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I believe I have mentioned this before… my husband has 4 really good guy friends that he has known since he was a little kid and I have become very close with their wives. Through the years we have also become very close with the sisters (and their spouses) of two of the guys. We really have so much fun together and I think it’s pretty neat (and rare) that there is this group of guys who have been lifelong friends. Anyway- out of the 7 couples (including us) there are 5 of us who have had to seek medical intervention for conception. That’s pretty crazy. We are the only couple (out of all 7) who doesn’t have any children. We also all live in different areas so none of us went to the same Infertility Clinic.

The W’s got pregnant both times with the help of Clomid. The G’s went through a long run of IF treatments and finally got pregnant with the help of an IUI with injectable meds. The L’s were actually taking a break to save for IVF (after doing many months with injectable meds and timed intercourse) and had got pregnant on their own! Mrs. L was told she would never be able to conceive naturally because of the level of her endometriosis (she has had many surgeries for it). Then blamo. Pregnant. They are why we believe getting pregnant after failed IF treatments can happen because they are living proof.

When the R’s were trying for their first child, Mrs. R was on Clomid for a year with timed intercourse without success. They then tried an IUI with injectable meds. It worked! That was 3 years ago. They started to try for their second child this past July. They did a couple rounds of IUI with injectable medication without success. They then moved onto IVF. We all know what each other have been through so since I was the only one with “IVF experience” she turned to me – which of course was totally ok, we’re friends and I was/am more than happy to be there for her. She did the Long Down Regulation Protocol, which is what I did for our second IVF, where she was on birth control for a few weeks, then Lupron, then she got her period and started Menopur & Follistem on Day 3… same thing as I did.

At her egg retrieval (ER) they retrieved 51 eggs. You read that correctly.
Fifty one. 5 1.
HOLY.
CRAP.
At 3 days post retrieval she had 36 Grade A Embryos. Again, you read that correctly.
Thirty Six. 3 6.
Grade A = Perfect.
Whoa.

Since her embryos were doing so well, they decided that they would wait and do the egg transfer (ET) on Day 5 -meaning 5 days since they retrieved her eggs and fertilized them (they are fertilized immediately). They only transferred 1 Grade A Embryo. I didn’t ask why they decided to only transfer one because that’s such a personal decision but I do know that they were concerned with having twins since they already had a toddler at home. They went on to freeze the other 35 embryos. They aren’t sure what they are going to do with them all so for now they are on ice.

She had her blood test on Thursday but I didn’t reach out to her because I figured she’d let me know what the outcome was when/if she was ready.

Saturday morning she texted me. She was pregnant.

I knew she was pregnant. I had this feeling the entire time that it was going to work for her and I was so excited and sending her good baby vibes so when I got her text I wasn’t surprised to learn that it had worked.

What I was surprised about was my reaction. I already knew in my heart that it had worked. I knew that they had gotten their second miracle so I’m not sure why her confirmation of what I had already known rocked me to the core. My knees buckled and I just started to sob. Hubs wasn’t home (he had brought the garbage to the dump – yay country living) so I was alone while I was a puddle on the dining room floor. Our sweet sweet dog lay down next to me and licked my face while I tried to get a hold of myself.

I did not compare our experience and the R’s experience while they were going through their cycle because I didn’t want to make myself crazy thinking about the “why’s” but at that moment I couldn’t stop myself.

51 Eggs Retrieved…
IVF #1 I had 18 eggs. IVF #2 I had 20.

36 out of 51 Eggs Fertilized…
IVF #1 I had 10 out of the 18 fertilized. IVF #2 I had 13 out of the 20 fertilized.

Day 5 Embryo Transfer of 1 Grade A Embryo…
IVF #1 all of our embryos died by Day 3. IVF#2 I had a Day 3 transfer of 2 Grade B Embryos.

35 Frozen Grade A Embryos…
IVF #1 we had nothing to transfer… nothing to freeze. IVF #2 out of the 13 eggs that were fertilized, only the 2 that were transferred back survived. The other 11 died - we had no embryos to freeze.

She’s pregnant after her 1st IVF.
I’m not pregnant after 2 failed IVFs.

I picked myself up off the floor and got in the shower, where I got all of the crying out of my system (it was a long shower). I needed to pull myself together because we were going into the city (NYC) for my great uncle’s 100th birthday party. I had to get a smile pasted on my face, put all this on the back burner and get over it. Hubs came home and I told him the news. He hugged me for a long time, stepped back, kissed me and said, “I am happy for them and I know you are too. This is going to happen for us. I know it.” That was all I needed to hear to pull myself out of the funk.

Life is funny. You think that you have crap that you’re going through, that it’s so unfair and then you learn about someone else’s struggles and you think to yourself, ok well maybe it’s not all so terrible. There was a very bad car accident near my office yesterday. An elderly couple turned in front of a minivan. The elderly gentleman is in critical condition and the elderly woman passed away. The driver of the minivan, a 28 year old woman who was 8 months pregnant, also passed away (along with her unborn child. She had her 3 other children in the back of the van. The oldest boy is in critical condition while the younger two, 4 and 6, were unharmed and saw watched their mom die.

One of my co-worker’s sister passed away unexpectedly over the weekend.
My friend’s neighbor had an emergency C-section yesterday and the baby didn’t survive.

Right now – I have SO MANY things that I am thankful for. SO MANY things that I know I should not take for granted because there are many people who would give anything for what we have… good jobs, roof over our heads, food on the table, a loving marriage, a wonderful family, amazing friends, our health, money in the bank, reliable cars… not one of those things should be taken for granted. Yes there are things that I / we do not have. Yes there are things that I have written about on this blog that we want more than anything. But at the end of the day we are lucky and rich in so many ways.

Life is precious and in a blink of an eye it can all change. Hold close that which you hold dear and never take for granted what it is here today will be here tomorrow.