WE'RE HAVING TWINS!!!!!!

Our first ultrasound was so amazing!!! You have to remember, that we've been through this "first ultrasound at 7 or 8 weeks" thing before.... It wasn't a good experience, nor the outcome that we had been hoping for or expecting. So this time around, we were as prepared for the worst as possible.

Altogether this pregnancy has been so different than my first. During my first pregnancy, I wasn't sick at all. I wasn't tired. I had pretty much absolutely no signs of pregnancy whatsoever besides that stupid pee stick that said positive. This time around.... I can not even explain to you just how plan out exhausted I have been, and its been since within a week of my transfer. All I want to do is sleep. I can never get enough sleep! Even if I slept 24 hours straight, I would probably wake up for 3 and want to go back to sleep for another 8. Its crazy how the tiredness comes from such a deep place within you too. I have been tired and exhausted before, but this tired is a completely different tired. Right now I like to be in bed no later than 9 pm. In the mornings at school I have 1st and 5th periods prep, which has been such a blessing. So for the past couple of weeks I haven't been getting out of bed till around 7:30 am or later. And then I am running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get out the door to make it to school by the time the bell for 2nd/6th period to start... Honestly, it hasn't been a good habit to get into, but I plan on breaking it soon! The other symptom I have had is being hungry! I have to eat just about a full meal every 2-3 hours or I get horrible stomach pains. So i'm constantly eating something to make that not happen. I know my students have noticed, and i'm sure their probably thinking "whoa lady, you can't wait to eat that oatmeal until lunch?" Ha! Oh well though, I have to do that or i'm sick. I have also had some nausea at night time. Its while I am sleeping, so I haven't been sleeping the best the past week and a half or so. And lastly the vomitting.... Thankfully I have not had too much of this, twice so far is all. I hope this remains on the DL, because no one likes to be doing that.

Our first ultrasound appointment wasn't until later in the afternoon, so Tyker and I had another dreadfully long day of waiting. We had to drive separate to the clinic and I had gotten there about 10 minute early. On my way, I called Tyk to make sure he was on his way and he didn't answer.  I called again like 5 minutes later, no answer. So again I called. I didn't want him to think that it was an emergency, but I was getting angry and I knew he was getting my phone calls. He has an apple watch... so my phone calls were literally ringing on his wrist. After about 5 calls, Tyk finally called me back. From there, no I probably wasn't as nice as I could have been, but I was really stressed about the situation and I just wanted to make sure he was going to be on time. And we were! I signed into the front desk, and was called back to the exam room shortly after. I got all prepped and ready to go, and we waited for the nurse practitioner Anne Marie to come in. She took longer than normal, and I knew this was going to happen. When we were walking back to our room, she was just walking into the exam room next to me. Tyk couldn't sit down, and kept pacing back and forth. I told him to just sit and be patient, and he's said "No I can't sit. I need to stand. Where is she?!! Why is this taking so long!" By the time Anne Marie came in, we had only been waiting maybe five minutes. Both of our anxiety was through the roof at this point, and all we wanted to see was that little flutter of a heart (or two). Anne Marie had asked me how I was feeling, and I told her I had been really tired and getting more and more nauseous. She clarified with us that we had transferred two and then said "I'm going to get this ready and in position and then I will turn the scream for you to see." I remember taking a deep breath and waiting for her next response. She then said "well there is definitely two." As she pushed the screen in our direction to see the ultrasound, she said "Are you ready for twins!" I immediately started crying as I saw the two flutters of heart beats on the screen. Tyk grabbed my arm, and just kept saying "wow, look at that." in such a sweet soothing voice. Anne Marie measured both of our babies and we got to listen to each of their heart beats and recorded one of them. She then looked at me and said "Is this okay?" I must have had a weary face. I just told her I was so overjoyed. I explained to her that the last time we had been through this we never saw a heart beat, and that I was just in aww of the situation. It worked out that the day of our ultrasound was one day short of our two year mark that we went in for my D & C the first time around. She then finished up the ultrasound, printing us out a few copies of each baby to take home with us. We were then instructed on when our next appointment would be, and Anne Marie explained to me that this appointment would be with Dr. G. She would give me all of my medical records and I would be graduating from the fertility clinic this day! This is wonderful news, but also a little bittersweet. I love the Utah Fertility Center. I love my doctor there, and all of the staff that I have worked with throughout this experience. They have all taken such good care of me, and I just hope to get the same care at my regular OBGYN.  I'm glad to be graduating from UFC so soon after my very first visit. And as much as I love them... I hope I never have to go back! But, in the case that I do I'll know exactly what I'm getting myself into and that they truly care about me and my situation.

To see our BABIES  (that's plural, I can't believe it!) healthy and growing was such an amazing experience. Tyk likes to kid around and say we got a two fur, or a BOGO. He says we bought one and got one free! Or it was a Two fur One deal. Its been a good joke around here! We are so excited about this next journey that we are starting on, and are just praying that everything continues to go well. Our next appointment is this coming week and it can't come soon enough. My 40 Week due date is June 1, 2017, but twins tend to come about 4 weeks early so we're shooting for around May 4, 2017.

Thank you all for continuing to read our story! We still can't believe we are going to be a family of 4... but could not be more grateful for this opportunity! Our lives our truly in Gods timing. I know first hand how hard this is to understand, but when it does happen you will understand exactly why it took so long.

The updates will keep coming, maybe slowly.... but surely!

We love you all, and once again thank you for all of your love, prayers, and support!!!

Love,
Shandee

Transfer Details

So.... Lets talk about the transfer.

From the start of this whole journey, Tyker and I had both had the idea of transferring two embryos. We just felt like why not, I mean, we're going through this whole process... Why not give ourselves the best chance possible. And we didn't mind the idea of having twins. Well throughout the whole process, this decision that we felt so confident about swayed back and forth from "Theres no way that we can do two", to "Maybe we do do two." Tyker started thinking about the financial aspect of it all. He talked to me one day about how could we afford twins, and what happens if I end up not being able to work, will we be able to afford our house. There were so many concerns going through his head, and I felt them too! My thoughts on if to do two or one were different though. I was so worried about the egg quality that we would have, if we would get any embryos at all, and if we would have any to freeze. 

When we went in for our retrieval, my doctor had told me that I had done everything I could do at that point, that my job was done. She then told us that she was expecting to get 4 embryos from me. This was like a huge slap in the face... I remember thinking to myself, "out of all of the follicles that are ready to harvest... I'm going to get 4. I don't mean to sound ungrateful for the 4 that she expected, because it only takes one to make a baby, but I was so discouraged. There was no guarantee that any of those 4 would be viable embryo's, and I focused on that. We went through with the transfer and got 15 follicles retrieved. So then again I'm thinking... out of 15, we're going to get 4 that will fertilize properly? That day they combined the eggs retrieved with Tyker's sperm, and the waiting began. How it works is you do your retrieval and then you go home. The next day the clinic calls you with a fertilization report on your eggs, and then you don't hear anything for two days until you go in for your transfer. On our day three report, we ended up getting pretty good news! They want to see the embryos have between 6-8 cells by this day. We had 9 eggs out of our 15 that had progressed and began to fertilize and develop cells. Out of the 9, we had 1-5 cell, 1-6 cell, 4-7 cells, 3-8 cells. We were stoked with the news and it was such a relief that we had some babies in the making! By day 3 after retrieval, I was super nervous to find out the embryo quality report. At this point, I knew that we had eggs that fertilized but what if they aren't good enough quality to attach and create a baby? Yes, I know, I worry about every little thing, but thats just how I work. 

Transfer day came and Dr. G came in to the room with our embryo report. She told us that we had 4 embryos that looked just about perfect, and three other embryos that were trying to catch up. She then asked us if we had decided if we were going to transfer 1 or 2. 2 is the max amount that she told us that she would transfer.  I told her that we thought we knew but now we're not sure. Dr. G then began to going into the differences between transferring 1 verses 2. She told us that if we transferred 1 that we would have a 60% chance of pregnancy. She told us that our chances of miscarriage were this amount, which was lower than 10% i think. She talked about pregnancy complications, and risks to baby and momma. She then told us that if we decided to transfer 2 embryos that we would have a 70% chance of pregnancy, 50% chance of twins, and a 5% chance of triplets. She talked about all of the same risks and complication possibilities. With each of them, the percentages of risk went up about 10%. Dr. G then told us she would give us a few minutes to talk about it, and her and my mom left the room.  Tyk and I started discussing each possibility. He told me at this point that he wasn't worried about finances with twins, that we would work it out and its not something we should stress about now. We talked about what if we transfer 1 and it doesn't take, and the same thing even with transferring 2. We talked about the risks of each. This was the scariest part. We have already been through a miscarriage, and other complications with have a D & C. Did we really want to increase the risk of all of that happening again? We talked about transferring 2 and possibly having Premies and the challenges that our sweet babies would have to overcome. And we talked about the percentages of becoming pregnant with each option. I finally asked Tyk... "What are you feeling, what do you think we should do?' He said "I feel like we should do two." I then told him that I felt the same way. We talked about how we have come this far and gone through all of the shots, appointments, expenses, stress, tears, why wouldn't we give ourselves the highest chance possible for pregnancy, and we are willing to take any miracle that Heavenly Father has in store for us. My Mom came back into the room and I told her we had made our decision, and then asked her what her opinion was. She said the same thing, after all of this I would want to give myself the best chance possible. Then Dr. G came back into the room with a big smile on her face. She said "So what did you decide." I told her we had decided to do 2 and asked her if she thought we were crazy. I remember her saying "Oh no! I think that is great. Have you seen our hall of fame, we do 2 all the time. I didn't give you the option to do 3, this when its crazy, and nothing good can come from that." I LOVED this answer, she said exactly what I needed. 

This decision was super stressful and scary for both Tyk and I. This was our potential future that we had to decide right then and there. We both felt like it was the right thing to do, and the rest was up to God in if we were going to be blessed with 1,2,3, possibly even 4 little babies or no babies at all. We did the transfer and Dr. G was sure to ensure me that the embryos were right where they needed to be and that they couldn't fall out. HA! I though that was great news.... you never know what could happen. 

The rest of our embryos were able to be frozen, and the our three that were tagging along were part of the freeze! We have a total of 5 embryos that are waiting for us for a later time. We are so grateful and blessed to have had our very first round of In Vitro Fertilization work for us. 4 in 10 cases take the first IVF cycle resulting in a pregnancy. I don't even have words to describe how grateful I am to be within that 4...   Thank you, thank you, thank you, for all of your prayers that have been sent our way through this process. We love you!

Another update from our first ultrasound will be coming TOMORROW!!!! Stay tuned for the update.

Thanks for reading!

Love,

Shandee 

WE'RE PREGNANT!!!!!

I'm finally getting around to doing an update! I am SOOO beyond tired all the time, that all I want to do right now is sleep… So I've had good intentions on writing an update for the past week or two, but other things have taken priority! 

We had our first blood draw to see if we were pregnant on September 23rd! It was at seven in the morning and this was the longest week ever leading up to the appointment. I had been calm the week before, but this week I had massive anxiety and could not do anything to get my mind off of the situation. I was pretty crampy all week and as each day went on I got more and more tired. I could tell something different was going on in my body, but I didn't want to get my hopes up. I had never done In Vitro before so I didn't know what to expect as far as the aftereffects went. I just knew that if I wasn't pregnant…that I was about to have a wicked cycle ahead! 

So we did the blood draw and we told the nurse to just leave the results on my voicemail. We wanted to listen to the voicemail together, and knew that if they didn't leave a voicemail that it would be hard to get a hold of them later on that day. After I got done with school I had an appointment to get my nails done. The voicemail was sitting on my phone eagerly waiting for us to listen to it. Everyone I had talk to that day told me what will power I had for not listening to it. I would just explain to them that Tyker and I had gone through this whole experience together and we wanted to find out together as well. And… Who would want to find out bad news alone? Once I got home from my nail appointment Tyk wasn't home yet. So I patiently waited pacing back-and-forth! Once we were both home, I told Tyker that I wanted to record us listening to the voicemail. He said "What if it's bad news?" I told him that I had already thought about this, And then he replied "Well then we just deleted video I guess!" So we set up the phone to record and we sat on the couch to listen to the voicemail. I attach the video below, see you can watch it if you'd like!

We had told our families earlier in the week that no matter what the news was on Friday, that we were going to take time to tell them. Secretly we had plans on how we wanted to tell them if the news was good. If the news was bad, we were just gonna call and tell them the news was bad. Once we found out that it was good and that we were pregnant, we had a busy night ahead! First we headed over to Tyker's parents house. His dad Gregg's birthday was the week before and we had planned on telling the family with a gift for his birthday. When we were pregnant the first time, it was around Gregg's birthday as well. We decided the first time we were pregnant, that we were going to tell him with a football jersey onesie of his favorite team. When we miscarried, we wanted to get rid of that dumb jersey but we didn't. So for the past two years it's been in the top of our closet out of sight out of mind. Well… We decided we wanted to do the same idea, so we unburied the Jersey and got it ready in a box with a cute saying. It said "GRANDPA! You better make room in your chair, we've got lots of games to watch next season!" Check the picture out below!

Well, Robin and Gregg weren't home, so we were off to the next stop, my mom's work! She works at the IRS in Ogden so before we jump through loopholes to try to get in, we walked around the parking lot to see if her car was there. It wasn't… So we decided to head to my sister Karli's house. I bet you can guess, she wasn't home either. At this point I was a bit discouraged and told Tyk that we should just go home kind of in a kidding way! We were hungry, so we stopped at Arby's for some dinner! We then made our way to my moms house and guess what she was home!

By this time it was about 8 o'clock so it was dark outside. We snuck to the front of the house and rang the doorbell. I had made a sign that I was holding up that said Maca round three!!! So when the first grandbaby BrynDee was born she started calling my mom Maca so now my mom is known as Maca Lisa! Tyker was recording as my mom opened the door, and she didn't know who it was going to be at her door at 8 o'clock at night so she was peeking out until she realized who it was and read the sign. she said "ARE YOU KIDDING!" as she swung the door open to hug me. You can see the rest below I attached a video!

We tried my sisters house again on our way home from my moms. She was home this time and we decided to do a similar sign to what we did for my mom. As we ring the doorbell I heard BrynDee say "Mom I got it!" This was perfect I could then tell BrynDee to go get her mom, but that's not what happened… My sign wasn't up when Karli was the one that answered the door! She was on the phone looked at the sign and said "you're pregnant I knew it I knew you were!!" This video is posted below too!

We then made our way home but had one last stop on the way. To pull the gift off for the rest of the family, Tyker had told Robin and Tage that we had gotten a t-shirt for Gregg for his birthday online. Tyk made up this awesome lie to cover up the real gift. He told them both that we found a shirt that said "Vintage made in 1961 all original parts", in a Harley Davidson type of way. They totally believed it, so that's what they were expecting when Gregg opened the gift. The whole family knew that we had done the blood test that morning, so Tyk had to make it clear that we had decided not to listen to the voicemail until we went to bed that night. We just told them that we wanted to enjoy our Friday night and we would listen to it at the end of the night, which was another fib… But we wanted it to be a surprise! So Gregg began to open his present and as soon as he did Robin peaked over and saw the sign that was in there saying GRANDPA! She starting making some noise and Tage and Kyla (my cute soon to be sister-in-law) jumped up to see what the big deal was! Tage yelled "YES!", Kyla did a cute dance, Gregg started tearing up (which is common for him) and Robin made her way over to us for hugs! This also was caught on video, and posted below! 

Like I had posted in my previous blog post, how I was going to surprise our family with our pregnancy had always been a big deal to me. And now that that experience has passed, I can say that it was absolutely perfect! I'm so happy we got it all on video as well. Now I can share that with our baby, and look back on that memory forever! 

I have so much more to tell, and another post will be coming soon. Thank you for your patience with me and all of your support!

Love, 

Shandee