A LETTER TO OUR BABIES

Dear babies,

Words cannot express how much we love you and how grateful we are to be awaiting your arrival. We’ve grown you in our hearts for many years…we saw you as embryos when you were first conceived and now what an amazing blessing to see your first photo. There you both are, just hanging out in your own little placentas, so close to each other. We imagine that you are the best of friends already. We are so in love with you, just as we have been for the past three years of waiting for you… our little miracles.

As much grief and hardship this road has been to finally have you, we never gave up on our faith and hope that God would see us through. We feel confident in knowing that God has a special plan for our family. We pray you stay strong and grow to be healthy babies and no matter what, we know God will watch over you. You two behave in there on your in-utero adventure: learn to share, play nicely, and hold each other close. There isn’t a single ounce of doubt about how much we want and love you both. And we can’t wait to hold you in our arms…

We love you!
your Mommy and Daddy

THIS IS TWINS TERRITORY! Yes, we're expecting TWINS!

We live in Minnesota and are big MN Twins Baseball Fans! So, naturally we announced our exciting news of having twins playing off the phrase of, “This is Twins Territory!” So, here’s a photo of me with the logo taped to my belly and Nick holding the ultrasound photos!


Our first ultrasound photo. The most beautiful blobs we've ever seen!


My intuition has proved to be correct – our ultrasound confirmed today that we are having TWINS! Two placentas + two heartbeats = two babies!

We were so relieved to have the ultrasound today. We just wanted to know everything was okay with the baby or babies. The ultrasound was amazing! Seeing these little embryos was indescribable. They are the most beautiful precious little blobs we’ve ever seen in our lives. The heartbeats are strong and the babies sizes are measuring right on schedule. I have faith in my body and faith in our twins.

One of our doctors gave us the “Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy“ book that they give to women when they become pregnant. This was an exciting moment! For us and for her, the doctor, because they want to see their patients become pregnant! I made a comment in front of all the nurses and the doctor that this was "ONE EXPENSIVE BOOK!" They all laughed!

As we said our goodbyes and walked out of the Department of Endocrinology and Infertility at Mayo, we were amazed at all we had been through. And as awesome as it was to finally be leaving there, (knowing we may never be back there or at least not until another round of IVF) we were a bit sad. After all, these were the people that got us pregnant! So many appointments full of disappointments but full of even more hope. And through it all, we are so very thankful for everyone there with their fantastic medical expertise and caring personalities.

"Look back and thank God. Look forward and trust God. Look around and serve God. Look within and find God! God closes doors no man can open and God opens doors no man can close."

RED LIGHT – GREEN LIGHT

These weeks leading up to our first ultrasound have been interesting. It’s been a slow three weeks to say the least! It feels like we’re stuck seeing that yellow light…just waiting for time to speed up instead of slowing down. Honestly it still hasn’t all quite sunk in yet that we really are pregnant. I’m thinking after seeing the baby on the ultrasound tomorrow it will make it all seem real!

During the first week after finding out “We’re Pregnant!”, I went through some denial. Red light – stop! I wasn’t quite sure if this was really happening. I had lots of anxiety worrying that something would happen to the baby and I would miscarry. I didn’t want to feel this way and tried not to, but ultimately I think that I had been so used to disappointments that even after this wonderful news, I was still so worried something would probably go wrong. I wasn’t allowing myself to fully celebrate. In fact, when we told people I was pregnant, in a way, I felt like I wasn’t really even telling the truth…because I didn’t “feel” pregnant.

I kept wondering if I really truly was still pregnant. I got to imagining about how I wished there was one easy way to always tell that you were still pregnant and the baby was okay. Wouldn’t that be nice! I decided a light coming out of your belly button would do the trick. Green means baby is great (GO!), yellow means caution: go see the doctor (SLOW DOWN!), and red means bad: an emergency (STOP!). Now if only there was a way I could invent and copyright that!

It wasn’t until this third week that it dawned on me, “Seriously Amy, stop kidding yourself - you really are pregnant!!” Green light – Go! This is really happening! I figured I’d stop worrying because my body is definitely changing. (I mean, if I’m not pregnant, then I must have some horrible disease, because by body is going through some CRAZY changes!)

My symptoms thus far:

Week 3: (Week before we found out if we were pregnant.)
My breasts are extremely sore and my nipples feel as if they could literally break off if accidentally touched. Lots of cramping…feels like the onset of menstrual cramps that I have every month. (Which makes me feel as if this first round of IVF has failed.) My left leg has been numb and sore from the progesterone shots in my butt. (We’re not sure if Nick accidentally hit a nerve while giving me a shot?) Knots are building up inside on both sides of my buttocks from the daily shots in the same areas. At times it’s hard to sit on either side. My butt feels very bruised and sore.

Week 4: (Found out we’re PREGNANT!)
Horrible stomach pains…must be indigestion. Feels like I worked out hard and pulled muscles in my stomach. I'm very bloated and stomach is hard to the touch – feels very full. Sporadic heartburn and the extreme indigestion has traveled up to my shoulders, which has made my shoulders have stinging pain on both sides.

Week 5:
Hello frequent urination! My stomach pains have gone away (YES!). No bloating this week but abs still feel sore. I also now have a numb left hand. (I read this can occur – carpal tunnel syndrome.) A few days of cramping all day. It is the same feeling as menstrual cramps, which makes me extremely nervous, but it is a sign of your uterus enlarging. I now wake up daily with an aching stomach. I feel very weak and my stomach feels empty like I need to eat, but I can barely get myself to eat one slice of peanut butter toast.

Week 6:
My biggest symptom is extreme exhaustion. And I don’t just mean “tired,” I mean EXHAUSTED. I sleep 9 to 10 hours every night and usually take a 1-2 hour nap daily. It’s hard to find energy to accomplish much. (How do people still work full time while being pregnant?) I am feeling numbness/soreness in my left elbow this week along with my left hand. I am constantly thirsty and therefore, drink a lot of fluids. I’ve started having to get up during the night to urinate. I’ve noticed smells are a lot more distinct. Nothing smells bad, I simply notice smells easier. I really like that…so far!

Week 7:
I still have the numb left hand. I think it’s feeling better, that or else I’m just getting used to it. I’m still very exhausted. This week I’ve started feeling bits of nausea throughout the day. Therefore, I’ve had a few days of literally laying around all day. I don’t really feel that hungry and I have to remind myself to eat every couple hours, because if I don’t I feel week and my stomach starts to hurt. Plus food just doesn’t taste very good, which makes eating even more difficult. My stomach feels so empty and I know I need to eat, but I can barely force myself to get food down.

I know I need to get over this and not let this “infertility fear” ruin my pregnancy fun. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s in God’s hands. Every night I lay my hand over my lower stomach and pray to God that He takes care of our baby. I’ve dreamed of doing that for years…there’s really a baby (or babies!) in there. AHH!!!

There’s no way to describe my excitement for tomorrow’s ultrasound. I know seeing the baby on ultrasound will be such an amazing experience for Nick and I. And the biggest news will be finding of if there’s more than one baby making a home! Up until now, only our closest family and friends know of our pregnancy. So we’re very anxious to let the rest of the world know after tomorrow’s news!

PROGESTERONE SHOTS WITH NURSE NICK

The progesterone shots with Nick are hilarious. We have a little ritual that we go through in order for it to work. I lay down on my side on the floor. (I switch cheeks every other day for the shot in my buttocks.) With the syringe all prepared, he uses the technique to find the correct area. Usually his hands are freezing cold. (That’s some useless information for you!)

Once he uses an alcohol wipe to clean the area, he asks, “Are you ready?” I say, “yes” and then proceeded to laugh hysterically. He’ll ask again, and if I don’t laugh, then he usually laughs. We do this about 3 or 4 times, then he finally pokes the needle in and massages the area while he’s injecting the oil. I guess we just need to get that nervousness out of our systems. It usually doesn’t hurt but it depends upon the day. The key is to jab the needle in like a dart because if you go too slow, that’s when it stings horribly.

Oh, gotta go, it’s 8:30pm. Time for my progesterone shot with Nurse Nick. Let the nervous laughter begin…

EMBRYO CYROPRESERVATION - "Frozen Embryo Daycare"

Before our Egg Retrieval, we made arrangements to do embryo cyropreservation. Mayo’s IVF laboratory is a “leader” in this, which is the freezing of embryos. Embryos are the when the egg and sperm are together. It’s then later referred to as the fetus. The reason you freeze the embryos is so that you already have those ready for future IVF’s. For example, if we do IVF again in the future, we simply do the “EMBRYO TRANSFER” and I don’t have to go through the “EGG RETRIEVAL” again…which is what most of the medications are required for. So, a future IVF wouldn’t be as invasive and drug filled! Mayo will keep our embryos for 3 months, then they get shipped up to the cities to be cryopreserved. We pay for storage, so it’s like an embryo daycare!

Since we have these embryos, you have to decide and sign ahead of time as to what they will do with the embryos if you get divorced, one of us dies, or both of us die. That was weird to think about – sort of like a will for your embryos!

Interesting to think we still have 8 frozen babies waiting for us in frozen embryo daycare…

NOT AT ALL WHAT I EXPECTED…BUT I COULD CARE LESS!

Through the years of imagining of when we’d become pregnant, we thought we had it figured out how exactly it would all occur. We’d take a pregnancy test at home together and see those two beautiful pink solid lines together for the first time EVER. We knew exactly how we’d tell our family and friends, on our time, as a complete surprise to them all. And honestly, we thought we’d just get pregnant on our own, in-between all the fertility treatments.

None of those came true!

After IVF, we weren’t allowed to take a pregnancy test because of the fact that the fertility drugs in my system could give me a false positive or a false negative. Instead, I went in for a blood test and had to wait hours knowing that SOMEONE at Mayo already knew if I was pregnant or not, long before I did. And many of our family and friends knew we were doing in-vitro, so they knew exactly when we were to find out. No surprise there! (And of course we didn’t get pregnant on our own like I had imagined so many times.)

And even though it wasn’t like we had imagined or planned, it was just as sweet. And we couldn’t have cared less.

REMINDER TO SELF: I CHOSE THIS!

Nick getting the progesterone oil shot prepared!


Close-up of the needle. Yup, those suckers are LONG!


The progesterone shots are really making my butt and thighs sore. I had a few bruises but those are slowly fading. I can really feel it in the muscles on the outer sides of both my legs. They’re very sore and uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s hard to sit on one butt cheek or the other depending upon where my last shot was.

And I’m growing knots inside my skin from the constant injections in the same area. We had a little incident on the 4th day that Nick gave me the shot. We didn’t feel the knot and when he gave me the injection, the needle must have hit it and so it didn’t go in. So he pulled back. This hurt really bad and stung. It almost felt like I had a deep cut. I can’t see it when he’s doing it, so I didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t move because it felt like the needle was still in me. I was mad and made the mistake of telling him I didn’t trust him anymore. (As if that would help the situation at all.) We tried to calm down, he did it again and it worked fine.

But not even an hour later, my left leg started feeling numb and itchy. For the next two days, it felt the same way. It felt like the kind of numbness you might have after being outside for a long time on a very cold day, when you come back inside and it feels numb and cool and itchy. I was worried he hit a nerve and something bad was going to happen. I don’t know what, maybe that’d I’d have to have my leg amputated or something. Who knows, but I was paranoid for the worst. I decided I’d just deal with it and hope it went away soon.

It’s been over 7 days now and it still feels sore and achy like a deep bruise. But it doesn’t feel numb anymore. I think I might survive. It feels similar on my right side now, but not nearly as bad. I just hope it all goes away soon.

But, ultimately, I have to remind myself that these progesterone shots were my idea. I chose this!

The “norm” for progesterone after IVF is vaginal suppositories. I had done these with previous treatments at Mayo and I absolutely despised them. For those you have to insert a suppository into your vagina twice a daily, every morning and night following an IUI. They are so gross. Sorry for the visual but they slowly dissolve and leak out. So, imagine something leaking out of your crotch all day long and all night long. It even made it hard to sleep at night. It’s just such an uncomfortable feeling…sort of like you’re peeing your pants 24/7.

They told me that for IVF, you’d have to do these suppositories even more, three times a day. When I asked if there was an alternative and found out I could do shots instead of the suppositories, I was relieved. Thank goodness. I’ll take a little pain over that grossness anytime. Then I found out they were intramuscular shots…butt shots with long needles. It made me think about it more, but ultimately I realized that would be worth it! Bring on the shots!

Jesse did these shots for the first 7days. With Jesse’s guidance, Nick tried his first time giving the shot on January 26th. He did it! We did one more night with Jesse watching. Then on Thursday, the 28th, we were out of town, so we had to do it on our own. I’m still alive so I guess he passed the test. Way to go, Nick!

As the days pass, it’s getting easier. Nick’s quite the good shot giver now! (Nick is an Optometrist…so he goes by either Dr. Vincelli and sometimes Dr. Nick.) But, I should call him Nurse Nick now instead of Doctor Nick!

JUST RELAX: (Ha…good one!)

One of the hardest comments I received time and time again was, “Just relax.” You tell me to not be stressed out and relax, but this comment just creates even more stress upon me. It makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong, when there is a physical issue preventing us from becoming pregnant. But, it’s not my fault. And unfortunately, relaxation is not going to cure infertility. According to the “ASRM”, (American Society of Reproductive Medicine) there isn’t any proof that stress causes infertility.

I can guarantee my relaxing is not going to change the outcome. Now, after a positive pregnancy with IVF treatment, I can tell you that during my entire journey with infertility, my stress level didn’t go away. Sure it fluctuated, but relaxing wasn’t the magic cure that ultimately made me pregnant. In fact, I think my stress level was probably the highest it was during our IVF. And I still became pregnant.

It’s so early in my pregnancy that if I had conceived naturally, I may not have even contacted a doctor yet. Or I may not even be aware that I'm even pregnant! But in my reality, I have gone to the doctor 10 times in the last month. With multiple blood tests, ultrasounds, shots, egg retrieval surgery, and an embryo transfer, I’ve been as involved as I could possibly be. We even watched our two embryos being put back into me on the screen. Now that isn’t the typical conception experience!

Going through In Vitro Fertilization turns one’s focus to medical details like ovulation, the size of follicles, egg fertilization, blood HcG, uterine lining thickness, progesterone levels and on and on and on. We know so much of what can go wrong. So, that’s why we’re so paranoid that something will happen! Every little thing needs to be just right. This why becoming pregnant is an absolute miracle! What a true gift from God!

So, yes, I can try to relax. But no, it’s probably not going to happen. Because if I relax, I feel like I’ve giving up. And I need to think about it. I need to keep trying.

I’ve come to realize that God’s in control, not my emotions or stress level. So even if I’m stressed, God’s in charge.

DREAMING OF PREGNANCY

I’ve done a lot of daydreaming during these years of infertility. But for the first time…today…I am dreaming of these “pregnancy” events knowing that they will for sure happen! What an incredible feeling, that I didn’t know if I would ever be able to experience.

So, today, I’m dreaming of…nope, not dreaming, this is for real now! – I’m looking forward to these special happenings of pregnancy…

Telling all my family and friends
Hearing the baby’s heartbeat
Seeing the baby on an ultrasound
Feeling the baby kick
Shopping for maternity clothes
Searching for baby names
Researching baby products
Painting the nursery
Decorating the nursery
Making crafts for the nursery
Buying diapers

Today I did a few things that meant a lot to me…a few things I’ve been waiting for years to do…

I pulled out the diaper bag hidden under my bed that I purchased last year and put it around my shoulder. I took a pre-natal vitamin for the FIRST TIME EVER knowing FOR SURE that I was pregnant. I signed up for a free baby magazine.
I pulled out the pregnancy books I’ve bought at rummage sales. I flipped through a baby name book. I smiled and laughed at the “expectant mother” parking space at HyVee for the first time (usually I just glared at them.) I walked through the baby aisle at Target with a whole different feeling than ever before. I imagined someone calling me, “Mom.”

THE DAY WE'VE DREAMED OF...

After 3 years, 3 months, and 18 days… (1, 206 days – 28,944 hours - or 1,736,640 minutes)

and 45 doctor appointments, 9 blood tests, 20 vaginal ultrasounds, 11 kinds of fertility medications, 62 shots, 151 pills, 1 Hysterosonography, 1 Hysterosalpingogram, 5 inter-uterine inseminations (IUI’s), 1 egg retrieval surgery, 10 fertilized embryos, and 1 in-vitro (IVF) embryo transfer…

and 1,206 pre-natal vitamins…and 38 negative pregnancy tests…

AND countless prayers and a miracle from God…

We are PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!!!

TODAY IS THE DAY

Even though yesterday I wanted to fast forward the time, today I feel like stopping it. Do I really want to know? What if it’s the news I so desperately do not want to hear? Driving home from Mayo after my blood test this morning was torturous. All I could think was that someone there most likely already knew if I was pregnant or not. And I had to still wait at least 4 more hours until we found out.

Nick had the afternoon off from work. So we tried to keep occupied until 2pm, when we could call the Lab Talk Hotline for our results. We only lasted until about 1pm before we started calling. The first time we called, my hands were shaking so bad, I could barely punch in the numbers on my cell phone. Then I punched “send” instead of the “pound” key so I had to start all over again. My chest was pounding and then calmed down after it said, “no messages.” We actually called 5 more times after that. And ever single time it said, “no messages.”

By 2:15pm, we were so anxious and wondered why there wasn’t a message yet. Finally at 2:20pm, my cell rang and it was the outgoing Mayo phone number. AHHH! This is it!! As I answered and heard a familiar voice, I didn’t know what to feel. It was my sister’s friend, who is a nurse in the infertility department. (I had thought perhaps she would be the one to leave a message, not knowing if that would be good because she’d want to be the one to tell us the wonderful news or bad, because she wanted to be the one to tell us the sad news.) She asked how I was doing and I said, “I’m freaking out.” She then asked, “Are you sitting down?” I replied yes and she proceeded to say the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard…”You’re pregnant.” I started crying…and then laughing…and then crying again. Nick was sitting next to me, listening and as I looked over I saw the matching tears in his eyes. We couldn’t believe it. We are going to have a baby!

The first thing I did after hanging up the phone was run to the bathroom to take a home pregnancy test. Those two pink lines were the most beautiful lines I’ve ever seen. Would I be a weirdo if I just carried this pee stick in my purse or pocket until the baby comes? Of course I know the answer to that, so I won’t do it. (But I did contemplate it.) I made a compromise and it’s sitting on the island in the kitchen where I can walk past and gawk at it many times a day!

Tomorrow = BEST day or WORST day

How do you prepare yourself for what is to possibly be the happiest day of your life or one of the worst days of your life? I don’t think you really can. Emotions have been high for the last 10 days. As I pace around the house, I would do anything to be able to fast forward time to tomorrow afternoon. At least I’ll know the answer. I can’t sit still, I’m so fidgety. Good thing Nick is at work or I’d be driving him crazy too.

I sit here pondering about what it'd be like to wake up one morning and think, “Hmm, I haven't seen my period in a while." Then take a home pregnancy test and be surprised. "Wow! We're expecting!! No wonder my period is 7 days late!" How wonderful that must be instead of feeling like a ticking time bomb through every grueling minute of our wait to find out if our thousands and thousands of dollars spent will result in happiness.

So, I just keep waiting and waiting for the time to pass...