Time to Stop Being a Slacker!

Oh my, this poor neglected blog.  It's definitely been way too long since I've posted.  I guess it's true, when you have a toddler running around, there really is a lot less time to do the things that were priorities before.  You'd think that once he was in bed, I would get motivated to post, but Griffin is such a ball of energy, that once he's in bed, all I'm good for is vegging out on the couch.

Considering it's been over a year since my last post, A LOT has gone on.  Our little guy is now 2 1/2, working his way towards turning 3.  I truthfully cannot believe he's this old!  Time has flown by since the IVF cycle we did to get him here.  He never ceases to amaze either of us.  He is so full of life, so inquisitive, and it blows me away with how smart he is.  (I know every mom probably thinks the same things about her child(ren) but I really am amazed by him every single day.)  Time for a little shameless bragging.  He knows all of his colors, counts to 15, recognizes most numbers up to 10, recognizes a handful of letters, and gets so excited to learn new things every day.  His language development has absolutely exploded in the last few months.  I am blown away by his ability to communicate.  It's amazing to listen to him speak in full sentences.  Obviously, I knew he'd be able to do all these things eventually, but now that the time is here, it's just so incredible to watch.  I'm so proud of him each and every day.

Well now that I've bragged and gushed about how great I think my little guy is, here comes the big news (and the reason I've resurrected my blog).  Griffin is going to be a big brother!

In June I went through a frozen embryo transfer (FET).  After G's IVF, we had 5 embryos frozen and waiting.  I contacted our fertility doctor's office this past spring to see what all we needed to do to prepare for a FET, when I needed to start blood work and various monitoring appointments.  I was relieved to hear that a FET would be way less invasive than a fresh cycle like we did with Griffin.  I knew in general that it wouldn't be as bad, one whole procedure is eliminated with doing a FET, but there would still be injections and blood tests.  And because my body can never cooperate and be easy when it comes to this stuff, I was on a new medication this time around.

One of my hormones was elevated, which wasn't a problem last time, so I was on an oral medication prior to the procedures, and all the way through my first trimester.  While it really isn't a huge issue to take a pill every day, it was frustrating to me that there was yet ANOTHER issue to deal with when it comes to my reproductive health.  Because of this hormone being elevated, it put me at risk for my body's natural killer cells to be elevated as well.  If those were elevated then there was a very good chance they would attack the embryo after transfer, because it would be viewed as a "foreign body" by those cells.  In order to prevent this from happening, I had an intralipid transfusion done once prior to transfer, and a 2nd time after my pregnancy tests came back positive.  Again, not a huge issue, I got to do a lot of reading, which is something I haven't taken the time to do in a while, but when you're stuck on a gurney with an IV hooked up to your arm for two hours at a time, there's not much else you can do.

All of the rest of my procedures went fine, meds were going well, minus the horrid progesterone shots, but we'll get to that later, and we were set for the transfer on June 18.  Matthew had to go with me, because before the transfer I was given a Valium, so I was not allowed to drive afterwards.  This procedure really is easy and fast, however I won't call it painless.  The transfer has to be done with a full bladder.  The doctor is guided by ultrasound, which means one of the nurses is then pushing on that full bladder to give the doctor as clear of a picture as possible.  Talk about uncomfortable!  The whole time all I could think of was how I really hoped I didn't pee all over him!  Thankfully it's a very quick procedure.  The embryology tech brings our embroy in, tucked nice and safely in a catheter.  The doctor runs the catheter up to the uterus, and presses the syringe, so it leaves the tube.  We watched the whole thing on the monitor, and saw exactly when and where the little embryo landed.  After that I had to lie on the table for half an hour (still needing to pee)  and hoping that it would stick tight.

I spent the next 10 days going absolutely crazy, analyzing every single little twinge in my body, hoping it was a good sign.  When I finally couldn't take it any longer, I broke down and took a home test, even though I swore I wouldn't.  Thankfully my sanity was saved because that BFP popped up quickly and was very strong!  My two blood tests confirmed that yes we were pregnant, and the numbers were increasing at a great rate, so that was also a great sign for the viability of the pregnancy.  I was on pins and needles until our first ultrasound, but all went well!  We had one stubborn, squirmy, strong little nugget on the way!

This little one is already getting the 2nd child treatment.  I didn't mean to not document the process this time like last, but the pregnancy has zapped me of any amount energy I possibly had.  Chasing a toddler around has added to my exhaustion, so some days I'm amazed I can put coherent thoughts together!  It's my hope and goal to do a better job of updating now.  March will be here before I know it, and Baby K 2.0 will be here!

Love our little family.  Can't wait until Baby 2 joins us!