First ultrasound!

We had our first ultrasound this morning which revealed one tiny little belly bean, measuring right on track and nestled in the perfect spot - we even got to hear its little heart beating away at 111bpm!

 Little baby, measuring 4mm

 

 

As a seasoned mom of 4, the "glop glop glop" of the fetal heart beat is a familiar, albeit reassuring, sound to me - but to hear and see the reactions of M & C as they heard their much-loved baby's heart beating for the first time was PRICELESS, absolutely priceless.  I feel so honored to be on this journey with them and can not wait to hear that "glop glop glop" many more times!

Baby's heart rate (at the bottom)

Fortunately, I won't have to wait long! We go back next Monday for a repeat ultrasound and if everything still looks good - we'll be "graduating" and will be released to the care of my AMAZING midwife for the duration of the pregnancy.

Growing, growing, growing...

Yesterday was our 5^th and final blood test and the beta hcg level came back at 1908.7 which is EXCELLENT! We are definitely catching up in numbers and this little bean appears to be healthy and growing quickly! We will have our first ultrasound on Monday 4/29; because it’s a very early sonogram (we’ll be 6 weeks + 4 days) they will be looking for three main things – how many do they see (there should not be any surprises here as we only transferred one but there is a small chance, as with any pregnancy, that the embryo could have split into identical twins), how big they are and the placement within the uterus.  If we happen to see a flicker of a heartbeat that is fantastic but if we do not it's ok because it’s still early.  We will go back about 10 days later for a second ultrasound and it’s really at the second one that they would expect to see the heart rate.  In the meantime, we're all very excited for Monday!

We Did It!

After our transfer on April 2nd, M & C asked me not to test at home, to wait for the blood test, to help relieve some of the anxiety that we all felt seeing negative tests last time.  As it turns out, sometimes I'm not very good at following directions but, as a result, on Wednesday I had the great joy of sending this:

 

 

It was a very long week for me, it took a long time for me get a positive pregnancy test so no one was more shocked than me to finally see a positive the evening before the blood test! I've since been back to the doctor to check beta levels twice and everything is rising appropriately, Dr. L is really happy with how things are progressing and of course, so are we! I go back again for another check on Wednesday but the pregnancy tests keep getting darker so we're all feeling great about it!

 

 

 

Congratulations M & C!!! So very excited for you and your growing family!

Transfer Complete!

We transferred the last remaining embryo today, frozen at the early blastocyst stage.  The embryo survived the thaw with NO cell damage which is excellent! The transfer went perfectly and now we wait until the blood pregnancy test on April 11th!

Here's the embryo before transfer:

And after transfer, in the uterus (the embryo is the bright white spot in the center of the pic):

The embryologist said that the embryo should continue to grow and implant tonight or tomorrow - of course, we are all hoping that that's exactly what happens!