Infertility vs Mother’s Day

Time to get uncomfortable. Ready to feel some feelings? Let’s talk about Mother’s Day.   I’ve discussed this with a few other women in my support group who have struggled with infertility and have completed their journey – either through stopping treatment, or achieving success through IVF, adoption, or surrogacy. And a common thread among us is extreme difficulty reconciling your feelings about motherhood when you have closely identified (and lived) as an infertile person for a long time. You mark days like “Mother’s Day” and “Father’s Day” on your calendar and make a mental note about how that will be a day...

The Baby is the Size of What?

I told everyone that I would keep you posted, and look, here I am keeping my promises. We are officially 18 weeks pregnant – only two weeks off from the halfway mark! Crazy right? According to my two pregnancy apps, the baby is now the size of a sweet potato, or – a sugar glider. I’m not sure how I feel about our baby being compared to vegetables and animals, but sugar gliders are pretty adorable, so I’ll allow it. In my first trimester, I had some bloodwork done by Dr. Lee that indicated I may have hyperthyroidism caused by...

Lining Check and Transfer Date

I had my lining check on 10/12, and everything looks great – 11mm like last time, which is great! I go back into the RE office on 10/19 for another ultrasound to check my lining, as well as a blood test to make sure that my estrogen still at a good level. If everything goes well, I start the PIO shots on 10/20. I am actually toying with the idea of filming one of these to document the truly fun part of this experience. I know that this is probably a weird idea, but I figure that there are way...

Dents in Your Emotional Armor

No, this is not an album title…though now I feel like I should use it (so dont steal it!). This is something that has been on my mind to share for a few days, but it seems appropriate now because well… I had a little bit of a meltdown yesterday. Okay, okay…maybe it was a big, ugly crying breakdown. I have received a lot of compliments about how ‘strong’ I am, or remarks about how much courage it takes to write down our experiences like this. Truthfully, because I am terrible with compliments, I laugh or minimize these comments because...

Transfer Day!

We had our FET this morning and everything went great! Our highest quality blastocyst made it through the thaw and looked great, so that is what we transferred today. We opted to do the transfer at our IVF clinic itself instead of their surgical center in Redondo Beach, purely out of convenience. One of the things that I loved about this was that the nurses who prepped me were nurses that I see all the time. Patti (who taught us how to do our injections and has assisted on several ultrasounds) assisted Dr. Yee via ultrasound during the transfer. You know, there...

Finally Beginning our FET cycle!

Hi everyone, Sorry for the radio silence, but I haven’t actually had much to update you on until now. And WHY is that, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. Ever since we began treatment – my cycle has decided to be ENTIRELY uncooperative. Go figure, right? Many years of tracking and constant reliability and as soon as we start treatment, my body goes, “Haha, NOPE.” This past cycle, my period was 13 days late. THIRTEEN. That’s almost a fortnight. I kept waiting and waiting for it to show up, and finally after about a week I broke down and took...

Introduction Post – Infertility Diagnosis

After being together for almost 10 years, my husband Dean and I have officially been diagnosed as an infertile couple. This means that our only option of conceiving a child together is through In Vitro Fertilization (IVF).  It has taken a long time and a lot of consideration for us to decide whether or not we wanted to share our story publicly, but the situation has changed in such a way that we cannot (and should not) remain silent any longer. Ever since I was a little girl, the only thing I ever dreamed of being was a mother. In...