Day Two
I honestly had no idea what to expect once the testing started. We were told that about 5-6 embryos had formed and would be sent for genetic testing. 5-6 seemed like a great number and I wouldn't complain about that. I mean, a 25% chance that they would actually get cystic fibrosis seemed like a low percentage, right? I was confident that we would come out of this like the champions we thought we were.
Well, the call came with our results; All of the embryos either had cystic fibrosis or a chromosome missing. Stupid genetics! Should've done testing on Randall before I decided to marry him. I could just see it now on the first date, like "yes, I will need to get your genetic testing results before we move onto wedding plans". "No problem" we said and "We will try again" was the next step. After all, we thought we were the champions of this process and we would succeed. Insurance covered a lot of the process so we only ended up paying about $10,000 each try for medications, testing, and ice cream. Did I mention we were gifted a smallish deep freezer about a year into our marriage? I'm not saying we stocked it full of ice cream, I'm only saying we... had a lot of ice cream.
In the meantime we were busy trying to get back into school and both working full time. Date nights consisted of us eating at Chick-fil-A during my work breaks and late night rib dinners at Apple Bees. Do you remember before having kids and you could leave the house whenever you wanted? Yeah? Okay! I'm not the only one, yay! The church came out with this cool program called BYU Pathways. It was the easiest thing I've ever done in my life for three semesters and it allowed us to continue school online for $69 a credit hour. As students who didn't want to take out loans for school this seemed like a great option for us.
We quickly started round two of IVF soon after the first attempt. So again, a box of very expensive medications came to our house one day and we began stabbing my belly with everything, as directed of course, because you know, we can follow directions for the most part. I'd tell you what we got after the egg retrieval but I don't keep track of these things. However, the call came with the testing results to tell us we had one good embryo to use this time! That night we celebrated with even more ice cream and whatever else we ate as ridiculously lazy and hungry college students. I should be far bigger than I am right now, but we also made time for running and other... workouts. Another box arrived in the mail with more medications because we would have to do a frozen embryo transfer which is different from a fresh embryo transfer, the latter I've never done before. Preparing the body to have an already created embryo put back inside you is like a long and painful bee sting. You didn't want to get stung by the bee, but you really wanted the honey from the hive; thanks Pooh Bear. Two certain pills that would not be taken orally were taken three times a day and this horrid substance only created by the devil himself would be taken once a day. I'm referring to progesterone in oil. Have you used it? You poor, poor creature. You have my respect, truly. The progesterone was injected into the fat in my butt once a night. Try to imagine this, oil, being injected into your butt, every night. Oil that would build up and... build up. And we were first time users.
The transfer day came and they required me to fill my bladder completely full to make it easier to complete the transfer. Two Costco bottled waters should have been enough, but I wanted to make sure it was really full so I had three. Three bottles of water, in one hour. The seconds have never passed so slow on a clock when you have to pee but you can't. Back then they required me to lay down for 30 minutes after the transfer was complete before getting up to pee. Why did I drink three bottled waters?? I have since learned my lesson, but they no longer require me to lay down and I can pee right away. Once the transfer was complete, which is a process that takes about 5 minutes plus the 30 minutes of laying down after, we were sent home on bed rest for a few days. Yeah, we also had to keep doing the medications. The two week wait was the next step. Two weeks before we would go back and see if the embryo attached itself to me. The words used by the nurse were "it can't fall out, its as sticky as peanut butter in there". I'm not a nurse, I'm an engineer. I can fix any engineering problem you have. Electrical outlet not working? No problem! Working on solar panels for the house? Let me give you a hand! I made my own solar powered phone charger my first semester of school! I actually thought the embryo could fall out if I sneezed.
Two weeks went by like any other two weeks. and this was only the start of December 2015. We went back to the clinic and non willingly gave my blood to the nurse to test. Yeah, I may have almost passed out from the blood draw... The results were going to come later on that afternoon so we went home and waited.
"Karmen? Hey! Well, congratulations! You're pregnant!" were the words I heard from the nurse on the other end. That feeling of being a champion came flooding back. We did it! We actually did it.
Well, the call came with our results; All of the embryos either had cystic fibrosis or a chromosome missing. Stupid genetics! Should've done testing on Randall before I decided to marry him. I could just see it now on the first date, like "yes, I will need to get your genetic testing results before we move onto wedding plans". "No problem" we said and "We will try again" was the next step. After all, we thought we were the champions of this process and we would succeed. Insurance covered a lot of the process so we only ended up paying about $10,000 each try for medications, testing, and ice cream. Did I mention we were gifted a smallish deep freezer about a year into our marriage? I'm not saying we stocked it full of ice cream, I'm only saying we... had a lot of ice cream.
In the meantime we were busy trying to get back into school and both working full time. Date nights consisted of us eating at Chick-fil-A during my work breaks and late night rib dinners at Apple Bees. Do you remember before having kids and you could leave the house whenever you wanted? Yeah? Okay! I'm not the only one, yay! The church came out with this cool program called BYU Pathways. It was the easiest thing I've ever done in my life for three semesters and it allowed us to continue school online for $69 a credit hour. As students who didn't want to take out loans for school this seemed like a great option for us.
We quickly started round two of IVF soon after the first attempt. So again, a box of very expensive medications came to our house one day and we began stabbing my belly with everything, as directed of course, because you know, we can follow directions for the most part. I'd tell you what we got after the egg retrieval but I don't keep track of these things. However, the call came with the testing results to tell us we had one good embryo to use this time! That night we celebrated with even more ice cream and whatever else we ate as ridiculously lazy and hungry college students. I should be far bigger than I am right now, but we also made time for running and other... workouts. Another box arrived in the mail with more medications because we would have to do a frozen embryo transfer which is different from a fresh embryo transfer, the latter I've never done before. Preparing the body to have an already created embryo put back inside you is like a long and painful bee sting. You didn't want to get stung by the bee, but you really wanted the honey from the hive; thanks Pooh Bear. Two certain pills that would not be taken orally were taken three times a day and this horrid substance only created by the devil himself would be taken once a day. I'm referring to progesterone in oil. Have you used it? You poor, poor creature. You have my respect, truly. The progesterone was injected into the fat in my butt once a night. Try to imagine this, oil, being injected into your butt, every night. Oil that would build up and... build up. And we were first time users.
The transfer day came and they required me to fill my bladder completely full to make it easier to complete the transfer. Two Costco bottled waters should have been enough, but I wanted to make sure it was really full so I had three. Three bottles of water, in one hour. The seconds have never passed so slow on a clock when you have to pee but you can't. Back then they required me to lay down for 30 minutes after the transfer was complete before getting up to pee. Why did I drink three bottled waters?? I have since learned my lesson, but they no longer require me to lay down and I can pee right away. Once the transfer was complete, which is a process that takes about 5 minutes plus the 30 minutes of laying down after, we were sent home on bed rest for a few days. Yeah, we also had to keep doing the medications. The two week wait was the next step. Two weeks before we would go back and see if the embryo attached itself to me. The words used by the nurse were "it can't fall out, its as sticky as peanut butter in there". I'm not a nurse, I'm an engineer. I can fix any engineering problem you have. Electrical outlet not working? No problem! Working on solar panels for the house? Let me give you a hand! I made my own solar powered phone charger my first semester of school! I actually thought the embryo could fall out if I sneezed.
Two weeks went by like any other two weeks. and this was only the start of December 2015. We went back to the clinic and non willingly gave my blood to the nurse to test. Yeah, I may have almost passed out from the blood draw... The results were going to come later on that afternoon so we went home and waited.
"Karmen? Hey! Well, congratulations! You're pregnant!" were the words I heard from the nurse on the other end. That feeling of being a champion came flooding back. We did it! We actually did it.
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