Surprises!

Well, I know its been almost 5 months since I've posted and I apologize.  Things here have been extremely busy.

We finally moved into our house on February 28th. It was a great weekend to move in... it snowed and it was my birthday weekend. We now have pretty much the entire downstairs decorated. We could use some new furniture but that is going to have to wait. We are still waiting for our lawn to be put in. We bought all of the plants for the landscaping out front and promptly have 3 of our rose bushes stolen. We haven't been able to plant anything yet since we aren't able to get our dirt. We are getting a topsoil-black dirt-peat moss mix and since it's been so wet they haven't been able to harvest the peat moss to make the mixture. We are hoping for next Tuesday. Nick is excited that he gets to rent a bobcat to dig the current clay out of the ground to replace with the dirt mix. Here are some pictures of the house :)

The front of the house

Kitchen

Stairs

Living Room into the Dining Room

So now that the mundane stuff is out of the way.... news on the fertility front.... I'M PREGNANT!  Ever since the miscarriage  and right tube removal in November my periods have been kind of regular. My first one was 7 weeks after the surgery, which i'm told is normal. Then the next one was right on 28 days. The following one was 5 days late, then I had a 28 days. This was supposed to just be my 5 days late month. It was Monday April 28th and I hadn't started my period yet. Nick was at the store and I told him to just go a head and pick up a test. So on Tuesday morning I took said test. I put it on the counter and continued to go about doing my morning routine. I turned around and couldn't believe my eyes!  

Never in a million years would I have thought that we could do this on our own. I know that we didn't. This was totally a God thing. We had an appointment scheduled with Dr. Bopp to start the process for a frozen transfer on May 7th. The day we found out I called the office and asked if they would draw some an Hcg. If you recall my Hcg's were terrible with the ectopic in November. They agreed. On Tuesday April 29 my Hcg was 459!  I should have been 4 weeks and 6 days then. The number was perfect for that. Two days later, on May 1, the Hcg was 1314. It should double in 2 days and it did more than that!  We had our first ultrasound on May 13th at 6 weeks and 6 days. And there it was! In the uterus where it's supposed to be!

The baby's heart rate was 111. At this point the baby, whom we are calling beanie (named by my mother), was measuring a few days behind. Since I didn't know exactly what day I ovulated that's ok. When Dr. Bopp asked if I knew when I ovulated, I laughed. "I don't ovulate!"  We are going to have another Ultrasound on June 4th. I will be 10 weeks then. Then I'm getting kicked to a regular OB. So a couple of blogs that I follow do this weekly and I am going to try to follow the same thing. 

How far along:  8 weeks and 2 days

Total weight gain? I've actually lost some weight, I'm sure due to the nausea and not wanting to eat anything.

Maternity clothes? Not yet, although I did have to buy some new bras :) 

Stretch marks? I've always had stretch marks from being overweight, some a few new ones isn't going to be anything different.

Sleep: All the time! I've had to start sleeping with a body pillow so my back doesn't get out of whack. 

Best moment this week: Reaching 8 weeks! I am so excited that this is finally happening, but I am also extremely nervous. I know way too much.

Miss anything? I miss market fresh sandwiches from Arby's.

Movement: None yet.

Food cravings:  Not really, nothing really sounds good right now.

Anything making you queasy or sick? Yes, meat. As I said earlier, I'm pretty nauseous all the time, so I have a hard time eating anything, but meat is the worst. 

Gender: Don't know yet. Will hopefully find out sometime the end of July or beginning of August. 

Labor signs: None. 

Symptoms: My boobs are sore and bigger. I have been nauseous all the time. No throwing up yet. I've come close a couple of times, but none yet. I've been trying to keep something in my stomach at all times, but that's getting hard too.

Belly Button in or out? Currently in.

Wedding rings on or off? On, but i'm sure later in summer they will be off.

Looking forward to: June 4th when we can see our baby again :)

More on Wednesday!

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.

6 weeks of Disappointment...

I don't even know where to start this post. We should have been 6 weeks pregnant on Thursday. We should have been seeing our baby's heartbeat. Instead no heartbeat, no sign that there ever was or is a baby. Last week when we saw Dr. Nash he told us that there were three options available to us if this abnormal pregnancy didn't end itself; Methotrexate, D&C, or laparoscopy. We were hoping that we wouldn't have to go down any of those routes.

Wednesday, I went in for my hCG draw. When I went in they didn't even have me on the schedule, so I had to wait for a little bit until they got things squared away. When Kim called me back to draw my blood she mentioned that we had extra tubes to draw this time. They were drawing the labs necessary in case we decided that it was time to move on in this scenario. They drew a complete blood count to check my hemoglobin and liver enzymes. These are labs necessary if we were going to do the Methotrexate. When my labs came back we weren't surprised. My hCG went up again. This time it went to 184. I knew it was going to go up since I have been bleeding. My  CBC was ok, but my liver enzymes were slightly elevated. 

Thursday Nick and I went in to meet with Dr. Moretuzzo. This meeting was originally supposed to be our follow up meeting after this IVF. It turned into just another appointment. I had another ultrasound which actually showed that my lining was thicker and that I had cysts on both ovaries. The cysts are normal after an IVF. There was no hint of a baby. We talked to Dr. Moretuzzo after that ultrasound about what was next. He said that most of the time this happens because of chromosomal issues. There are other things that could be happening as well. A couple of those things can mimic autoimmune disorders. So, Nick and I both had our blood drawn for chromosomes to see if there is anything coming from us. I also had blood drawn to check for those things that mimic autoimmune disorders. All of these tests will take a while to come back. I also had more blood drawn to check my liver enzymes. Thursday afternoon my labs came back. My hCG went up again (surprise, surprise) to 232. My liver enzymes were normal. Dr. Moretuzzo told us that we should proceed with the Methotrexate. 

Friday morning we went into the office. As we were sitting in the waiting room some lady walked in with her baby. Talk about a punch in the gut. Here I am losing my dream and it gets shoved in my face again. We finally got called back to the room. The nurse that called us back was way too bubbly. She was so happy. When she came back in the room with the consent, Nick and I were both crying. She asked if we were ok. I said no and she asked if it was the shot.  COME ON! really???  We have every right to be upset! I am losing my baby! A little more decorum would have been nice! 

Dr. Massellah, one of the other doctors in the practice, came in and talked to us about the Methotrexate. Then the nurse brought in the shots. Because it was so big I had to get two shots in my butt. The Methotrexate starts the process of causing the miscarriage. We were told that it could take a week to a month for my hCG level to completely go back to 0. Some people have bleeding as the level is dropping and some people don't' bleed until the level is all the way down to 0. I go back on Monday for another hCG draw. 

Today I started having some spotting. While I know that this is the goal, I still can't stand that it. I feel like we killed our baby. I know that isn't completely true and that this baby wasn't developing like it should but I am losing a part of me. I try to stay busy to keep my mind off of things, but it is always there. 

The Nightmare Continues

Never once in the last two and a half years have I wished for Aunt Flo to come with a vengeance. I do not want to miscarry this baby, however I also know that this is not a normal pregnancy. I know that this baby was and is not meant to be, but it kills me to know that we finally were able to get pregnant and I don't get to bring home a baby. I kept saying that all I wanted was to see the "pregnant" on a home pregnancy test. Perhaps I've been aiming too low. I guess I should be wishing for the baby at the end. That wish has always been there and been the final end, but I knew that we had to get through one step at a time. Well, this is just a cruel joke.

Last Monday (the 14th), our Hcg level was 15. We were told to stop our medications and I would miscarry, AF would come and the numbers would go down. I went back Thursday (the 17th) after work for another level. The level didn't come back until Friday morning. I got a page at work telling me that the labs were back. The level didn't go down like it was supposed to, it went up. It went up to 44. I was told that I needed to come into the office immediately. I had to leave work to go. We finally were able to get in for the appointment at 3:30 Friday afternoon. We couldn't see Dr. Moretuzzo since he wasn't in the office on Friday. We got to see Dr. Nash. He did an ultrasound. I should mention here that Thursday I started to have some spotting. Friday morning AF started in full force. I was having more than my normal period so I thought we were on our way to the end of this. So the ultrasound.... my uterine lining was thin and I had some cysts on my left ovary, which I was told was ok. There was no evidence of a baby. We were told about how normal Hcg levels are supposed to go (start lower, then increase at a doubling rate), how abnormal levels go (start at a normal level and then drop and continue to drop), and how the Hcg levels go in an ectopic pregnancy ( up and down and up and down). They wanted to see me so urgently because Dr. Nash thought I may be having an ectopic pregnancy. We got more blood drawn for another level to see if it had gone down. Once again the level wasn't drawn until late in the day and we didn't get results until Saturday. Finally the number had gone down like it was supposed to. Down to 30. I was happy. I thought that maybe we would be able to get on with this and we could find out what was next.

Then AF stopped. I have only had spotting since Sunday. We had another appointment today. I was able to see Dr. Moretuzzo this time. This appointment included another ultrasound. Once again he commented that my lining was thin and there were cysts on my left ovary. There was no evidence of any free fluid or that this was an ectopic pregnancy. Prior to leaving the room, Dr. M said that it looked like this should just resolve on its own and we shouldn't have to do anything surgical. He said we would just follow the Hcg levels until they reached 0. Well, I had more blood drawn for another level. This time the level came back the same day. Instead of continuing to go down like its supposed to, it went up. This time the level was 109. I was pissed. This was supposed to be over. I was supposed to be able to move on, to figure out why this happened and how to prevent it from happening again. Unfortunately this is not the end of this nightmare. I have to go back on Wednesday for another lab draw (hcg level). Then on Thursday we get to meet with Dr. Moretuzzo and hopefully get some answers.

I am struggling. I cry every night and by day try to be happy and normal. I have finally stopped answering the everyday question of "how are you doing" or "are you ok?" with "I'm ok." If you ask me the question, be prepared for an honest answer. I am not ok. I feel like I am sinking in quicksand and can't get myself out of it. I want this to be over so that we can move on and try again. Nothing ever seems to go right for us and apparently that includes miscarrying. We can't even do that right. The only thing keeping me sane is this:

For those who don't know, this is my fur baby, Marley. I love him to death. He knows when I am sad and need comforting. As I write this post he is on the couch right next to me. He is my rock, along with Nick. I will be alright in the end, but right now I'm not.