Don’t Be Ashamed … Part II

I started my first round of Femara in February and my fourth round was in May. Sadly, Femara did not work for us either. In the month of May while I was going through my fourth round of Femara I started my IVF pre-testing as well. I was told if Femara did not work next step is IVF

In the month of June, I started my IVF journey. IVF is broken into 3 parts: Stimulation, Egg Retrieval and Implantation. Stimulation lasts about 1 to 2 weeks where your body grows more than one egg. The normal female cycle will only release one egg a month during stimulation you want as many as you can get. In order for this I had to inject myself daily in the stomach with one to three injections. I had to go for blood work and ultrasounds every two days to make sure everything is going normal and am getting lots of follicles. Lots of follicles means lots of eggs. During one of my ultrasounds they found an abnormality. It looked like a growth of polyps.I was told that I can continue with my egg retrieval but there will be no implantation till we do a biopsy. I went ahead with the egg retrieval they retrieved 10 eggs out of which 8 fertilized and I had 8 good quality embryos frozen at day 5.

I went for a heteroscopy where they went in with a camera to see if I really had polyps. I had asked Dr. Mahany please remove whatever that is needed while you are there with the camera. I do not want to come in twice for this. This is the reason why I love Dr. Mahany. I remember being in the operating theater they put in the IV and mind you due to all these hormones my veins became really bad. The first drop of medicine that went in through the IV was extremely painful and I remember screaming in pain. Dr. Mahany stopped everyone and everything came to me held my hand and asked me are you ok? We will stop and wait for you to be ok before we continue. I remember saying am ok and then next thing I remember was waking up in recovery.

A week later I get my test results from the heteroscopy and find out I have endometitis. Endometitis is the inflammation of uterus so to treat it I was given 2 weeks of antibiotics. I took them and in September when for another biopsy that came out positive again. This meant another 2 weeks of antibiotics and another biopsy and I was finally given the clear in October.

November 2017, I got to go for my first Frozen Embryo Implantation. I found out on Thanksgiving that I was pregnant. I had to go for a second blood test on Saturday November 25^th to confirm the pregnancy was developing. Sadly, my pregnancy stopped developing. And a week later I lost my first baby. I had this named this baby Apple. The name Apple was a joke to bug my husband mostly. We did not know if Apple was a boy or a girl but till today, we still think of our little apple.

We decided to take a 2-month break before trying again. In the meantime, we decided to take a quick break to the Cayman Island during Christmas to recharge our batteries. Which was nice but I was not really over it despite our getaway. I had a really bad breakdown during New years in front of family. Still not over the loss of my baby. No matter how many vacations you take or distract yourself; it is extremely difficult getting over a loss of a child even if that child was barely developed. After this breakdown in January I decided to go for acupuncture and therapy to recover. I was willing to try anything at this point!

I did a month of acupuncture and went for weekly counselling. Both helped me tremendously in relaxing me and giving me a new outlook on life. In February 2018 we started our second attempt at Frozen Embryo Transfer. This time around we did a two-embryo transfer. I really had to fight to get the approval from the Michigan health System to get a two embryo transfer. I would joke with my Husband after all this we deserve 2 kids. On Sunday March 11^th we got our first positive beta test of 370 and on Tuesday March 13^th we got our second positive beta test where the levels nearly tripled. With such numbers I was hoping that both babies survived. I remember by husband kept joking about triplets. We were scheduled on Friday April 6^th, 2018 for our first ultrasound to detect a heartbeat.

Come April 6^th I am a nervous wreck. I started crying like a baby before my ultrasound that I don’t want to do this as I was scared for bad news. The ultrasound technician and my husband calmed me down and we proceeded with the ultrasound. GUESS WHAT? Turns out my Husband was right. I still cannot believe he was right. I found out on Friday April 6^th that we were pregnant with TRIPLETS! My husband was over the moon and am freaking out.

I had two doctors come in to speak with me after my ultrasound. All three of my babies had a strong heartbeat but one of them was a week behind in growth. These two doctors came in as if someone died. They started talking about natural selection and so forth. They tell me I need to come in for another ultrasound in a week’s time to see how they are growing and then referred me to a high-risk pregnancy doctor which is scheduled for April 27^th 2018.

I was super nauseous and in major shock. We had not told anyone except for our bosses by this point. We planned to tell our families after I had seen my new OBGYN and the second ultrasound. In the meantime, I was nauseous, uncomfortable and extremely scared. We had our second ultrasound on April 17^th it was a Tuesday; Mustafa was traveling so I had to go alone. I found out that we lost the triplet the weak embryo and were expecting fraternal twins. In a week we went from having 3 to 2 babies we decided to see our high-risk doctor first to see if this pregnancy would continue before telling anyone in the family. Losing the third baby made us realize that we are not in the safe zone yet and let’s see how it goes.