No More Shots!!!

Today was my last injection of progesterone!!!! I have to say that I have mixed feelings about this. I am thrilled that Dave won't have to give me a shot every morning but as with any newly expectant mother, I am always worried about how this shift may affect the baby. This is where trust comes in! I am privileged to have wonderful physicians that are very experienced. I know they wouldn't steer me wrong. And, I'm thrilled not to have a needle jabbing me every morning. Everything is still going extremely well. 10 1/2 weeks!!!!

After a little scare on Friday we were reassured that our baby is thriving! Here are a couple new pics of our little one...

The top one is the best for actually "seeing" our baby! The head is on the right. You can actually see two arms and two legs!

This one is measuring the heart rate which was 177.

We had our first regular OB visit today with Dr. Lown. He was so excited for us! He told us that he actually read the letter from Dr. Dodds twice!!! He told us that he believes everything looks fantastic and he feels that we are "in the clear" but would like to do one more ultrasound in 2 weeks to mark the end of the first trimester officially. I told him that I certainly didn't mind any extra ultrasounds. We are so excited that things are going well right now and we are feeling more and more secure every day. I was able to share the news with my co-workers today and that was a blast :) Everyone seems so excited for us! It's beginning to feel more and more real!

babymaj

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In Vitro #5

After discussing further options with Dr. Dodds, we decided that our best option was one more in vitro attempt with a fresh specimen instead of frozen. We were enjoying our 2008 and had decided that we would most likely wait for the next year to move forward on this, but, as we neared fall we realized our desire was too strong to wait any more. On Sept. 2,2008 we had our 5th IVF transfer with 3 fresh embryos! On Sept. 12 we had our first positive pregnancy test! Then a follow up on Sept. 16 that tripled! Sept. 26 was our first ultrasound! At this point I was 5 1/2 weeks and all you could see was a dot! Looks like we have one fetus! On October 6, we had our second ultrasound... we heard the baby's heart beat!!!!! We were then free to go to my regular OB. That appointment is in less than a week. It's really happening!!!! Our due date is May 24, 2009!!!!

In the beginning...

We have been on a journey to start our family since early 2005. After realizing that because of certain medical abnormalities our only option to conceive our own child would be through in vitro fertilization, we met with Dr. Dodds. Our first round of in vitro ended tragically at about 2 weeks post conception and we struggled through some dark times as we grieved the loss of our twins. In Jauary of 2007 we tried again with frozen embryos that we had gathered during the first in vitro process. We had the doctor place 3 embryos, none took. We chose to use our remaining frozen embryos (3 again) in July 2007, again, none took. Now out of frozen embryos we had the tough decision of what now?! After much contemplation we decided to give in vitro one more try. In October 2007 after a very traumatic egg harvest we created 4 more embryos and placed them on the 19th, again, no pregnancy. At this point we felt that we were going to have to stop trying in vitro. Not only is this exhausting financially but also physically and emotionally. In December Dave had some further testing done and it was found that he actually had a viable count! We were told for the first time that we might actually be able to conceive naturally! We began attempting immediately but by April realized that this still was not the answer that we thought it would be.