A little history...

Although most of you know the history, we thought we would give a synopsis of how we got to this point. I'll try to be quick... :)

After about a year of unsuccessfully trying to get pregnant, Nathan and I had a visit with my OB. To make a long story short, after many tests for both of us, we discovered that there were no sperm in Nathan's semen. At that point, we were referred to Boston IVF. We were unsure if this was an obstructive issue or a production issue. Nathan was scheduled for a testicular biopsy. It was a very painful procedure and Nathan was a trooper for going through it. The good news is that they were able to recover a small amount of sperm! We had conquored our first challenge. Because they weren't sure of the quality or quantity of sperm that they had retrieved, we had to go through the long and kind of weird experience of picking out a donor from a sperm bank, "just in case".

With all our ducks in a row, I started up on the hormone injections. They really weren't as bad as I thought they were going to be. I responded REALLY well to the injections. In fact, almost too well, because my ovaries were loaded with follicles and I felt like they were going to explode. After 5 days of driving back and forth to Boston for ultrasounds, the big day finally came for egg retrieval. I went under general anesthesia and I awoke to a report that they had harvested 14 eggs from my ovaries. Great news! Then the waiting game started. It was a game we were going to have to get used to with this whole process.

The next day we were informed that only 3 of the 14 eggs had fertilized. We were a little disappointed with this low number, but over-joyed with the wonderful news was that they were able to use Nathan's sperm and not the donor's. We were so excited!!!! Two days later, we were back down in Boston for our embryo transfer. We had 3 good looking embryos (pictured to the left). According to standards, the "best" embryos are 8 cells and have no fragmentation (cellular material that has been nipped off during splitting of cells). Well, two of our embryos had 8 cells but moderate fragmentation and one of them had 6 cells and no fragmentation. So, we made the decision to transfer all three of them. We were excited at the thought of multiples, and believe it or not, we still are!!

Ten days after the embryo transfer I was scheduled to go in for a pregnancy test. I won't lie and say we didn't do our own little test at home. About 3 days before the official test, I woke up at 4am and did a pee test. I had seen more than a dozen "negative" tests in the last year, so I was thrilled when I saw the faint vertical line that meant the test was positive. I ran into our bedroom and woke up Nathan to tell him the good news. We, of course, couldn't go back to sleep and spent all morning talking about the adventure we were about to embark on. As expected, the official pregnancy test came back positive. We were thrilled. The next question was... how many of those embryos had settled in for the long haul. The waiting game was back on!

Two weeks later, we were scheduled for our first ultrasound. I was, in pregnancy terms, about 7 weeks pregnant. Nathan and I had a bet as to how many of the embryos had implanted. I was thinking twins, but Nathan was really feeling that all three had taken and we were going to be blessed with triplets. We made a wager that the winner would get to choose where we would go for a celebratory dinner that night. Well, the ultrasound started and being a veterinarian, I was able to interpret it pretty well. We saw two little yolk sacs and I thought for sure that we were going to be going to my restaurant of choice. Well, only moments later, it was pretty clear that one of those yolk sacs had TWO fetuses in it. The ultrasound tech confirmed that indeed there were three total. I'm not sure I can explain, or even really know, what my/our feelings were at that time. We were so happy to see any life at all in there and now we were going to be blessed with THREE!!! We looked at eachother and said, "Let's order take out. We can't afford to go out to dinner now!"

How it stands right now is that we are indeed pregnant with three fetuses. Although only two of the embryos survived, one of them decided to be ambitious and make up for the lost one by splitting in two. So, essentially we have a set of identical twins and one fraternal to round out the bunch. The good news is that they all looked great. They are the perfect size for their age and their hearts are beating just like they should be. It is an amazing feeling to see those heart beats for the first time. It makes it so real! Unfortunately, there are a few things that make this a "high risk" pregnancy. Because of this, we will likely be transferred to the Materinal-Fetal Medicine specialists at Maine Med. Simply the fact that they are triplets, elevates my pregnancy to that status. A second risk factor is that the identical twins are sharing the same placenta. At this time we are not sure if they also share the same amniotic sac (a sac that surrounds and separates each twin inside the shared placenta). There are risks with each situation, but the specialists will be monitoring me closely every step of the way. Hopefully after our next ultrasound, we will be able to see a membrane in between the two twins.

SO!! Sorry, I know I said I would keep that short, but it's just so overwhelming. That's pretty much the story up until now. My next ultrasound is scheduled for a week from today. I will be 9 weeks pregnant. I will also meet with my doctor that day and lay out the plan for next 6-7 months. My 40 week due date was going to be Feb 2nd, 2010. With triplets, however, I am told that the average gestation length is only 32 weeks, which brings me up to December 8th, 2009.

We are keeping this blog and all of our news very private for the time being. If you have been invited to share in it, we ask that you still continue to keep this quiet until we have hit the 12-13 week mark. At that time, we will open the blog up to everyone and will go public with all the news. For now, we'll just keep it our little secret. :)

Thanks for reading. I hope that I can keep up with posting updates as we go forward. Keep your fingers crossed and get ready to take part in our roller coaster ride towards starting a family.

Love to you all.... Nellie