FET

December 2012

       It was the beginning of December and we were supposed to begin the process for the Frozen Embryo Transfer on the 6th. A frozen embryo transfer is the same exact procedure as IVF however because I already have the embryos, I only need to go through the second half of the process. You still have to prepare your body for the procedure with the same medication as before. The medication that goes into your stomach is not necessary in this procedure, but the intramuscular shots are still used. This procedure costs a lot less because it only requires half of the process and half of the medication. Because our RE was going to do the procedure free of charge, we only had to purchase the medication. We were both still pretty down since our devastating news. I wasn't sure that I really wanted to go through all of this again. It takes a pretty good toll on your body in all aspects. Physically, emotionally, spiritually, etc. I knew the only way we would be able to get our own child is to go through this again, but I had a rough time convincing myself this was the right thing to do. I want kids so bad, but I don't want to keep putting my body through this. We went to the RE on the 6th of December and got our calendar. I started the shots not long after the 6th. There were nights when we were administering the shots that I just cried. Not because it hurt so much, but because after all we had gone through before and it not working. I was afraid we were going to do all this again and end up in the same boat. It was a pretty low moment for the both of us and I had no desire to let Jake keep sticking me with needles in the hips, just so I could have pain for nothing. Jake wanted me to keep trying since this round was paid for and we had already purchased the medication. I mean really everything was already done except for a couple weeks worth of shots and the transfer itself. I tried to be tough and do it for Jake and our families, because at this point after all I had been through already, I did not want to go any further. Let's just say that between now and the day of transfer there were a lot of tears, and a lot of low days for me. 

January 2013

     January 10, 2013 was our embryo transfer day. I had made it through all the tears and pain and finally got to this day once again. We did the same process as before where they gave me a valume and let me wait a bit. We had decided before the appointment that we wanted to transfer two embryos since the first round failed. Transferring two would give us better odds of success. It also came with a risk of multiples, but we were willing to take that risk. They came to get us and put us in the room. Our RE came in and said that they had to thaw three embryos because one embryo didn't make it through the thaw. That left two embryos to transfer that day and two embryos still frozen. They were able to put the embryos in without a problem and again I sat there for about 15 minutes. They then let me go home. 

The two embryos that was transferred on January 10, 2013.

I went home and started my princess days once again. I do have to say that the princess days are amazing. Sitting on the couch or in bed and having my husband wait on me. This time Jake felt really good about the process. I was trying to prepare for the worst, since we already had a failed cycle, but hoping deep inside everything was going to work out. We waited another dreadful 11 day wait (1 extra day because of the weekend) to find out our results. 

      Our first beta (pregnancy test) was on January 21, 2013. Once again I had an early appointment at 8:30 a.m. They drew my blood and then the waiting game started again. I received a call at 2:00 p.m. and this time it was a nurse on the phone. She said "Congratulations Shala, you are pregnant!!" I was ecstatic. I was asking her, how the numbers were and if everything was looking good. She said that everything was looking fantastic. As soon as I got off the phone with the nurse I called Jake. I told him he was going to be a daddy! You could hear him get a little choked up on the phone. It was the cutest thing ever. He was so excited. Our families knew that we were going to try again and they knew that we were finding our our results this day, so I thought of a cute way to tell them we were pregnant. I called a florist and had them make up two sets of flowers that had blue, pink, and yellow flowers in them. On the card I wrote "I'm still very small, but I'm on my way. I'm very excited to meet you on my birthday." - Love, Baby Reynolds. After I got off the phone with the florist I looked up our due date on a fet due date calculator I found online. My due date was September 28, 2013. I always wanted a baby in September so I was so happy! I took a picture of the due date calculator and sent it to Jake. He replied with a smiley face. 

Due Date Calculator - Due September 28, 2013

After Jake and I got off work we met at the florist to pick up the flowers. The first thing we did was hug each other. He said I can't believe it finally worked! I had a perma-grin on. I couldn't stop smiling. We were the two happiest people in the world!

Flowers for Jake's Mom

Flowers for My Mom

We first went to his parents house. His Mom was sitting at the kitchen table with her back towards us. We walked up and put the flowers down in front of her. She said what are these for. Jake said your new grand baby wanted you to have them. She was so excited. She gave us both a hug and called Jake's Dad into the room. We then told him and he was really excited also. It was a fun little celebration. After a bit we went to my Mom's house. We walked in with the flowers and she knew instantly what was going on. She started jumping up and down and started crying. My Dad was working out of town at the time so we called him on the phone. We put him on speaker phone so both of us could tell him. He was way excited. After we told our parents we went to my Grandma's and told her. She started crying too. Everybody was so happy for us. We had worked so hard to finally get where we were and everyone was ecstatic. We then started to call all our brothers and sisters. It was an overwhelming feeling of joy and happiness all around. Our lives were truly finally complete. We knew there was still a long road ahead with the pregnancy, but everything that we had gone through was finally worth it!
    My RE called the next day to schedule our second beta test. They schedule a couple beta's to make sure your HCG numbers are increasing the way they should. They do this until your far enough along that you can actually hear a heartbeat. They scheduled my second beta test for January 30, 2013. The days between our first beta test and our second beta test was the best days of my life. I was so happy and so joyful. My emotions went from the lowest I could go to the highest they have ever been. I was just happy to be here and to be carrying a miracle. It was only a few days in, but I was already thinking of names, colors for the room, etc. I received a gift card to Barnes & Noble for Christmas so we even went there and bought some books to read to our baby / babies (I say babies because we transferred two embryos).

Grandma Davis purchased the whole collection of the Worry Woo books for our little one(s).

Jake and I purchased these books for our little one(s).

    It was now January 30, 2013, the day of our second beta test. I wasn't very nervous for the test, because our last one went so well. I again went in early in the morning. My RE called me about 1:00 p.m. that same day. She told me that my beta numbers decreased. When I asked her how much they decreased she said they were down almost to a zero, meaning I had miscarried. I literally broke into a thousand pieces. I called Jake and all I could say is, they are gone. God took them from us! God took our babies!! I finally calmed down enough to tell him what our RE said. He told me that he would meet me at the house. When I left work I called my Mom and told her they were gone and I had a miscarriage. She met Jake and I at our house. When we got home we just kind of sat there. I went through all the same emotions before but worse. I was angry, sad, frustrated, confused. All of the above. I wanted to throw something at the wall. I just couldn't understand why we have to work so hard to get a family and when we finally were on the right track it was taken from us. How would I be able to live with this fact that there is nothing that we can do about this and we are just going to have to move on. This was the worst day of my life.

February 2013

     The days after this wasn't the greatest. All I could do is cry. I wanted this so badly and I just get my heart ripped out every time I try. I prayed and prayed and I still have no answers. I just want answers. I want something besides heart ache. I was living a nightmare. I was living in hell!
    A few weeks went by and although I wasn't healed, nor will I ever be completely healed, it was getting easier to cope with our loss. Jake was by my side 100% throughout everything and he helps me the best way he can. We decided to schedule another appointment to find out what might be going on and to go over our options.
   We got to our RE's office and spoke to our RE. She talked about an issue that may have had a factor in our loss. She said that it isn't proven but some people seem to think that high levels of prolactin can cause a miscarriage. She said that my prolactin levels had increased substantially while I was pregnant and it was a concern of hers. Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to treat it before the miscarriage occurred. She told us that we did have two frozen embryos still and she wanted to try another round. She said that she was still optimistic and usually one out of every five women have miscarriages. She said that other than a genetic defect (which is what usually causes a miscarriage in a normal pregnancy), it could be that my uterus couldn't hold a pregnancy.We had checked this once before but she suggested that we check it again to make sure nothing had happened between the last check and now. She wanted to rule out everything it could be before going into our second FET. She said that she felt like the first one just didn't stick so she wouldn't consider that a miscarriage. Now that we had gotten the miscarriage out of the way and we were going to do all the testing she felt really positive about the second FET.
    After meeting with our RE, Jake and I discussed what she had told us. We actually felt really positive about moving forward with a second FET. We already went through every negative thing that we could possibly go through, sure enough luck had to be on our side right? We decided to call and schedule our second FET.

(To read about our Second FET procedure, go to the next tab at the top of the page)