The Obligatory Target Post

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I wore these adorable little flats to school yesterday. I probably matched 100,000 other women that swarmed to target Tuesday to score some Missoni for Target merchandise. I got to Target around 2:30 and grabbed the last pair of flats they had, luckily in my size. I also picked up these

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I was really bummed that all of the clothing had sold out. I LOVE sweater dresses for the winter. They are perfect for work and I had my eyes set on a few from the Missoni for Target collection. Unfortunately, they are all gone everywhere and rumor has it they will not be returning. Thanks to all you selfish woman that bought up everything to sell on ebay. Oh well, I still found two cute Merona brand dresses. An army green shirt dress that will go perfectly into fall.

I promise it looks way better in person than on their website. I almost didn't put up this picture!

I also bought this cute Merona dress. Will be perfect for fall and winter with a black turtleneck and tights.

Bad News

I've been waiting a while to write this post. Yesterday afternoon, I learned that my blood test confirmed that I am not pregnant and that this round of IVF was unsuccessful.

I'll start from the beginning. On Friday afternoon I noticed a tiny bit of spotting and was elated! This tiny bit of spotting is known as implantation bleeding, meaning my little embryos had snuggled into my lining and implanted themselves. I was so excited and knew that a pregnancy test would give me a positive result in a few days. My mom came into town Friday night and we enjoyed a nice meal out. I was in such a great mood. On Saturday we ventured over to Shower Me With Love (an adorable baby boutique) to pick up a gift for a friends shower and do a little browsing for ourselves. I was even more excited that I thought I could be pregnant and start buying all the adorable baby things. On Sunday morning, I took a pregnancy test and it came back negative. I assumed I had tested too early and the HCG wasn't pumping through my body just yet. Sunday afternoon the spotting picked up. A lot. I cried. I knew something wasn't right. This wasn't implantation bleeding anymore...Monday morning, the spotting picked up even more and combined with another pregnancy test, I knew this pregnancy was not happening. (TMI ALERT) On Tuesday, I started my period. I cried all the way to school. I choked back tears during the day. I barely made it through cheer practice. I called the nurse Tuesday afternoon to let her know that I had started and to ask if we could move my blood pregnancy test up so that I could confirm what I already knew and quit taking those painful progesterone shots in the rear! They scheduled me for Wednesday morning.

Tuesday night, Jay and I enjoyed a glass of wine together while sitting on the porch watching the sunset. We talked about how sad we were, how upset we were. Jay was frustrated with God and asked why he continued to punish us. I thought about it for a minute and realized how upset his comment made me. I told him that we are not being punished. We are blessed. We have amazing lives. We are well cared for and loved. We have a great marriage, a beautiful home, and wonderful friends and families. This simply was not God's plan for us to get pregnant at this time. At that time I put my faith 100% with God and prayed that his plan was for us to one day be parents. And to grant us patience as we wait for that day to come. 

On Wednesday morning I was MUCH better. I headed into the drs office and one of the nurses that helped with my retrieval surgery was at the registration desk. She asked me if I was excited about today. I told her no, I already knew the results and that it didn't work. I then smiled, thanked her for asking and went upstairs for the lab work. During lab, I got my favorite tech and she again asked me how I was feeling about today's test. I let her know that it would be negative. I kept a smile the whole time, telling her that I looked forward to seeing her again in a few weeks to start the process over again. My regular nurse called me around 10 with the results. She left a message stating how surprised she was and that this was not the outcome they expected. I called her back and let her know I was totally fine and ready to move on. I think she thought I was nuts, I mean what lady doesn't cry when they tell her that her high-tech attempt at pregnancy did not work out. I told her I knew from Sunday on that this wouldn't work out and I was over the tears and ready to move forward with the next step. 

We were so fortunate and had such a great IVF cycle that we were able to freeze some of our leftover embryos.  In approximately 6 weeks we'll be transferring two or three frozen embryos back into my body. I start birth control pills to start slowing my ovaries down this evening and will resume the lovely Lupron (in the tummy) shots in a few weeks. Luckily, this procedure is much more affordable in comparison to the total IVF. I am so excited to move further on this journey to becoming a Mom. 

Thank God for Moms!

Thank God somehow my wonderful mother has all of my honeymoon pictures on her computer! Yay! I feel sooo much better. I'm still using the laptop I got my senior year of college and the memory is completely full. I accidentally deleted these pics because I have no room to put new ones on my computer (note the lack of facebook picture updates). I just told my parents that I REALLY wanted a new computer for my birthday. The question is, do I go mac or pc? Any suggestions from those of you out there? I've always been a PC girl but it might be time to make the switch :)

Anniversary!

Today is our 4th anniversary and it almost passed us by! This has been such a crazy busy week that we haven't put much thought into celebrating. We enjoyed a nice dinner out at one of my favorite restaurants, Cowfish and had coke icees for dessert! We kept it really low key and decided to forgo exchanging gifts this year. I did however decide at the last minute to buy us both a little something. I was pretty tired of being couped up today so I hit the Black & Blue store closing sale and got a hot pair of sevens for Jay. I bought a dress for me but didn't try it on and realized it was WAY too small when I got home. Allie- You're the new owner of a great new fall dress! Seeing how much weight I've gained, I decided I needed a new pair of jeans to get me through the fall and winter and found the perfect pair of petite Paige flare jeans at Nordstrom. Yay! So I guess denim is the 4th year anniversary gift of the Carrolls!

Dinner @ Cowfish

Yummy veggie lettuce wraps

My Husband :)

Speaking of, I cannot believe that it has been FOUR years since I married the guy of my dreams :) I know we've had our ups and downs and somewhat thrive off of bickering, there is no one else I would want to spend the rest of my life with. I love you soooo much Jay!

Every year, we've chosen to go on a trip to celebrate another year of being together. Here's a look back at all the fun things we've done. Hopefully next year, our lives will be calm (well as calm as they can be with a baby, and we'll be able to go somewhere fabulous again!)

Our Wedding 2007

Soufriere, St. Lucia 2007

Playa Mujeres, Mexico 2008

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico 2009

Amalfi, Italy 2010

Charlotte, USA 2011 :)

By the way... as I was looking through all of our pictures, I realized that somehow in the backup process, I've deleted ALL of our honeymoon pictures. So sad. My Dad is currently searching through all of their backups at home and hopefully someone on some computer has them! Thank God for Facebook though! At least I have them in some capacity!!!

And also- Our dogs decided to give us the greatest anniversary present that keeps on giving... Another round of fleas! Yay! Jay's currently in the guest bathroom trying to bath them for the second time this week. Looks like we'll be going on a little weekend getaway while our house gets flea bombed... so disgusting. 

Bye Bye Blog

So I've come to the decision to stop posting anything baby related on the blog for the next 10 weeks. Jay and I had talked about what we were going to do if we were indeed pregnant and how to keep that information to ourselves until we were ready to share with the world. As you all know right now, I have no clue if I will remain pregnant so its best to stop talking about it now :) If I am and stay pregnant, I'm currently at around 3 weeks (you start counting from your last period..fyi) and will let you all know how it turns out in 10 or so weeks.

In the meantime, I'll still post about our life but nothing about IVF, IF treatments, baby news, etc. I do want to record what is going to go on with us in the next 10 weeks baby wise so I will make some entries to post at a later time.

TTFN! (Did I really just bring that back from my AOL middle school days?)

Successful Transfer!

On Tuesday we successfully transferred two "perfect" (Dr's words not mine) embryos into my uterus. I was the coolest, most amazing thing I've ever seen.

I woke up early Tuesday and decided to bake some homemade brownies for the pre-op, surgery, and recovery staff as they were so kind to me during my retrieval. I took a long shower, got ready, and actually put on makeup (haven't done that in about a week!). Jay came home from work to pick me up and off we went to the transfer. As we were pulling out of the driveway at 12:00, I open the valuim I was supposed to take to make extra relaxed. We hit a bump and that little green pill made its way under my seat and below the carpet, right as the rain began pouring outside. Jay and I both took turns searching for the pill from all angles with no luck. I called the Dr. office and told them I would be ok without the pill. They said absolutely not and sent me to the nearest pharmacy to pick up another. I started to get a little nervous. I arrived at the pharmacy and told the cashier I needed this pill asap as I was on my way to the procedure. She coldly told me to sit out and wait my 15 minutes like everyone else! Come on! It was ONE pill. How long does that take to fill. I sat in my chair and anxiety and worry crept in. I felt like I was going to miss my appointment and I'd never get my chance :(

Exactly 15 minutes later they called me to collect my meds. I grabbed it and ran, opening the bottle as I tore of out the store. I popped the pill in the car and by the time we were 5 minutes from the office I was feeling very relaxed.

We dropped the brownies off with the nurses and everyone started enjoying them while I was changing into my hospital gown. Even my Dr. stopped by to tell me how wonderful they were. At least if we were late we brought goodies :) All the nurses and staff were sooo sweet to me!

They led me back to the procedure room where the embryologist showed me my very first baby picture. My two little clumps of cells! They also reported that they were able to freeze two of the other embryos for us to use in the future :) The Dr got me all hooked up and was ready to put my embies in and noticed that my bladder wasn't quite full enough to show the top of my uterus on the screen. Ugh. I had to get unhooked and wait about 5 minutes for it to finish filling up. Finally it did and we were ready to start. On one monitor to my left I could see the embryologist sucking up our two little embryos into the catheter. A few seconds later he was in the procedure room passing it off to the Dr. Dr. Wing inserted the catheter and I got to watch the embryos slide into my uterus via ultrasound on another monitor. After he was finished, the embryologist checked to make sure both embryos were out of the catheter and surely enough one was being stubborn and decided to stick. The nurses and staff joked that that embryo was the boy because he was the stubborn one and Dr. Wing said he disagreed and that was the girl :) The second embryo was successfully placed in my uterus and everyone cheered. It was such an amazing experience and I feel really fortunate to have been able to see this first hand.

I've been on bedrest for the past 24 hours. Jay has been amazing, cleaning our house, fixing me food, and hanging out with me while I watched the entire season of Kate Plus 8. We are both SOOO excited and cannot wait to see what God has in store for us. I pray all the time that this baby sticks but ultimately know that God already knows the answer, regardless of what I ask of him. Thanks for all the support I've received through my loving friends and family!

Photo's of the Day:

Heading to the Dr with my brownies

Lookin hot in my hair net and hospital gown

Our Embryos

Jay excited to see our potential children 

Headed for recovery!

Today is the Day!

In approximately 2 hours, I will be pregnant until proven otherwise. We are headed in at 12:30 to have the embryos (hopefully blastocysts) transferred back into my body. I don't know how many we have left or how many actually made it to the blastocyst stage. I am so excited to a peak at our microscopic embryos! 

The procedure should be done very quickly and I'll come home and rest for the next three days. My goal, if I am able to get pregnant (YAY) today will be to keep the pregnancy. I've heard from others that getting pregnant is the easy part, staying pregnant is the hard part. Please keep me and our family in your prayers!

My hips and behind have been SOOO sore. I feel like someone has punched me as hard as they can. I had been majorly DESPISING the progesterone shots that I've had to take in my butt/hip area for the past few days until yesterday when I came across this quote. "Transform anxiety into excitement; focus not on the fear of what lies ahead but the possibilities you might create."

I am excited.

Oversharing

This post is definitely TMI. I've debated even posting it but I would like to look back if I do in fact get pregnant and remember this journey.

As of yesterday, I hadn't gone to the restroom in 5 days, the night before my egg retrieval. The day prior I had talked to my IVF nurse and she said that I had to go before my embryo transfer and suggested that I try Metamucil and if that doesn't work, then go for the milk of magnesia. Well needless to say, none of those worked.  I was feeling like a whale for some time and had put on around 6lbs as of yesterday afternoon. Jay took me to go the see The Help and I almost walked out in the middle of it, I was in sooo much pain. On the way home from the movie we decided to go to urgent care because I looked like I was 6 months pregnant and walking waddling to the car.

The poor PA at urgent care did everything she could not to laugh. I mean it was a funny situation and I kept telling her this has never happened to me before and I just didn't know what to do! She told me to take some over the counter stuff and up the dosage as well as gave me a pill to help with the cramping.  I really felt like a trooper last night. I was chugging gatorade, freezing then sweating, and my whole body was shaking. On top of that I had to have another progesterone shot in my butt. I HATE shots. After an absolutely terrible night last night, I woke up this morning and felt MUCH better. The scale looked much better too :) I REALLY want this baby! And I guess I'm learning that as a mom you do anything for your child.

Still Alive!

The embryologist just called and all 14 of our embryos are still alive! I'm really in shock. We've been praying every night that God takes care of our little 8 celled creatures. She reported that three are starting to slow down in their growth but that still leaves us with 11 normally developing embryos. We are just so excited. Our transfer will be planned for Tuesday. I am just continuing to pray that they all continue to do well and that we have two blastocysts to transfer on Tuesday.

I've been feeling ok so far. Yesterday we met friends out for lunch and I was surprised how exhausting it was. I don't think I gave the egg retrieval enough credit : / We ran a few errands and then headed home so that I could get back in bed. We enjoyed a lazy day followed by a Wolfpack win! So glad we invested in a S-video cord to watch the ESPN360 games on the internet. Can't wait until we head up to Raleigh in two weeks to watch the game live!

Overall, I've just been tired and sore. I'm ready to start healing so that I can begin walking and exercising. Jay has been a great help, running to get me things to eat, taking care of the dogs and laundry, and overall being very supportive. I'm headed in to school today to create my lesson plans for the next week. I'm taking Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday off... LOTS of planning to do!

Hope you're having a fabulous labor day weekend!

Good News!

I had a pretty good night last night. Went to bed around 8 with the help of a vicodin for the pain and woke up around 3 to use the restroom and again at 7 for the same reason. I lost 4 lbs overnight so I feel like my risk for OHSS is going down as I am not retaining fluid.

The nurse called to check on me this morning and was relived that I was feeling good. She handed the phone to the embryologist who let us know that out of the 25 eggs retrieved, 18 were mature and 14 fertilized! So currently we've got 14 embryos chillin in petri dishes :) They are pretty sure that some of the embies will make it to blast stage and that our transfer will be on Tuesday. I'm looking forward to getting the report on Sunday to let us know how they are doing. 

Here are two graphics for you non-experienced IVFers (meaning pretty much everyone I know!)

Overall, I'm a bit bored laying in bed and not looking forward to three more days of bed rest next week. All my family is headed up to my uncle's lake house in Michigan to celebrate my Grandpa's 75th birthday. I'm sad to be missing out on a fun weekend but know that being here is for the best :) I think Jay and I may go see a movie tonight to help pass time. Calls, emails, and texts have all been greatly appreciated! 

Quick Update!

Surgery went well this morning. They retrieved 25 eggs! The average at my clinic is 10-12 so this was awesome! Tomorrow the nurse will call to let us know how many were mature and how many fertilized. My husband informed me that I was in pain when I woke upso they gave me some pain meds in my IV. I have no recollection of this but evidently when they told me how many eggs I had I started to cry and repeated the number over and over again and told everyone how excited I was. I'm a bit embarrassed but still very excited!

The nurses and anesthesiologist were so nice and friendly. I want to bring them cookies tomorrow and thank them for being so sweet while I was so loopy! Ha! Please keep praying that the eggs are mature and that they fertilize and that my little embryos are strong enough to survive until Tuesday, the date of our scheduled embryo transfer!