In 2008 I married the man of my dreams (referred to here as MBL-My Big Love). We decided to start trying for a family immediately, I was 23 (now 27) and MBL was 31 (now 35). We both believed that we'd end 2009 with a year of marriage under our belts and a baby in our arms. Well, our journey was not meant to be a short one. In July 2009 we were diagnosed with male factor infertility and began fertility treatments. We did three IUIs w/clomid and one IVF cycle in 2009, all were BFN. In 2010, we did 2 IUIs w/clomid (the second resulted in a chemical pregnancy) and one round of IVF. We got lucky and IVF #2 gave us our BFP!!! We welcomed our daughter into our family on May 25, 2011. We always loved the name June and while we were waiting for our miracle to arrive we felt like we were "believing in june", as in believing that some day we would be blessed with a miracle. Piper June is definitely that for us! We went through treatments for #2 in 2012 (2 IUIs and an IVF) only to end up pregnant on our own! Baby #2 is due to arrive in May 2013.
August 2012: fly to CC.RM for the one day work-up.
March/April 2012: IVF #3 (#1 for #2). BFN.
February 2012: 2nd IUI for #2: chemical, again? Positive on 3 tests and then AF arrives.
January 2012: 1st IUI for #2: chemical?
January 2, 2012: 1st official PPAF and repeat day 3 bloodwork. Officially able to start TTC #2!!
December 2011: Wean Piper to get PPAF.
May 25, 2011: Piper arrives via csection due to breech presentation. Bliss ensues!
February 14, 2011: Another ultrasound! Definitely still a girl!
January 15, 2011: MBL gets to feel baby girl move for the first time!!
January 10, 2011: our official anomaly scan shows a healthy baby still void of boy bits! we are told everything looks perfect!
December 21, 2010: ultrasound to "check things out" after two spotting incidents. Baby is still a girl and looks good.
November 27, 2010: early gender ultrasound at private clinic reveals it's a girl!!! (we will verify this at 20 weeks)
October 22, 2010: hear the baby's heartbeat on the doppler at home for the first time!
October 12, 2010: fourth ultrasound due to heavy spotting. Baby measuring right on with a HB of 157!
October 8, 2010: first OB appointment.
October 1, 2010: third peek at our bean! Measuring at 6w2d. Officially released from our RE :).
September 29, 2010: second peek at our bean! Heartbeat seen and heard. 92bpm.
September 24, 2010: sneak peek at our bean! Gestational and yolk sacs are seen :).
September 20, 2010: third and final beta-2554!! 18dp3dt (21dpo).
September 16, 2010: follow up beta! 506 at 14dp3dt (17dpo)!!
September 13, 2010: beta of 108 at 11dp3dt (14dpo)!!!
September 11, 2010: positive digi!!
September 2, 2010: ET of 3 embryos. 1 6 cell with less than 20% fragmentation. 1 5 cell with less than 50% fragmentation and 1 four cell with no fragmentation. Fingers crossed!
August 30, 2010: Retrieval! 11 eggs retrieved. 6 mature, 4 fertilized with ICSI. 4 embabies growing to day 3 or day 5! MBL ends up having second best count to date: 27 million with 63% motile. I give him a pat on the back for the good work!
August 19, 2010: Begin stims! Grow follies, grow!
August 16, 2010: I survived! AF arrives. Let's start IVF #2!
July/August 2010: Pre-IVF testing. Begin long lupron protocol at the end of July!!
July 2010: After chemical we decide to go forward with a shared risk program at new clinic.
July 4, 2010: Get faint BFP at 11dpo. Beta at 12 & 14dpo is only 5. Chemical :(
June 23, 2010: IUI #5. No trigger, 100mg of Clomid. Perfectly timed IUI on CD 17. We'll see....
May 2010: Meet with other RE in office, like him better, decide to do IVF #2 with them. Put down "deposit."
May 2010: Back to the RE we go!! Decide to try IUIs before taking the IVF plunge (again). BFN.
March-April: TTC on our own, no medical intervention. BFNs.
March 8, 2010: MBL has varicocele surgery. All goes well and we put him on Tamo.xifen to increase count.
February 2, 2010: Meet with new RE in big city three hours away. Says other RE is full of phooey and that I just wasn't stimmed long enough. He says he can get us KU. MBL turns 33 this month!
January 2010: MbL's sweet gpa dies and at our follow up appt our RE tries to blame our failed IVF on "potential egg quality issues." He's crabby, I'm crabby. I want another opinion!
December 31, 2009: BFN. UGH. Adios sucky 2009!!
December 21, 2009: Egg transfer of two perfect embryos, freeze the third.
December 19, 2009: Egg retrieval. Get 17 eggs, but only 7 are mature.
December 8, 2009: Begin stims! Woo hoo??
December 6, 2009: AF starts in the nick of time!
December 1, 2009: Cyst is actually developed follicle. Have it drained at RE's office and am told AF must start by December 6th in order to still do IVF in December.
November 23, 2009: Ultrasound shows a cyst, bloodwork shows elevated estrogen. Stay on lu.pron.
November 2009: Trip to NYC! And we begin our long lu.pron IVF cycle.
October 2009: Laparoscopy shows minimal endo (one spot). Consult with RE. He diagnoses us MFI and informs us that MBL's last three s/a's showed poor morphology, like only 1-4% normal forms. Sign up for IVF. Oh, and I turn 24!
September 2009: IUI #3. Schedule lap. Another BFN.
August 21, 2009: IUI #2. Turns out to be BFN.
August 2009: worst TTC month to date. Clomid makes me pissy. MBL and I get in the biggest fight of our marriage, while my parents are here, and to top it off, a surprise pregnancy is announced. Sad month.
July 21, 2009: first IUI. Actually leave our vacation to do it. BFN.
July 2009: follow up S/A shows low count, 8 million/mL. Head straight to the RE!!
May 2009: First round of clomid. Ovulate on vacation. Convinced our vacation will aid conception.
May 2009: HSG shows clear tubes and a textbook uterus!
S/A shows low count: 18million/mL
March 2009: Send MBL for a s/a after only three months of trying...
December 2008: get married and begin TTC. I ovulate on our wedding night, tis' providence that we will have ourselves a honeymoon baby!
September 2008: get engaged!
July 2008: Meet MBL in person. He gets there a half hour late, but well worth the wait!
June 2008: Meet MBL online (yes!). We start emailing each other!