Queen of the Juggle

This was the visit prior to our “LAST VACATION” to Hawaii. I thought it would be quite an extensive appointment, but it was about the same as any other. We learned that we are having 3 BOYS!!! We are so excited that all seems to be good. 10 fingers and toes each, the head and abdominal measures look great. When they told us the first 2 were boys I was so excited. When the 3rd one turned out to be a boy too I just stunned! Wow…3 boys. I think it will be great. Since we have Kaitlyn and Gillian, I am happy that the sexes are different. No competition between 2 sets of girls. That works for me. I’m also happy to have a change of pace with Legos and GI Joe, rather than gathering more girlie stuff. The girls really enjoy the makeup and glitter. I’m looking forward to dirt, trucks and sports equipment. The girls are really excited about their brothers on the way. So with the happy news, we hopped a jet to Oahu and then the big Island 2 days later. It was a fabulous vacation, full of great food and beautiful scenery. Everything was really great until our return to the mainland. We had an 11 p.m. flight from Kona to Las Vegas via LAX…never do this if you don’t have to. We started our journey home with me being seriously tired. The last few days of the vacation I learned that my belly was growing and that it is time to slow down. I had had some belly pain if I walked a lot. It had been somewhat intermittent depending on if I had walked a lot or sat in one position for a time. Anyway, we got on the plane and sat right behind a very sick gentleman who vomited repeatedly for the 5 hour trip. So with the noise and full, hot plane, we did not enjoy our trip home, nor did we get any sleep. We thought our last trip to the islands was bad, well…this trip positively blew it away. Then we arrived at LAX and found we needed to change terminals and that meant leaving security and shuttling over. My belly ached from being on the plane and it became more intense with every step at LAX. I was almost in tears from being in pain and tired. So as soon as we touched down in Vegas we called Dr. Bohman and talked to him about the pain. We had an appointment to see them that same day anyway, so they told us to go home and rest and come back for our appointment. The appointment was quick, but I was really weepy and tired. Dr. Bohman thinks my pain is coming from muscle stretching that will not change, but get worse with time. I’m frustrated by this news, but try to keep in mind that it’s for a good cause.

We also successfully came up with 3 names that we like…..drum roll please…..the names for the boys so far will be: Gary Charles in honor of our dads, Benjamin Isaac, and Ryan Thomas. The last 2 names are ones we came up with based on Chip’s opinion and talking to friends and family. I like the names, but am not crazy about Benjamin. I really like Ben much more. Time will tell.

This is the end of the our road with Nevada Fertility Cares (NFC). Dr. Littman who helped us initially who left on maternity leave saw us for our last appointment. There was some inkling that maybe we could see boy parts, but no firm confirmation….Wayyyy too early. Babies look great, growing well.

It has been an incredible journey with the NFC. We came to them in August of 2006, after a very negative experience at the Sher Institute of Reproductive Medicine with Dr. Fisch. The difference between the offices was like night and day. With Sher we felt like we were in a people mill, and everyone was treated exactly the same. It was pure timing and medication as far as they were concerned. In fact, we missed one cycle because the doctor was in Europe. No one else could ever do an ultrasound for us if the doctor wasn’t in. We wasted almost a year there and Chip and I both wondered why it would be acceptable to be treated as an object and have only 5 to 10 minutes with a specialty doctor that most people are paying cash for. It’s sad really. So we turned to Nevada Fertility cares, who has been a breath of fresh air. People knew us by name almost immediately. They really listened to what our experiences had been and offered far less expensive options that we could try. They also introduced us to to Dave Tiemann who is a holistic medicine specialist. We began to incorporate Qi Gong and other lifestyle changes like eating all organic, taking vitamin supplements and focusing on life balance. At Sher, there was no mention of lifestyle impact. One small example…we’d go to Sher for the insemination and then head to Starbucks for some coffee. We learned from Dave that caffeine can cause miscarriage in early pregnancy. Not only did Dave help us in our general everyday lives, but he helped us learn more about environmental impacts from food and chemicals in the home to stress. While we did have initial failures, both Chip and I feel that Dave really helped us focus on the whole picture so we could be well prepared for IVF as well as just improve our lives. So not only did we achieve some great lifestyle advice, we also came away with baby success via the IVF process. The best part was that unlike most, all of our treatment was covered under my Cigna insurance.

We will be moving on to Dr. Bohman at Desert Perinatology. We met him on April 6. We also met Lori who is a genetic specialist. She spoke to us first about what our numbers look like for having babies with down syndrome or other chromosomal defects. She also spoke to us about various tests that we could do to see what the outcomes would be. Neither Chip nor I thought we would do any of them.

Then we met Dr. Bohman at Desert Perinatology, who is fantastic. We decided Dr. Bohman would be our primary caregiver during the remainder of the pregnancy. It is a relief, since the blood work that I did at Dr. Torres couldn’t make it 5 miles up the road to Dr. Bohman’s office. I got to do that fun again. At least the pap smear results were finally sent over. I told Dr. Bohman that I just wouldn’t do that again. Once a year is enough! So we worked out those details. The first bit of news we learned was that Dr. Bohman wanted us to go for a cerclage, which is a purse string/draw string stitch in the cervix to keep it closed to keep these 3 babies inside as long as possible. The doctor gave us an target delivery of 34 to 36 weeks for delivery, which would be about September 13. The date sounded promising for babies to not be in the NICU too long. I am a big scaredy cat about medical procedures, so I wasn’t very excited to hear about this upcoming procedure that would need to be done between 12 and 14 weeks. We scheduled it at Siena Hospital on April 23. That gave me 3 weeks to bite all my nails down to nubs and fret about what the experience would be like.

We went to the Green Valley office of Nevada Fertility Cares and took the blood test that we had been waiting 2 long weeks for. So we were there at 9 a.m. as instructed. The morning seemed to drag on. Finally about 1 p.m. Mary Ann from the Summerlin office called and told us we were pregnant. Not only were we pregnant, but the HCG levels were 700. Normal to prove pregnancy is 50. So, that meant that there were probably more than one. However, we’d have to wait until 3/2/07 to see what exactly was in there via ultrasound. Our due date is determined to be 10/25/07. On 3/2/07 we’ll be just over 6 weeks. It’s so hard to wait!