Our blast and future child

We had our embryo transfer this afternoon. We transferred one great looking blast- and two others will be frozen tomorrow. Our doctor stated that we should transfer one because of the great quality and my young age. He said that transferring two really only increases our chances of having twins. Our clinic specializes in single embryo transfers (SET) because they do a special test (embryo marker expression test) to check and see which embryos have the best chances of implanting, all three of our blasts scored well on the test. So here's to a few days of rest and relaxation.
Please God let this be it!

Great, I have become "that" person!

By "that" I mean the person that everyone feels sorry for and is so afraid to say anything about babies or pregnancy. Okay, people lets get something straight yes it sucks that we have struggled with this journey of infertility and yes it feels like everyone in the world is pregnant but me, I think I have counted 25+ friends, and some of the are pregnant with baby #2, so it's defiantly not a happy situation for me. But, and here comes the but- this does not mean that I can crawl in a hole and come out when I am pregnant. I still have to survive and life day to day.

Not only are my friends "scared" to tell me when someone is pregnant but my family is now taking pity on me. I do not need pity, I need support and there is a difference. While I love my family for thinking of my feelings and not wanting to hurt me, the pity party is not fun either.

My step sister is 8 weeks pregnant with twins, conceived through Clomid- and I honestly could not be happier for her any my brother in law. They lost a baby boy last year at 18 weeks and they were devastated. I can not imagine going through that- they deserve nothing but happiness. But my mom tells me last weekend and then tells me not to tell my sister that I know, because she is going to tell me. Then my mom tells my sister that I know. So what was the point of that?

So tonight my sister calls and leave a message for my on my cell- and while it was very nice and genuine- I could hear the pity in her voice. Its the voice of the pregnant person talking to the infertile person. Now, my sister has been through her own battle with infertility- and has dealt with totally different circumstances, but its still the same in the end, things seem to change once infertiles get pregnant.

I hope that once I am pregnant that I do have pity on people that are dealing with infertility- I want to inspire people that you can beat this demon- you will be a family one day- you just don't know how it will happen, and you can never give up hope.

So I have officially become the person that everyone feels sorry for, I have very few friends left that I feel do not feel sorry for me, and are just supportive. It's so hard, because I wish I could share this journey with them, but it's also nice to just be with people and not talk about it, god knows it occupies enough my time.

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.

Follistim Day 6

Today is day 6 of the Follistim shots, I am starting to have some bruising on my stomach, but no pain. The needles are really small and I cannot even feel them. I am very surprised that there is even bruising. But its all worth it!

My doctor lowered my dosage because I was making too many eggs, so I guess its good to know that my body does at least know how to do something right!

John and I would be so excited to have twins, and we understand the risk of multiples when taking fertility drugs, especially in conjunction with IUI, but we have been waiting so long that we would be blessed to have twins, but I can tell you that would be it, I would have my tubes tied and we would be DONE!

I went and had my acupuncture done yesterday, its so relaxing, its really the only time that I can truly be calm and focused. I highly recommend it.

I go back to the doctor tomorrow to see how things are progressing.