When we did our fresh IVF cycle that gave us Scarlett and Clark, we had 1 embryo that made it to freeze. As soon as we found out we were having twins again we decided our family would be complete with 4 kids and we would donate the last embryo. I remember sorting through newborn clothes with Rob when I was 35 weeks pregnant and insisting we should go ahead and donate the off season newborn clothes since we were never going to need them. Our family felt complete when the babies were born, but there was still the one embryo that we were responsible for.
By the time S and C hit about 3 months, I started reconsidering what we would do with our last embryo. Would I really be ok with the unknown of our DNA potentially being out there somewhere? What about an open embryo adoption where we could have contact with a child that shared our DNA but wasn't legally our child? There are couples that face these decisions every day. They're hard decisions to make, which is part of why there are so many embryos sitting in cryopreservation limbo. If we had multiple embryos left over we would have absolutely donated all of them to a couple battling infertility, but it was just one embryo. We can handle one more baby, right?
The more time went past and the more we talked about it, the stronger our feelings were that we wanted to give our little embryo a chance to join our family. I met with our reproductive endocrinologist at the beginning of December, just before Scareltt and Clark turned 1. Rob and I were ready to go ahead with a natural FET cycle in January after we got back from vacation. Then we found out we would have to wait 6 months until we returned from the Caribbean before we could do the transfer. Thanks, Zika.
That 6 months gave me more time to nurse Scarlett and Clark and for us to reflect further on potentially adding another child to our family. Our resolve only grew stronger, and as soon as we made it to 5 months post vacation, we started getting ready for a FET cycle. I got blood work done, a saline sonogram, we got the insurance approval, we were ready to go.
I stopped nursing the babies a month before our FET cycle was set to begin. I didn't think anything about how the hormonal changes from stopping nursing might effect my hormones for our cycle, but they did and our cycle was canceled before it ever even started. I went on birth control and came back three weeks later ready to try again. Thankfully everything looked good and I started my daily estrogen pills.
Scheduled FET cycles are so easy compared to what you go through for a fresh IVF cycle, or even a medicated IUI cycle. We knew on day 3 of my cycle when our transfer would be. I took 3 estrogen pills a day for 14 days, then added in progesterone 2 times per day, and had a few days of antibiotics in there right before transfer. That's it. No injections, no daily monitoring, no waiting for the nurses to call with instructions.
We got the call at 9am the morning of transfer that our embryo had survived the thaw, so Rob and I hopped in the car and drove 2 hours to our fertility clinic's main office. On the drive down we were both excited but also very nervous. Neither of us were entirely sure this was the right decision, and we were definitely crazy for even considering 5 kids.
It was the right decision. We did the transfer. Everything went smoothly. Then I had the same oh shit moment I had after our transfer with Scarlett and Clark thinking "what did we just do."
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