A Bundle of Hope...

Well. Where to begin. Since I last wrote, things have gone from bad to worse. Due to a freak October snow storm, we have now been without power, heat and hot water for about 27 hours. We stayed at the house last night - bundling up under comforters and extra socks - but spent this afternoon at my parent's house in order to feed the boys and keep warm. Everyone in my town is without power, so I couldn't farm out Gavin's food that fills our stand up freezer to neighbors. I'm just praying that we can salvage it when we get home. The power is "supposedly" coming back on around 8pm, but we'll see.

Last night my pain from the egg retrieval intensified - in a big way. I was only partially comfortable in a sitting up position - but was still having trouble taking deep breaths. At one point, around 11pm, I tried to lay down. Turns out that was a huge mistake. I instantly couldn't breathe and felt such intense pain that I actually started screaming a little. I couldn't get into a comfortable position - and couldn't breathe - which freaked Ed out and sent him scrambling around threatening to call an ambulance. We settled on calling the fertility doctor who said that what I was feeling was normal. Oh, really? If it's so normal, why was I told to expect "mild cramping" and "just take it easy" and "if you worked, you'd be able to go back to work after the retrieval." This to me was FAR from normal. I've had two C-Sections. This pain felt worse than both of them. No joke. So he told me to try to sleep propped up and to come in for an ultrasound in the morning.

Sleep never came. I mostly cried.

We woke up to a house that registered at 59 degrees. We fed the boys and Ed drove me over to the fertility clinic to get my ultrasound. They saw that I had blood clots and extra fluid floating around under my rib cage and in my abdomen area. That's what is causing so much pain. Nothing serious - I don't have any ovarian hypsertimulation issues. He gave me some meds for the pain and said I should feel better in 24 hours. My entire belly is distended - making me look like the pregnant woman I long to be - and is tender to touch.

Then - as if our day didn't already suck - I got the call from the embryologist in the lab. She was calling with the fertilization report. Out of the 9 eggs that they retrieved, only 2 successfully fertilized. And the two that fertilized looked "iffy" I was told. This was a crushing blow. In that moment...in the car...with the boys...Ed and I had to make a serious decision.

We had decided before all of this to do the genetic testing on the embryos to prevent transferring a chromosomally abnormal embryo into my womb. This testing is about 5-6 thousand dollars. The embryologist asked me if I wanted to proceed with PGD (which is what it's called) or if we wanted to freeze these two embryos - start a fresh cycle - and hope that we can add more to send for testing. Basically - do we want to pay that huge chunk of change once for many embryos or twice, testing two now and more later if we didn't get pregnant. Follow?

We decided to skip the testing. We never had it before with our cycles before IVF and if it wasn't offered to us it never would have mattered. Skipping the testing changes everything. Whereas before our embryo transfer would have been six days after my egg retrieval - on Friday - it is now going to be this Tuesday. After the embryo transfer I need to remain in bed for 24 hours. So please pray - hard - that there are no more storms or power outages or heater malfunctions or ANYTHING to get in the way of this recovery!!!

Today (and last night) have been very challenging. All I want is my own bed and a heating pad and rest. Instead I've been displaced, had no rest and have been up and down all day and night. Just for once I would love for something to go smoothly for me. It's starting to get old that everything is a struggle.

But - believe it or not - there is a bright light in all of this! I hate to share such a whiny post with such great news, but I can't keep this in. Our good friends, Drew and Melissa, had their baby boy last night! I've written about them before - back when they had a party to reveal his gender...and then the baby shower that was at my house. Andrew Joseph - or A.J. - is gorgeous. I can't wait to meet him and am so happy for our friends!!

He is such a beautiful baby. Actually, this is a nice way to end this post. He's a little bundle of hope.