Pregnant with 2 babies, but wait they aren't twins!

Imagine Todd and Julia Grovenburg’s surprise when doctors found not one, but two babies on Julia’s ultrasound – and then told the parents the babies weren’t twins,

Doctors think Julia and Todd conceived baby girl Jillian first, and two-and-a-half weeks later conceived baby boy Hudson, according to statements from KFSM-TV in Ft. Smith-Fayetteville, Ark.

Jillian and Hudson have different due dates, and this rare development is called superfetation – when a mother conceives another child while pregnant.

“It does really sound like this is a true case of different conception times for these children,” said Dr. Karen Boyle of the Greater Baltimore Medical Center. “When the woman had her ultrasound initially, they saw one sack, one baby developing, and that baby had a certain gestational age; then they noticed a second heartbeat in a child that was much, much younger developmentally.”

Dr. Boyle told ABC News she has only heard of 10 reported cases of superfetation.

However, superfetation cannot be absolutely determined until after the babies are born, and doctors are able to conduct chromosomal and metabolic tests on the babies.

It was a rough day!

Well, I certainly woke up this morning on the wrong side of the bed, I immediately started crying- it took about 30 minutes for me to fully compose myself and drag myself to work. I really wanted to stay home and bury myself under the covers and never come out.
I managed to make it through the day until around 4PM until a co worker brought her twins in, they are a month old. I kept it together long enough to say hi and excuse myself to the restroom where the tears started. I composed myself and stayed holed up in my office the rest of the day, thank goodness for having my own office.
I am just so ready to have a baby and be a mom and do all the stuff that families do. I told my mom what happened and actually I did not cry once during my entire conversation with her, I could not believe it.
So here's to my mantra, "just keep swimming" because that's what we have to do, just keep swimming.

Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick to have twins!

So this was the news headline on People.com tonight and I have to admit I am super exicted for them. I absolutely LOVE Sarah Jessica Parker- partly because I am a huge Sex and the City fan, but becasue they seem like they are such real people and real parents. I also love that they came out and admitted that they are using a surrogate.

My personal favorite was the comments that people were making on people.com, stuff like "why don't they just adopt" or "why did she use a surrogate?" "is she too vain to get pregnant?" And my personal favorite, "I hope its their egg and sperm, otherwise it's not fair to the kid".
I seriously wanted to kill those people. First off, freaking be happy for them, they admitted that they have had trouble concieving since the birth of thier son, James Wilkie 6 years ago. Hello people she is 44 and he 47- getting pregnant at 44 is not an easy task! It has nothing to do with being too vain to carry her own child. GET REAL!!
I would be interested to know if they were SJP's eggs, just the fact that she is 44 her eggs cannot be in the best shape, if they are donor eggs, good for them, and if they are not good for them as well.

People have no idea what it takes to form a family, and they need to learn to keep their comments to themselves. These twin girls were concieved out of love, and lots of blood, sweat, and tears. Good for them! I just hope they use this as an opportunity to tell their story and encourage and inspire others!

I would be interested to know

To ICSI or not to ICSI

Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) is an assisted reproductive technology (ART) used to treat sperm-related infertility problems. ICSI is used to enhance the fertilization phase of in vitro fertilization (IVF) by injecting a single sperm into a mature egg.
Under high-power magnification, a glass tool (holding pipet) is used to hold an egg in place. A microscopic glass tube containing sperm (injection pipet) is used to penetrate and deposit one sperm into the egg. After culturing in the laboratory overnight, eggs are checked for evidence of fertilization. After incubation, the eggs that have been successfully fertilized (zygotes) or have had 3 to 5 days to further develop (zygotes or blastocysts) are selected. Two to four are placed in the uterus using a thin flexible tube (catheter) that is inserted through the cervix. The remaining embryos may be frozen (cryopreserved) for future attempts.

Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) is used to treat severe male infertility, as when little or no sperm are ejaculated in the semen. Immature sperm collected from the testicles are usually unable to move about and are more likely to fertilize an egg through ICSI. It is also helpful when the sperm is poorly shaped, it allows the embroyologist to pick the best sperm to fertilize the egg with.

Some couples choose to try ICSI after repeat in vitro fertilization has been unsuccessful. In the United States, about half of IVF procedures are currently performed using ICSI technology. Myself I find this absolutely crazy, why would couples not want to ICSI, why would you want to take the risk of eggs not fertalizing? I just do not get that!!

ICSI is also used for couples who are planning to have genetic testing of the embryo to check for certain genetic disorders. ICSI uses only one sperm for each egg, so there is no chance the genetic test can be contaminated by other sperm.

There has been some studies that show that using ICSI gives you a slightly higher change of having identical twins, but there is not enough evidence to support that quite yet.

So, we will be doing ICSI, we have to, with John's sperm which is poorly shaped and the potential that my eggs are too hard, that would make natural fertilization more difficult. So whatever the risks, I feel the benefits outweigh the risks.

Thanking God every day!

When I go back and read the posts that John has posted I literally get tears in my eyes. John and I are getting ready to celebrate four years together. It was four years ago on March 4th that John and I met and if someone had told me four years ago that I was going to move to Vegas and meet my husband within the first three months that I was here I would have told them they were nuts!

As much as I hate going through this fertility roller coaster I feel it has brought John and I closer together. John and I had a whirlwind before we got married, we moved in with each other pretty quick and then were engaged and married all fairly quickly, so I really like we are really getting to know each other and learning what the other is really made of. You really see a persons true personality when they are hurting. I have seen John cry and scream over this journey and he has seen me do the same. But in the end I we push on and we will succeed and we will be parents.

It was so funny the other night we were sitting at dinner at a casual dining restaurant that we go to all the time and I starting talking about IVF, and all the stuff that goes into it. ICSI, assisted hatching, PGD, PIO, and so on. His face was priceless he looked scared to death! Then I starting talking about twins and how wonderful it would be to have twins and what a blessing it would be. He looked very nervous at that time. As much as having twins would be a blessing I do think it would be difficult, can you imagine two of everything?!

John is always supportive and is my rock through all this, but I think the IVF talk was too much. I pretty much told him that I would just tell him when he needed to show up at the doctors office, and I think he is happier that way. Poor guy! I don't expect him to understand everything, that is my job! John is the type of person that wants to be shown two things and he will pick from there, so maybe I should show him two embryos and let him pick the ones he likes! HAHA
But my point is ladies, your husbands don't have to involved in every aspect of infertility in order to support you! It's just not their thing!

The Bailey Multiples

I have been watching The Bailey Multiples on TLC and I find it so touching and interesting to watch other couples who have endured infertility. This paticular couple, Stacy and Steven Bailey went through IVF and had eight frozen embryo transfers before getting pregnant with sextuplets. They transfered 4 embroyos, due to all the failed attempts and all 4 stuck, and 2 divided into idential twins, giving them 6 babies. The identical twin boys dies in utero and the remaining 4 babies were delivered healthy and happy. I am sitting her on my couch bawling my eyes out, maybe its the hormone injections, maybe its because I know exactly what that couple is feeling. I cannot wait to have that moment of "we're pregnant" and going through the entire pregnancy and then the delivery of our child. While, I would love to have twins, anymore then that scares the crap out of me. I know God does not give us more then we can handle, but twins seem managable to me. To have that moment in the delivery room when you hear your child cry for the frist time will be the most memorable moment of my life and I cannot wait to experience that with John.

The Bailey multiples are perfectly healthy and happy today and will celebrate their 3rd birthday on February 17th, 2009. Happy Birthday Bailey kids!