I have been waiting to publish this post until Matt was able to tell some of his best friends in person on a recent "boys trip" and now that our closest friends and family know, without further wait...the post that has been three years in the making....
I have written this blog post many times in my mind. This news. This announcement. The first time I thought about it, I pictured some cute shot of Olivia in a “big sister” shirt, or holding pink balloons, or a cupcake with blue frosting inside. But, that was “BSI” – Before Secondary Infertility. I haven’t blogged about this before – mostly because there was never anything good to share – but I think it’s important now. For the past 3 years, Matt and I have struggled with Secondary Infertility. I didn’t even know that was a thing before we started this journey. I thought we had Miss O so easily, the same thing would happen again. And it did – kind of. In the summer of 2013 we decided we wanted to grow our family and basically immediately got pregnant. We high-fived at our ability to “plan” these things and joyfully announced it to our families (and Olivia). But then 2 weeks later, we miscarried. It was sad and scary and sobering. But, we knew miscarriages were common. And, we thought that was “our one” and that we would be able to easily get pregnant again.
But, that isn’t really how things worked out. I will spare most of the gory details but needless to say, beginning in about May 2014, we were sent to a fertility specialist and since then we I have been poked, prodded, given 100s of shots, half my body-weight in blood, and spent more time, money, and emotional resources on trying to grow our family that I could have ever imagined. After not having successful results with clomid and other lower level hormones, we did our first round of IVF in December 2014. We waited the excruciating nine days and went in for a blood test that revealed we were pregnant...with a little girl! We shouted from the roof-tops, cried, rejoiced, (more smug high fives) and sighed huge sighs of relief. For 4 days. Until we miscarried. Again. But we steadied ourselves and did another transfer in March 2015, hopeful again, but more measured in our anticipation. We were told the chances of another miscarriage were less than 9%. Well…yep…9 days later we found out we were pregnant….another little girl....and then we miscarried 2 days later. Miscarriage #3.
And then, we stopped. We didn’t think about calendars or shots or ovulating or embryos. We took a season off. Literally. We took the summer off. We cried. We laughed. We vacationed. We exercised. We stopped to breathe and think and re-group. We sought therapy and we learned tools to deal with the uncertainly, lack of control, and unanswered questions that come with infertility (3 things that will drive any good Type A personality couple to their brink!). And, we healed. As best as we could.
And then when summer was almost over, we decided to try it all again. Because babies. And big sisters.
And then, we stopped. We didn’t think about calendars or shots or ovulating or embryos. We took a season off. Literally. We took the summer off. We cried. We laughed. We vacationed. We exercised. We stopped to breathe and think and re-group. We sought therapy and we learned tools to deal with the uncertainly, lack of control, and unanswered questions that come with infertility (3 things that will drive any good Type A personality couple to their brink!). And, we healed. As best as we could.
And then when summer was almost over, we decided to try it all again. Because babies. And big sisters.
So, we started over. We got 2 second opinions. We considered going to Colorado to try with a clinic there. And at the end, we decided we were right where we needed to be, with a doctor who knew us and our history, a world-class clinic minutes from our home, an on-site therapist who had gotten me through some of the worst weeks of my life, and a community of nurses and staff that made us feel comfortable.
And, just so I can always remember this, here are the technical details:
We had our retrieval on August 3, 2016. We got 8 eggs, 7 were mature. All 7 fertilized. At the end of Day 6, we got our results:
3 embryos reached blastocyst by Day 5: 3 BB; 3 BB; 3 B/C
2 reached on Day 6: 6 BB; 3 B/C
On August 17, 2016, we received the results of the genetic testing done on the embryos. Out of the 7, 2 were normal (Day 5 BBs), 2 were not normal, and 1 yielded no result.
On August 25, we went in for an "endometrial scratch" (don't ask - painful and gross but maybe it worked?) and Matt decided to pull an audible. He asked the doctor if she knew the gender of the two embryos. She said yes. He looked at me, I nodded and he said we wanted to know what they were. Right then. Before either were transferred. Before we knew if they would implant. Before we knew if they would turn into healthy babies. And this was quite a departure from our previous decision of only wanting to know after we were pregnant. But, this process is full of unanswered questions and unknown facts. And so, we wanted to know something concrete, to be excited and happy about. After confirming 3 times that we really wanted to know, she told us. Both BOYS!!! And with that news, my sweet husband's eyes welled with tears and I knew we made the right decision.
And one month later, on September 23 was transfer day. THE day it all happens. And we were feeling emotional - excited, nervous, scared, ready, not ready. I had been up at 4 am every morning that week worried about this baby. Will it be okay? Will it make it? If it didn't, would I be able to? How would we ever tell Olivia all we had tried to do to get her the sibling she so desperately wanted? But, at that point, there was nothing left to do. Except wait. (A concept that is very hard for me!)
My best friend gave me a little pep talk the night before and told me the following that I love so very much, have read and re-read 1919494949 times, and makes me tear up even today thinking about it:
She's so GOOD huh?! I'm lucky she's on my side. To talk me off the ledge, let me know I'm not alone, and tell me when I'm being crazy worrying about a cup of coffee after I've literally just injected myself with 2 shots/day for 2 weeks!
So we prayed, we transferred and we waited. Nine days...
October 2, 2016 (Day 9) finally arrived. Olivia climbed in our bed around 5:30 am, but I was already up worrying (seems like I do that a lot?). So I took her out to let Matt sleep and we read books and got breakfast. At 7 a.m. sharp I headed over for my blood test. I was the first one there (hoping that would mean I got the first call re: bloodwork). I typically hear back on the results of weekend bloodwork between 10:30-11 so I kept staring at my phone all morning. We went on a bike ride to get breakfast, took a trip to Target, and played an intricate game of swimmer-vet Barbie. And still no call. By 10:31, I was in a complete panic. I told Matt that if they didn’t call by 11:00, I was going to call there. At 10:56, I couldn’t take it anymore and started calling but because it was the weekend, I couldn’t get anyone on the phone. At this point, I had visions of going up there in person, but luckily at 11:08 my phone rang. The nurse told me she had good news and that we were pregnant! And, my level was 244. Now, let me put this number in perspective. The first transfer we did, I got the call I was pregnant. She told me my level was a “little low” but not to worry. My level was 38 and they want to see it above 50. I didn’t worry and then 4 days later we miscarried. For the second transfer, my level was 36. I never stopped worrying during those 48 hours. And, of course we miscarried again.
So, in talking about the levels of this test, Matt and I said we would be happy with anything above a 46. But I was secretly hoping for a number in the 70s. When they said 244, I was in shock. I didn’t even know the number could be that high!! That afternoon, Olivia went to a play with Mimi & Grandpa, which gave Matt and I a little alone time to daydream/plan about this baby. But we were still nervous - we would go back in 48 hours for another blood test. At that point, we needed my levels to be doubling. We had never made it past that point, so it was a big day.
And, on October 4, I woke up nervous -again- about that day's blood test. And at 9:40 am, my sweet nurse Judy called saying my results had just popped up so she wanted to let me know the good news. Our HCG level was 677 (more than double!), progesterone was 39 and estrogen was 624. All great numbers. We scheduled an ultrasound for Oct. 17 (6 weeks) to see if we could find a heartbeat. Just 5 minutes later she called back saying that Dr. McKnight wanted to be the one to do the ultrasound herself (instead of a tech), so we needed to push it back an hour.
Let me stop here to say that for all the bad, sad, frustrating, maddening, confusing, and unexplained things associated with infertility, a constant bright spot were the doctors and staff at Houston IVF. There was a period of time where I cried at each appointment for months on end. And each time, a nurse or doctor was there to tell me we would be okay and we would come out on the other side. Dr. McKnight specifically called me on Christmas Eve after our first miscarriage, met with us on countless occasions to talk things through, put her own ego aside and suggested we stop and get some second opinions after the first 2 miscarriages, and has sent more notes and emails than I can count doing her best to answer all my Type-A, impossible to answer questions. So, we are feeling pretty special and loved on at this point.
And, on October 17, we did hear his sweet little heartbeat and we all cried tears of joy.
And, with each ultrasound, blood-test and check-up, this baby continued to grow in a healthy way. I saw this picture one day and it really rang true with me, this little guy is definitely "way wanted"!
And then more waiting....we had to wait to tell Olivia until a reasonable time when we felt like things were stable with the baby. We decided Thanksgiving day would be the perfect occasion. Just a few days short of 12 weeks, we felt pretty safe to tell her the good news.
As luck would have it, on Thanksgiving morning she was adamant that Matt and I give her a "Thanksgiving card." I have no idea where this came from. I've never given her a card before on Thanksgiving. But it was the perfect intro to give her a little present we had. A big sister book, dress, and a new boy baby doll.
She was a little confused at first, but as soon as she realizes she is going to be a big sister, the big smile comes.
And that smile didn't leave her face all day! She loved on her new babydoll all morning - baby Lucas and couldn't wait to share the new with our family. They all knew we were pregnant, but we saved the surprise of gender for Olivia to share.
Despite the fact that I bought her a turkey dress, she insisted on wearing her big sister dress. So we first headed to the Woodlands to meet the Deans for brunch. She revealed her big news right away and we had a delicious meal and then headed home to decorate some gingerbread houses.
And, then it was time to head to Humble for another delicious meal and more baby news! After we shared our news, the family had a little present for baby brother, so Big Sister got to open his present.
We enjoyed a delicious meal and some family bonding, including spending some time with Yazzie's new foster puppy Hannah.
We were so glad to have Uncle Drew and Aunt Jenny in town and enjoyed spending every day with them. Olivia is obsessed with Aunt Jenny. After lunch on Thanksgiving she asked if Jenny would ride back to the house in her car. Jenny said yes. Then Olivia called Drew's name trying to get his attention. We all assumed it was to ask him if he wanted to ride with her too. Instead she says "Uncle Drew. Jenny is going to ride back with me. Okay?!" Then on Saturday we all went to see the new Disney movie Moana. Now, Olivia - much like her mamma - doesn't really love movies (sorry Deans). So she was pretty bored/antsy during the movie. Afterwards at dinner, Matt asked her if there was anything she liked about the movie. She said "I liked that Aunt Jenny was there."
And, just so I can always remember this, here are the technical details:
We had our retrieval on August 3, 2016. We got 8 eggs, 7 were mature. All 7 fertilized. At the end of Day 6, we got our results:
3 embryos reached blastocyst by Day 5: 3 BB; 3 BB; 3 B/C
2 reached on Day 6: 6 BB; 3 B/C
On August 17, 2016, we received the results of the genetic testing done on the embryos. Out of the 7, 2 were normal (Day 5 BBs), 2 were not normal, and 1 yielded no result.
On August 25, we went in for an "endometrial scratch" (don't ask - painful and gross but maybe it worked?) and Matt decided to pull an audible. He asked the doctor if she knew the gender of the two embryos. She said yes. He looked at me, I nodded and he said we wanted to know what they were. Right then. Before either were transferred. Before we knew if they would implant. Before we knew if they would turn into healthy babies. And this was quite a departure from our previous decision of only wanting to know after we were pregnant. But, this process is full of unanswered questions and unknown facts. And so, we wanted to know something concrete, to be excited and happy about. After confirming 3 times that we really wanted to know, she told us. Both BOYS!!! And with that news, my sweet husband's eyes welled with tears and I knew we made the right decision.
And one month later, on September 23 was transfer day. THE day it all happens. And we were feeling emotional - excited, nervous, scared, ready, not ready. I had been up at 4 am every morning that week worried about this baby. Will it be okay? Will it make it? If it didn't, would I be able to? How would we ever tell Olivia all we had tried to do to get her the sibling she so desperately wanted? But, at that point, there was nothing left to do. Except wait. (A concept that is very hard for me!)
My best friend gave me a little pep talk the night before and told me the following that I love so very much, have read and re-read 1919494949 times, and makes me tear up even today thinking about it:
She's so GOOD huh?! I'm lucky she's on my side. To talk me off the ledge, let me know I'm not alone, and tell me when I'm being crazy worrying about a cup of coffee after I've literally just injected myself with 2 shots/day for 2 weeks!
So we prayed, we transferred and we waited. Nine days...
October 2, 2016 (Day 9) finally arrived. Olivia climbed in our bed around 5:30 am, but I was already up worrying (seems like I do that a lot?). So I took her out to let Matt sleep and we read books and got breakfast. At 7 a.m. sharp I headed over for my blood test. I was the first one there (hoping that would mean I got the first call re: bloodwork). I typically hear back on the results of weekend bloodwork between 10:30-11 so I kept staring at my phone all morning. We went on a bike ride to get breakfast, took a trip to Target, and played an intricate game of swimmer-vet Barbie. And still no call. By 10:31, I was in a complete panic. I told Matt that if they didn’t call by 11:00, I was going to call there. At 10:56, I couldn’t take it anymore and started calling but because it was the weekend, I couldn’t get anyone on the phone. At this point, I had visions of going up there in person, but luckily at 11:08 my phone rang. The nurse told me she had good news and that we were pregnant! And, my level was 244. Now, let me put this number in perspective. The first transfer we did, I got the call I was pregnant. She told me my level was a “little low” but not to worry. My level was 38 and they want to see it above 50. I didn’t worry and then 4 days later we miscarried. For the second transfer, my level was 36. I never stopped worrying during those 48 hours. And, of course we miscarried again.
So, in talking about the levels of this test, Matt and I said we would be happy with anything above a 46. But I was secretly hoping for a number in the 70s. When they said 244, I was in shock. I didn’t even know the number could be that high!! That afternoon, Olivia went to a play with Mimi & Grandpa, which gave Matt and I a little alone time to daydream/plan about this baby. But we were still nervous - we would go back in 48 hours for another blood test. At that point, we needed my levels to be doubling. We had never made it past that point, so it was a big day.
And, on October 4, I woke up nervous -again- about that day's blood test. And at 9:40 am, my sweet nurse Judy called saying my results had just popped up so she wanted to let me know the good news. Our HCG level was 677 (more than double!), progesterone was 39 and estrogen was 624. All great numbers. We scheduled an ultrasound for Oct. 17 (6 weeks) to see if we could find a heartbeat. Just 5 minutes later she called back saying that Dr. McKnight wanted to be the one to do the ultrasound herself (instead of a tech), so we needed to push it back an hour.
Let me stop here to say that for all the bad, sad, frustrating, maddening, confusing, and unexplained things associated with infertility, a constant bright spot were the doctors and staff at Houston IVF. There was a period of time where I cried at each appointment for months on end. And each time, a nurse or doctor was there to tell me we would be okay and we would come out on the other side. Dr. McKnight specifically called me on Christmas Eve after our first miscarriage, met with us on countless occasions to talk things through, put her own ego aside and suggested we stop and get some second opinions after the first 2 miscarriages, and has sent more notes and emails than I can count doing her best to answer all my Type-A, impossible to answer questions. So, we are feeling pretty special and loved on at this point.
And, on October 17, we did hear his sweet little heartbeat and we all cried tears of joy.
And then more waiting....we had to wait to tell Olivia until a reasonable time when we felt like things were stable with the baby. We decided Thanksgiving day would be the perfect occasion. Just a few days short of 12 weeks, we felt pretty safe to tell her the good news.
As luck would have it, on Thanksgiving morning she was adamant that Matt and I give her a "Thanksgiving card." I have no idea where this came from. I've never given her a card before on Thanksgiving. But it was the perfect intro to give her a little present we had. A big sister book, dress, and a new boy baby doll.
She was a little confused at first, but as soon as she realizes she is going to be a big sister, the big smile comes.
We enjoyed a delicious meal and some family bonding, including spending some time with Yazzie's new foster puppy Hannah.
And on Saturday night we all went bowling (another Dean family favorite). It was Olivia's first time and she LOVED it. Those Dean competitive genes came out and between her, her father, her uncle, and her grandmother, there were a lot of competitive juices flowing!
Puppet show
Cookie decorating and tasting...
Magic show complete with a rabbit to pet...
Ornament decorating
I don't know exactly how to put into words how grateful/thankful I felt this Thanksgiving. I know we would have been fine if this baby had never come, but the fact that he is coming is a miracle and blessing beyond which I can really describe. To be able to tell Olivia about it in a way that was special for her may have been one of the best moments in my life. And, its probably the pregnancy hormones, but something seemed a little magical about this day and that feeling has stuck around for the past few weeks.
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