shots and pills and probes and blood draws. So many hopes and then let-downs. So many tears. So much had gone into this moment...this was it. This was our moment.