The dreaded 2 week wait was over but we aren’t confirmed as pregnant yet.

I had my blood draw at 7:15 am so that we could get lab results the sane day. I got a call just after noon from my amazing coordinator who said pregnancy hormone was detected. Many people who have natural pregnancies unassisted don’t know that we don’t celebrate this first blood test. It’s indicative of successful implantation but the pregnancy is not yet confirmed. We take another test in a few days. If that test shows no hormone then the experience is termed a chemical pregnancy that never became confirmed or viable. If a specific increase in the hormone is detected, then the pregnancy is confirmed. So, again, we wait.

After months of discussions, calls, doctor’s appointments, medications and injections, the day has arrived for our Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET).

The day seemed like it was eagerly anticipated, yet it wasn’t quite what we’d pictured from our last embryo transfer. Having gone through this experience before, we had the ability to compare. In 2017, we’d arrived, parked, walked into the building, elevator, and clinic hand in hand. Our fertility doctor explained the procedure, the techniques, who would participate, and what to expect. Then it began and was complete in about 15 minutes of carefully orchestrated routine. The sliding door inner door in the exam room – the exam room that looked much like every other OBGYN exam room I’ve ever visited – opened directly into the embryology lab and an embryologist was waiting there standing in front of what appeared to be a clear isolation chamber that she could reach into. The monitor screen turned on and the image switched to a view looking down at the inside of the chamber and the embryologist’s hands. They showed a media dish shaped like a disk, with an identifying number on the disk (that number corresponded to my clinic identifier number and was checked and rechecked multiple times). As we watched on the monitor, she removed the lid, and zoomed in microscopically to a tiny image – technically the blastocyst – which was the embryo on Day 5 of its development after the egg was fertilized. While we watched, she drew the blastocyst into a clear tipped syringe and we followed its path easily out of the dish and into the tube. She then handed the syringe to our physician who had already readied the entry into my body with a common gynecological device. The monitor image switched to the ultrasound image, as a sonographer watched carefully. Our physician placed the syringe into my uterus, the sonographer measured the distance of the syringe tip to my uterine wall, called out the measurements and the physician depressed the plunger releasing the embryo in its saline bath into my uterus. She removed the syringe and speculum and that was the end of the procedure. I dressed, stopped by the ladies room on the way out, and Mark and I headed toward home.

This time, I had to make sure I had a surgical mask and my hand sanitizer in my purse before we left for the clinic because we were still enduring the COVID-19 pandemic, something we’d never anticipated at the start of all of our discussions. The traffic was extremely light on the way into downtown Seattle. Mark dropped me off at the front door, to park and wait outside because no one other than the patient was allowed inside the building. I waited alone for my name to be called. I went into likely the very same exam room, and the procedure was exactly the same as before with one exception. When the embryologist removed the lid to the media dish, she exclaimed “oh, it’s progressed since I peeked in this morning: it’s hatching and ready to implant!” I could swear as I stood up from the exam table to dress, I felt a lightning sharp pain in my uterus and felt the actual moment of implantation – which was surreal. I made my way out of the clinic and building and Mark picked me up at the curb. It was like much of our lives since COVID-19 arrived in our country, a new or adjusted reality. I may never use the word “normal” again.

We began the wait (also known as the 2 week wait) after IVF Embryo Transfer before our pregnancy test that would tell us if the procedure was successful.

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Who we are, why we’re on this journey, and why we’re sharing our story.

Mark and I met, fell in love, combined our families (my Chocolate Labrador and Aussie mix with his Corgi), and married because we decided we wanted to have a family. I met Mark while we were both volunteering in a program that helps veterans prepare for careers in high tech. We had both been in long-term relationships in the past that didn’t last. We knew rather quickly that we had something special and were honest about wanting to see where this relationship led.

I am older than Mark and knew my biological time to become a mother was drawing to a end. After many discussions and research, we decided to pursue reproductive assistance to have a child of our own. After a several IVF Cycles that failed, our successful IVF cycle ended on our honeymoon. We found out 10 days later that we were expecting! We had a healthy, but premature (due to me having severe preeclampsia in my 30th week of pregnancy) baby boy born at 33 weeks weighing 5lbs 2.5oz in January of 2018. He spent nearly a month in the NICU before we were able to take him home.

It’s an understatement to say we were relieved that our son and I survived the pregnancy. However, we were thrust into a confusing entry into parenthood in a frightening, beeping, sterile world of the NICU with our baby wearing an oxygen mask to help him breathe, fed by a feeding tube because he lacked the muscles to nurse or drink from a bottle, and seeing him connected to tubes and wires. NICU nurses and doctors, God bless their souls, taught us how to care for our small baby. It was stressful to make the hour long trek each way to the NICU everyday to hold my son in Kangaroo Care, attempt to pump breastmilk that barely dripped out into the tiny bottles, and support my baby in every way I could. However, I quickly realized my child was not only the giant of the NICU but he was well. Babies in Swedish Level IV are 6 to a NICU bay: I was surrounded by 1-2 lb preemies literally fighting for their tiny lives everyday. I remember crying and praying hour by hour – not for my own baby who just needed to grow and learn to suck, swallow, breathe – but for those miniature babies. I unintentionally overheard heard crisis events of their hearts stopping, resuscitation, hushed doctor-parent conversations, and the sobbing of parents. My heart broke for those babies and those parents. Those moments left an indelible mark on this momma’s heart. Mark and I looked at each other and decided never again. We couldn’t bear the idea of another complicated pregnancy where I might be at risk of losing my life, losing a baby, or watching a sick preemie struggle days, weeks, or months in the NICU. Never again, we said.

Long story told short, the experience of becoming parents to a preemie who eventually grew, despite preemie troubles (like frequent sickness because of an immune system that wasn’t as strong as his cohort and feeding troubles due to the neurology of preemies that predisposes them to sensory issues that lead to eating problems) into a curious, bright, and heart-melting toddler has been the most treasured and enriching experience of our lives. The first day he said, “I love you so much” to each of us, we couldn’t comprehend how much we could love this little boy more than we already did. Beyond being smitten with our toddler, we considered what his life would entail as an only child of two older parents with our nearest family thousands of miles away. How would his life change when we were gone? Who could he count on? Would he be alone?
So, an idea began to take shape. We investigated with my SRM Reproductive team, my OBGYN, and discussed the risks of another pregnancy. Of all the complications that can go wrong, preeclampsia can be mitigated or delayed with close monitoring, preventive aspirin therapy, and possibly avoided. We had a plan and began our reproductive journey again in September of 2019. Little did we know what we would face.
As I’ve progressed in my pregnancy, the dream of an easy, happy, stress-free pregnancy evaporated. I began to find information and support for mono/di twin complications via the TTTS Foundation. At first, I didn’t understand why the women in the private groups would share such personal information or chose to blog about their experience. Yet As we’ve progressed farther into this world of mono/di complications, I now understand that we simply aren’t designed to shoulder such emotion and burden alone. Choosing to hide our journey away behind closed doors would not only be somehow acting as if we did something wrong, or brought these compilations upon ourselves, it would also deny the opportunity for prayer, love, and support from our family, friends, and most unexpectedly – strangers who have materialized along the way to show us unbelievable kindness. This is the story of our journey, written in real-time, as it continues to unfold told by me, Pamela, in an act of courage and attempt at catharsis and maintaining my sanity.