Egg Retrieval & Our Little Embryos

We're so sorry it's been so long since we've been able to give an update we've been so busy. It all started the second week of August we had doctors appointments everyday from August 6th - 11th. On the 12th Jeremy and I moved into our new home and then the egg retrieval ended up being on August 13th @ 8:00a. The retrieval went great it took about one hour then we were sent home. That day was pretty good as for pain the following days after I was miserable, I semi hyper stimulated it wasn't as bad as it could have been. I felt that way for about 4 to 5 days. 

The day after retrieval Sunday August 14th - We received a fertilization report, they retrieved 25 eggs, we had 15 eggs that were good to inject with a single sperm, 

out of that 15 eggs 8 of them actually fertilized. 

Day 3 embryo assessment was Tuesday Aug. 16th - By this day the embryos needed to be between 6 &10 cells. 7 out of 8 of the embryos were where they needed to be at that point.

Day 5 embryo assessment / Freezing day was Thursday Aug. 18th- On this day three of our embryos were frozen at the blastocyst stage and they were still watching the other five in the lab and wanted to see if they would grow into their last stage of a blastocyst.

Day 6 they called and let us know that they froze only a total of 3 embryos. 

We officially have the beginning stages of our future babies. We have 3 embryos and we couldn't be more excited. We've never made it to this stage on our own and feel so blessed to have these 3 little embryos of ours waiting for us to transfer. (We can only transfer 1-2 embryos on transfer day and we're not sure how many we want to transfer at this point)

The next step is the surgery I mentioned about the fibroid's that need to be removed from my uterus. That surgery is scheduled for tomorrow Thursday August 25th at 10:00a. 

So I'll keep you posted on that. 

As for the transfer of the embryo, we'll know more on Friday after I have my transfer plan of care appointment with our IVF coordinator. This appointment will be about when I'll start the next round of injections and medications. We should also be getting a transfer date soon. 

I'll keep you all posted as we enter into this next step in our journey. We'd also like to add that after the transfer we aren't sure whether or not we will be sharing if the embryos took or didn't. We will enter that when we get there. There is so much that could go right and wrong and it will all depend on how we are doing emotionally and physically. This journey has been rough. rewarding and harder than we thought it could be. We are very optimistic but also very wary of the possible outcomes of our journey. May God be with us as we go through our next steps and may he watch over our little embryos and help them stay healthy as well strong and may he help us achieve a full term pregnancy with a healthy baby. May he give us strength to get through this no matter the outcome. 

We are truly blessed to have so many of you keeping us in your thoughts and prayers 

Thank you so much for supporting us and being here for us. 

With Love The Graham Family 

Trigger Shot Day

Alright we got the go ahead to do our Trigger shot tonight. This shot is going to do the opposite of what the ganirelix (suppressed ovulation) did. It's called Lupron and it will send in a sense a message to the brain to release the LH hormone to start ovulation. Exactly 36 hours from 8:00pm tonight we will have Egg retrieval. It's scheduled for 8:00am Saturday morning. After the Egg retrieval they will fertilize the eggs with the semen through the ICSI procedure (injection a single sperm into a single egg with a needle). After that we will get updates for five days after fertilization to see how our embryos are growing they will grow in the lab for those five days and then they will freeze how many embryos make it to day 5. 

We aren't doing a traditional IVF like I've said in previous posts we are doing a Freeze all cycle which mean after the five day growing stage in the lab they will freeze all the embryos and in about 4-6 weeks we will be transferring 1-2 embryos back into the uterus. I will still have to have the fibroids removed from my uterus sometime after retrieval and before transfer but I'll keep you all updated on that as it comes. 

We are staying positive and really can't believe we are doing this it feels so surreal But its happening and we couldn't be happier. Please keep us in your prayers that we have mulitple mature healthy eggs that will fertilize and that we may have multiple embryos make it to freezing and they will stay healthy and make it to transfer day. 

Thank you so much for all your love, support, and prayers 

Day One of Injections

Today I had my follow up ultrasound and blood work everything looked good and we were given the okay to start our first shots and jump into our treatment. So here we are officially starting our IVF journey and we have so many emotions but mostly we're excited and blessed that we are even given this opportunity. I have blood work on Aug 3 and multiple ultrasounds Aug. 6-8-9-10 and we are looking at having egg retrieval on Aug 12. We are praying for my ovaries to grow mulitple healthy mature eggs and that I don't get to uncomfortable during the next two weeks. Please keep us in your prayers! I'll keep you all updated as we go.

Woohoo Day One Of Shots