First ultrasound

Today we had our first ultrasound. I was a little nervous going in, just hoping that baby would measure right on track and that we would see a little heartbeat.

John got to come in for the u/s and he could see the screen, but I could not. The tech asked me if how many embryos we transferred and I told her 2. She started the u/s and after a couple of minutes she said something like "yep, there they are" or something I couldn't quite hear and then told me she would be doing some more measurements of my ovaries, etc. So then I asked her if she did see the baby and she said yes and I said, "just one baby, right?" and she says, "no, 2 babies." And then I freaked out a little. She was so casual about it, like of course there are 2 babies. I was so shocked. Even though we did transfer 2, one of our embryos was lower quality and had some fragmentation, so it didn't have as high of probability for implantation. My initial blood hCG levels weren't crazy high or anything, so I was pretty sure it would be just one baby. Well, I was wrong.

2 sacs and 2 little heartbeats!

Both babies are measuring right on schedule at 6w3d and we saw two little heart beats. I don't remember the exact rates, but somewhere around 120-125bpm. There are 2 sacs, so they are fraternal twins, which means both our embryos implanted. I will have another u/s in 3 weeks to check their progress and then will "graduate" to an OBGYN after that.

We originally thought we would stay in MA for awhile still, but now we are planning to move back to UT pretty soon so I can start my prenatal care at 12 weeks and stay with the same OBGYN throughout the pregnancy, rather than having to switch part way through. Also because my sister and brother-in-law that have been living in our house now have the opportunity to help another family member and live in their house, so we don't want to hog the help and feel like we need to be close to family, especially now that we are having twins.

I am trying no to get too hung up on all the things that can still go wrong. They did tell me that 15% of early twin pregnancies go on to be a singleton due to a vanishing twin. We are hopeful that both babies will continue to grow strong though. It does mean that I will probably not make it to June for delivery and instead will have the babies sometime in May.

IVF #3 Cycle results

I am nervous to post this because I worry I will jinx things, but wanted to let the few of you that aren't my immediate family (since we have already told all of them) that follow my blog know that IVF#3 was a success and I am pregnant. The last few days have been pretty surreal and I still have a lot of fear and anxiety about all the things that could go wrong, but I am trying to take things one day at a time and just enjoy being pregnant each day. Of course I hope I have a long, boring, and uneventful 9 months.

I got my first positive test at home 8dp3dt and kept taking more tests, like a crazy person, each day until my blood test on the 5th (12dp3dt). My hCG level that day was 155, which they said was a good, strong number (they want it to be between 50-100). I had my second blood draw today, and it came back at 495. They want to see it doubling about every 48 hours, which it did. So no more blood draws for me and the next step will me my first ultrasound on 10/21. Hopefully we will be able to see the heartbeat at that point. I will stay under the care of my RE for a few more weeks and then will "graduate" to a regular OB. Our plan is to stay in MA for now, but likely we will head back to UT at some point so I can go back to work and because our long-term intent has always been to raise our kid(s) close to family. Lots of details to be worked out still, but I'm not stressing about any of that for now.

Most of my symptoms have been pretty mild, but I definitely have a few of them. The worst has been the bloating and fatigue. My appetite has changed a lot too, and I have to make myself eat throughout the day.

It feels a little weird to be telling people so early, but I have been so open about our infertility and so many people know we are/were doing IVF, so we want to also share our good news. We won't do a FB announcement until much later though, so if you want to send well wishes, please don't do it publicly on FB for now. :-)

Our EDD is 6/13/14 (Friday the 13th, but I'm not superstitious).

11dp3dt