A humbling time

Some of you are aware, and other may not be, but this next couple weeks, and hopefully months will be a hard and emotional time here in the Lybbert household. The reason for that is that yesterday, I had two embryos placed in my uterus. This is the 4th attempt, and to say the least, we are nervous.

Attempt number 2 came back negative,
Attempt number 1 was positive, but ended at 6 weeks,
Attempt number 3 was barely positive, and it took a week before they even said it was actually positive, but ended at 7 weeks.

We are of course hoping for a positive two weeks from now, but it will still be hard due to the prior history. We are asking for your sincere prayers, and fasting if you are able. It is very hard for us to be this open on this matter, but we figured that we need to humble ourselves, and ask for your help and prayers.

Below are the first pictures we have of our little babies. The one on the top is 8 cells, and the one on the bottom is 6 cells. The embryologist said they both look like good quality, and we are keeping our fingers crossed.

Below are a few frequently asked questions that you may have:

1. When is the pregnancy test? - It will be September 1st, and I won't know anything until then.

2. Do you feel pregnant? - I really shouldn't feel any signs of pregnancy before the blood test is scheduled

3. Are you afraid of getting sick like attempt 1? - No, not at all. The reason I got sick before was because we did IVF, and an immediate transfer of the embryo. These embryos were frozen, and therefore there was no risk of ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome (OHSS).

4. How many embryos do you still have in the freezer? - We did the IVF process in May, and as we were planning to freeze them all due to the risk of OHSS, they froze them at the pronuclear stage (right after fertilization). We ended up freezing 8, and initially thawed 4. Two of them did not survive the thaw process, so we thawed one more to culture. On the day of transfer, 2 of them were good, but the third had stopped developing properly. (if all three were good we planned to refreeze it at the blastocyst stage). So we have 3 remaining at the pronuclear stage.

5. Why do these embryos look different than the ones you have posted before? - These embryos are in the multi-cellular stage, and all others were transferred at the blastocyst stage. These embryos are only 6 and 8 cells, where as the blastocysts are cultured 2 days longer and have more than 100 cells. I am not sure why the doctors wanted multi-cellular rather than blastocysts, but hopefully it work better for us.

6. Do you still have to take shots? - Yes, I get a daily shot of progesterone administered inter-muscularly by my loving husband. These will hopefully continue for another 10-12 weeks or so. They are not very fun, but Dusty is getting better, and there is not much discomfort yet. I also have other medications that I will continue to take as well.

Hopefully that will answer some your questions, and if you have more, please feel free and ask? We are trying to be very open, and feel that with your help through faith in numbers, the Lord may bless us in our many attempts to become parents. Thank you all so much for your support.

Also, I know I am behind on posts, and I will catch up, but I wanted to at least get this one out.