Changes

This past week has brought many changes for Nick and I. As of a week ago today we have officially moved back to Fort Wayne, IN.  We made some great memories in Akron, OH, but it was hard to pass up a chance to move home. I started my new job this week and so far so good!  Can't talk about it much on here as we are all being watched, hahaha!  I am working 12 hours shifts though and forgot how much that takes out of you. At least I don't have to get up at 4:30 in the morning anymore, only 5:30 at this point. When we are able to move into our house it will be later. I can't wait; I love my sleep. Nick also accepted a new job. He is going to be working for an EMS service in Noble County. He starts December 2. We actually get to sit through hospital orientation together.

I am sure many of you are waiting for an update after my last post. We were able to meet with Dr. Moretuzzo on the Thursday before we left Akron to get some answers. I had my surgery on Tuesday November 5th. My hCG level on Monday November 11th was 4 (it was 360 before surgery). Thursday the 14th my level was 0. This is what we were looking for. It means that every trace of the baby that I lost is gone. Our meeting with Dr. Moretuzzo went well. We were able to get most of our questions answered. It turns out that there is only a 1-2% chance of having a tubal pregnancy with IVF. We asked what the chances of this happening again; 1-2%. We laughed. With our luck we will be in that 1-2% again. We were able to see pictures of my right tube that had the baby in it. The embryo had attached pretty much in the middle of my tube. This is why the Methotrexate didn't work and why the baby didn't grow right. They weren't able to send any of the tissue to see if everything would have been ok if the baby had attached to the uterine wall like it was supposed to. We will never know.

The labs that we did a couple of weeks ago to see if there was something wrong with me that we could change did come back. Everything was normal. There doesn't seem to be a reason for me not to be able to get pregnant or carry a baby other than what we already knew. Of course these labs were drawn before we knew that this was a tubal pregnancy. We can't try again for 3 months after the Methotrexate. Which means that we can't try until February. Apparently, the Methotrexate can stay in your system that long and will destroy fetal tissue if we were to get pregnant before than.

We also asked how much weight he thought I needed to lose to raise our chances of getting pregnant. I was told that if I could lose 10% of my weight it would certainly help. That means I would need to lose a total of 31 pounds. I've already lost 17 pounds since I went gluten free. Obviously he said it would be ultimately  better if I got down to a healthy weight. Some to aspire to. We also asked if there was anything that we could do on our own while we were waiting to have enough money to be able to do a frozen transfer. We have 6 embryos frozen that we could still use. Basically the only things that we can do on our own are to lose weight and use ovulation predictor kits. He didn't sound too optimistic for us to get the job done on our own.

We are going to take the forced 3 month hiatus and try to lose some weight and focus on our new jobs and building our house. I also have a "Christy Do" list that I'm going to be looking into completing. More on that in another post.

The house is going well. We've had a few hiccups, but overall we are happy with everything. Here's what the house looks like now:

As of today all of the electrical, plumbing, and heating and air is in place. We had our framing and electrical inspections today. Next week they will start putting in insulation and the dry wall will go up. We are looking at being able to move in to our house at the end of January 2014. 

Another thing I wanted to share is that you won't find me on Facebook much anymore. I am having a hard time seeing all of the baby pictures and announcements of people that are pregnant. I am happy for all of you, but it's too much for me right now. I will continue to post links to the blog on Facebook so you can find me, but I won't be on there personally. 

My Luck Sucks

I am sorry that I have taken so long to post. This week has been extremely difficult. I am also sorry that this post is forever long.

If you recall we were given the methotrexate shot on Friday October 25th. I went in on Monday October 28th for an hCG level. We had originally been told that once the shot took effect my levels would start to go down. Apparently, it is normal for the levels to go up the first 48 hours. Just prior to the methotrexate shot my level was 232. On the 28th my level went up to 443. We had planned on being back in Fort Wayne from the 29th to the 1st and would get my labs redrawn when we got back to Akron on November 1st; which we did. Since we had the labs drawn in the afternoon, we didn't get the results back until Saturday morning. Nick and I were both working 24 hour shifts. It is extremely hard to get a hold of me at work so I repeatedly tell the nursing staff that they need to use my pager to get a hold of me. Well, they didn't. They just called my cell phone and left me a message. I was lucky that I got the message. My level had only dropped to 441. By a week after the methotrexate shot it should have dropped by 15%. 2 points is not 15%. They wanted us to come in to the office Sunday morning for an ultrasound and blood work.

Sunday morning in the office was terrible. The doctor that was working had brought his new baby into the office. The waiting room was packed! It was standing room only! We had to wait for almost an hour before we were called back to a room. And Nick and I were both cranky having been up for so long. Dr. Mooney  asked if I was still having pregnancy symptoms; yes, I had to pee all the time and my breasts hurt. He asked if I was having any pain. Nope, no pain. He then did an ultrasound to look for any sign of fluid or blood that would point to something bad happening as opposed to just an incomplete miscarriage. Nothing. There was no sign of anything. He told us he was concerned that it was a tubal pregnancy.

We asked how that could have happened with this being an IVF pregnancy. Sometimes what happens is that when the embryos are transferred back into the uterus, the uterus gets crampy and can act like a turkey baster and suck the fluid back into the tubes. Then the embryo attaches itself to the wall of the tube. Since I wasn't having any pain we had an hCG and liver enzymes drawn to see if the level had gone down and if there was a possibility that we could be given a second methotrexate shot. Sine it was Sunday (November 3rd) we had to go back Monday morning to see Dr. Moretuzzo and get our lab results.

Monday came and we went into the office. Surprise, surprise, the hCG level had gone down to 360.  But, my liver enzymes were elevated so there was no chance of being given another shot of methotrexate. We were also given another ultrasound also to look for more badness. He noticed that my right ovary was pretty quiet and that my left still had some pretty big cysts on it. He saw some fluid which he thought was ok, but did not see any blood. I was again asked if I was having any pain and wasn't so, we were sent on our way with plans to come back in Wednesday for another hCG draw to make sure the level had continued to drop. I was also told that I was to call if I had any pain or anything just felt different.

I was good until Tuesday morning. I went to work and actually had a good time with the girls I was working with in the morning. A baby needed a PICC line in the morning so two of us broke from rounds to work on that. While we were working on that I had my first feeling of "weirdness."  No pain. Just some pressure on my left side and a few cramps. It just felt different, so I called the office and they had me come in to the office for an ultrasound. I got to the office at 2:15 pm. They called me back and I described what I was feeling to Dr. Nash. Just that there was pressure and a little cramping. I should mention here that pain and I are not on talking terms. When my gall bladder went bad, the only symptom I had was being nauseated. No pain whatsoever. When they took my gall bladder out it fell apart in the surgeons hand. She couldn't believe that I wasn't in any pain. So now back to Tuesday...  He asked about doing a 2nd shot of methotrexate and I told him we had ruled that out on Monday due to my liver enzymes. He decided that he wanted to talk to Dr. Moretuzzo. After the discussion, the decision was made to take me to surgery for a laparoscopy for what we presumed was a left tubal or ectopic pregnancy. I left the office at 3 pm. We had to be at the hospital for check in at 4 pm. Nick met me at home and we arranged for our puppy to be watched and left. They couldn't do surgery until at least 6 pm since I had eaten lunch while waiting for the office to call me back. At 6 pm on the nose I was taken back into the OR. Pretty much the next thing that I remember was waking up in recovery puking. I will spare you all the details, but just know it wasn't pretty. No one told me anything about the surgery since they were trying to get my nausea and coughing under control. I remained on oxygen for about 3 hours (I have asthma and was getting over bronchitis). Nick was finally able to come back to recovery and he was the one to tell me the news.  It wasn't a left ectopic. It was a right sided ectopic and my Fallopian tube was too badly damaged to be saved.

I started crying and I pretty much haven't stopped since. I have my moments when I need to make a decision about the house or be around people who have no idea what is happening to me. I am angry. I am angry at God for letting this happen to us. I am angry that I won't be taking a baby home from the hospital. I am angry that no one understands. I am angry that I work with babies. I am angry that I see women get pregnant and take home babies that don't deserve them or care what happens to them. I am tired of seeing and hearing about babies everywhere I turn. i want to do nothing but curl up in a corner. Apparently we are going to have to go through everything imaginable to get our baby. Next up I'll probably have to endure another couple of years trying to get pregnant and then if we finally do we'll probably lose that one too. I have always hoped that eventually we would be able to achieve what we want on our own without medical intervention. I guess that dream is out of the window.

We have had no direction as to what happens from here. I haven't seen or talked to a doctor since just before surgery. I go back Monday for a hCG level.  Doing my own research I found that there is a 2-8% chance of an ectopic pregnancy happening with IVF. Guess we are just that lucky.