Whoops! I spring that big news on the blog and then I disappear on you again... baby brain in full force, as per usual. Though if I'm honest, it never really went away - and my big baby is 6 now. (OMG.)
Yes, I just said 6. It feels like just yesterday we were childless and in the throes of infertility and now here we are, with a 6 year old and an almost-3 year old. What a ride! Our current belly-baby is also a little girl - and we're due at the beginning of January. I have my bets that it'll end up being a December bub, though we'll have to wait and see how that pans out.
It was a bit of a process to decide whether to go back for a third baby. I had spent the last year working on my health and fitness, and with the help of a gastric sleeve, lost 45 kilograms, getting to the lightest weight I've ever been in my adult life! We also had the 6 frozen embryos sitting on ice from Claire's cycle, so constantly paying storage fees brought up the subject of 'what to do?' every six months or so.
In the end, we came to an agreement. We would use our frozen embryos up, but we wouldn't be doing any more fresh IVF cycles. If they worked, great. If they didn't, well, we have the girls, and we figured it was a sign that we were done.
We didn't tell anyone we were going back to try again - the pressure was on, and honestly... we were just dealing with it in our own way this time. Since these cycles were our last chances, so we kept it quiet and went ahead with preparing for a FET. I went on a HRT cycle similar to last time, with progesterone supplements and regular bloods. We transferred a little embryo on Easter Monday, one of our 4-day embryos that was thawed and grown out into a Blastocyst over night before the transfer. It was a lovely little thing, and the FS and Scientist both looked happy with it. All we could do was wait.
As usual, I couldn't wait and was peeing on sticks a few days later, watching a line incredulously appear. First transfer round this time - is this even possible? It was a rocky few days of low numbers (as per usual in the Jag household... I guess someone has to be at the bottom end of the bell curve for hcg levels?) but all looked to be rising. Then the bleeding started. And when I say bleeding, I mean haemorrhaging. I thought it was over on multiple occasions - clots, gushes, days of bleeds. I was diagnosed with a SCH and told it was 50/50, but lo and behold, baby kept growing, its heart started beating, and we held on.
Our NIPT at 11 weeks came back low risk, and that's how we discovered that we were having a third little lady baby - crazy! Once again, I thought it was a boy - wrong 3/3 times! I'm currently 18 weeks along and we have our Morphology scan next week, which I'm a little anxious about - just praying for a nice healthy and happy baby in there.
And that, friends, is where we're at. Welcome back to the crazy ride!!
