The Brennens…

All of our parents and grandparents finally know, so our announcement video is ready to share with the world!

Baby Brennen, Arriving December 2017

We also had our second ultrasound today and, of course, recorded it, so click below to watch the fun!

Ultrasound: May 9, 2017

Midweek update: lots of nausea still. At least there’s no vomiting!

That was today’s number.

Number?

Oh, wait, let me catch you up.

WE’RE PREGNANT. 

OK. Breathe. Back to business.

I tried really hard to not “symptom spot” during this transfer, but of course, it’s hard to stop completely, especially when the same symptoms kept happening. Progesterone injections are super rude because they make your body think it’s pregnant – it acts pregnant before you even have an embryo transfer! Every symptom that pops up would be the ultimate sign for all non-IVF moms, but for an IVF mom-to-be, the symptoms are just terrible mind games. This time, however, starting the day after the transfer, I started feeling the same pulling, pinching, cramping sensation in the same place. If you’re a loyal reader you might remember that I felt when I first ovulated (over a year ago!) and I definitely felt when our little one implanted. It was the same feeling for days, increasing in intensity (never pain, but definite sensations!). I prayed and prayed each day that the sensation would continue to grow because I just KNEW that it was our baby, getting settled. I tried to not tell Shane too much – I didn’t want to get him too excited, despite KNOWING, and frankly, what if I didn’t know? What if I was completely wrong?

Monday morning, April 3, I had my first beta blood test – the blood pregnancy test. I didn’t take a home test first because after seeing the NO so many times, I just couldn’t stand to see it again. The nurse and I agreed that my blood definitely looked pregnant and I was on my way to BHS to spend the day teaching and not thinking about the test results (yeah right). I was pretty much tongue tied all day, completely absent minded…good qualities in a teacher!

Around 1:30, I got the call. I let it go to voicemail because I wasn’t going to repeat the terrible last time. I waited for the message to transcribe so I could just read it but it was taking forever! I waited ten minutes and caved and listened to the message and heard “202” “excellent” “stay on…” and just cried and cried. Of course there were students in my room (though not in class) so they were the first (albeit clueless) witnesses to the joy.

In a strange twist of events, Shane decided that the test was the next day, on April 4th. He continued to tell me that the test was Tuesday, did I want him to take me, etc., and I continued to play along with his incorrect assumption. We were preparing for Shane’s mom and stepdad to spend Monday night with us, which was the perfect excuse to hide both the FET instruction sheet and the calendar, both of which had the correct date written on them. After I left our faculty meeting (YES, I had to stay at school with my big giant secret until 4:00 that day…even had to do a presentation!) I ran to CVS to put together my reveal gift for Shane. Over the weekend, I ordered Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss and Your Baby’s First Word Will Be Dada by Jimmy Fallon. I figured either I would use them as part of my surprise for Shane or they would just become part of a library down the road. When I got The Call, I had to put my plan into action.

Shane is starting his new job soon, so I figured the guise could be just that – a new job. I bought a card congratulating him on his new job, hurried home, wrapped the gifts, and hid them in our bedroom. Thankfully the first day of a pregnancy (or the first day you’re aware of the pregnancy) is pretty surreal so I was able to play it cool as we had dinner, visited, and watched the first Indians game of the year. I figured around that time, we’d go to bed, and I’d (quietly) give him the news. That night was also the final of March Madness so we watched the end of that too. Earlier I’d convinced Shane that we should go to bed at the same time (“You’re going to bed when I do, right?” “Sure…” “OK great” – I didn’t have a rationale for getting him in there when I asked – thankfully he didn’t ask for one!) so when I got up, he followed me, no questions asked.

I felt bad giving him the news with his mom right downstairs, but in order to surprise him, I had to tell him before the 4th – the day he thought I was going for the test. When we got upstairs, I closed the door and told him I had some surprises for his new job. We settled in and I gave him the gifts, one by one. I didn’t let a lot of time pass between each gift because I didn’t want him to think too hard. We started with Hop on Pop, the “gift from Sadie,” then the Jimmy Fallon book, and then the baby cowboy boots I’d bought years ago when I thought I’d be surprising him with the same news. The video of me telling him is below – way better than I can describe myself. 🙂

https://videopress.com/embed/6UZsMHIY?hd=0&autoPlay=0&permalink=0&loop=0<

oor guy went downstairs after I went to sleep to spend more time with his mom and Hank with that huge news stewing in his mind. On Tuesday, I just had to take some home pregnancy tests. After years of negatives, I wanted to see the words and the line myself! What a feeling!< a href=”https://shaneandalison.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/img_0922.jpg”&gt;<<
’s all still incredibly surreal… It’s so exciting and feels like it’s not really happening at the same time. I look at baby stuff on Pinterest and it still feels like the daydreaming days… but it is real! 36 weeks to go!<<
p><
/p>

Grow baby, grow.

I wrapped up my day at work with a flurry of activity and lots of paperwork and have spent tonight working on relaxing and getting myself mentally prepared to get PUPO (pregnant until proven otherwise) tomorrow morning.

I took myself to Target because I wanted to find unscented shampoo and body wash…maybe that’s in the outdoor stuff but I certainly didn’t find it in the traditional aisles so hopefully our embryo likes to smell good! It was so peaceful to just wander the aisles and think about what tomorrow will bring…

I came home and did some laundry, talked to my BFF for a while, played with a newly groomed Sadie, made dinner, and settled in to catch up on some Hulu.

Tomorrow’s transfer is at 11:00am…we will go to acupuncture at 8…followed by a leisurely drive south with a breakfast stop…we’ll meet our baby, pray for a sticky uterus, and watch it zoom into place…we’ll head back north for another round of acupuncture, and then head home for a lovely, relaxing evening of movies and incubating this baby!

We had our standard routine of appointments on Thursday: acupuncture, ultrasound, blood work. I am truly loving the addition of acupuncture into our routine (though my wallet does NOT like it!). It’s incredibly relaxing and I feel like we have another health care provider in our corner, working to help us be as successful as possible. I feel less stressed, ready for this adventure. More ready than I did the last time, that’s for sure.

We saw Dr. Mooney this time for my scan and things look good. He said they like for the lining to be over a 7 and mine was a 7.8. He said it won’t grow much, but will instead start to change as we get closer to Friday’s transfer and *hopefully* implanting. The picture is of my uterus (and lots of other stuff!): the curser is pointing at the middle of it (the white line) and the oval that surrounds the white line is the wall of the uterus itself.

Going into this round, I feel so much more ready. The last time was scary, unnerving, unpredictable…no wonder it didn’t work. (Of course, Dr. Nash told us that the culprit was probably an embryo that wasn’t quite right…for whatever reason…but I’m also sure that my mental and physical state did not help.) I was talking through the last transfer day with one of my friends this week…I thought it was in two days…I go to work…I got a call: it’s today…hurry down here…we’re transferring a 3-day because we don’t think it’ll keep developing to 5…”honey, wake up, we’re going to Akron, I’ll be there in 10 minutes”…tell the principal…get a sub…write lesson plans…”sorry kids I’m out AGAIN…be nice to the sub, do your work”…zoom home…change into embryo leggings…hurry to Akron…”why are they doing a 3-day?…I thought we were doing five or a freeze-all?”…”I don’t know honey, you know what I do”…”I don’t understand”…”me either, but this is what they said”….change into these gowns…”do you want one embryo or two?”…anxiety…stress…confusion…doctor I don’t like comes in…uncomfortable transfer…”ok get up and go potty”…”what? I thought I had to sit?”…”nope! go pee!”…”ok bye! thanks!”…………… And that’s about how it went. Transfer day this time will start with an acupuncture treatment early in the day…a nice, leisurely drive to Akron for the transfer, another acupuncture treatment, and then a relaxing evening with my hubby. Sounds lovely, doesn’t it?

Speaking of my hubby: Thursday was a big day for him too! He FINALLY got his offer letter to be the Cleveland area trainer for Paragon Systems! That means a lot of things, but most importantly, that means he will be working DAY SHIFT. He hasn’t worked days for THREE YEARS. OMG. The position comes with a vehicle, a raise (not a huge one, but the vehicle is like a raise in and of itself!), and some other perks, but most importantly, this is the job he wants and we will be working the same hours.

Today, Saturday, we stop taking Lupron, the drug that shuts down your system, and tomorrow we start taking progesterone (not my favorite part of the process, but I’ll survive!) along with all of the other drugs that will make me ready for Friday! My entire mental state feels differently this time. I feel comfortable, confident, excited…I felt none of that the last time. I’m actually looking forward to Friday! I know I will love my acupuncture appointments, and I’m incredibly excited to go see one of our babies! We will be praying for him or her all week as they prep for the defrosting process and of course, praying through this whole process for a sticky uterus and perseverance for our little blastocyst!

I was just reading a BuzzFeed article about Remy Ma and Nicki Minaj and their feud and found this very interesting tidbit:

Remy also got real about her ectopic pregnancy, arguing that people who oppose abortion should care as much about helping women get pregnant as they do about keeping women pregnant.

“This was my second ectopic pregnancy, a complication of pregnancy in which the embryo attaches outside the uterus, so I’ve lost both of my fallopian tubes.

“While I was crying in the hospital bed the doctor told me, ‘It’s fine, you still have your uterus and your eggs are good, you can just do in vitro fertilization. We can put the baby where it needs to be, it’ll cost you anywhere between $10,000 to $20,000.’ I didn’t think about it because, not to brag, I have the $10,000 to $20,000 to pay for it. It wasn’t until I came out with [my story] that I learned a lot of women also have this issue.

“We have all these politicians that claim they’re pro-life and that say women should not be able to get abortions and all this other stuff…there’s nothing more pro-life than helping a woman who wants to have a child have a child. Then I realized that health insurance doesn’t cover IVF. I could use my health insurance to not have a child if I want to, but I can’t use my health insurance to conceive. That made me start paying attention to what’s really going on in this world when it comes to women.”

And you don’t, right? No one really knows until they go through it and are faced with the decision of coming up with $15k or not having a child. Or coming up with the $15k and STILL not having a child. It’s so easy to say “it’s only money” or something equally as frustrating but until you’re the one being told to pay up for a child…it’s impossible to understand. That’s likely why no one does speak up. This is an embarrassing, frustrating process, people.

As Shane and I sat in an office at RGI last week making appointments and getting instructions, he pointed at the amount of money on the check I was writing (a mere $3500 this time) and said “THIS is what people should be protesting. This is insane.” He’s 100% correct. No one mentions IVF or fertility care and treatments when talking about women’s health. We should be about ALL facets of women’s health and empowerment, including this taboo and swept under the carpet topic of infertility. It’s real, it’s terrible, and it’s expensive. What a slap in the face for a struggling couple.

Here’s a better one. Some states require some financial assistance for infertility. Ohio is one of them! Great news! Except there’s a loophole. Insurance plans do not have to cover anything fertility related if the plan is “self-funded.” Guess whose plan is self-funded?! You got it!! Our explanations of benefits literally say that nothing fertility related will be covered. Nothing like a few $2k+ bills for fertility testing to make you feel great about yourself!

So we’re writing to our senators (after I finish the paper I’m writing!) and expressing our concerns for this serious issue. And you know what? You should too. Because even if you haven’t experienced it, you’ve been touched by it, maybe even just by reading this. Or maybe we’re friends. Or family. Even more important that you write or call or find another way to support. This is ridiculous, insulting, and needs to stop. Today.