As we left my part of the story last time, my husband Mike and I had just accepted our friend Amber’s generous offer of being our egg donor. The time between when Amber made her egg donation offer to when I went through my IVF procedure was about five or six months. Amber had to be approved as an acceptable egg donor, which meant a lot of blood work and testing. Mike and I also had to go through blood work and testing and had to go through psychological testing as well. That's the only part of this process that I really didn't like. I know that testing is important, but it seemed, I don't know how to say this ... just sort of insulting. I guess my reason for thinking that is because we had already gone through so many hours of thinking about this and discussing it and going over and over and over it. My husband and I are mullers - we mull over everything, to the point of exhaustion. We can talk a topic to death. Of course we were ready to do IVF. Of course we were OK with it. We had already decided that. During the psychological testing, the doctor talked to Mike and I together. She asked us where I was mentally with all of this. I had to explain to her that I'd been prepping myself for this since I was 16 and given my POF diagnosis. I remember her telling me that my case was a bit unusual, because a lot of times women had to come to the decision to do IVF after they had years of trying to become pregnant unsuccessfully. I know that testing is probably beneficial to some couples, but for us, it just seemed a bit too much. I was glad when it was over. We were given the go ahead, we were in the right frame of mind to do IVF.
Because of my POF and because we were using an egg donor, there were some special steps that had to be taken in our IVF cycle, more so because Amber was four hours away. Basically, my body had to be readied to become pregnant. That meant I took hormones to build up my uterine lining, while Amber was taking hormone shots to produce more egg follicles. While her body was making eggs, by body was building up a good lining. That prep work took about three weeks before the actual IVF procedure. During that time Amber and I maintained constant contact through email. It was all going well. Amber was seeing a specialist in her town, and I was being monitored by the IVF doctor in my town. During that week of egg retrieval {which Amber wrote about on her blog} Amber stayed with Mike and I. We had a lot of fun and basically just hung out, waiting for her eggs to reach the perfect time to be ready. We had doctor's appointments interspersed throughout the week, but basically we just laid around watching TV and movies, shopped, and ate. I took an entire week off work. Mike worked around the doctor's appointments. Amber and I would wake up, decide what we wanted to do that day, and did it.
As Amber wrote about on her blog, we got word that her eggs were ready. She had to take a pill that would give her body the signal to release the follicles. She forgot to take the pill. I remember her telling me. I remember she was devastated. Totally devastated. But I remember myself being calm. I didn't flip out. Because I knew it would all be OK. I knew we'd just work past it. We had gotten this far in the process. It will be OK. And it was OK. She took the pill late, but it worked. I probably should have flipped out about her forgetting to take the pill because based on what the nurse was telling us, the cycle was heavily compromised and most likely would not work. But I didn't flip out, for a number of reasons. One, I knew in my heart it would just be OK. Two, Amber already felt really badly about it, and was made to feel worse by the mean nurse at the doctor's office. If I would have flipped out about it, it wouldn't have done any good. We just worked through it. She took the pill, and it all worked out.
Amber's egg retrieval day was a Friday. We went to the doctor together. Mike made his contribution of swimmers, Amber's eggs were retrieved. I was there as support for both of them. I didn't have any role other than keeping my uterine lining strong and intact, and being there for Mike and Amber. The five day gap between the retrieval and my procedure seemed really weird. Amber recovered at our house from the procedure and then she went back home. The closeness, the human nature of the process, seemed to leave with her. It was so great having her stay with us - we hung out just like we used to when we lived together in college. When she left, the whole thing became sort of impersonal and medical, which, up until that point, it wasn't. We were doing a medical procedure, yes, but because we had been talking so much leading up to her week of staying with us, and when she was with us we were together 24-7, once she left, it was like being reminded, oh yeah, um, my friend left but left her donated eggs here. The gravity of her gift, of the situation, hit me. And not in a bad way, don't let me be misleading. It wasn't a bad feeling, it was sort of just a feeling of reality. It wasn't college, it wasn't hang-out time, it was baby-making time, and our babies were being made in a lab.
My transfer appointment was scheduled on a Tuesday. We had to go into the doctor very early. A total of five embryos had developed. The doctor liked the size and progress of all five. He picked two and decided to transfer those two into my uterus. The procedure to do that was ridiculously easy. It felt wrong how easy it was. Amber had to be put under for her procedure, but for mine, it took all of 60 seconds, and then, I was done. I didn't need any drugs or sedatives. A little catheter-like instrument deposited the two little embryos and that was it. I felt no different.
And then the wait began. I was scared sick nervous. After the transfer we went home. I stayed in bed all day. I slept, I read, I watched movies, and my mind flew around in a million ba-zillion directions. What if the embryos fall out? What if I do something, drink or eat something that I'm not supposed to, and they don't stick? What if I lean wrong or stop too abruptly in the car and they fall out? What if this doesn't work? What if I get stressed and this doesn't work? What if we got this far and *I* cause this to fail? What if my body rejects the process and this ends badly?
For the first time, I was doubting myself, doubting this process. I had nothing but faith in Amber, in Mike, in the doctors. But now it was all up to me. My body up until this point hadn't had a good track record of working in this department! Why would it suddenly work now? I was filled with lots of doubt. Lots of worry. Lots of sickening worry. We had to wait two weeks to find out if I was pregnant. Two whole weeks. 14 days. 336 hours. I tried to remain stress free. But I couldn't. I was stressed, I was worried. And then I'd be even more stressed and worried because I knew I was stressed and worried and that being stressed and worried was probably harming the whole process!
I asked Mike about his thoughts about the waiting period.
Here's what he had to say:
The wait was tough. Everything up to this point was stressful, but it felt like it was in our hands. This one was in God's hands. All that we could do with science and medicine was done. We had to see what He wanted to do. I really felt like it was going to happen. I never overly considered what a devastation it would have been if things did not take. For some strange reason though, I knew it would.
{Back to Wendy:}
After the transfer I had to begin getting shots of progesterone into my tooshie. It was horrible. The shots were thick and the needle was huge. Mike had to give me the shots each night at the same time. To this day, I cannot stand the smell of peach hand soap. We had a bottle of peach hand soap in our bathroom when I was getting the shots. Mike would soap his hands up before giving me the shot. The smell of peach hand soap to me means shots in the tooshie! Gaaah! Those shots hurt like mad. The progesterone was needed to sustain a pregnancy. I needed extra progesterone since my body didn't produce the pregnancy naturally. I knew I needed them, so I just got through it.
I had a doctor's appointment at the two week post-transfer mark. At that appointment my blood would be drawn to test for the pregnancy hormone. I was encouraged to NOT do a home pregnancy test before then. However, I did! At the 12 day mark, I did a test. AND IT WAS POSITIVE! I didn't want to be too excited, because perhaps it's a false positive? I did a test on the 13th day, and IT WAS POSITIVE! I did a test on the 14th day, AND IT WAS POSITIVE! I went to the doctor, had my blood drawn, and IT WAS POSITIVE!
The nurse told me my numbers were very, very good. I was definitely pregnant.
I WAS SO RELIEVED! I can't express my feelings of finding out for sure that I was pregnant. All of my feelings of self doubt were gone. My feelings of "of course this will work!" returned and from here on out, smooth sailing. I had always known it would work. It wasn't a total surprise that it did work, because even though I was scared it wouldn't work, I knew in my heart it was going to work. It was like the hardest part was over ... I can be pregnant, that I can do. It was still very scary, I was scared about losing the pregnancy, but, I knew that the hardest most difficult part was over. For the next nine months, I just had to sustain the pregnancy.
{Mike's thoughts:}
I was thrilled. To hear that we were pregnant and that all this was becoming a reality. But, we had to be reserved. I remember Wendy taking several at home tests. It was almost as if we could not really be certain. We questioned who we could tell. We wanted to shout it from the rooftops. At first we kept it to just family. Our parents were so excited. Wendy and I knew things would work out.
{Back to Wendy:}
We took is slow in who we told about the pregnancy. We told Amber, of course. I asked Amber what she thought when I told her that it worked, that I was pregnant.
{These are her thoughts …}
Hearing that Wendy and Mike were pregnant was one of the strangest experiences I've ever gone through. It was almost like an out-of-body experience. Wendy talks in this post about the human element and the medical element of this process. For me, up until the embryos were implanted, it was almost all medical. We had a great week leading up to my procedure. And the amount of e-mails and phone calls and visits with Wendy and Mike leading up to this point in the process brought us closer than a lot of people ever are. But I never thought about the future. I never thought that what we were doing wasn't going to work. But I never thought about it working either. I just didn't think about it. I went from day to day to day, doing all the things I could do to make my end of the bargain work out. In hindsight, I was very detached from everything that was going on.
But, the second, I mean the absolute second, I heard the news that Wendy and Mike were pregnant, I freaked out (in a good way!). I was crying and laughing and laughing and crying. Sometimes I did both at the same time. I couldn't believe it. I never let myself think this would work. I didn't think negatively, but I didn't just expect it to happen, either. I just didn't think about it. I was terrified of jinxing something.
Once the news came that Wendy was pregnant, all that jinxing business - for better or worse - was out the window. It was then that I knew everything was going to be fine. Wendy was going to be fine. Everyone and thing was going to be fine. Better than fine, really. It was going to be pretty awesome.
{Back to Wendy now …}
Read more of Amber's thoughts on her blog, here.
Amber was literally the first person we told about the positive pregnancy test. We told our parents, but we waited to tell everyone else until we had an ultrasound scheduled at six weeks. And boy, did we have some extra news! At that ultrasound, the doctor had news for us - not only was I pregnant, I was pregnant with twins. Two little heartbeats could be seen on the monitor. I remember thinking briefly "holy fecking shit!!" but then, my calm returned. My sense of "OK then, let's roll with it, it'll be good!" took over. Of course having twins was a surprise, but we knew going into IVF that it was a possibility. I wasn't hoping for twins going into it, I was just hoping for a baby. But we got two. Instant family! The doctor didn't seem to be as pleased. He didn't intend for me to have twins. He intended for me to get pregnant with one. He asked if we wanted to reduce the pregnancy down to one fetus. That's how he put it - "You have an option of reducing one fetus." NO. Definitely not. Let me back up ... going into IVF we were told that at least two embryos would be transferred. Based on the quality of the embryos, three could be transferred. Some doctors transfer even more than that. With IVF and assisted reproduction technologies come the question of selective reduction. Mike and I had talked about selective reduction. We had decided that if I were to become pregnant with triplets or more, than we we would reduce down to one or two. That's a tough decision to make, but it's one we made. That's the type of decision and the type of talk that people who have problems with IVF and assisted reproduction latch on to. But we knew going into it that we would have to be OK with it. We knew we'd be OK with twins. We didn't expect twins, but we knew there was a chance. When the doctor asked if we wanted to reduce the fetuses down to one, there wasn't even a skip, the answer was no.
{Mike's thoughts:}
I was really excited at first to hear that we would have twins. Then I considered the financial aspects of things. At the time I was teaching, but not making much. I was working on going back to school and getting my master's degree. That of course was accelerated now. I had the feeling that I had to finish. I had to move on from the school I worked at. Working where I did was a great introduction to teaching, but it was also a war zone. I spent my first five years teaching students with behavioral disabilities. This meant coming home with ripped pants and bite marks on my arms from restraining kids and breaking up fights. I had to make a better life and a better salary for my soon to be family of four. I would end up continuing graduate school even through the birth of the twins. The whole time I was focused on finishing, getting my masters, then looking for a new, better paying job. I really feel like the pregnancy helped keep me focused. I went to work, then school - with a workman-like pace. Almost in concert with finishing my masters, I landed a job at one of the best public schools our area. I would indeed make more money and be in a much better environment professionally. My family would be provided for. That was my number one priority.
In all of this, having twins was alarming, but life charging. I feel it jump-started us from the desire to be pregnant to the reality of bettering ourselves for our children. At the time, we knew little about having twins. We knew our lives would change. We also knew we could handle it. We wanted this more than anything.
{Back to Wendy ...}
Once we digested the news of TWINS! the doctor gave me two great pieces of news: one, I was released out of his care and into the care of an obstetrician, and two, my body was producing enough progesterone on its own, thanks to the twins, so I didn't have to have the shots anymore! I was so ECSTATIC about that!
It was at this point, that I was just a typical pregnant person. I remember asking the IVF doctor at our last visit if I had to tell the obstetrician that I went through IVF. He said that he will tell the doctor in a letter, to explain the hormones I was on and the IVF process, but that no, I didn't have to talk about it. I don't recall every minute detail of the discussions and conversations we had with the doctors and with each other during this whole process, but I remember every single word of what my doctor said to me. Every. Single. Word. He said, "Who you choose to tell and how much you choose to tell them from this point forward is up to you and Mike. From this point forward, you are a pregnant young woman. You're just like any other pregnant young woman."
It was at that point that I was screaming VICTORY inside my head because it didn't matter how we got here. To other people, it didn't matter the WHO in how we got here. It didn't matter the HOW in how we got here. It didn't matter the WHY. All that mattered is that I was pregnant with twins. Two babies. Two precious little lives that were ours to take care of. It didn't matter how I got pregnant. I was pregnant. I was pregnant thanks to an amazing gift, one that we will never, ever, EVER forget, but one that honestly went into the back of our minds. It was there, just not in front of our faces, we weren't living it every day. Going forward, it was just Mike and I and our two babies. I was going to be a Mommy.
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