So A LOT has happened since I last wrote 2+ years ago! I’ll put together a timeline with highlights to make it easy to follow

August/September 2016 – I didn’t need surgery and eventually my HCG went down to 0 and I went back to work by the end of August. All of my co-workers were very understanding and supportive of me.  I was an emotional roller coaster for a while, and still feeling sick from the Methotrexate for weeks after. But work was a good distraction to keep my mind off of all of the negativity I was going through.

I went to see a psychologist to help me get through this mourning phase that I just couldn’t seem to shake. I was just sad all the time and it’s difficult to grieve for something that only existed for you and your husband. Others don’t understand the full extent of emotional turmoil that a couple goes through when you have a miscarriage.  But this was the worst kind, when he kept growing inside me, it hurt everyday and was an everyday reminder. Then when it finally stopped, I felt I could finally grieve “the end” but again, no one understands what you’re going through.  So the physiologist helped me talk it out, especially the personal guilt I had. Of course I knew it wasn’t my fault, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t look at everything I did wrong or could have done differently.  Anyway, it helped, but I don’t think anything could have helped completely.

October 2016 – my youngest sister got married so we had another big trip to the east coast planned.  I also had a lot of work trips planned for November and then to Myrtle Beach to see my parents for Christmas. So we put off anything more as for IVF until 2017.

January 2017 – I started the pill to regulate my body. I had 2 embryos left and we had to decide to transfer 1 or 2.  I was so torn because I wanted to put in 2 at the higher chance of getting 1, but my doctor just kept telling me how risky that was for me at my age if I did get pregnant with twins.  So we went with transferring 1 embryo, the 2nd highest quality embryo. The 3rd embryo was considered a C quality and not as high of a chance of success.  Ok, #2 embryo it is!

I had my works National Sales meeting from 1/21 – 1/25 and started my Lupron shots on  1/21. Traveling during the process isn’t fun, but because I travel so often, it was impossible to work around. I’ll never forget having to leave a party one night so I could go to my room to give myself a shot and then come back.  No one knew I was going through IVF again so it was . It’s just one of those memories that stands out.

February 2017 – I had the same protocol this go around and they decided not to change anything since I got pregnant and the ectopic was just a freak thing.  My transfer day was 2/16/17, the day after my Grandmother’s bday, so I thought this was good luck for me!        2/28/18 – I took my first pregnancy test and it was positive!! My HCG was in the 300s and so much higher than the first time. Yaaay!!! I’m pregnant again, this time it’s going to be different!                                                                                                                                              3/3/17 – 2nd pregnancy test and confirmation – my HCG had dropped significantly which means it was a “chemical pregnancy” and the embryo had implanted and started to grow, but never got very far before it stopped.  So now I would be going through a miscarriage again.                                                                                                                                  3/9/17 – we met with Dr. Greene to see if he had any answers.  He didn’t have anything comforting to say except that this can happen, but it means I can get pregnant, it’s just difficult for my uterus to stay pregnant. So we talked about things that could be causing it and things that I could try for the 3rd time

• Did I have an inhospitable uterus?
• There was uterine testing I could try that was still experimental, but gave you results on the best window to do the transfer based on a biopsy of your uterus.
• There was intralipid therapy, also experimental, but something I could do before and after the transfer to boost my uterus strength.

All of these things were frustrating to know about and why didn’t my doctor talk to me about them before the 2nd transfer? I would have done anything, even experimental, to give us a better outcome the 2nd time. I didn’t even know if I could go through it a 3rd time! I was emotionally spent.  We took time off to think about what we wanted to do. We considered adoption and looked pretty deep into that option. But the cost would have been anywhere from $25k to $50k and we had already invested sooo much time, energy, emotional energy, and LOTS of money into IVF.  So we needed time to get ourselves together.

April 2017 – After contemplating all of the option, we decided we couldn’t give up on the IVF route knowing we had 1 more embryo left.  We couldn’t move on knowing that this last embryo could be the one.  I opted to go through the uterine testing (ERA – Endometrial Receptivity Analysis) ) just in case that gave us any more information. In order to do this, you take the drugs just like you would for a transfer, but on the transfer day, that take a sample scraping of your uterus.  So we started another “transfer” protocol on 3/26/17.

I traveled to Tucson and had to give myself shots throughout that trip and it was more difficult because of the heat and trying to keep my meds cool.  So I had to tell my DM what was going on and why I needed to carry a cooler full of needles around. 🙂

4/20/17 – ERA test – holy SHIT did this hurt!! This was by far the most painful test ever.  They go in with a plastic knife like object and literally scrape back on forth on your uterus. I had tears coming down my face. My husband knew it was serious, because of all of the tests and crap I’ve had to go through, this was the only one that made my cry out in physical pain.  Oh and they have to get a big enough sample and the first 15 seconds of scraping didn’t give them enough, so they had to go back in and scrape for another 15 seconds…I almost lost it!! But I survived, now I just hope the results tell us something that will help us get success on this 3rd and final transfer.