Egg Retrieval/Transfer Update!

We underwent the Egg Retrieval procedure on January 24th and they were successful at retrieving 6 eggs. Out of those 6, 5 of them fertilized and only four made it to the Blastocyst stage, which is the stage they like the embryo to get to before transfer to the uterus. We were excited for our good outcome, but a little nervous, as it was not as many eggs as they were able to retrieve last fall when we underwent our first IVF treatment.

Nonetheless, we proceeded with transfer on January 29th!

Here's a picture of us on the day of our transfer.

They transferred two of the four embryos that day and froze the other two for future use.

After this step, we rest and will wait for about a week and a half!

IVF Cycle #3!

Today we started all the meds for our third attempt at IVF. It consists of two injections daily for about a week and half and ultrasounds to monitor the follicles every other day or so. Hoping and praying for the best this time!

Catch-Up!

I have decided to make a couple posts and catch everyone up on our journey to how we got here. I won't go into too much detail since that would just bore everyone ;-) so will just cover the basics.

Five years ago, I was diagnosed with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS), which is a condition where there is an imbalance of hormones, such as estrogen and progesterone. These hormones are used to regulate the normal development of eggs in the ovaries. Therefore, this imbalance causes a host of problems, mostly infertility.

We have tried lots of ways to deal with this condition over the years. We started wtih basic fertility treatments at our OB office and all were unsuccessful. At that point, we were referred to Heartland Center for Reproductive Medicine Fertility Clinic in Omaha. After some initial consultation, Josh and I knew we needed to spend some time working on weight loss if we were going to be as successful in conceiving as we wanted.

In November of 2008, we started one amazing year of transformation living and breathing Weight Watchers and it changed our lives. We both lost a lot of weight and for a short time we actually forgot such words like "follicle," "ovulation," and "insemination"....all words that were part of our daily vocabulary before.

In November of 2009, once we reached a "healthy" weight, we started treatments at Heartland. What a great feeling that was after all our hard work. To make another long story short, since November of 2009, we have gone through 4 cycles with Intrauterine Insemination and eventually moved up to InVitro Fertilization. We underwent two attempts at IVF last fall and we are getting ready to start our 3rd attempt this January of 2011.

I am just now realizing that this was a long post and hope you are all still reading at this point! ;-) I promise the other posts will be much more exciting than this one but I think the past is important to where we are today.

First Post

Well, it's official.

We have joined the world of blogging! :-)

This blog was created to chronicle and share the journey of "Our Little Miracle." After a very long 5 year infertility journey, we are getting ready to start our THIRD attempt via InVitro Fertilization.

I titled our blog, "Our Everyday Blessings" because Josh and I strive to live our lives focusing on all the gifts and blessings that God gives to us each day, rather than focusing on all the hardships in life. It's not easy, but we try. We look forward to hearing from all of you as you share in our journey to becoming parents and we thank-you for reading this far!

And, we're off! :-)