So spoiled!

Pete and I had a great appointment with our perinatologist where we again saw our newest little baby on Friday.  The last time we saw our perinatologist was a month or so after having the babies.  He said he'd want to see us in a future pregnancy (which we were happy to hear), so at nearly seven weeks we went back for our first appointment with this new baby.

We were so spoiled!! It comforting to see our old doctor who took such good care of our triplets and me, and he seemed so genuinely happy to see us back in his office, pregnant again.  I also got a big hug from our ultrasound technician who did over twenty hours of ultrasounds for our triplets (and gave us a hundred take-home photos of our babies).  She was always excited every week to see our kiddos, which I thought was so cute because she takes a peek into babies' worlds every day for her job.  

The biggest way in which we were spoiled, though, came in seeing our little one on the big screen.  As I'd not felt sick the prior two days and even lost some other pregnancy signs earlier on Friday, I was thrilled and so relieved to see that little heart pounding away on the screen!!  We had an ultrasound for over thirty minutes and got to see lots of baby's little heart beating and other fun stuff like a 4cm cervix. (Okay, maybe that is only fun for me to see.)  We even got some very cool 3D pics of the little bean, which were pretty amazing.  The only still shot was this one Pete took of the flat screen on the wall, so sorry for the blur!

If that doesn't look much like a baby to you, that is because at 6 weeks 6 days, babies have nubs for arms and legs, a little tail still, and a heart that is starting to grow inside of the chest but is still mostly a bulge above the abdomen.  Knowing that, I think the 3D photo (left pic above) is pretty exciting. You can see an arm and leg nub on the left of the body, and the heart is the circle in the middle of the body.  Neat, huh?  At this stage, the baby is the size of a blueberry and grows a millimeter a day.  Our little guys/girl was 9.1 mm on Friday and a week from now will be nearly twice as big!  Next week he/she grows itty bitty fingers and toes - amazing.

The last two times we went to our peri with our triplets, we wanted to shoot video of the ultrasound but didn't bring the flipcam along.  This visit we had my iPhone, so Pete got acquainted with it and gave the video option a try.  I am having computer issues but will upload a video here once I get the silly technology sorted out.  In the video, you can see the heart beat (you can't hear it in this ultrasound), and I have watched the little movies several times already!  Tomorrow I go back to our Reproductive Endocrinologist and should get another ultrasound (again, spoiled!)  I should get to hear the heart beat again and will try to record it so you can hear how cute it is. :) 

The sweetest sound

And we heard it yesterday morning!  Just after my doc shared the obligatory words about how we may not see a heart beat that day and that plenty of healthy pregnancies don't have a heart beat by 6 weeks and 2 days, we saw a nice, fat black sac on the screen that made our doc say "Oooh, this looks really good."  The yolk sac we saw last week was three times as big yesterday, and as our doc zoomed in a bit, there it was - a sweet little flicker-flicker-flicker on the gray-tone screen.  I was so excited!!  

I asked Pete if he could see it, too, and was happy to hear he could.  In this week of our triplets' pregnancy, we saw two of our three little ones' heart beats.  (Adam was a late implanter and so took another few days to show off his heart flickering.)  The week after this one - in week 7 - we actually got to hear their heart beats (versus just seeing the flicker), which was fantastic!  I didn't expect we'd get to listen in on the little pumping today, but Dr. K. then said we had a good enough view to try to hear it. He turned on the sound while focused on the little pulsing heart, and the room was filled with the most precious whoosh-whoosh-whooshing you could imagine.  The heartbeat was fast!  I think with our triplets, their heart rates were about 80 in week 6, but if my ears were accurate on this one (I was focused on the heart flickering and so did not look to see the BPM), then I would guess he/she had a heart rate over 120.  It appears this little one has mom's sprinter genes!  Or, as  my mom pointed out, my earlier inklings that this one may be a boy could be incorrect. :)  Either way, it is a great heart beat as faster is generally better at this stage, and we definitely have a fast one. 

I so wish that I had recorded the screen so you could actually hear the cute tiny little heart beating.  The best I have to share are the ultrasound pics I excitedly carried home.  They are not the best for showing the baby, but here they are:

So all in all, the appointment yesterday was a great one.  Seeing a heart beat at this point is really good, and while it does not preclude the possibility of a miscarriage (or, of course, a stillborn), it is a great start.  If we make it to eight weeks with this little heart still beating, our chance of losing the little one drops below 2%.  While that still promises nothing, I am eager for that day.  

Finally, the appointment also confirmed... we are pregnant with just one baby.  A singleton - no triplets, no fraternal twins nor even identicals.  Just one little baby to soak up all our love for the next 7.5 months and then come home with us. :)

Dear Mommy

I am making the transition from Blackberry to iPhone this week and so spent some time yesterday uploading my stored photos.  In doing so, I saw the snapshot journey of our triplets. Nearly always within arm reach this past year, my Blackberry has snapped many shots, from the mundane to the noteworthy, together making a pictorial essayof a year that defines single-sentence explanations.  The first photos taken were within a week of conceiving our sweet little babies.  We were moving out of our sunny Texas house and into our snowy New York house, busy while eagerly awaiting the outcome of our latest effort to start a family.  

Then came pictures of the pregnancy tests and my first belly pics while flying back from Geneva at seven weeks pregnant, and then bed rest starting the week after.  Then came lots and lots of sonograms, three footie outfits hanging from the mantle, and then the babies were on my chest in the hospital.  Those are my favorite, most cherished pictures in the world.  

Then there are pictures of my swollen, stapled belly, photos of a hundred cards on the hospital wall and dozens of flowers along the window.  Then a picture of the rain that poured the day we left the hospital, a shot of all the drugs that helped me get over the infection, followed by pictures from the two weekend trips Pete and I took to try to breathe.  (At least that is how I remember it, as breathing was tough in those days and those two weekend trips away made the effort more manageable.)  

Then there are some horrific-looking pics of my face getting treated for skin cancer, IVF drugs arriving on the doorstep, and embryos in the lab.  The poster of triplets I stumbled into at a bank, my first knitting efforts, planting our babies' tree, and the IVF center in NYC.  Then two more embryos, the thousand ladybugs all over our front-door entrance when we got home, the pregnancy test too faint to read, and the rainbows that graced us later that day.  Finally came picturess of our little blast that made it to freeze, my new belly at four weeks, and then our new sonogram.  What a year.

In "reading" the story of these photos, I came across this one that made me smile.

I'd forgotten I'd snapped it upon finding the sweetest card on the counter on Mother's Day morning.  I got three cards - one from Pete, one from my parents, and this one from our babies, not surprisingly written in Pete's handwriting.  Today I especially am loving the postscript, "we look forward to meeting our future brothers and sisters."  That line brought me hope and comfort the day I read it, and it brings me joy today to think of how I felt reading those words then, juxtaposed with where we are now with a baby the size of a raisin in my belly.  

I have to note that I also really love the hearts at the bottom - the big one being Charlie's because he was our biggest baby.  It makes me smile every single time.

A Virginia tree for our babies

I just received this picture from my parents - they planted a cryptomeria to remember our babies.  They told us in the spring they were going to plant a memorial tree, and it is so nice to see it is in its new home and that they will see it and think of our little ones every time they head in or out the door or look out the window.  We look forward to seeing it when we visit over Christmas!

Our first ultrasound, 2.0

Yesterday brought the long-awaited (well, only awaited a couple of weeks, but really awaited in that time!) appointment with our doc who would do our first ultrasound.  Technically, since I jumped the gun and went to the OB last Friday, it was our second ultrasound, but it would be our first that would show anything.  And we saw... one little gestational sac!  That was a bit of a surprise as I was expecting to see two, although our doc did say it was possible we will see a second next week if we had a late implanter.  As for now, though, we have one little baby growing and looking good.  There was a nice, round yolk sac inside the dark amniotic sac - you can see a bit it if you use your imagination on the right of the little dark sac above.

It took the rest of the day to adjust to the news that we have (only) one baby growing in my belly.  As soon as I dropped Pete off at work after our appointment, I started feeling anxious.  I think if we had seen two sacs I wouldn't have felt so nervous, but only one baby meant everything was riding on one little heart beat - or hopefully would be soon.  We go back next week to hear it.

I remember well the morning we went for our 5-week ultrasound with our triplets last December. Seeing that there were three little people growing in my belly in that moment was simply amazing!  I also remember our doc saying that at five weeks any embryo had a 20% chance of self-reducing, of not making it.  Therefore, he said that we most likely would not have a triplet pregnancy, that there was a 60% chance that one of the three would not continue to develop into a baby.  Obviously, that didn't happen and all three went on to grow healthily until e. Coli set in.  I remember thinking at the ultrasound that I really wanted all three to make it, but at least if one wasn't strong enough to keep growing, we were very likely still going to have a pregnancy and babies to take home with us seven to eight  months later.  Yesterday seeing only one baby on the screen felt scary in comparison - which is ironic, as a singleton pregnancy is safer than one with multiples.  My doc didn't say it, but the same 20% statistic applies.  With our triplets, we had three healthy babies and got to take none home. Now we have one baby who we hope will be healthy and whom we hope we can bring home next summer.  I will continue to stay positive and say lots of prayers for this little growing baby.  But even with the positive thinking, yesterday was a little hard in this regard.  (I came home and vacuumed and dusted the entire house - desperate attempt at maintaining some control, perhaps?? :))

Never having had a pregnancy with just one baby, I've spent all my baby-growing time thinking about dealing with the exquisite challenges of three newborns, toddlers, and kiddos going through all their milestones together.  Part of adjusting to a singleton pregnancy also means adjusting to what may very well be a "normal" pregnancy.  Seeing only one baby inside seemed so very prosaic.  I feel badly saying that as most pregnant women carry singletons and give birth to incredible babies.  I get so excited when a friend becomes pregnant or has a baby, and that has almost always involved just one baby.  It is so exciting!  But personally having a singleton pregnancy is a mental adjustment for me.  I will be incredibly grateful for a pregnancy so innocuous that there would be no complications, a pregnancy so status quo as to have only one baby growing inside.  I cannot count the number of times any of our doctors has said how we need to have a low-risk, complication free pregnancy and hit all the milestones.  The lower-risk pregnancy, the better; according to our doctors, that means one baby is ideal and more than that would worry them.  So one baby is a good thing, even if it is taking my heart some time to catch up with my head. :)

To help in that regard, I had a couple of emails today that helped me quite a bit.  First was Nan, who reminded me that with the hernia I have, one baby inside is much safer.  Funny how I forgot all about that, and good point.  :)  Then Cameron shared exactly what I wasn't saying about why yesterday was hard - that the last time I had a baby ultrasound, it showed Adam, Hope, and Charlie kicking away minutes before my surgery and only hours before they were born still.  I guess there is a lot of latent emotion I carry when looking at an ultrasound with even the smallest of babies on the screen.  And then Mary made my heart happy in sharing her late Godmother and Aunt's thoughts on having her twins.  She said that while she loved every second of having twins, her only regret was that she was never able to just sit and stare or hold one for an entire nap time.  That comment reminded me of why when Pete and I started talking about having kids, I initially had wanted our first baby to be a singleton.  Despite always wanting multiples at some point in growing our family, I thought it would be so incredible to bond with that one little baby, stare into his or her eyes, solely focused on that special first baby who started our family.  It won't be our first baby, and our triplets were the ones to start our family... but the rest of that little dream just may still come true.  (Thanks for the help, girls! :))

We go back for another ultrasound next Monday when we hope to hear a heart beat.  We also have an appointment next Friday with our perinatologist, so in the event we do not hear a heart beat on Monday, then we will have another chance to hear it in the window we should and before I go back to work the following Monday.  If there is no heart beat next week, then this pregnancy would not look good... but of course that is not going to be the case!  

Fantastic news!!

We are...

I've been dying to share this news with you for over a week now but promised Pete I would wait until he gave the okay to post.  Sorry for the delay, and thank you for all your support in getting us to this wonderful place!  Here is how the last week has transpired...

Wednesday, October 28th (11 days post retrieval): We awoke early in the morning for Pete to make his daily trek to the gym.  Once he dressed and headed downstairs, I popped out of bed to take a home pregnancy test.  Pete would be home a few minutes getting his things ready before heading out, so I figured that I could read a home-pregnancy test (HPT) in that time - after the requisite three minute wait, if it were negative he wouldn't leave the house feeling down because he wouldn't know I took it; if it were positive, I could run down and catch him before he left town for a work trip.  Two minutes after the test, I was futilely willing the second line to show up and indicate we were pregnant.  Seconds passed, excitement eroded... until - wait, was that a second line???  

It was so imaginably faint, I was confident that I could be making it up... but after seeing a hundred negative pregnancy tests with second lines manufactured only by my optimism, I never felt my heart skip a beat like it did with this imaginably faint line.  Before the three-minute test window was up, I flew out the bedroom door and down the stairs in my pjs, my socked foot slipping right out from under me and causing a huge ruckus as I fell down half of them.  Oops - so much for calm and collected!  I found Pete with his hand on the garage door and flung the test before him.  At first he only saw one line but then on my prompting to look again, agreed that maybe there was a second very very very faint line.  He said it was too faint to be trusted, though, so he left unsure of what to think or how to feel about it.  As soon as he left, my mom and then my dad who were visiting for the bereavement ceremony walked into the kitchen (no doubt woken up from my fall!) to find me staring at the HPT in my hand.  At first they both saw only one line until, upon further encouragement, agreed that there was a second line that was verrrrrrry faint and perhaps not dark enough to elicit excitement just yet.

Later that day as I was driving between errands, I drove into the rainbow about which I wrote earlier.  What a sign!  As soon as I saw it, I remembered that there are also digital pregnancy tests that don't show an incredibly-light second line 12 days after conception; instead they show a blatant "pregnant" or "not" message that would feel a lot more reliable that a very faint line that optimism could taint.  I stopped at CVS on the way home and headed straight to the bathroom upon walking in our door.  Three minutes after 5p, I was staring at the image above - Pregnant!  Awesome!  I called my doc's office and begged them to let me come in two days early for my beta (quantitative blood pregnancy test).

Thursday, October 29th (12 days post retrieval): After a blood test in the morning and waiting most of the day, our doc called to tell me that we were pregnant!  Our beta was 22.4 - low and even a bit below average for such an early test... but still a positive pregnancy test.  (For comparison purposes, my beta with the triplets for the same time past conception gave a result of 159 - seven times higher than the result this day... although of course driven by three growing babies!)  My astute doc who knew I do my research - meaning I was likely aware that 22 was a bit on the low side - reminded me several times that 22 was definitely indicative of pregnancy and was a solid start.  We agreed I would return Monday for the second beta test to ensure the numbers were doubling in a timely fashion.

Monday, November 2nd (16 days post retrieval): Second beta showed a big improvement in our pregnancy number!  I was hoping to hear a number around 100, which would mean our little baby/babies had a doubling rate just under two days, which would be great.  Instead, the call that afternoon shared the good news that our beta was 232 - above average for 16 days after conception.  I was so excited!!  I think this was the first time Pete felt excited, too, as strong beta numbers generally indicate a strong pregnancy that will stick around.  I made my next appointment with our reproductive endocrinologist - for this coming Monday when we would have our first ultrasound to see how many babies were growing in my belly!!  I have never counted down so much to an appointment as I have been to this one. :)

Friday, November 6th: Being the planner and optimist that I am, I had called our OB a month before this date to set up a visit in the hopes that we would be pregnant.  In my last visit with our OB after having the babies and clearing the stream of tests that followed in and out of the hospital, Dr. E. said to come see her the minute we got pregnant.  I have seen Dr. E a number of times since our last appointment as I join her monthly at her house to pack boxes for soldiers in the Middle East.  She was an advocate for our doing IVF the first time around and was really disappointed along with us when it did not end successfully.

In the system, the appointment was set up as just an annual check up as I was not pregnant when I made it, but once I checked in, I asked the receptionist to note it as a new OB visit so the needed tests would be ordered.  As Pete and I sat in the exam room to get my blood pressure checked by a nurse, the door opened to reveal Dr. E. looking at us quizzically.  She has just checked her calendar to see me listed as a "new OB" patient.  When I squealed that we were pregnant, she dropped her pen and the sheets in her hand, squealed right back and began jumping up and down.  I ran over and gave her a hug while all the nurses behind her at their desk glanced over with smiles to see what was getting our doc so excited.  A half dozen times over the next couple of days, I recounted this scene in my head as it made me so happy to know how delighted our doc was that we were again pregnant.

The rest of the visit was a good one - the normal early-pregnancy tests and discussion, augmented with some extra due-diligence like e. Coli cultures, discussion about everything we cannot do in our first trimester (emphasis on everything), and talk about how we will handle our appointments and complications.  Hopefully there will be none of those beyond the incisional hernia that sprouted in the last few months!  We wrapped up our appointment with Pete asking if he needed to get a flu shot to help ensure I stayed healthy, and Dr. E. asked him to register up front so that she could give him the shot.  As Pete doesn't have a general practitioner, as of Friday his doc up here is now my OB.  I think he is her only male patient.  Cracks me up. :)

Today: We obviously are very early in our pregnancy (5 weeks today) and so remain very hopeful that this little baby or babies will continue to grow and get to come home with us from the hospital.  I am actually not very anxious at all and instead feeling very excited and overwhelmingly blessed to once again have a new baby of ours growing in my belly.  It has been so very cool to feel these little ones burrowing in for the long haul.  (Yes, I can actually feel them, and yes, I just said these. :))  On Monday we will see how many babies we have growing inside.  While statistics and our beta numbers both indicate that there will be only one baby, if the dual locations of these little pangs I have been feeling mean anything, there might very well be two.  (I felt the same thing last time and so was not the least bit surprised when we saw there were three.)  About 36 hours until we will know - can't wait!

Other than that, I just wanted to say how good it feels to finally share some good news with you!  You have been an incredible support to us through your comments and emails and calls - thank you so much for all your encouragement, empathy, and love!  I am hopeful that we will continue to have good news to share and one day really cute baby pics to post.  After all, that was the initial intention of this blog, although my, what an interesting path we have taken.

On that note, I am off to look at our baby pics of the triplets.  Pete's mom, nana, and aunt were here today, and it was really fun to hear Mom C tell her mom and sister about how Charlie looked like her son, Hope like me, and Adam like my dad's side of the family.  I wonder if our growing baby Coyne(s) will look like any of them. :)

P.S.  We are pregnant!!! :)

Our totsicle

I got this picture from our clinic wanted to share as it made me so happy.  I couldn't stop staring at it and thinking, how beautiful!  Call me crazy... or say it's a face only a mother can love.  (Although I wouldn't know what you are talking about, as this little one clearly takes after handsome Pete! :))

Here is our little embryo on ice!

This is the first time I have seen one of our blastocysts, although obviously we've had at least three before... but they were inside me from the get-go, so we never saw them.  This is one cool thing about IVF - very early baby pictures!  Also cool... the lump of cells on the right (called the inner cell mass) will grow into a baby, and around the perimeter of the shell are cells (called the trophectoderm) that will go on to make the placenta.  Pretty cool, huh?  (Actually, -80 degrees Centigrade is what is cool - that is the temp of this little kiddo right now!)

Can't wait to meet this little one, hopefully in about a year and nine months - hopefully after baby #4... or #s 4 and 5. :)

Grocery-store meltdown

I just got back from the grocery store.  It was a rough trip.

Usually I am not a very good shopper.  The aerial view of my trail through the store would look like a tangle of loops and knots, and it generally takes me well over an hour (or two) for a trip to actually cook a couple meals.  I was beating the average in today's trip, a great thing as I wanted to get home to cook and bake some stuff for people we are having over tomorrow.  Stumped upon not finding sorghum in any logical place (is there one?), I called my mom to ask where it might be as she knows stores inside and out - including ours as she shopped and cooked for us a collective five weeks throughout my bed rest and the time after returning from the hospital.  I was on the phone with her when I realized rolling right up to me were two carts with three little new-baby carseats.  

I quickly scanned both carts to confirm all three car seats were the same and likely belonged to the same couple.  They were, and they did - the dad was pushing a cart with two seats, while the mom followed him with the third.  They slowly squeezed just past me in the crowded meat aisle, and I craned my neck after them, unable to believe that I actually was seeing newborn triplets.  They were tiny and could not have been more than a few weeks old, with two babies dressed in blue and one in pink.  Without thinking, I incredulously asked the woman as she passed me, "you have triplets??"  With irritation in her voice and a roll of her eyes, she responded, "yes."  

I felt like the wind was knocked right out of my chest.  I stumbled a few feet past them and was at a complete loss of what to do.  I started crying.  I stammered to my mom on the phone that I just saw newborn triplets in the store.  Considering I should probably get out of the busy meat aisle, I left the proximity of the lucky parents who must have wondered what on earth was wrong.  I ran into the nearest empty aisle and stopped a few yards down, only to realize after a moment that I was ironically in the middle of the diaper section.  I talked to my mom there until the dad rolled his two-car-seat cart into the aisle (of course, diapers!), so I left the diapers in search of everything else on my list.  Those few remaining items took nearly an hour because I was so flustered and sad and a bit in shock.

Until today, the only live triplets I had seen were my sweet friend's, Margaret's triplets, at a planned event.  And even that made me a little sad, despite their being three two-year-old girls - pretty different from the future I envisioned we'd have.  Seeing newborn triplets, two boys and a girl, just like ours - that was an event I did not expect and did not handle very well.  I think their sleep-deprived mom being a little rude to me did not help the situation.  (Thankfully, my mom was a rock star and talked to me while I calmed down - which took a while.)  Still, my response was pretty out of character.  I am hoping the emotional outburst was due to pregnancy hormones. :)

Speaking of pregnancy, my clinic does two beta tests to test for pregnancy - generally one fourteen days after egg retrieval (which would be tomorrow) and one two days after that (Monday).  It is possible that I won't post any news until I have both under our belt.  Just so you know. :)

After rereading the title of this post, I cannot get "Grocery-store meltdown" to stop playing in my head to the tune of "Beauty-School Dropout" from Grease.  Hmm.  Perhaps that would lighten my mood.  Let's give it a shot...

Grocery-Store Meltdown
Awfully similar to Beauty-School Dropout from Grease (Performed by Frankie Avalon)                      

Your story sad to tell
A preggo ne'er do well
Most mixed up non-delinquent without bibs

Your future's not what you hoped it'd be
You have zero instead of three
Can't even get a trade in on your cribs

Grocery-store meltdown
No babies in the cart for you
Grocery-store meltdown
Missed your due date and flunked labor, too
Well at least you could have taken time to throw sunglasses on your head
After crying in the store today your face is awfully red

Baby get moving (Better get movin)
Why keep your hopeful dream alive
What are you proving (What are you provin)
You had the dream along with e. Coli

If you go home and you pee on a stick, maybe you'll see two lines
But would that help you dodge these triplet mines?

Grocery-store meltdown (Grocery-store meltdown)
Stumbling around the grocery store
Grocery-store meltdown (Grocery-store meltdown)
Wipe those tears off the polished floor

Well you've taken so long shopping now, you can stop your triplet lookout
The coast is clear so take a breath, fill your cart, and soon you'll check out

Baby don't sweat it (Don't sweat it)
You have the triplets in your heart
You won't forget it (Forget it)
And you might even have a new start

Now your cheeks are dry your chin held high but still the world is cruel
Wipe off that pouting face and head out of aisle two

Baby don't blow it
Don't put my good advice to shame
Baby you know it
Even dear Abby'd say the same

So blow your nose, strike a brave pose, and roll that cart on by
You've gotta be going, for now kiss that dream goodbye

Grocery-store meltdown (Grocery-store meltdown)
Pull it together
Grocery-store meltdown (Grocery-store meltdown)
Pull it together
Grocery-store meltdown (Grocery-store meltdown)
Pull it together

Cute copper top

Good thing I knew our little redwood was deciduous when we planted it!

Otherwise, I might have worried I over watered our little tree!  It's turned a bright orange and will lose its needles soon before it grows bright green again next year, hopefully around the time of our babies' one-year anniversary.

So our babies' little tree has gone all orange on us, just in time for tomorrow's trick-or-treaters.  We've loaded up on candy and invited over some friends with too-cute little kiddos to enjoy our neighborhood, which we expect to be heavily hit with trick-or-treating as ours is.  Should be fun.  Just the same, it has been sad this week to remember all the three-of-a-kind three-month-old Halloween costumes I'd imagined for our triplets.  (Months of bed rest gave me plenty of time to do one of my favorite things - plan!)  So no three peas in a pod or three amigos or three musketeers or three matching pumpkins.  Just three angels we'll be missing.

Here is what the needles looked like when we planted it:

Rainbow baby?

Some parents who have suffered a baby dying and then been blessed with another child call the second baby their "rainbow baby."  Rainbow, as in a promise of light and beauty and all that is good after a tumultuous, dark storm.  The rainbow does not diminish the storm or its aftermath but instead provides a promise of a brighter day ahead.  In the midst of the waning storm clouds, the rainbow is a beacon of hope.

Yesterday afternoon I was driving through a storm and thinking about our situation, wishing that our Charlie, Adam, and Hope were here with us.  At the same time, I was hoping that this current IVF cycle would bring us a little sibling for them, a little child to raise in our home.  The biggest smile spread across my face when I rounded a bend in the road and saw expanding before me:

How I hope we have our rainbow just around our bend.  

And how I miss you, Adam, Hope, and Charlie.

Bereavement Ceremony

My parents departed this morning on their drive back to Virginia after joining us for the bereavement ceremony this past Sunday.  We were so touched they came.  A few days after I posted our invitation to a bereavement ceremony for our babies, my mom emailed, asking if they could join us.  (Actually, I think the words were that they would be honored if they could join us for the service for their grandbabies.) Our hearts were comforted that  they wanted to attend with us, and of course we wanted them there.

One of the nurses took a picture of the four of us after the ceremony, and I will post it once I get the copy.  (I expect that will be tonight at our bereavement group.)  As for the service, 51 people came to honor 22 babies.  There were several touching readings, all of which were heart-breaking.  I was hoping that there would be at least one celebratory reading or poem, especially after the sad ones made me tear up.  In the midst of the deep sorrow for our children, I constantly have felt very grateful for them and the time I had with them.  I often like to focus on that gratitude versus how badly my hearts hurts in their wake.  A couple fussy babies in the back and one very cute one in front of us did not help us downplay our sorrow, but I guess you wouldn't want to put it on the backburner in a bereavement ceremony, anyway.

Crying babies aside, the service was beautiful.  Several of the L&D nurses read passages, the hospital chaplain shared a message, and a four-piece orchestra played peaceful music, including one of my favorites, Amazing Grace.  It was after that selection that each couple or mother (sadly, two came alone) was invited to the front to light a candle for their baby who died and step to the podium to share the baby's name with the group.  The first couple up lit a candle for their little girl, and when they read the name, Scarlett Elizabeth, I choked up and worried that maybe I wouldn't be able to read our babies' names.  After a boy named Holden and a pair of twins, we stepped to the front, and Pete took the candle from the nurse behind the table while I quietly told her we would need three.  It was heartbreaking.  We lit our three candles and walked to the podium, where I read, "Hope Coyne," and Pete read, "Adam Coyne and Charlie Coyne."  Annette, the kind nurse who brought our babies down to our ICU room five times the day we had them, handed me three calla lilies as we returned to our seats with my parents.

Another fifteen babies' names were read as we sat and I proudly held our three calla lillies.  Not surprisingly, we were the only ones to remember three babies who died, although two other couples did have twins.  I don't know all the stories and wondered how many babies died around their due date or halfway to it, like ours did.  I wondered how many babies struggled in the NICU after their birth, died without NICU care, or died in their mothers' bellies.  The couple in front of us were our friends whose little boy died two days after his due date from a knotted cord, and the couple behind us were other friends whose boy died a week before his from a heart attack.  It was so sad to see not just parents but also grandparents crying, indicating how deeply they hurt along with their own children.

Our bereavement group is tonight, and I think we may see new faces as apparently there are many more who lost their babies at our hospital than the five couples whom we have met in the past seven months.  I think I will do some baking later today in preparation.  

Back on the topic of being grateful, I am grateful for such a wonderful hospital staff who hosted such a kind and compassionate event for all the grieving parents who were served by them.  I can't imagine a bereavement ceremony is standard practice for hospitals, and it brings me comfort to know the generous hearts who planned and hosted our even also directed the hands that dressed and held our little babies after they were born.

Multiplying hats

Nearly two months ago, I wrote about knitting hats for babies born so early they would never make it home from the hospital.  My goal was to make three hats and a blanket to take to the hospital by tonight's bereavement ceremony.  

I was grateful to complete the little hats and blanket some time ago and started on some more.  

Having met new friends while pursuing new hobbies, some of them joined me in knitting hats and blankets.  First was Ellen, one of the two kind women who taught me how to knit.  She first made three hats to add to mine and later also knit three blankets.

Then my fellow quilter, Kate, surprised me with a weekly stream of tiny hats, as well.

And then Ellen knew someone who knew a lot of nursing-home ladies with big hearts and time on their hands.

The front row is filled with hat-and-bootie combinations, and I have many more hats that could not fit in the photo.  I hope it takes a long, long time for the hospital to give all these hats, blankets, and booties away to tiny little babies who may or may not go home.  I feel honored to have such a gift to share on behalf of friends who love our babies or others who have compassion for mourning parents and precious, tiny babies gone to Heaven.

Brr, is it chilly in here - or is that just our embryo?

Heard good news today!  One of our three little embryos down in the city made it to blastocyst stage and jumped in the freezer today!  I am thrilled with the news.  Of course, we really wish it could have been all three embryos that made it.  I am disappointed that the other two won't be hanging around to join our family down the road as they arrested in their development yesterday.  Additionally, it would have been fantastic to hear the great freezing news along with really good stats like, "you have a 100% chance to get pregnant with this blast once it thaws," than something more along the lines of... the embryo has a 75% chance to survive the thaw and a 15-20% chance to result in pregnancy when transferred.  Silly doctors - they just can't let us fully enjoy the moment, can they?  Well, I am enjoying every minute of it, anyway.  This is the first time that any of our embryos has made it to freeze (and, for all we know, to a blastocyst).  And... if we put the two strongest back in and this third little one is still looking strong today, then I figure the other two I have been toting around in utero the past couple days are looking awfully good, as well.

For new Baby Coyne

Over the past month or two, I have been knitting lots of little super-preemie baby hats and recently decided that I should also make something for the little baby we were working on making.  Around the time we were waiting for IVF to begin (after a couple of false starts involving ovulating on birth control and growing a hernia), I started to learn how to sew and so decided my first project would be a baby quilt.  It was a nice way to think happy, positive thoughts about futurebaby and be focused on doing something to love him/her before the little one even came to be.  Once the front was complete, I showed it to Pete who said, "well, it looks like we will be having a girl?"  Really, I did start with the intention of making a gender-inclusive blanket, but I guess all the sweet girlie fabrics were just too hard to exclude.  After Pete's comment, I took the plunge and chose pink and green butterflies for the back.  

I have a strong feeling that the ten-cell embryo we transferred Tuesday is Mr. Ten-Cell Embryo, so I am thinking I might need to get started on a boy one.  For now, though, it is nice to see this little quilt in my project room (my atelier when I am feeling fancy!), patiently waiting for a sweet little girl to crawl around on it.

Meet our embryos!

Aren't they fantastic?!  Today we transferred our two strongest embryos, a ten-celled embryo (on the left) and one of our two eight-celled embryos (on the right).  We are very much hoping that our other three will make it to freeze this Thursday or Friday.  Based on how they are doing today, they have a good shot!  After the transfer, I asked the embryologist to please take extra good care of the three staying with her because we wanted to have them all.  Probably not the norm in NYC, but I wanted to make sure she knew how important they were to us.  As she is terrific, I fully expect our other three little little ones will be well cared for until they (I hope!) hit the freezer later this week.

The procedure went pretty smoothly.  Having been through it once, I knew what to expect which made things easier.  It also made things more exciting as I remembered to watch the ultrasound screen this time and see the embryos be flushed from the catheter into their progesterone-prepped bed where I hope they stay for the next nine-ish months.  It looked like white lightening on a grainy screen.  Pretty cool!

It was a great day, and it was fun to spend a good bit of it really excited.  In another two weeks we will know the outcome of today's adventure, and it would be wonderful to have positive news to reward you with at their close.  As for now, I am off to celebrate with a progesterone shot!

Our five phenoms!

While we await the doc who is going to do our transfer today, I got a kick out of my branded footwear and thought I would share.  (I am also getting a kick out of how enormous my size 10s look in this picture!)  The doc will be bringing with him the very latest news on our embryos before we head into the room where we'll do the transfer.  (It will not be here on this 1950's examination table, thank goodness!)

On a more exciting note, I spoke with my doc this morning and heard as of 10a we had FIVE embryos still growing today!!!   This is entirely terrrific, and I am extremely happy about it.  Two of the embryos were eight cells, one ten cells, one six cells, and one five cells.  MUCH better than last time!  I'll update later after I get out of recovery on whom we transferred and how things went.

Yea!

Eager to hear about the Fantastic Five

Not much more to say than that, as we do not get a status update today on our five little little ones down in Manhattan.  But I sure am eager (and nervous) to get that call tomorrow!  I have acupuncture tomorrow at 9a as a warm-up to the actual transfer that we expect to happen tomorrow afternoon.  (If all five embryos are doing great and make it difficult to determine which are stronger, we may be pushed to a Thursday transfer of blastocysts.)  My guess is I will get the call right in the middle of the session and will jam needles too far into my arms and ears as I attempt to answer anyway.  The best news would be that all five had made it this far and are looking great!  At the very least, we would love to hear that at least a couple look good at 8 cells (or close to it).  We will see...

For some visual engagement until a more content-engaging update, here is a little timeline of what embryo development looks like:

So tomorrow we should be smack dab in the middle.  Hope our little five know what to do and are competitively racing one another to that eight-cell standard!  I will be sure to update when I know that news and the timing of our transfer.

Party in the petri dish!

Good news from the land of makingcoyne... all five of our eggs fertilized!  The nurse called to tell us the "wonderful news" just as we were headed into church this morning.  As she put it, "all five eggs fertilized on their own," which is somewhat funny, considering all the help they got through lots of meds, many check-up doctor visits, a surgical retrieval, a petri dish in a climate-controlled lab, and a couple embryologists carefully depositing a bazillion sperms around each egg. 

So as of this morning, we have FIVE happy one-celled zygotes - the best news we could hear at this point.  It also means that questionably-mature egg #5 grew up after a couple hours in the petri dish and was ready to welcome her army of 50k swimmers.  (Even though a sperm sample may have hundreds of millions of swimmers, the embryologists only put 50k or so with each egg.  Obviously, that's enough to do the trick!)  After last cycle when seven of seven fertilized and beat the 2/3 odds, then this cycle with five of five making embryos, one thing we know is that our DNA likes each other.  Now we just need our little embryos to be strong and divide vigorously.  Today's one-celled embryos should become two to four-celled embryos by tomorrow.  Ideally we'll have some eight-celled embryos come Tuesday when we hear if we'll transfer that day or Thursday.  Last time around, we only had two embryos make it to 6 or 7 cells, and the rest never made it past four.  It is hard to balance excitement and optimism with a guarded realism grown from experience... but I am excited about our chances... :)

On a less exciting front, today brings our first daily date with this:

Retrieval

We are just departing from our egg retrieval on the ninth floor of this building this morning.  They retrieved five eggs, one fewer than we expected.  I burst into tears upon hearing that news as I awoke. Something about the anesthesia makes me emotional upon waking, and it probably doesn't help that I awoke thinking about our babies, just like last time.  (Must be the OR setting.)  Six eggs seemed like a low number to expect and of course five to actually retrieve is even fewer. Of the five retrieved, four looked mature, and the fifth may or may not be (one sign indicated yes, another no) - we'll know tomorrow when we get the fertilization report.  

T-18 hours

My doctor appointment this morning was more of a formality than a decision-empowering visit.  Just the same, it was encouraging to hear that the HCG is coursing through my veins and getting our six eggs ready for tomorrow's date in Manhattan!  We saw six plump follicles this morning, and each looked big enough to house a mature egg.  Playing the odds... 2/3 of retrieved eggs on average fertilize, giving us four embryos... and of those, one will most likely be strong enough to give us a baby.  There is significant variability woman to woman and cycle to cycle, though, so we could have all fertilize (like last time) but make slow-dividing embryos that aren't strong enough to make a baby (also like last time), or we could have only one or two fertilize and possibly be strong enough to make a baby (or not), or we could have average fertilization and all four embryos do great and potentially make babies (very unlikely, but this is what I am hoping for!)  There is no way to tell until we are in the midst of it and seeing how the little eggs, swimmers, and embryos do.  I'll be sure to email an update after the retrieval tomorrow to share how many eggs were retrieved.  Wish us luck and send up some prayers! :)