Week #3

Hello all!

We have almost finished Week 3! You all must have been thinking about us and praying for us because it has gone very fast. This week was just a week of waiting- finishing one medicine and waiting to start the next one. Oh, and a week of hot flashes. Thankfully everything went as planned and we start our new medicine (Gonal-F) tomorrow. Time to stimulate my ovaries.

It sounds a lot sexier than it actually is. Its just a medicine to say "Hey ovaries! Time to make a baby! Get those eggs ready!" This is big progress and I am starting to get very excited. This medicine will only take about 10 days (on average) and its time to make babies. Also not as sexy as it sounds. I take the injection every night and this Tuesday I have to go for a blood test to see how my body is responding. Because of my PCOS they have to be very careful about not giving me too much medicine and over stimulation.

Our current timeline looks like this: 10-14 days- Ovary stimulation meds. When they are all ready I'll take the shot to make them hatch and 36 hours later I am in the operating room. They take the eggs and fertilize them. I am just thankful I get to be put under for that proceedure. After they fertilize them we decide whether we want them to be put back 3 days later (embryo stage) or 5 days later (blastocyst stage).

I just learned about this this week and the difference is that on day 3 the embryo has only divided a certain number of times and it smaller. If it can get to day 5, it is a survivor (many don't make it to that point), has grown and multiplied much more than on day 3. In a nutshell, day 5 is better and we would have a 65% of getting pregnant (compared to 50%) if our little ones could get to that day. Things that could effect that are the number of eggs retrieved (more to work with), number of embryos made (also more to work with) and how they are growing in the interim. When you concieve naturally, Day 5 is when the embryo moves to the uterus for implantation so it is also more natural and likely to survive if it is transfered on that day (technical- I know). We are not going to worry about that now but it's good to know!

It is a little strange that Eric and I won't even be in the room when they are fertilized since it usually happens in your body but I'm pretty excited that he gets to be in the room when they transfer them. We also get a picture of our embryos before they put them in and we could have pictures of our babies when they are only 1 cell each. So much potential in 1 cell. That's pretty amazing (cutest embryos/blastocysts ever, of course). It's one thing to know we all start out that way but it's another to actually see it. Those are definitely pics I'm sure you all will see :) For now, I have posted a picture of us from our wedding since we just celebrated our 3rd Anniversary. It reminds me why we started this journey and that our love can make our babies grow.

Love to you all,

Ash & Eric