And suddenly you know.... It's time to start something new
June 23th--
June has been one of the biggest months in our life. LOTS of changes are about to occur in the Terry family! We have decided that we are going to do In Vitro Fertilization! The beginning of May, we knew it was time to start something new. We called a fertility doctor in Logan (that our friend referred us to) and he asked us when we wanted to start the procedure and we told him as soon as possible. He said he was just finishing up a group of people and his next group would be doing the procedure the beginning of July. So that following week I started one of the many medications to get my body prepped for the procedure.
The doctor we have been working with is such a personable doctor. He checks in regularly, sends me texts, and makes sure I know exactly what is going on with my body. It is amazing that by giving your body medication, you can prepare it to carry a baby. I am able to do all of my lab testing in Rexburg, which saves us lots of trips and time driving. The medication for the procedure to work was shipped to our house and was a ton of money. $2,600 dollars! I was not expecting it to be as much as it was, but the insurance will not cover any medication related to infertility. (That was even with a discount!)
I have to do lots of blood work. My uneasiness of needles has subsided quite a bit as I started on June 15th by giving myself 1 injection a day from a needle. Then June 25th through July 4th I have to give myself 3 injections of medication from a needle. Each time I have to poke the needles into my stomach. My tummy has turned into a pin cushion!
June 23rd-
Ultrasound #1-Our first time meeting the doctor was on Saturday the 23rd. We are lucky that they are doing the ultrasounds and procedures on the weekends. That saved me from missing so much work since we have to drive to Logan! We will make at least 5 trips to Logan in the next 2-3 weeks and have to pay $75 for each ultrasound. I am thankful that we are able to use my mom's car instead of driving the truck down there every time! At the first ultrasound they checked to see how many eggs are starting to grow in each ovary. The injections that I give myself, help all the eggs that will be used to grow the same size so one does not dominate all the others. On my one ovary, I have 16 eggs growing and my other ovary I only have 5. The doctor said that a healthy girl around my age usually drops about 10-12 eggs all together. He was very surprised how many I had on my one ovary. As I continue to give myself the injections, he told me that my ovary will be about the size of a grapefruit with all the eggs growing in it! The doctor said that he wants me to weigh myself and measure my belly every day till the egg retrieval. He said he just wants to make sure that my body won't hyper stimulate because of all the medication that I am injecting into myself.
June 30th--
Ultrasound #2-We were glad to hear that my blood work and eggs are still moving in the right direction. My eggs are still continuing to grow at a good pace. The doctor is thinking that we will do the egg retrieval on Friday the 6th, but we will know for sure when we go down on the 4th of July for our 3rd ultrasound. I have not noticed any weight gain or extra inches on my tummy yet. It is so surreal to me that within a week and a half, I will have an embryo placed inside of me! After almost 5 years of hoping to become pregnant, it is finally coming true!
July 4th--
Ultrasound #3- We headed back down to Logan around 7:30 for our appointment at 10:30. I usually like to give us 3 hours to get there just in case. We showed up for our appointment and I was able to meet the other doctor we work with; Doctor Amesse. He is the doctor that does the actual exams, but Doctor Richards does the "science" part of the In Vitro. We did another check on the eggs and the sizes. Everything still looked good. He said that we will come back on Friday to to the egg retrieval. We set up our appointment for Friday and we were on our way. The doctor informed me that we were to take a shot at exactly 11:00 PM that night (35 hours prior to the egg retrieval), not a minute earlier, not a minutes later, but on the dot exactly. We went to the Menan fireworks and hung out with Mikal's family (Because it was the 4th of July), and we tagged along our little cooler with the injection just in case. I checked everything before we left to make sure it was good to go and it was. It was already pre-loaded and all I had to do was insert it into my stomach.
The fireworks got over at 10:30 PM and we headed back to Rexburg behind the buttes. I told Mikal we probably wouldn't make it home and to stop probably around Beaver Dick so I could take the injection. He told me to just take it while we were driving (mind you it was in his BOUNCY pickup). It was 10:58 PM and we just passed Beaver Dick so I pulled off the cap and this is what I saw.....😟
I had a mini panic attack! When I took the lid off earlier, I must have put the cap back on incorrectly and bent the needle. Mikal pull over at his dad's work and looked at it. He told me to just to stick myself with it. (it was only a half inch needle and very tiny) So that is what I did. It wasn't bad going in, but coming out I had to move the need back and forth. Such a stressful time! In the end, everything was okay and worked out, but that was pretty dang scary!
July 6th-
Egg Retrieval day- This was a extremely big day. This is where we paid our dues to the doctor. The procedure cost us $9,200. I was not too concerned about the procedure. I was pretty calm. I was not allowed to eat from midnight the night before because they were knocking me out for the procedure. On the way down, I was so hungry! Mikal even tried to tempt me with food. 😦 (he forgot that I could not eat) The procedure did not last very long. I think it ended up being about 30 minutes for them to retrieve the eggs. Mikal said I talked way to much when I came to from the anesthesia. I guess that is better than being grumpy or crying. They showed Mikal where to give me shots in my butt. (he is super happy to be able to stab me... ha!) The doctor said he was able to retrieve 13 eggs from my ovaries. That is quite a bit! We were pleased. The doctor told me that I should be fine, but sore for the rest of the day. So I decided to go float Warm Slough with Sammi Naef when we got back to Rexburg that day, since she was in town. That was not bad. It was relaxing. That evening though, I was in a lot of pain. I was very sore and my insides were very swollen. I forgot to take my prescriptions so I couldn't get them filled till Saturday. I took a Tylenol and that helped, but my stomach felt very bloated. The doctor told me I need to check my weight and waist measurement every day to make sure I do not hyper stimulate my body. So far so good! I am just very slow at moving and my butt hurts from the shots Mikal has to give me for the next little while.
July 8th-
Call from the doctor- Today we waited for the doctor to call us and tell us how many embryos were able to survive. He said he was able to create 7 good embryos! That is such good news! He also told us that our embryo transplant will end up being on Wednesday. 😀 We are still taking things one day at a time. The process for IVF is very intense. I did not realize how much work it is on both ends! I have kept myself calm for the most part and tried not to stress. The medications that they give me, make me not feel 100% all the time, but I am able to still cook dinners which is good. Just getting up and down is very hard on me. My ovaries are also very swollen. My stomach sticks out a little more than I am used to because of the swollen ovaries. He said the one ovary is still the size of a orange and they normally are the size of a walnut.
July 11th-
Embryo transplant day- My days were definitely better on Monday and Tuesday. We awaited patiently for Wednesday to come. We made the trip down in the morning and left early again at 7. I was told I needed to drink 1 1/2 liters so that I would have a full bladder. They did not knock me out for this procedure. I had to take a muscle relaxant to help me relax. That it did! I was loopy! We stopped in Malad and Mikal had to give me a shot on the side of the road and then I took the pill. We got there and I felt like I had a full bladder, but I did not. So they made me drink more fluid. I felt like my bladder was going to explode with the gal giving me an ultrasound to show where they needed to place the embryos. It was not bad a first, but then the pain got worse. Mikal was there, so I made him fan me. I did not feel like I was going to pass out or puke, but it was not a pleasant feeling. It felt as if they were stabbing the top of my uterus. They had to place the catheter in and do a trial run to make sure everything was going to be good. They went and got the embryos and placed them. We got to watch it on the screen! Pretty neat the technology that we have these days!They would not let me get up right away. They had me stay down for a little while to makes sure things did not get moved around before I could get up and empty out my bladder. I was dying.
While we were waiting, the doctor gave us some news we were not expecting. We were expecting to be able to freeze some of the embryos, (as he suspected on Sunday) but found out that the two that he put in me, might be the only ones that make it. He talked to us about how the other embryos did not progress the way he wanted them to on Monday. If they do not reach a term called blastocyst by tomorrow (Thursday) then we only got 2 that looked good enough (which he placed in me). He was very hopeful with those 2 that he placed in me were good.
He told me to take it slow and rest. It is hard for me to sit still, but I force myself to. Mikal went fishing to take his mind off things. We will just have to pray that everything goes well for the 2 embryos and hopefully one more to freeze.
It takes a lot to prepare yourself for the procedures and fill your body with so many different fluids and pills.
(side note) I also went to see my Great Grandpa Gibbons' park in Logan and the house that my Grandpa Gibbons grew up in. I love the history of my family! (those pictures were in my July post)
July 12-
Embryo freeze- Unfortunately the doctor said that there were no other embryos that made it past blastocyst. The two he put in me he called the "superstars" and the other embryos were just the "benchwarmers" It is hard to know that with all that work, we were only able to get 2 embryos, but I am thankful beyond what words can explain. We have had help along the way and it has been so nice to be able to have the Lord close. If we want to do IVF again, we will have to do the whole process all over again. I think the doctor will want to do some testing on Mikal this next time around to see if we can boost up every chance of getting extra embryos to transplant.
We will now be waiting until July 20th to do a blood draw pregnancy test to see if my little embryos made it!
July 15-
Mikal has been giving me the shots in the butt since the transplant and boy do some of them hurt! There is some intense bruising on me. We will have to keep doing the shots till the doctor says I can take pills instead. The shot is a hormone that your ovaries naturally produce when you drop your eggs for pregnancy. Since they extracted my eggs, I have to give myself these shots to produce the necessary hormone to keep the embryos growing.
July 20th-
Pregnancy test #1- TODAY IS THE BIG DAY! So this day was a super LONG day. I went in at 8:10 in the morning and got my blood drawn. I texted the doctor and he said he hadn't heard anything around 11. So I texted again around 2:30 and asked if they heard anything more? They had not. So around 4 the doctor ended up calling the place that I did my blood draw and found out they had not started the blood work. He was not too happy about it and neither were we! They said they would get it done. Mikal called the office at 4:54 and wanted to know the status of the blood work. They said it would be done in 7 minutes. He was very nice on the phone, but very firm with, " I better hear from my doctor in a little bit. I will not wait all weekend." The doctor finally called with the news at 5:30. I AM PREGNANT.... BUT my HCG level was only 30. Super, super low. He said in clients that he has seen this low it either progresses at this point, or you miscarry. UGH. Mikal was so excited and then all worrisome again.. All day he was bugging me and texting me. It was driving me crazy. He wanted me to take another blood draw on Monday to make sure my number goes up. Great, now we have to wait another couple days.
July 23rd-
Pregnancy Test #2 - Monday morning, I woke up and got ready for the test. This time I was going to take the blood draw up at the hospital. My doctor was not too happy with the results on Friday and frustrated with them for taking so long, so he wanted me to go somewhere else. I was the first one in there again and by 11:00 my doctor called me. 😁 He said my number jumped too 100! That was great! He wanted it to double, and it tripled! That made him feel a lot better and me too! Mikal was so happy. The doctor wants to still keep checking on me. So he asked that I do another blood draw on Friday and then one on the 6th of August and if they both look good, then he wants to do an ultrasound around the 10th at his office. :)
July 27th-
Pregnancy Test #3- This time my number jumped to 700! Keep growing little one or ones!
August 6th-
Pregnancy Test #4 - Monday I went in to the hospital again to get my blood drawn. The doctor called later that evening and said by HCG level was now 17,000. That is good news! He will now do the ultrasound on Friday. We are anxious. We are excited things are still going good. Hopefully we will be able to see if one or both of the embryos survived.
August 10th-
Ultrasound- between 6 and 7 weeks pregnant--This will be my final visit with the fertility doctor and we get to do the ultrasound to make sure everything is going the way it should before he sends me on my merry way to meet with my doctor in Rexburg.
We got to hear the little heart beat and see the flicker for the heart beat! It was so fun! Mikal was very emotional. He just couldn't believe it. We will be having a baby! The due date they gave us right now is April 1st 2019! After all of this, I finally don't have to give myself shots anymore, but will still have to take hormone pills 3 times a day till I am about 12 weeks. I have never been a pill taker, so having to take all these injections and pills since May has been a lot of work to remember!
Throughout this journey, we have learned a lot. We have learned to live on very little. We always somehow have made ends meet each month which is a great miracle! (but now the medical bills are starting to come in...) This trial in our life has not been easy at all. By far the hardest ever. We pray a lot for help and for Mikal to be able to get jobs building projects for people. We have really had to cut back on how we used to live. We have always been frugal people, but from here on out we have to be extra frugal. We are thankful for modern technology to be able to have the chance to do In Vitro!
We appreciate all the love and help that people have given us through it all to make it happen! We have felt so loved! :)
If anyone is wanting to help by donating some money to pay off our medical bills that we have been receiving, we would greatly appreciate it! Please contact Mikal or I.
June has been one of the biggest months in our life. LOTS of changes are about to occur in the Terry family! We have decided that we are going to do In Vitro Fertilization! The beginning of May, we knew it was time to start something new. We called a fertility doctor in Logan (that our friend referred us to) and he asked us when we wanted to start the procedure and we told him as soon as possible. He said he was just finishing up a group of people and his next group would be doing the procedure the beginning of July. So that following week I started one of the many medications to get my body prepped for the procedure.
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| My box of injections that was shipped to me. |
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| What I had to take daily for injections |
The doctor we have been working with is such a personable doctor. He checks in regularly, sends me texts, and makes sure I know exactly what is going on with my body. It is amazing that by giving your body medication, you can prepare it to carry a baby. I am able to do all of my lab testing in Rexburg, which saves us lots of trips and time driving. The medication for the procedure to work was shipped to our house and was a ton of money. $2,600 dollars! I was not expecting it to be as much as it was, but the insurance will not cover any medication related to infertility. (That was even with a discount!)
I have to do lots of blood work. My uneasiness of needles has subsided quite a bit as I started on June 15th by giving myself 1 injection a day from a needle. Then June 25th through July 4th I have to give myself 3 injections of medication from a needle. Each time I have to poke the needles into my stomach. My tummy has turned into a pin cushion!
June 23rd-
Ultrasound #1-Our first time meeting the doctor was on Saturday the 23rd. We are lucky that they are doing the ultrasounds and procedures on the weekends. That saved me from missing so much work since we have to drive to Logan! We will make at least 5 trips to Logan in the next 2-3 weeks and have to pay $75 for each ultrasound. I am thankful that we are able to use my mom's car instead of driving the truck down there every time! At the first ultrasound they checked to see how many eggs are starting to grow in each ovary. The injections that I give myself, help all the eggs that will be used to grow the same size so one does not dominate all the others. On my one ovary, I have 16 eggs growing and my other ovary I only have 5. The doctor said that a healthy girl around my age usually drops about 10-12 eggs all together. He was very surprised how many I had on my one ovary. As I continue to give myself the injections, he told me that my ovary will be about the size of a grapefruit with all the eggs growing in it! The doctor said that he wants me to weigh myself and measure my belly every day till the egg retrieval. He said he just wants to make sure that my body won't hyper stimulate because of all the medication that I am injecting into myself.
June 30th--
Ultrasound #2-We were glad to hear that my blood work and eggs are still moving in the right direction. My eggs are still continuing to grow at a good pace. The doctor is thinking that we will do the egg retrieval on Friday the 6th, but we will know for sure when we go down on the 4th of July for our 3rd ultrasound. I have not noticed any weight gain or extra inches on my tummy yet. It is so surreal to me that within a week and a half, I will have an embryo placed inside of me! After almost 5 years of hoping to become pregnant, it is finally coming true!
July 4th--
Ultrasound #3- We headed back down to Logan around 7:30 for our appointment at 10:30. I usually like to give us 3 hours to get there just in case. We showed up for our appointment and I was able to meet the other doctor we work with; Doctor Amesse. He is the doctor that does the actual exams, but Doctor Richards does the "science" part of the In Vitro. We did another check on the eggs and the sizes. Everything still looked good. He said that we will come back on Friday to to the egg retrieval. We set up our appointment for Friday and we were on our way. The doctor informed me that we were to take a shot at exactly 11:00 PM that night (35 hours prior to the egg retrieval), not a minute earlier, not a minutes later, but on the dot exactly. We went to the Menan fireworks and hung out with Mikal's family (Because it was the 4th of July), and we tagged along our little cooler with the injection just in case. I checked everything before we left to make sure it was good to go and it was. It was already pre-loaded and all I had to do was insert it into my stomach.
The fireworks got over at 10:30 PM and we headed back to Rexburg behind the buttes. I told Mikal we probably wouldn't make it home and to stop probably around Beaver Dick so I could take the injection. He told me to just take it while we were driving (mind you it was in his BOUNCY pickup). It was 10:58 PM and we just passed Beaver Dick so I pulled off the cap and this is what I saw.....😟
I had a mini panic attack! When I took the lid off earlier, I must have put the cap back on incorrectly and bent the needle. Mikal pull over at his dad's work and looked at it. He told me to just to stick myself with it. (it was only a half inch needle and very tiny) So that is what I did. It wasn't bad going in, but coming out I had to move the need back and forth. Such a stressful time! In the end, everything was okay and worked out, but that was pretty dang scary!
July 6th-
Egg Retrieval day- This was a extremely big day. This is where we paid our dues to the doctor. The procedure cost us $9,200. I was not too concerned about the procedure. I was pretty calm. I was not allowed to eat from midnight the night before because they were knocking me out for the procedure. On the way down, I was so hungry! Mikal even tried to tempt me with food. 😦 (he forgot that I could not eat) The procedure did not last very long. I think it ended up being about 30 minutes for them to retrieve the eggs. Mikal said I talked way to much when I came to from the anesthesia. I guess that is better than being grumpy or crying. They showed Mikal where to give me shots in my butt. (he is super happy to be able to stab me... ha!) The doctor said he was able to retrieve 13 eggs from my ovaries. That is quite a bit! We were pleased. The doctor told me that I should be fine, but sore for the rest of the day. So I decided to go float Warm Slough with Sammi Naef when we got back to Rexburg that day, since she was in town. That was not bad. It was relaxing. That evening though, I was in a lot of pain. I was very sore and my insides were very swollen. I forgot to take my prescriptions so I couldn't get them filled till Saturday. I took a Tylenol and that helped, but my stomach felt very bloated. The doctor told me I need to check my weight and waist measurement every day to make sure I do not hyper stimulate my body. So far so good! I am just very slow at moving and my butt hurts from the shots Mikal has to give me for the next little while.
July 8th-
Call from the doctor- Today we waited for the doctor to call us and tell us how many embryos were able to survive. He said he was able to create 7 good embryos! That is such good news! He also told us that our embryo transplant will end up being on Wednesday. 😀 We are still taking things one day at a time. The process for IVF is very intense. I did not realize how much work it is on both ends! I have kept myself calm for the most part and tried not to stress. The medications that they give me, make me not feel 100% all the time, but I am able to still cook dinners which is good. Just getting up and down is very hard on me. My ovaries are also very swollen. My stomach sticks out a little more than I am used to because of the swollen ovaries. He said the one ovary is still the size of a orange and they normally are the size of a walnut.
July 11th-
Embryo transplant day- My days were definitely better on Monday and Tuesday. We awaited patiently for Wednesday to come. We made the trip down in the morning and left early again at 7. I was told I needed to drink 1 1/2 liters so that I would have a full bladder. They did not knock me out for this procedure. I had to take a muscle relaxant to help me relax. That it did! I was loopy! We stopped in Malad and Mikal had to give me a shot on the side of the road and then I took the pill. We got there and I felt like I had a full bladder, but I did not. So they made me drink more fluid. I felt like my bladder was going to explode with the gal giving me an ultrasound to show where they needed to place the embryos. It was not bad a first, but then the pain got worse. Mikal was there, so I made him fan me. I did not feel like I was going to pass out or puke, but it was not a pleasant feeling. It felt as if they were stabbing the top of my uterus. They had to place the catheter in and do a trial run to make sure everything was going to be good. They went and got the embryos and placed them. We got to watch it on the screen! Pretty neat the technology that we have these days!They would not let me get up right away. They had me stay down for a little while to makes sure things did not get moved around before I could get up and empty out my bladder. I was dying.
While we were waiting, the doctor gave us some news we were not expecting. We were expecting to be able to freeze some of the embryos, (as he suspected on Sunday) but found out that the two that he put in me, might be the only ones that make it. He talked to us about how the other embryos did not progress the way he wanted them to on Monday. If they do not reach a term called blastocyst by tomorrow (Thursday) then we only got 2 that looked good enough (which he placed in me). He was very hopeful with those 2 that he placed in me were good.
He told me to take it slow and rest. It is hard for me to sit still, but I force myself to. Mikal went fishing to take his mind off things. We will just have to pray that everything goes well for the 2 embryos and hopefully one more to freeze.
It takes a lot to prepare yourself for the procedures and fill your body with so many different fluids and pills.
(side note) I also went to see my Great Grandpa Gibbons' park in Logan and the house that my Grandpa Gibbons grew up in. I love the history of my family! (those pictures were in my July post)
July 12-
Embryo freeze- Unfortunately the doctor said that there were no other embryos that made it past blastocyst. The two he put in me he called the "superstars" and the other embryos were just the "benchwarmers" It is hard to know that with all that work, we were only able to get 2 embryos, but I am thankful beyond what words can explain. We have had help along the way and it has been so nice to be able to have the Lord close. If we want to do IVF again, we will have to do the whole process all over again. I think the doctor will want to do some testing on Mikal this next time around to see if we can boost up every chance of getting extra embryos to transplant.
We will now be waiting until July 20th to do a blood draw pregnancy test to see if my little embryos made it!
July 15-
Mikal has been giving me the shots in the butt since the transplant and boy do some of them hurt! There is some intense bruising on me. We will have to keep doing the shots till the doctor says I can take pills instead. The shot is a hormone that your ovaries naturally produce when you drop your eggs for pregnancy. Since they extracted my eggs, I have to give myself these shots to produce the necessary hormone to keep the embryos growing.
July 20th-
Pregnancy test #1- TODAY IS THE BIG DAY! So this day was a super LONG day. I went in at 8:10 in the morning and got my blood drawn. I texted the doctor and he said he hadn't heard anything around 11. So I texted again around 2:30 and asked if they heard anything more? They had not. So around 4 the doctor ended up calling the place that I did my blood draw and found out they had not started the blood work. He was not too happy about it and neither were we! They said they would get it done. Mikal called the office at 4:54 and wanted to know the status of the blood work. They said it would be done in 7 minutes. He was very nice on the phone, but very firm with, " I better hear from my doctor in a little bit. I will not wait all weekend." The doctor finally called with the news at 5:30. I AM PREGNANT.... BUT my HCG level was only 30. Super, super low. He said in clients that he has seen this low it either progresses at this point, or you miscarry. UGH. Mikal was so excited and then all worrisome again.. All day he was bugging me and texting me. It was driving me crazy. He wanted me to take another blood draw on Monday to make sure my number goes up. Great, now we have to wait another couple days.
July 23rd-
Pregnancy Test #2 - Monday morning, I woke up and got ready for the test. This time I was going to take the blood draw up at the hospital. My doctor was not too happy with the results on Friday and frustrated with them for taking so long, so he wanted me to go somewhere else. I was the first one in there again and by 11:00 my doctor called me. 😁 He said my number jumped too 100! That was great! He wanted it to double, and it tripled! That made him feel a lot better and me too! Mikal was so happy. The doctor wants to still keep checking on me. So he asked that I do another blood draw on Friday and then one on the 6th of August and if they both look good, then he wants to do an ultrasound around the 10th at his office. :)
July 27th-
Pregnancy Test #3- This time my number jumped to 700! Keep growing little one or ones!
August 6th-
Pregnancy Test #4 - Monday I went in to the hospital again to get my blood drawn. The doctor called later that evening and said by HCG level was now 17,000. That is good news! He will now do the ultrasound on Friday. We are anxious. We are excited things are still going good. Hopefully we will be able to see if one or both of the embryos survived.
August 10th-
Ultrasound- between 6 and 7 weeks pregnant--This will be my final visit with the fertility doctor and we get to do the ultrasound to make sure everything is going the way it should before he sends me on my merry way to meet with my doctor in Rexburg.
Throughout this journey, we have learned a lot. We have learned to live on very little. We always somehow have made ends meet each month which is a great miracle! (but now the medical bills are starting to come in...) This trial in our life has not been easy at all. By far the hardest ever. We pray a lot for help and for Mikal to be able to get jobs building projects for people. We have really had to cut back on how we used to live. We have always been frugal people, but from here on out we have to be extra frugal. We are thankful for modern technology to be able to have the chance to do In Vitro!
We appreciate all the love and help that people have given us through it all to make it happen! We have felt so loved! :)
If anyone is wanting to help by donating some money to pay off our medical bills that we have been receiving, we would greatly appreciate it! Please contact Mikal or I.
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