our little squiggly & welcome iclw

Today we went in for our first ultrasound - a day earlier than planned due to some pretty bad cramping I've been having. I have been really terrified the past few days, so I was really happy to get it over with. Thankfully, the news is good.

We have one beautiful squiggly measuring a day ahead (6w6d) with a heart rate of 139bpm. I am happy. I am feeling more hopeful than I have in a very long time. I was terrified that we would see an empty sac, but I was also really scared we'd see more than one baby. Twins are so special and wonderful, but after losing Aminadav and Naava, a twin pregnancy is too risky for us. With a singleton, I hope I will have a good shot of carrying close to term. Of course we have a LONG way to go before we are back to the prematurity/PTL concerns.

I will do another ultrasound next Thursday and then we will take it from there. This was my first pregnancy-related ultrasound in Canada and it was weird to me that they didn't allow Y into the room, didn't let me see the screen, and would only give me results via my doctor. It felt really paternalistic to be honest. However, they did give me a nice picture of Squiggly. It feels so strange to say that I am feeling happy and peaceful, but it's true!

For those just joining us through ICLW, welcome! For a brief recap, we recently learned that we are rather unexpectedly though wonderfully pregnant after a long-shot Clomid/Prednisone cycle while waiting to start a new IVF. We started fertility treatments in August 2010 and since then we've done 6 IUIs and 5 IVF transfers (3 fresh, 2 frozen).

We've had many failed treatment cycles and several losses - two early miscarriages and the loss of our beautiful twins, Aminadav and Naava, who were born catastrophically early last March due to PPROM/PTL.

This blog has been an infertility blog turned pregnancy after infertility blog turned infertility blog many times over. Through the past few years, I've written quite a bit about unexplained infertility, the IVF process, miscarriage, high-risk pregnancy, and baby loss. The posts that are most meaningful to me are those about Aminadav and Naava, my lost hopes and dreams for them, and my grief.

Whatever brings you to our community, I am so sorry for your struggles. This is a sucky club to be a part of, but thankfully for us it is populated by many courageous, funny, resilient, and bright women.

Happy ICLW!

It's been a few months since I've participated in ICLW, and I really look forward to jumping back in!

For anyone who is here for the first time, as a quick recap, we did our first IUI (unmedicated) in August 2010. After a nice vacation to visit our families in North America in September, we did our second IUI (with Clomid) in October 2010. I over-responded with 9 follicles, but thankfully 2 were well ahead of the rest, so we were able to salvage that cycle by triggering a little early. I got pregnant that cycle but at our 2nd ultrasound, the baby had no heartbeat and I was diagnosed with a missed miscarriage.

At the end of December, we did our 3rd IUI, also with Clomid, which failed. During January, February, and March, we did IUIs #4-6 with FSH injectables. All of those cycles failed as well. After a 2 month break I am now waiting to start Lupron late next week to begin our first IVF cycle and I have lots of hope that we are getting closer to our elusive take-home baby! You can find a more detailed version of our story here.

Also worth mentioning is that we live in Israel - as North American transplants, navigating the Israeli system is always a grand adventure (and occasional source of unprecedented levels of frustration), though we are very blessed and grateful to have full infertility coverage as part of the socialized healthcare system here.

Welcome ICLW!

Welcome, ICLWers!

Ironically, I originally started this blog as a pregnancy blog when I became pregnant after our 2nd IUI. Stupidly optimistic, I thought the blog would be a great outlet for sharing our pregnancy with friends and family back in North America since we live abroad, officially catapulting myself head-first into the land of happy-go-lucky attention whoring Moms-to-be that we all love to despise. Long before we began to share news of our pregnancy or I went public with Journey to Baby G - The Puppies and Rainbows Version, we found out our baby had no heartbeat at our 7.5 week ultrasound.

After the loss, I felt a strong need to both write about my experiences for myself and to interact with others also grappling with infertility and pregnancy loss. This blog has obviously turned out much differently from what I originally intended, but I suppose our story also has ended up much differently than I had hoped just a few months ago. Already, I have benefited so much from being a part of this online community and I am daily humbled by the strength, grace, resilience and intelligence of the other women that populate it.

Currently, we are in the midst of our 3rd Clomid/IUI cycle. I was diagnosed with lean PCOS a few months ago, a diagnosis that was very surprising to me, since I definitely don't fit the classic PCOS picture. I am surprised by how different trying to conceive feels since the loss - perhaps because the loss is so recent.

On one hand, I am still shocked that we got pregnant at all to begin with. On the other hand, I am terrified that I will keep losing babies every time I get pregnant or that I won't get pregnant again. It seems like we keep falling on the wrong side of the statistics, so it is hard to have faith that one of these months it will finally be different. While I am excited to be back in the game, it is even harder to imagine myself pregnant with a healthy pregnancy and like everyone else, I hate not knowing how much pain it will take to get there or even if we will get there.

When we aren't obsessing over our future offspring, I bide my time in a research lab and Y operates on peoples' eyes with hands infinitely more coordinated and steady than my own.