Infertility impacts approximately 15% of couples in America and is a result of abnormal functioning of the male or female reproductive systems. Because I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), I live with one of the most common causes of infertility in women.

To be clear, my goal with these posts is to be open. Since we began fertility treatments in 2017 I've done a lot of searching to find experiences and stories from women living with PCOS and/or going through fertility treatments, and so far I haven't come up with much. Because I want to hear about what other women are experiencing, I am sure that others out there feel the same. While I know this is my story, I hope that by sharing it openly I will help someone else through whatever they are experiencing.

If you follow me on Instagram or we’re friends on Facebook then you likely saw our big news that I shared earlier this week… Kurt and I are pregnant with a little girl! I am 9 weeks today, and we are so grateful for things to be going pretty well after our FET in the end of January. Let me catch you all up to speed!

How was the new protocol you were placed on for this FET? If you read my last journey update post, you know that we changed our protocol a bit for this second FET. We added some additional medications that were meant to help lower my immune system and treat for things that are maybe unseen or difficult to diagnose that could have contributed to our earlier miscarriages. To be honest, those new medications weren’t that bad! I ended up doing three Intralipids infusions, and besides not liking the look of an IV. under my skin, they really were not bad at all. And the Neupogen injections used such a small needle - I basically laughed the first time I did one that it was such a piece of cake compared to all the other ones I’ve done throughout this process! The medication I liked the least was the Lovenox injections - they left terrible bruises on my stomach and I was pretty uncomfortable when administering them.

What else did you do differently for this FET from your first one? The FET procedure is pretty straight forward, but there were a couple of things that Kurt and I did differently to prepare. First, (and yes, I completely acknowledge how bizarre this sounds) we smudged my uterus with a bundle of white sage. Yes. We really did that! Now I am not typically one to believe much in energies or crystals or things like that, but I definitely was feeling some lingering negativity in my body and mind following our miscarriage in October. I felt like all of this grief and sadness was bundled up and stuck inside of me. So I was willing to try anything to clear that out and make sure I felt like my body was clean and ready to receive this new little embryo. I won’t go into detail about the process itself (you can Google it if you’re really that interested), but I will say that while we were smudging, I repeated a mantra over and over to myself - that my body was capable and worthy of pregnancy. That repeating phrase lingered in my head and I was still saying it as we drove down to our clinic the morning of the FET. Do I think this addition is what made our transfer work? No; but I do think giving myself a positive thought to keep in my mind helped me remain more calm this time around.

Additionally, I also asked my clinic for a Valium to take the morning of our transfer. At our first transfer, I was an absolutely anxious mess. My blood pressure was much higher than normal, I felt like I couldn’t breathe, and I was just so nervous. So, this time around I asked for something to help ease that anxiety and help me get into a more relaxed head space the morning of. I took the Valium about an hour before the actual transfer procedure and it had a great impact! I felt much more calm, didn’t have those high blood pressure issues again, and when it was time for the actual transfer to happen, I felt like I could actually appreciate what was happening more than I did the last time.

Finally, I also was more open in asking for prayer requests from our church and our pastor. We have a new pastor who joined our church around the holidays and I emailed him shortly after the start of the new year to introduce myself and share our requests for prayer. Through our email exchanges, I learned that his family has also grown through assisted reproduction efforts, so he knew exactly what we were going through! He and I emailed back and forth in the weeks leading up to our transfer, and in an email I sent him the day before our FET, I was honest with him about how nervous I was about the process and the potential for repeating what had happened the last time around. He responded minutes before I was brought into the transfer room and I was able to read his email before the procedure began. Reading his message was another opportunity to repeat some positive words to myself and feel confident that my desires for motherhood would be answered.

Did you have any pregnancy symptoms during your two week wait, and did you test before your HCG bloodwork? For those of you unfamiliar with the IVF process, after a FET you wait for two weeks before going to the office for bloodwork to see if you’re pregnant. A lot of people will try to track their symptoms or will take home pregnancy tests during that time to try and figure out early if the transfer worked or not! This time, I did not really have many symptoms, and I did not test either (I also did not test after our first FET)! My breasts were a bit sore, and I certainly felt tired, but nothing more than what the progesterone I was taking would have likely caused. I also really tried to not track symptoms this time around because I was a bit obsessive after our first FET with some late night Googling to see if symptoms were medication or pregnancy related and it just caused me to feel nervous those two weeks. This time I tried to keep that calm head space and just accept whatever was going to happen.

Something that I did do differently during this two week wait was I gave myself a knitting project to focus on! I knitted the sweet little bubble romper pictured above for our “Little Pearl”. Kurt started calling her that around the time that she was the size of a pearl, and the nickname has stuck! We likely won’t name her Pearl for real, but it’s nice to have something to call her for the time being. Coincidentally, the name of the pattern I used to knit that romper is called the Pearl Romper, so it all sort of makes sense! The pattern is from one of my favorite pattern companies, Knitting for Olive.

How were your HCG numbers? I am not planning to share what my HCG numbers were. I think sharing those in our infertility community just leads to a lot of unnecessary comparison and worrying! What I will say though is that our HCG numbers this time around were the highest they’ve ever been for the three pregnancies now that I’ve had, and they did exactly what they were supposed to do over time! Our first HCG number was also higher than the goal number I was hoping for, which gave me so much hope for the rest of them.

How has early pregnancy been, and how are you feeling? To be honest, these first few weeks have not been the easiest! My clinic brings you in for ultrasounds starting at 5 weeks. So we had two positive HCG blood draws before I scheduled my first ultrasound. At that first 5 week ultrasound the goal is to see the gestational sac and the yolk sac. Going into that ultrasound I was absolutely terrified, to the point that I barely was up on the table before I started to cry a little bit. I was just so nervous about what we would - or would not - see! Luckily, the gestational sac and yolk sac were easily identified, and we were off to a great right start.

After that first ultrasound, my clinic continues ultrasounds weekly. At the 6 week ultrasound, the goal is to see the heartbeat. Again, I went into that ultrasound mostly terrified and almost crying! But we saw the heartbeat quickly during that 6 week ultrasound and my nerves were eased a bit. However, things took a bit of an unexpected turn in the days following that 6 week ultrasound when I started spotting over a weekend. I called my clinic’s emergency line and they were able to bring me down for an emergency ultrasound on a Sunday. I was expecting things to not be ok, but to my surprise, everything looked great! I was told to take it easy, and call them back if any more spotting continued.

On Tuesday morning a couple of days later, I started bleeding enough to fill a maxi pad and passed some blood clots about the size of my palm. Terrified and crying (again), I called the office and let them know what was going on. They brought me down for another emergency ultrasound right away. That type of bleeding was so similar to what it looked like when I experienced miscarriage for the first time when we were living in Florida, so I was convinced we were going to see the worst - no more gestational sac, no more yolk sac, and no more heartbeat. But again - I was wrong! Everything was ok and the heartbeat was measuring at a great rate. Following that ultrasound my doctor put me on full bed rest for the rest of the week - basically he said that if I couldn’t do it from bed, I couldn’t do it at all. I also began ultrasounds twice per week to monitor the embryo’s growth and heart rate, and to make sure that everything else in my uterus looked ok. We also made the decision to adjust some of my medications - stopping Lovenox, switching from Progesterone suppositories to pills - to limit any of those medication side effects that might have been exacerbating the bleeding as well. It was at the second ultrasound of that week that they finally identified the culprit - a subchorionic hematoma!

Since 6 weeks, I’ve had two ultrasounds per week. I’ll admit that going down and seeing our little one that often has really helped to ease my fear and nerves about this pregnancy. The subchorionic hematoma is shrinking, I’m still on modified bed rest, and the heartbeat and her growth has been right on track each time I’ve seen her. At 9 weeks today we’re starting the period of time where things went downhill with our first pregnancy following FET, so I’m doing my best to remain optimistic for these upcoming appointments. If all goes well next week I will graduate from my clinic and start seeing a regular OB/GYN!

In terms of pregnancy symptoms, the one I am experiencing most is fatigue. When the end of the workday hits I am just about ready for bed. Staying awake for my nightly Progesterone-in-Oil injection every night has really become a struggle. Other than that, I do have sore breasts, and some of my bras aren’t really fitting as well anymore. I also can smell everything and don’t feel too great after I eat beef so I’ve pretty much avoided that (other than when the craving for a cheeseburger hits and just won’t. go. away!). But other than that, I haven’t experienced much nausea! I’ve been craving vegetables and carbs most of all, so I’m trying to listen to my body and give it what it wants.

So that’s the update for now! I’m working on another post with my thoughts on pregnancy after miscarriage. March is Pregnancy After Loss Awareness Month, and I want to share with you all bit more of what that’s been like this time around. Look for that in the next few days!

Thank you so much for your well wishes and love - all three of us are certainly feeling it!