As we posted here,  last Wednesday was such a momentous day for us–our embryo transfer! What an emotional day. We were excited, anxious, giddy, nervous… so many emotions.

My transfer appointment wasn’t until the end of the day, so Jason and I spent the morning relaxing. We wanted me and my body to be as stress-free as possible because stress and implantation usually don’t like each other. It was really nice to take some time to be together as a family of two for (hopefully!) one last time. Mostly we focused on the fact that, no matter what the results would be long-term, I would finally, technically be pregnant! If only for a little while. With this in mind, my sister surprised us with these incredible shirts!!

We loooooooooved them! It totally embodied our attitude towards everything. We try to stay positive, light-hearted, and have no problems cracking jokes about our situation. 
My sister was mildly nervous we would be offended by the Knocked Up part, but we both thought it was hilarious and cute.
We arrived to the clinic about an hour before our transfer and met with my acupuncturist, Bea. If you’re planning on doing an IVF transfer, I highly recommend her. She is so very sweet and knowledgeable.  She has studied and uses a protocol that is specifically aimed to boost fertility. Her  website has links to several studies that have shown how this acupuncture protocol can be extremely helpful for IVF patients, with those who had the acupuncture having a higher success rate than those who did not. Jason and I figured that if nothing else, the acupuncture would help to keep me relaxed and happy and that couldn’t hurt one bit! Another cool thing about Bea is that she works with the fertility clinics around here often. UFC knows her by name and adores her. We really appreciated seeing Western and Eastern medicine being used together.

About a half hour prior to the transfer, I got to pop a Valium. This of course put me in a happy, relaxed state but its importance is to make sure the muscles in my uterus were relaxed. Placing the embryo into the uterus can be tricky and the last thing the doctor needs is to have the muscles spasm and moving all over the place!

The transfer itself was very quick. Dr. Foulk first came in with our embryo report card. We had told UFC beforehand that we were considering transferring two embryos so they had thawed two that morning. When the embryos are thawed there is a chance that not all of them survive. Because UFC is seriously one of the best clinics out there, they have a very high success rate and both of our embryos came out flawlessly.  Both looked picture perfect and had become blastocysts, the next stage of embryo development. One of them had even started to hatch through the shell layer, which is exactly what you want for a transfer because it’ll implant faster and be more likely to stick. Dr. Foulk advised us of their quality and the statistics of them implanting etc. but ultimately the decision was left to Jason and I.

We had prayed about this fervently for a long time and ultimately we decided we wanted to transfer two embryos. The odds for a success when transferring one embryo is 60% and transferring two takes it to 70%, which is a significant but not significant increase, if you know what I mean.  We would be perfectly happy to have twins but one of the main reasons we chose to do this is because if we had put only one embryo in and it didn’t implant we would be so upset. We’re all in at this point. And honestly, I’ve always loved the idea of being a twin mom. I know it’s not just cutesy matching outfits and it’s a lot of work, both physically during pregnancy and afterwards raising them, but we feel like we can do that just fine if that’s what Heavenly Father decides to bless us with.

Jason was with me and we got to watch on an ultrasound screen as Dr. Foulk placed the embryos using a catheter. We could SEE the embryos as they went in. It was the coolest thing! IVF sure isn’t the most convenient way of getting pregnant, but my goodness, it brings all sorts of exciting extras that most people don’t get, like pictures of the embryos and getting to see them.

After the transfer I had to lay still for a half hour. During this time Bea did another acupuncture round. Then to home for my Princess Days and to surviving the Two Week Wait! At that point I will get a pregnancy blood test. If that comes back positive, it will be followed up with another blood test to make sure that the pregnancy was progressing and I wasn’t just pregnant only long enough for it to show in the lab work. If that’s still positive, then we’ll do an ultrasound to see the sac(s?) and *squee* get to hear heartbeat(s)! But until that ultrasound we won’t know for sure what the results are so it’ll be a couple of weeks.

My Princess Days were basically low-key bed rest. Lots of reading, Netflix, napping…it was kind of nice! My lovely family took care of me and brought me meals so I didn’t have to worry about a thing. Jason did take the day of the transfer off though so we got to spend that day together, which is always wonderful. It was a good kick off to the anxious waiting game we’re playing now! Wish us luck!