You exist because I yearned

I yearned for you.

I begged. 

I pleaded. 

I cried. 

I prayed. 

I sobbed. 

I grieved.

I met with any doctor who would listen. I gave myself shots. Your Daddy gave me shots. I was probed.  I was tested. I went to more appointments than I could count.

We did ultrasounds and blood draws and procedures and more ultrasounds.

We conferred and conferenced and discussed and researched and educated ourselves.

They said Clomid. We did that three times.

Three times it didn't work.

They said artificial insemination. We did that five times.

Five times it didn't work.

Then they said in vitro fertilization. We tried that four times.

Four times it didn't work.

If they said to try it, we found the money, and we tried it. We borrowed it. We scrimped for it. We gave up anything we could for it.

We did all this for you.

But still you didn't come.

We passed our fifth anniversary. Our seventh. Our ninth.

Still infertile.

Still childless.

I wanted you so badly that some days I felt like my heart could break from the desire -- form how much I yearned to hold someone I hadn't ever met.

I pictured you. 

I dreamed of you. 

I thought of you. 

I longed for you.

And so we kept pressing. Kept trying. Kept pushing. Kept hoping. Kept yearning for YOU.

Invitro? One more time?

Yes. One more.

The very last time we tried IVF, two tiny embryos were dropped into my womb. The ultrasound tech whispered, "Two little shooting stars," as the camera watched you and your sibling glide into my womb.

More waiting.

More dreaming.

More hoping.

More yearning.

And if we were honest, we would have said that we didn't believe we would ever meet you.

Today, you are here and you are 15 months old and you have long brown hair and big blue eyes and a personality that constantly tells us you will not let the world tell you who you are.

Today, you are climbing and putting fistfuls of food into your mouth and smearing spaghetti in your hair and saying new words every chance you can. You are giving huge hugs and saying, "Na!" when you plant a kiss on our cheek. You are starting to run and read books and ...

I love you.

I yearned for you.

I never gave up on you.

And because of that desire and a really cool God

I am your mom.

You exist because I yearned.

And I yearned because I loved you before I knew you.

And now I know you.

And I love you Hannah Joy.

It's a pleasure to meet you.

It's a pleasure to be your Mommy.

Battling infertility, Bobbie Thomas shares big news after months of IVF

I am a huge fan of infertility stories in the media -- but even more so when they are this real and when the person delivering the news acknowledges all the people who aren't sharing in the good news. One of the most real infertility stories I have ever seen. Click here to read. 

Faces of Infertility: Kris's Story

In celebration of "National Infertility Awareness Week", I am featuring stories of infertility this week. These are all guest posts that I hope will put a real face on this devastating disease. Please spread the word and share these stories!

I’ve dreamed of being a mom for as long as I can remember. In college my friends thought I was crazy because school always came very easy to me and when things would get tough I would want to quit. It was so hard to stay committed to studies when I just didn’t see myself doing it in the future, all I could envision was taking care of a house full of babies. In 2001 my husband and I married and talked of having a large family of both biological and adopted children one day. By 2003 baby fever was setting in. We lived on a street in military family housing where 6 out of the 12 or so families on the street were pregnant, and when those babies came along it was hard not to want a baby of our own. At 23 I never in my wildest dreams imagined infertility would be something I would have to deal with. I was young and healthy, so getting pregnant should be a breeze, right?

Two years later, in 2005, we were still not pregnant and couldn’t understand what was wrong. We went to an OBGYN who didn’t ask any questions, handed over some Clomid pills and told us this should do the trick. My first cycle on the Clomid was a success and we were elated when I had a positive home test and we learned we were finally pregnant. At 6 weeks, while on a business trip in Chicago I began to bleed. I didn’t know what was happening so I went to the clinic at the convention center where my conference was being held. The nurse there was concerned and I was taken by ambulance to the local hospital with an escort from my company. At the hospital the doctor confirmed I was having a miscarriage. My husband was miles away, unable to do anything at all and I was going through one of the worst experiences of my life with a complete stranger by my side. I am still thankful for the compassion of the escort who was so kind to sit and try to comfort me when I was scared to death, numb from pain, and all alone. My husband arranged for me to fly home the next day and getting off the plane and seeing him there was devastating. I felt like a failure, I had lost our baby. Guilt wrecked me with questions of whether or not it was my fault, had I done something wrong, was it the trip, etc…

I went to the OBGYN who told me it was ok -- that miscarriage is a common thing and we could continue to try on the Clomid pills. That we should be successful soon because we responded so well to the first round of Clomid and it worked right away. We proceeded to do eight more rounds of Clomid in back to back cycles over the next nine months. Each time hopeful, only to be devastated by negative after negative on pregnancy tests. I was depressed, I was angry, I took it out on my husband and we struggled. After the eight failed rounds the OBGYN gave up and in 2007 referred me to a reproductive endocrinologist. Hope had been restored. This new doctor would be able to help us, he had to.

I was terrified of the infertility clinic, I hated needles, passed out when I got shots and thought having an IV or blood drawn was a fate worse than death. I was a hysterical mess sitting in the chair having vial after vial of blood drawn and I remembering thinking to myself I can’t do this. The blood draws were the least of my worries I was soon to find out. The doctor also wanted to do a hysteropingogram, where they take X-rays of my uterus and tubes while injecting them with dye to ensure they are not blocked. That came back clear. Blood work all came back clear. Semen analysis came back clear. The doctor knew what he was doing though, he knew the right questions to ask. When I told him my periods were regular he knew to ask me to define regular. When I told him my periods were normal he asked me to define normal. He explained to me he thought I was the poster child for endometriosis and he recommended having laparoscopic surgery to determine if he suspicions were correct. I thought he was crazy. I thought he was trying to take my money and didn’t know what he was talking about. Periods were not supposed to be a walk in the park, and every one had pain with them, right? That is what I thought. I was scared to death but out of options and so I agreed to the surgery. The doctor was right, I had severe stage III, borderline stage IV endometriosis. We thought we had it all figured out! We finally had a reason!

The plan after cleaning out all the endometrial tissue was to attempt a clomid/IUI cycle. I thought for sure it would be a success now that we had the endo cleaned up and my body was healthy and ready to carry a child. I was wrong. It failed and that was one of the hardest negatives yet. We tried another Clomid IUI, negative. Now we were running out of time. My doctor had told us with each failed cycle comes a period and with that comes the possibility of endometrial tissue settling outside my uterus where it didn’t belong and an increased chance I would need another surgery. He told us he was cutting us off at three failed IUIs. Basically with each failed cycle my chances of getting pregnant decreased. We also learned my husband was being deployed and would be leaving before we could complete the third IUI. The timing was awful. We froze a semen sample to do the final IUI with and when the time came that one too failed. Once again I was alone, he was on the other side of the world and my depression grew worse fearing we were running out of time and chances. I took medication to stop my period so my endometriosis could not get worse while my husband was gone.

When my husband returned from deployment we jumped right back into trying and now looked at IVF options. We were still considered “unexplained infertility patients” because even after the lap to clean out endo we were not successful, so the IVF was a gamble just as everything else had been. We gave it a try and by now I was becoming a pro at shots and blood draws. We learned how to have my husband give me four shots a day and a time or two I even had to do one to myself.  We transferred three great looking embryos and were hopeful that this would finally be our time. The first IVF cycle was a success and we soon learned I was pregnant with one child. I was scared I would lose it but the constant monitoring kept me sane and reassured. When I was five months pregnant my husband had to leave for a year long, unaccompanied tour in Korea. He was able to fly home for three weeks for the birth of our son in 2008. Four years after we started trying to grow our family we finally had a baby to show for it. It was the happiest day of my life.

When my husband and I were finally reunited after his Korea tour we began trying again for more children. We still had no answer as to the cause of our infertility and no idea if it was still an issue or now that my body had been pregnant and carried a child if it would be able to do it on its own. About three years after my son was born we began seeking the help of a reproductive endocrinologist in Germany, where we were stationed at the time. I was thankful for having been through the IVF experience before in the USA so I was not so alarmed by going through the process in a different country, with a different culture, with language barriers. I missed the comforts of American medicine more than once during the procedures. We attempted a fresh IVF cycle, followed by two FETs. We ended up transferring a total of 8 embryos and had nothing to show for it. Not a single embryo took. I was devastated. To make matters worse the military denied our humanitarian request to remain in Germany longer to continue medical treatments. We were being forced to move and we were being sent to a tiny Portuguese island in the middle of the Atlantic where there are NO fertility treatments whatsoever. The assignment was a death sentence in my mind.

The silver lining of our assignment at Lajes was that for the purpose of adoption, the Portuguese government will consider American military families stationed there as residents, therefore making the adoption of a Portuguese child completely free! This was amazing news! We completed all the requirements, home studies, etc… and on Valentine’s Day in 2013 we received a letter notifying us we were approved and officially on the waiting list for Portuguese adoption.

I had started to accept that I would not have any more biological children and began to sell all my maternity and baby things I had been carrying around for so long. On a Monday on May I sold the last of my maternity things to a friend of mine and that Friday I got the surprise of my life when I learned I was pregnant again, naturally! The joke was clearly on me! I was terrified of losing the baby, scared of the limited medical care on the island, and a mental wreck because I had finally come to terms with not having more biological children and I was happy with that idea. Everything worked itself out, and due to the limited medical care on the island I flew to Germany alone in December at 36 weeks to wait for my due date. I spent Christmas away from my family, which was difficult but worth it when my healthy baby boy was born this January. Last month we had to withdraw our name from the Portuguese adoption list because of the amount of time we have left on the island. We do not have enough time to finalize custody before we will be reassigned this August. It was a little disappointing, but if this journey has taught me anything it is that you can never be certain what the future holds. You can plan, you can medically intervene, you can pray, but in the end His will is all that matters. The road to get us here makes me appreciate my babies even more as I know what gifts they truly are.

(Please note that all parts of this article are the opinion of the guest writer and not necessarily viewpoints that I personally share)

Faces of Infertility: Tara's Story

In celebration of "National Infertility Awareness Week", I am featuring stories of infertility this week. These are all guest posts that I hope will put a real face on this devastating disease. Please spread the word and share these stories!
After a failed attempt to adopt a foster child I couldn’t go through the drama of falling in love then losing a child again. It was time to try to get assistance to get pregnant. I had gone through great lengths including three Reproductive Endocrynologists, about four Clomid cycles and six trials (I lost count, really) of IUI, and peed on a metric ton of EPTs with a big fat NO each time over four years. I think I was at my lowest emotional point ever. I found a new hatred of any women with obvious physical signs of PCOS, as I knew sitting across from them in the RE waiting room that they would be pregnant long before I would. My office shared a wall with Pediatrics, and I could hear babies crying throughout the day, leading to random outbursts of tears. I refused to shop at Walmart or the grocery store before 11 pm since that is where the parents who don’t know what a gift their kids really are do their shopping, and I couldn’t bear to hear one more parent scream at a child for simply acting like a child. I fought the urge to kidnap and raise about 3,000 of those kids throughout the years. I had researched the heck out of every Endocrynologist within a reasonable drive from Lompoc, CA, and had picked the doc with the best outcome overall. I submitted for an appointment, and they rejected me as a patient. I now understand, he only had the best numbers because he turned away any challenging cases that could bring his numbers down. I was on a 2-3 year wait list for an initial evaluation at Wilford Hall. I was distraught. I finally made contact with a clinic that touted great success rates in Beverly Hills. We made the drive. They reviewed my hand-carried volume of records, then ordered the same labs I had already handed him to review. They booked me straight away for an IVF cycle, and this elation clouded my judgment/intuition that would typically have sent me running from the repeated lab work. Just $15K out of pocket later I sat in the office filling out my informed consent forms for my IVF cycle. One page I refused to sign. I did not believe in the Inter-Cytoplasmic Sperm Injection process was really the best option. For a first round of IVF, I wanted to have some level of natural selection in place, and after my questions about the risks of killing an oovum with the needle for injection went unanswered, not only did I NOT consent, but I wrote in big red letters, diagonally across the page “Does NOT consent”. The doc told me that this is a procedure that the lab decides upon when needed, and no one ever refused consent before. I asked him to put a note on the front of my record too, in that case. The clinic called me on Thanksgiving morning at 0800 to cancel my embryo transfer for the next day because all of the harvested eggs had stopped splitting the day before. My cycle failed. To throw salt on the wound (after they already ruined Thanksgiving as a holiday for me), I received a bill in the mail the following week for $1100 for ICSI procedure by the lab. When I asked for a records review, I found out that they ignored my denial of consent and went forward with ICSI. Tears…. Blame… Regret took over. I called and asked them to remove the fee. They said a procedure was done, and they can’t undo it, so I needed to pay for it. Anger set in. I wrote a letter of intent to sue for assault, as my eggs are cells belonging to my body, and I denied a procedure, after which they punctured my cells anyway. I sent the bill in with my letter, and received back a check for $15K. No apology, just a check. I had seen enough, and was done with RE for a while. If one more person told me I’d get pregnant if/when it was God’s will, or when it was meant to be, I’m pretty sure I’d have asked them that if my car ran them over right then and there, if it was God’s will for them to die, and their family shouldn’t miss them because it was just meant to be. I couldn’t take fly-by advice, and I couldn’t stand false-hope cheer. I was the walking illustration of depression. Almost year later, I was sitting in my chief’s office in-processing Osan when we started talking about kids. He had six. My tears were contagious, and he had no clue why he was crying. We chatted a few minutes about my dismal history with RE, and I returned to work. A week later, he came to my office with a business card for Dr. Park at CHA women’s hospital in Seoul. He wouldn’t accept that I had taken an assignment in Korea as part of a break from that chain of disappointment in my life. Instead, he pulled out a calendar with my return date from Korea circled, counted back 6 months, circled it and labeled it “First possible date for IVF”, and two months earlier wrote “CHA consult”. I called and booked it. Talk about culture shock. I went to my consult with my unabridged dictionary-sized stack of records, and Dr. Park slid them to the side of the desk and said, “we do it my way here.” I was disappointed, but at the cost of $1200 for a complete cycle, I figured it was worth a try even though my intuition told me any doc who doesn’t want to know what worked or didn’t work in the past isn’t going to be able to move me any closer to becoming a mom. At least I could take his protocol back the next year to the US doc, and let him know what didn’t work, so they could create a new and improved plan for me. Wrong. I did my two months of prep meds, had only one ultrasound, and did my HCG shot at home. I showed up for my retrieval, and they had twice the number of eggs retrieved as my Beverly Hills cycle. I tried so hard not to get excited. Three days later we returned to a doc telling us there were two grade “A” embryos, and one “B+”. He said he wouldn’t freeze a “B+” and typically only freezes if there are at least three “As” remaining. My husband refused the inference. “We will NOT put in more than two”. Dr. Park, a foot lower in stature, but from the authoritative side of the desk, replied, “You want a baby. Three gives you a better chance of getting one, but I only put in two, and they don’t implant, you will regret throwing one chance away.” There was some kind of a quip about “If we end up with triplets…” but I was quickly whisked away for my triple implantation. I am so glad I’m OCD about on-line research about procedures before I undergo them. I seriously would NEVER have known what was going on with my body when the OHSS hit. Cramp is not the word for it. I think the best description was getting run over by a MAC truck, then it parking with its wheel on my abdomen for a week. I knew to expect the pain to last 1-2 days if it hit, and longer if there was actually an implantation. I never was so excited to feel so much pain. Day three… yeah I was in pain, but was I pregnant? Day four I had to check into the in-patient unit to have the pain mitigated, but I had to be, right? I was in severe pain, and elated about it. They ran a quantitative HCG that day and the next. It had doubled in one day. Not only was I pregnant, but I was pretty sure I had at least twins. The pain subsided the day before my scheduled day 10 follow-up ultrasound. I sat in the cattle-call room with women on each side of me, without my husband. I thought maybe the Korean ultrasound tech didn’t know much English when she pointed to a shadow and said “Baby A”. I thought she meant “a baby” with her level of excitement when she found the white blip. Then she said “Baby B”. <3 data-blogger-escaped-a="" data-blogger-escaped-again.="" data-blogger-escaped-and="" data-blogger-escaped-are="" data-blogger-escaped-as="" data-blogger-escaped-be="" data-blogger-escaped-before="" data-blogger-escaped-break="" data-blogger-escaped-but="" data-blogger-escaped-can="" data-blogger-escaped-cancel="" data-blogger-escaped-could="" data-blogger-escaped-dr.="" data-blogger-escaped-follow="" data-blogger-escaped-fourth="" data-blogger-escaped-going="" data-blogger-escaped-good="" data-blogger-escaped-h="" data-blogger-escaped-had="" data-blogger-escaped-happy="" data-blogger-escaped-having="" data-blogger-escaped-he="" data-blogger-escaped-him="" data-blogger-escaped-home="" data-blogger-escaped-husband="" data-blogger-escaped-i="" data-blogger-escaped-in="" data-blogger-escaped-it="" data-blogger-escaped-join="" data-blogger-escaped-let="" data-blogger-escaped-me="" data-blogger-escaped-meeting="" data-blogger-escaped-my="" data-blogger-escaped-of="" data-blogger-escaped-only="" data-blogger-escaped-our="" data-blogger-escaped-p="" data-blogger-escaped-park="" data-blogger-escaped-rather="" data-blogger-escaped-relief="" data-blogger-escaped-right="" data-blogger-escaped-room="" data-blogger-escaped-saw="" data-blogger-escaped-security="" data-blogger-escaped-see="" data-blogger-escaped-seeing="" data-blogger-escaped-sigh="" data-blogger-escaped-smile="" data-blogger-escaped-spite.="" data-blogger-escaped-than="" data-blogger-escaped-that="" data-blogger-escaped-the="" data-blogger-escaped-they="" data-blogger-escaped-this="" data-blogger-escaped-time="" data-blogger-escaped-to="" data-blogger-escaped-told="" data-blogger-escaped-tonight.="" data-blogger-escaped-twins.="" data-blogger-escaped-twins="" data-blogger-escaped-waiting="" data-blogger-escaped-was="" data-blogger-escaped-we="" data-blogger-escaped-were="" data-blogger-escaped-with="" data-blogger-escaped-would="" data-blogger-escaped-you=""> Although health care in Korea is completely different than in the US, it was worth every dehumanizing moment. Sitting in a room nude with no drape, no curtains between beds… oh well. Showing for cattle call appointments, and getting to see the doc when he was ready for me rather than at pre-scheduled appointment times… I learned to take a book with me. My name on a computer screen with the type of procedure and the current status in the waiting room… forget HIPAA, my husband knew what was up, and that was just nice. The inability for my husband to be in the exam rooms or present for ultrasounds… well, they were happy to print pictures for him. I was pregnant, and all the conveniences of American medicine no longer mattered to me. My twins can tout “Made in Korea, and Born in the USA” and I am a new person since they joined my life seven years ago. Bryson and Dakodah are my built-in resiliency tools. No matter what happens in my life, I have them, I can take it, and I can thrive. When I hear anyone talk about God’s will, or what is meant to be, my only follow-on advice is “Don’t take that from anyone. Fight like hell for what you know you need, and never give up.”

,(Please note that all parts of this article are the opinion of the guest writer and not necessarily viewpoints that I personally share)

The Path to Embryo Adoption

I just got my bi-monthly Stepping Stones in the mail. Stepping Stones is a ministry of Bethany Christians Services which offers Christian support for couples facing infertility or pregnancy loss. They had a fantastic article that I wanted to share: Q & A guide to Embryo Adoption (Pages 3-4). I am really working on compiling good resources for various aspects of infertility and this is definitely one I wanted to share.

You're kidding! Medical clown increases pregnancy rates with IVF

A study of 229 Israeli women undergoing in-vitro fertilization (IVF) to treat infertility found that a 15-minute visit from a trained “medical clown” immediately after the embryos were placed in the womb increased the chance of pregnancy to 36%, compared with 20% for women whose embryo transfer was comedy-free.

Read more by clicking here. 

Headed to Germamy (and the reason why)

Connie's arrival could not have come at a more perfect time. I am going to be taking the rotator, with Abigail, to Ramstein Germany very soon. (As always, I don't give exact dates on my blog.) I will actually be going back to Landstuhl hospital, where I had Abigail over a year ago, to get a specialized ultrasound done that they do not do on the island.

The reason: IVF #5.

I wasn't sure I was going to write about this on my blog. But I guess I am. I just decided to about four seconds ago. It's on my mind. And when something is on my mind, I write about it. Avoiding writing about what is on my mind is almost painful to me. I think that's why my blog is so honest (and sometimes vulnerable.) I have to say what is there.

And right now, what is there is IVF.

IVF. Again. Our fifth try with IVF to be exact. We are going back for our embryos in December.

So to answer the questions I can picture floating around on the back of your tongue.

Why now? Well why not. When is it a good time? No time like the present. In short, I am 35. Not getting any younger. We don't like having them "in limbo." So we decided to go for it. In the end, we just feel the Lord saying, "GO!" and so we shall go.

Will it work this time? No idea. No one can know. No one can know whether my issue, previously, was something related to our embryos or whether it was something within my body that has now corrected itself. In speaking with Dr. Coddington, who was my doctor for most of my infertility journey and who is still at Mayo, my embryos look "excellent." This was confusing to me because I had been under the impression, previously, that they were not very good. But he said he is not sure where I got that information from. That he feels that they look great. He felt confident that our chances of this working were as good as anyone's and there was no telling whether our previous failures would be repeated.

Can you deliver on the island? No. Just like Turkey. I'd have to leave the island for delivery. Not something I enjoyed the first time. Not something I'd want to do the second time. But who even knows if I'll get to that point.

Are you actually ready to add another child to your brood? No. Not really if I am honest. I had three kids three and under. Now I have three kids four and under. I don't feel quite ready. But we have Connie here. I am 35 (which is considered 'advanced maternal age.') We are fully committed to those embryos. We feel we must not forget about them. We are following the Lord's leading.

How many embryos will you transfer? The answer is: 2. Protocol has changed since I went in for my first four IVF's, the last of which was in the summer of 2007. They will dethaw all 7 of our remaining embryos and attempt to get them to grow further outside of my womb but in the lab. Some may die. Some may live. But these embryos, because they are fully developed, have a better life expectancy inside the womb. So Dr. Coddington recommended transferring no more than 2. Not 3 like I did during our last try with IVF. So two I will do. Any embryos past the number 2, can be refrozen for another try at a later date.

How do you feel? Am I nervous? Yes. But this time, not so much about it not working but about the memories. Going back to that clinic. Going back in that ultrasound room. In the operating room. Blood work. Ultrasounds. I'm not really afraid this time of it working or not working. We have three children, and if this is all the family I have, it's a great amount of family for me. But I just don't want to think about that dark place I was in for five years. I don't want to remember all the tears.

In infertility circles, a negative is referred to as BFN "big fat negative." I started thinking about what our infertility entailed and the best I could come up with was:

1. 8 months trying before seeing doctors due to no ovulation -- BFN x 8 (although these didn't result in a phone call to be told the cold, hard facts.)
2. 3 failed attempts to ovulate on clomid -- BFN x 3
3. 2 negative IUIs (artificial inseminations) -- BFN x 2
4. 2 cancelled IUI's -- BFN x 2
5. 1 year on metformin but no other treatments (ovulated twice) -- BFN x 2
6. 1 cancelled IUI/permitted to try on our own -- BFN x 1
7. 4 IVF transfers -- BFN x 4

So that equals 22 times total ... 14 times that we had to have someone call us and tell us (or we found out ourselves) that things did not work. I also thought I would try to estimate how many pills, shots, and doctors appointments this was but quite honestly, I do not even know how to begin to calculate those numbers. I'll just say that from the best I can estimate, I have probably had upwards of one hundred internal ultrasounds. But that is such a crazy guess. I have no earthly idea.

But it's time. We've been on the phone with Mayo quite a bit in the last two weeks getting all the details established. There's lots to figure out. For now I know that I have to get some fancy ultrasound done before I go, and they don't do it on the island. So to Germany I go. I will take Abigail and leave the boys here simply to split up some of the love (aka "responsibility") a bit. I know I will get to see and stay with Shane & Linda (and their doggie Bonnie) in Germany. What a gift that will be.

We are currently planning on doing the transfer this winter. The military gives any family who does "two continuous overseas assignments" (in our case Turkey and now the Azores) up to 30 days of paid time off. They pay to fly us back to our "home of record" and they allow JB to use his vacation days to go.

So we will fly to South Florida as a family, spend a week, and then JB and I will leave the kids with family in South Florida and go to Rochester, Minnesota for the trasnfer (and get to see old friends like Ron & Ebby, Dave & Lesley, and Jake & Rana), and then we will return to South Florida to spend Christmas before flying back to the island.

I will keep you posted ... of course. Mostly I ask you just to pray for my emotional well-being during this journey. Again, not for the result, but just for the memories of a darker time that I have no choice but to revisit.

Malpractice

I felt incredibly satisfied to read this story online: 'Octomom' Doctor Loses License .

Dr. Michael Kamrava implanted TWELVE embryos into Nadya Sulemen. The result was octuplets. The article linked above states: "National guidelines issued by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine specify that no more than two embryos are to be used for in vitro treatments for a healthy woman under 35, the AP reported. Suleman was less than 35 years old at the time of her fertility treatments."

To put this into perspective, I did invitro four times. The first, second, and third times, Mayo Clinic put two embryos back in. Only after three failed attempts did they agree to increase that number to three embryos.

"According to Louis Keith, M.D. and Donald Keith, M.B.A. in Multiple Birth: Epidemiology, Perinatal Outcomes and Long Term Sequelae, 'all multiple pregnancies are high risk' and those risks increase with the number of infants in a given pregnancy. There is an inherent higher frequency of pre-term labor and low birthweight for all multiples, and with that comes a host of raised chances for health problems."*

According to the website of Parents of Multiple Births Association of Canada, it is estimated that ''Overall 15-17% of multiple births result from infertility treatments, however, it is estimated that 60% of triplets, 90% of quadruplets and 99% of quintuplets result from these treatments."

The fact that a doctor would implant twelve embryos in a woman who had previously conceived via invitro is an atrocity! It is careless. It is terrible. And I think the fact that he lost his license is commendable and necessary. Twelve embryos is horrific. I cannot begin to list the adjectives that describe this act by a member of the medical community.

Details from this post came from the following source: click here.

Embryos and transfers

I had gotten a question my blog a few weeks back from June who was preparing to go back in for another IVF. She asked me how to emotionally prepare for the return for more embryos.

This is tricky since I only know about IVF preparation without having a child. I really wonder how I will feel when we go back for our seven embryos now that I have my two boys. I definitely know that it will be less stressful and less emotionally difficult for me after already having my two boys. But how much easier? Will the shots and appointments and procedures and two week wait be considerably easier or still an emotional roller coaster? I cannot answer this. Stay tuned to this blog to find out as we have a minimum of two embryo transfers remaining.

Speaking of returning, I often get a question regarding when we plan to return for our embryos. I can only tell you what our current plan is, and as always, these plans are subject to change. Currently, we are really hoping that next summer we will be sent overseas to fulfill JB's four years of payback to the Air Force. If we are overseas, we are planning to wait until after JB does his payback before returning for the embryos. If we are in the states, we will reevaluate when we go back as it will be much easier for me to travel to have the procedures done than it would be if we were overseas. We currently think that we will wait at least two years and as many as four from the time that we get our new station assignment. (This is called PCS-ing . . . permanent change of station.)

As for the number of transfers we will have to do, I am not really sure. Originally we thought that we would do a transfer of 3 embryos. If that worked, then we would do another with 2, and then another with 2. If that didn't work, we were pretty confident that Mayo would allow us to do a transfer with 4 since 3 of our embryos are of very poor quality. (The other 4 are of fairly good quality.) However, now that I have had a successful pregnancy (something we were not sure was possible) we are not sure if they will let us do a 3. This may mean a 2, 2, 2 and 1 or a 2, 2, and 3. We will have to wait to see what the doctors at Mayo say. Mayo is extremely conservative with their embryos and will not allow us to do more than either they or us feel comfortable with.

Currently our embryos are our number one priority. We will return for them before we ever contemplate any children through adoption or even biologically aside from IVF (we aren't sure, for the record, that we are even capable of conceiving again without treatment as we did with Elijah. We do not know if this was a once-in-a-lifetime miracle or if it could work more regularly now that my body has been "jump started.") Once we have given all seven of our "sticky babies" a chance at life, we will discuss whether we would adopt again or attempt to conceive on our own. However, what we do know is that because I will have to have c-sections for any remaining children we may possibly have, I can't have an unlimited number of these. The pregnancies I do have remaining (if any) must be reserved for our embryos. They are life, and we are wholeheartedly committed to them.

We feel total peace with whatever the Lord has for our family. If that is just these two boys, fantastic. If it is all seven of our embryos working, great. If it is adopting many other children, awesome. If it is biological children aside from IVF, cool. We are going to let Him lead.

But that is off the topic a bit. Back to preparing for IVF. All I can offer, right now, is advice on how I handled IVF. These are my tips for anyone going in for infertility treatments. I realize that this is a short list. Can you guys help me add to it?

• Seek support online from a good online support group like Hannah's Prayer.
• Seek support from an "in-person" support group if available.
• Seek support from a counselor or psychiatrist.
• Seek support from family and friends. My personal advice is to let them in on what you are doing.
• Attempt to find a form of stress relief for the two weeks proceeding, during, and following your treatment. This would include massages, acupuncture, spa treatment, etc.
• During the two week wait, plan something "fun" to do with your spouse or a friend each day. This gives you something to look forward to. Spa treatments, movies, dinners out, anything that you can look forward to.
• Don't have too much down time. Keep yourself busy. Idle time will drive you batty.
• Avoid taking too many HPTs (home pregnancy tests.) (Like I followed this advice! Ha!)

I'm not sure any of these suggestions can truly prepare or help during the emotional roller coaster that individuals go through when they are involved in an IVF transfer and a two week wait, but they are what helped me not totally lose my mind.
Does anyone else have any suggestions that worked for them during their harvests, transfers, and subsequent 2ww? I'd love to add to this list?