We have big news: I’m 11 weeks pregnant and it’s a boy!!  Our estimated due date is August 1st.

Here is a picture of him as a hatched blastocyst.  At that point, he was just a ball of cells.

On 11/23/14, I went in for my blood test and it was positive!  On 12/15/14, I had my first ultrasound, which confirmed that there was something growing inside.  He had a strong heart beat and was just under a centimeter long.  If you can’t tell, the embryo is that little bean-shaped thing hanging from the top of the black circle.

On Friday, I had my 10-week ultrasound and the little guy waved to me!  He has 4 limbs and actually looked like baby. This is the side view.

We also got a front view with all his limbs showing.  Again, there was a strong heart beat and he had tripled in size over the last 3 weeks!  No wonder I’ve been feeling so fat.

For those who are interested, I thought I’d write a little about our year-long baby project. Don’t read this part if this stuff grosses you out or if it’s TMI.

It all started last January (2014) when we decided to start trying for #2.  I went back to PFC (the clinic where we got help for KK) and my doctor said that we wouldn’t have to change the game plan.  The problem that I have with conceiving naturally is that my pituitary gland is lazy and doesn’t produce the hormone that signals the release of the egg from my ovaries.  So, without medical intervention, we would still be child-less.

We started with IUI, which is the least invasive method that involves ultrasounds to figure out when my follicles were mature and taking medicine to help the mature egg get released.  That’s how we conceived KK.  Well, after 4 failed attempts, my doctor advised us to go to the next step, which was IVF.  He said the reason why IUI wasn’t working was likely due to the age of my eggs and that most would not survive because of genetic problems.  Essentially, each time we tried, I miscarried because of a genetic problem. I took a long break and it happened to coincide with our trip to Hawaii.  It was a GREAT time to be off meds and to be able to eat and drink freely.  I’d consider that my last hurrah.

We started the IVF process in the summer after I took a month off of meds and intervention.  This process was WAY more invasive and costly.  We had to go through a consent and counseling process before I could even order my meds.  The meds included lots of injectables plus the oral meds that I was already taking.

The first step was to get my eggs to grow.  I had to get all these hormones injected every night.  Fortunately, Jesse was able to do all the injections and most of them didn’t hurt too much.  It was just an intense couple weeks of at least 2-3 injections in my belly per night and a giant needle one in my butt the night before the eggs were harvested. I had at least 5 ultrasounds and blood draws throughout this month to monitor the progress of my follicles.  By the end of the process, I was pretty uncomfortable because it was like carrying two sacs of marbles in my abdomen.

On 9/9/14, they harvested the eggs (I was sedated) and they retrieved 35 eggs!  Whoa.  I guess my supply is not the problem.  I was so bloated for the following week and looked 16 weeks pregnant.  This was probably the worst part of the whole process. Once the oocytes were harvested, they were fertilized in the lab and over the next 8 days, they were each analyzed and given a rating.  By the end of the 8 days, we had 11 good embyros to biopsy.  That’s a crazy attrition rate.

The next step was for the genetic testing to be done.  They biopsied each of the embryos to check for genetic abnormalities.  All the embryos that had anything other than 46 chromosomes were discarded.  We took this extra step to increase our chances of a viable embryo.  It also weeded out the most common problems with old eggs, including Trisomy 21 (Downs’ Syndrome).  As a bi-product of the genetic testing, we also knew the gender of each embryo.  After the biopsies, we got 4 embryos with 46 chromosomes: 2 boys and 2 girls.  We were hoping for a boy and the best-looking embryo turned out to be a boy.  So, that’s what the doctor decided to implant.  They were frozen for a month while I had to get physically ready, which involved a rest month and then starting the injections again.

The final step was the implantation, which occurred on 11/14/14.  I was awake for this procedure and watched on the ultrasound screen how they released the defrosted embryo with a catheter.  Two weeks later, I had a blood test and the rest is history!

I know this was a really unnatural process but it’s just the path we had to take.  It also takes a little bit of stress and guessing out of this round since we can be a little more confident of the gender and health of this kid so we can start donating/giving away KK’s girly stuff.

Oh and after my last ultrasound, the doctor said “congratulations, you’ve graduated!”  The nurse also handed me a gift: a pregnancy book and a cute onesie that says “Made in San Francisco”.  Haha.  Funny.