Surgery

Last Sunday, March 15, Bryce was very sick with throw-up and his stomach was hurting. I was babysitting Tawni and Ty at that time and so I took off back to Logan that afternoon to take them home. I kept checking in with Bryce to make sure he was doing Ok. Well, all the feedback I was getting from him was "my guts hurt". I wasn't too worried too much because Bryce's guts hurt quite often. Around 8 pm that night he calls me to tell me that Brad (bro-in-law) is going to take him to the emergency room. So, I started to get a little worried, but Bryce told me to wait till he found something out. Brad and Bryce sat in the waiting room from 9 pm to 12 am. Finally they got into see a doctor. He came in and said I am almost positive you have an appendicitus.

This is when Bryce received his "First Ever" CAT scan and IV. I arrived at the hospital around one o'clock. Bryce received a preisthood blessing from two of his friends (Jared and Jarom). They also gave him some pretty good drugs to take away the pain. We finally got into a room at 3:30 am. The nurses came in and out all morning making sure Bryce was fine. I had to sleep on a crappy fold out chair. Yet, I maybe slept for one hour! The whole morning I kept thinking, " I really wish I had some of Bryce's medicine to help me sleep. And I really want to go lay by bryce on the big hospital bed that is soft and warm." Funny what your mind thinks up when you are sleep deprived.

Bryce went into for his "First Ever" surgery on Monday morning at 8:30. He did a great job and it only took about 45 min for the whole procedure. He had a very infected appendix, but they got it in time. I am glad that he is feeling better. I have had three surgeries myself, but I never realized how much you can worry about someone when they have surgery until I was sending bryce into surgery. The best part about the whole thing was the time we got to have him home with us last week. It was nice to have him there in the mornings. I am thankful for my husband. He is a good friend and father and Cooper and I are blessed to have him in our lives. Love you Bryce!

I want to thank Roger and Marilyn for calling to check up on Bryce. And thank Carrie for calling and asking him questions about how he felt and then making him go to the hospital...Thank you Brad for taking Bryce to the hospital and staying up all night with him and keeping his worried wife informed...Thank you Jared and Jarom for giving him a blessing and being there for him...Thank you Jacqui for watching Cooper while I was up at the hospital with Bryce...and thank you family and friends who called or texted us to ask about Bryce....we have the best family and friends! Thanks for all you do!

The Moment of Truth

On January 25, Bryce, Cooper and I went down to the clinic at 8:30 am to have my blood drawn. This was our pregnancy test. I was so sick (nerves) on the way home. I didn’t say a word almost the whole time. At 12:30 that day, the nurse called and told us that we were pregnant. We were so excited, emotional, and thankful for this blessing and miracle that has happened.

Our due date is October 2. They said that my numbers were really high on my blood work. Anything over a 100 is pregnant and I was at a 400.

We are very excited, yet it still doesn't feel like I am really pregnant. Bryce and I feel very humble. This is a blessing that has taken 7 years to happen, and as you know, it hasn't been easy for us. While I am happy to be pregnant, I have also been on the other side of the spectrum and I know how if feels to have infertility and all that goes along with that trial. It is a difficult thing to go through and I want to make sure that I am sensitive and thoughtful about those who are struggling with infertility. Bryce and I know that for some reason, we are being blessed with this opportunity right now and we are so thankful to our Heavenly Father. We are so grateful for the things that we have learned along the way, and we know that we have much more to learn.

The Big Week For Us!!

Our family and friends had a huge fast on Sunday, January 4th for us. I know that there have been thousands of prayers offered on our behalf and we have been blessed by everyone’s faithfulness and support.

January 8, (Egg Retrieval) we got to the clinic at 7 am. They brought me back, put a gown on me, and started an I.V. They gave me medicine that made me forget what happened. I do remember, however, the doctor putting a huge sponge up inside me three times to clean me. This hurt but that is all that I remember. Bryce got to watch the entire procedure. He said that they would go up with a very long needle. They would stick it into each follicle and pull out the egg and liquid. He said that I would wince every now and then and that I kept trying to close my legs. They had Bryce give them a sample and then they looked through his sperm, picked the best ones, and injected them into the mature eggs. It took me a while to wake up from the drugs and I threw up as soon as we started driving. But, I slept for the rest of the day.

We later found out that they retrieved 21 eggs, 16 were mature, and they were able to fertilize 15 of them.

I also started the “dreaded” progesterone shots this night. These shots have long, thick needles and the progesterone is thick. These have to be given in the muscle, which is in the hip. This helps the lining of the uterus stay thick, so that the baby stays attached.

January 10-the embryologist calls and tells us that all 15 of the embryos are dividing and doing well, so we would be coming in on Tuesday for the Embryo Transfer.

January 13- we go to the hospital for the Transfer. They said our embryos were “poster child embryos.” Again, I am placed in a gown and then they gave me some Valium to help me relax for the rest of the day. They showed us the little embryos up on the screen before they put them in my uterus. They implanted two. You cannot see embryos with the naked eye. The transfer went smoothly and I didn’t feel a thing. I went home and slept the rest of the day. I was on bed rest for three days, so that the embryos would stay attached.

Lots of Appointments

Sorry about all the detail, but I want to have it all down for journal purposes down the road;

On October 15, we had our second appointment with Dr. Hatasaka. We brought back all of our results. We discussed our options and he told us that we had “unexplained infertility”. We decided to do in vitro which over the past two years had a 60% success rate there at the U of U. We found out that artificial insemination had a 17% success rate. Normally when a couple would come to the clinic, Dr. Hatasaka would try artificial insemination with chlomid first. But, we had already done this four times with no luck.

Over the next five weeks, we started preparing by:

Blood work (jenn) tested me for my blood type (O+) and to make sure I still had the rubella shot active in my blood (which I did); it took the nurse four times to find my blood veins. I do not like people to take my blood because of that reason....it makes me sweat and feel uneasy.
Semen Back up and Store (bryce) ; just in case something went wrong on the day of the egg retrieval.

On November 22, I had my first ultrasound with Dr. Hatasaka. I had 22 follicles that were looking great. We also did a practice transfer so he could measure how far up my uterus was. I also started taking birth control pills to help regulate my body. Timing is everything with this in vitro, so with birth control, they can direct when things happen. I continued taking the pills till December 20.

On December 14, I started taking my first injection, which is Lupron. Lupron helps my eggs to stay up in their follicles, so they would not release like a normal cycle. I did not notice any side effects to the Lupron.

On December 23, we had our second ultrasound with Dr. Gibson. The doctors trade off weeks, so they can have some time off during the holidays. Anyway, he was kind of a weird fellow, but he told me that everything was looking good.

On December 29, I started two more injections, FSH, which would over stimulate my ovaries and make me produce lots of eggs. And Repronex, which also helps with the stimulation. So, every morning I was taking 2 shots in my leg and one in my stomach. For the most part, these shots were ok. There was a time or two that I would hit a vein in my stomach or leg and then it would bruise up.

As far as side effects, I was extremely emotional. However, I am pretty sure that it was not just the medicine, but anyone going through all this stuff, would be emotional. There are just so many things to deal with and my mind would not stop. There are so many things that have to go right to get pregnant and there were so many steps that we had to take. It just seemed like my thoughts were scattered in a hundred different directions.

The Process

Many of you know that Bryce and I have been married for over eight years and trying to get pregnant for seven of those years. We tried many infertility treatments, such as chlomid and artificial insemenation four times. We did all the testing and blood work and everything seemed normal. Well, we decided to quit all that stuff in Summer of 2004. We turned in our adoption papers in November and our family was blessed with Cooper in April. Cooper has been the greatest thing that has ever happened to us. Looking back, we would go through all that again to get our special little boy to our family. It's funny how Heavenly Father's plan is different for each of us. But His plan is perfect and we just have to have faith in Him.

Last July, Bryce and I decided that we would go down the infertility specialist at the University of Utah and start the whole "process"again.

In July, I set up our first appointment with Dr. Hatasaka, whom we had heard many great things about.

On September 10, we had our first appointment. We sat down with the doctor and went over all of our medical history. He looked through our charts from Dr. Fowers and asked us lots of questions. This took a little over an hour. He decided that since it had been 4 years since we had done any testing, that we should do it over again. So, for the next five weeks, we did the following tests:

Blood work (jenn) ; they tested my hormones for FSH and also to make sure I wasn’t a carrier of cystic fibrosis; they popped my blood vessel and my entire elbow and half my arm was black and blue for weeks
HSG Exam- (jenn); this takes place at the hospital; they basically are putting dye into my fallopian tubes to make sure there is no blockage; they do this while I am laying under an x-ray machine; very painful procedure
Semen Analysis (bryce); everything came back normal;
Hamster Egg Test (bryce) this test consists of having 10 hamster eggs flown from Chicago to Salt Lake; Bryce’s semen is placed on them to see if they can penetrate the eggs (hamster eggs are the closest eggs to human eggs) ; on average, 2 sperm with penetrate each egg; Bryce had 8 sperm that penetrated each egg

Again, everything came back normal, as we expected. So, it was back to the drawing table for us and the doctor. I will be posting the next 3 days!