May 14, 2010
Twin musings
Yesterday, the twingey cramps moved to my right side, and it was really hard not to let my hope off its leash, thinking about the possibility of the second embryo implanting. I made some comment to S about “our second baby digging in” – thinking that I’d freak him out – but he just raised his eyebrows and gave me a little smile. It’s funny, I keep making these little comments to him – not as a test, but more to make sure that we’re on the same page (i.e. that he’s freaking out as much as I am) – and he keeps surprising me.
Perfect example – on my birthday last Friday, I still wasn’t feeling well enough to do much, so we went to a local restaurant for dinner, grabbed ice cream from the local creamery for dessert, and then went to the local hole-in-the-wall cinema. It was a perfect night, marred only by my terrible choice of movie – The Back-Up Plan (spoiler alert). Yes…on the night before our transfer, I chose to go see a movie about artificial insemination. Strangely enough, I really needed to see it for some reason…little did I know that she (Jen.nifer Lopez) would get pregnant with TWINS.
At one point in the movie (which was actually TERRIBLE by the way, even content aside), the boyfriend is freaking out about how much twins are going to cost – I glanced over at S, and was surprised to see that he didn’t seem worried. So then I said, “look at how much CRAP you need with twins!” and he was like “that’s okay, we can handle it.” Um, what?!? LOL!
It’s funny, I think we’ve both always had a feeling that we might end up with twins. We first had the discussion when we started this IF journey FOUR years ago – starting with Clomid, there’s actually a higher risk of unplanned twins – so I had to make sure that he was on board. We definitely wouldn’t have been ready for them then, but we knew it was a possibility. Around that same time, S’s mom (who lives in Ireland) even heard from a psychic she went to that the next children in her family would be twins – crazy right?!
So anyways, all that to say that we’d still be terrified if we got pregnant with twins, but would consider it a major blessing and a miracle. I just don’t know how we’re going to make it another 8 days before finding out whether we’re even pregnant!! Earlier in the week, poor S was like “the blood test is on Saturday, right? NEXT Saturday??” So cute.
And wow, I just have to say thank you all for keeping me company on this two week wait. The last two days I received the highest number of blog hits ever (!), which means that either (a) you enjoy hearing a mad woman’s insane thoughts, or (b) you’re here out of interest and support. I’m assuming that it’s b, so THANK YOU. 🙂
November 6, 2009
“One’s first step in wisdom is to question everything – and one’s last is to come to terms with everything.”
(Attributed to Georg C. Lichtenberg)
I just need to say a big THANK YOU to all of the people who responded to me yesterday, both here and on the Inspire/Resolve message boards. I heard from people mid-IVF, in their 2WW, pregnant (with twins and singletons), and even mothers of twins! I received so much good information and opinions, that generally fell into a few categories. (*disclaimer – I’m only picking of pieces of people’s response, but I hope I’ve maintained the spirit and tone of your message.)
Those who have (or are in favor of) transferring two embies:
- “We cannot afford to do IVF again in the future and wanted to have 2 kids.”
- “We’re older parents(to be) and felt strongly we wanted our children to have a sibling.”
- “Go for it. I have never heard anyone say they regret twins.”
- “I’m pregnant with a singleton and had two embryos transferred. If I had only transferred 1, I may not be pregnant now.”
- “In the end we knew they wouldn’t freeze what we had left, their standards are too high, so rather than leave the second one to be discarded we transferred it.”
- “I wouldn’t be afraid of twins. They are much harder time and energy wise but I’ve been promised it evens out when they are a bit older and can play together.”
Those who agree that there are a lot of risk factors to consider (and pointed out some of the possible negatives):
- “I think it is wise you are concerned about health risks – the ideal goal of IVF is a singleton pg. The md recommended 2 embryo transfer to us due to my age and hx and both took. I was on bedrest for 4 months and the twins were early at 33 weeks.”
- “I work as a therapist and have seen the effects [of premature delivery] on babies in the NICU…”
- “I am 30wks1day…contracting now and home on bed rest.”
- “My pregnancy with the twins was very, very difficult. But the twins are now happy and healthy two year olds. They are thriving despite their birth being 6 weeks early.”
- “I worried about being selfish and just wanting a baby so badly that I’d forget about the complications that could occur.”
- “…that’s not to say I won’t always blame myself if something is wrong with my babies, if I have twins, because we transferred two.”
And finally, those who helped me the most, who pointed out that whatever decision we made – had to be right for US.
- “Bottom line: I did not want to regret ANYTHING!”
- “Ultimately, it’s a really personal decision. Things are rarely black and white. But as I said when I looked at it from the perspective of risking no pregnancy or potentially ending up with two, I knew immediately what I was willing to live with. Somehow you’ll find your way to the right answer for you.”
After reading all of these responses and mulling them over for the night, I woke up feeling much more peace with my decision. The bottom line for me is that I could NEVER forgive myself if there was something wrong with the baby/babies because of a decision that I made…I’d rather not be pregnant, than have caused a problem for my babies. With that said, this will still be a game time decision based on embryo quality and quantity – and I totally respect others for whatever decision was right for them. Thankfully, I have the luxury of being “young” and (finally!) having health insurance that will cover multiple rounds of IVF, so I think eSET (elective single embryo transfer) is what I’m now leaning towards. After all, as moms, don’t we all just want what’s best for our kids??
November 5, 2009
Overthinking…and fear
I don’t know why, but now that I am actually ON medication in preparation for our next IVF, I have become fixated on the question of whether we’ll transfer one or two embryos. (This is not a new worry – see this post for more.) I know that we are months away from having to make a decision, and I know that there will be specific factors in place that will make one decision or the other make better sense (number of embryos, embryo quality etc.), but I can NOT stop thinking about it. I think it might have to do with the fact that several of my fellow bloggers – the few that successfully got pregnant with IVF – are pregnant with twins! I was brushing my teeth this morning after getting out of the shower and looking at myself in the mirror, and realized how BIG I would get if I was carrying twins. Not that that’s a deciding factor, obviously, but it just made it feel very real. I was like, “wow, I wouldn’t be able to reach the medicine cabinet if my stomach was that big!!” LOL. Not to mention the worries of premature babies and other health issues…my mind is whirling.
To any of you ladies currently pregnant with twins, or who have decided to transfer two embies…HELP! What made the final decision for you? I know that there’s always the fear, but do you feel comfortable with your decision?
August 7, 2009
One…or two…or one…
So now that the countdown has officially begun for our next IVF cycle, I’m back to doing what I do best…worrying and overthinking. 😛 I’m actually feeling very positive about this cycle, but there is definitely a lot to think about. One of the biggest decisions that we’ll have to make with the next cycle is whether to transfer one or two embryos. With the past two cycles, only one embryo made it far enough to be transferred each time, so S and I never had to worry about that decision. Going forward, I am hoping that with a new protocol we’ll have much better egg and embryo quality and that we’ll hopefully have the option of transferring more than one embryo (and maybe even have a couple left over to freeze for later! ;-)).
When S and I started down the road to IF treatments, we discussed and acknowledged the fact that twins were a possibility (especially with Clomid, the medication that I was on initially, which occasionally causes more than one egg to be released). However, accepting the fact that twins are a possibility is much different than consciously deciding to transfer two embryos. Generally, the recommendation is one embryo for women in their 20’s, two in your 30’s, and three in your 40’s, however, each time, you have the option to override the doctor’s recommendation (to a point…no option of octuplets, lol!).
There are also clearly pros and cons to each option. If you transfer one, the only two possibilities are one baby or no baby. When transferring two, there is a built-in safety net in the event that one embryo does not “take,” but if both survive, twins are actually very risky. You don’t hear about it as much as with triplets or other higher-order multiples, but there are a lot of complications with twins, for both the mother and the babies.
At this point, S is really excited and ready to be a father, and is leaning towards transferring two. (Especially because years ago, his mother went to see a psychic who said that the next babies in the family would be twins, lol. ;-)) However, I’m still not sure. Here are my thoughts:
- Pro – we could have two babies for the price of one!
- Con – health risks for me and the babies
- Pro – if one doesn’t survive, we’d still have one baby for our “trouble”
- Con – two babies would take twice as much money and effort
- Pro – no one would expect me to return to work if we had twins, right?! I mean, two daycare payments??
- Con – my mother might have to move in to help for a while, lol
- Pro – if we aren’t able to get pregnant again, I would be happy with two children (although I’ve always wanted four)
- Con – if we were able to get pregnant again, I wouldn’t want our next child to feel left out (so I’d clearly need to have two more! :-P), but who’s to say we’ll be able to get pregnant TWO more times??
I’m sure there are even more pros and cons that I’m not thinking of… For any of those out there that have been through this, what decision did you make? How did you decide? And did it work out like you had hoped??
Life by the Day 