I will start this thing off with a little intro about me. My name is Danielle, I am 29 years old (almost 30!) . I live on Long Island with my husband and my twin daughters who are almost 3 years old. I myself am a twin, my sister and I are best friends. I am also very close to my parents, brother, sister in law and brother in law. I have an amazing niece and nephew (my twin sisters kids). I have a handful of great friends that mean a lot to me. My older sister passed away in 2012, we were very close and I think of her each and every day. She was only 37 years old and died suddenly. I am trying to do things in life that I know would make her proud. That is one reason I am writing this. I have always wanted to write and I am trying to follow dreams that she was never able to do. This blog will be about my life being a twin mommy and other antics that go on.
Well lets get started.....
I always knew I wanted to be a mother. Ever since I could remember my friends always said I am the "mother" of the group. I was always worried about everyone and everything. I was always the sober driver, always the one giving advice, and always the shoulder to cry on. I am a very passionate person with strong values. I am also a very giving person. But if you cross me in any way I will hold a grudge forever. I have a great memory and never forget even the smallest detail or many conversations and activities that have happened.
On our wedding day I remember my new father in law saying he will see us again (lives in Greece) when we christen our first child. I really thought that would be about a year or two after we were married. I knew I wanted a baby pretty quickly. For anyone that really knows me, knows that when I get something in my head I have the achieve it the quickest way possible. I want something and must have it.
Well like many things in life it just did not have happen quickly or the way I planned it. After being married for 6 months we were ready. We wanted a baby and had bought a condo to have more room for this baby that was going to make our dreams come true. I was that crazy person buying fertility tests, counting days, going crazy writing things down and eating food that could help. I wanted this baby and would do anything to have it. After only 6 months months of trying and not being pregnant I knew that something was wrong. Many people said wait 6 more months you are young, stop stressing. I swear if one more person told to stop stressing I was going to go nuts. I of course did not listen to them I went to a Reproductive Endocrinologist. My husband and I went through many tests and procedures to see what the issue was. The day I received a call from my doctor informing me what the problem was is a day I will never forget. I was in my office at work and I answered the call all happy because I honestly thought nothing is wrong. Every test I had was normal and I was fertile has them come. She told me my husbands results came back and his counts were low and it was not good. She said I had 1% (YES 1%) chance of getting pregnant on my own. She said it happens sometimes. She referred my husband to a urologist to get tested some more. He was not too happy about this but he did it for me. He was tested and tested and tested some more. The results for his low counts were "Unexplained Male Factor Infertility". WHAT! How can it be unexplained! He did things to try and change this. He tried different vitamins, went on medication but NOTHING helped.
Being who I am and a little pushy I said ok enough tests, what now? They said I could get pregnant but lets start with something called and Intrauterine Insemination (IUI). Now we were getting somewhere right? Well WRONG. After the first unsuccessful IUI and many negative pregnancy tests we had another consultation. The doctor said OK lets do another one. We go in to do this and unfortunately the count for the day was 0 and we were unable to do this. I was crushed, devastated and then that turned into anger. My husband spoke to his urologist who said skip IUI's the chance was so low of getting pregnant and we were wasting our time. Finally someone gave us the truth. I called my doctor and decided to switch to another doctor in the practice. I felt this doctor was wanting us to keep doing IUI's because well the insurance would keep paying for them. I then called my insurance and asked what we needed to do to start In-vitro fertilization (IVF). Has soon as I said it was Male Factor Infertility the represtative said on the phone we can move right on to IVF no problem. Some companies make couples go through rounds and rounds of IUI's to even qualify for IVF. But luckily (well not really) for us we did not have to go through all of that and we can move on to IVF.
IVF is no picnic. It was a lot of work and patience. I had to get blood drawn almost daily to check levels, give myself shots, take medications, and have sonograms to make sure things were going has planned. I am very fortunate that the medicine they gave me was working and everything was going better then had planned. I was getting great reports at every appointment. I was told ok we can retrieve your eggs on this date. Because I was overweight they were afraid it would be very hard to get to the eggs and I was reminded of me being overweight at every appointment (like I didn't already know this). The egg retrieval is a scary experience. They have to put you under anesthesia, give you an IV. When I woke up the doctor came to see me and said she did have a difficult time being that I was overweight (again thank you for the reminder). She was able to get 21 eggs though and that was fantastic news. I knew they would get a good number but never expected 21 eggs. The next day I received the call explaining if the eggs fertilized, if so how many and should I expect a 3-day transfer or a 5-day transfer. Well out of 21 eggs 17 fertilized and were doing great. They said I would get a 5-day embryos transfer. They called daily with updates until the transfer. The day of the transfer I decided to only transfer one embryo. They were only able to freeze 4, the other embryos were no longer viable. The transfer was pretty exciting. They let you watch has they transfer your embryo and you watch it go in through a sonogram. It was really something watching that. My husband was able to be with me unlike at the retrieval. Now we wait....and wait...and wait....then do a home test and drive yourself crazy. This wait is called the "two week wait". At the end of this wait you go to the doctor to do a blood test to see if you are pregnant. Now I am a "Test-a-holic" so before I went into be tested I knew I was not pregnant. Even still I had hope it was a false negative. I prayed and hoped that was the case but it was not. The day they called saying "unfortunately it did not work" was awful. I was at work when I received the call and before I even hung up I was sobbing. Lucky for me the office was empty but I was a wreck.
After I had a pity party for 1, I started thinking of the positives. I have four beautiful frozen embryos. I would not transfer one again but I would transfer two next time for make the chances even greater. My doctor had me take a month off before preparing for what they call an "Frozen Embryo Transfer (FET)". This was much much easier then IVF. I had to take progesterone and wear a estrogen patch. No shots! I went in again and did my second transfer with two embryos. I thought ok this is it the chances are higher it HAS to work. Well two weeks later and another negative test. Again since I tested the second I knew it would become positive, if I was indeed pregnant I knew I was not pregnant. This time the call from the doctor was not so bad because I was becoming numb to hearing "unfortunately". The doctor said I can go and do another FET right away and not wait a month. Another FET cycle started right away. I was ready knew what to expect and was thinking I was a pro at this point. We had two embryos left and if that did not work I had already said I would take a few months off of this because I was drained emotionally and needed it for me and my husband needed a break from my being pumped with many drugs. I went for my third times a charm transfer. It was easy and after I ate a crepe because well I was emotional and needed fattening delicious food. The two transfer before I went straight home and laid down, did not move. This time I did rest but was not too strict. I really did not expect it to work. Well 7 days past my transfer first thing in the morning (everyone said always test first thing) I tested using a line test and a digital test. Well to my surprise there were two lines on the test and pregnant popped up on the digital. I thought I was seeing things, I thought maybe I am delusional. After now 18 months of trying to get pregnant and never ever seeing a positive test I had to be going crazy right? I started screaming and crying, I was in disbelief for a second then ran to my husband. He saw the lines and the words pregnant. I then could only think of one thing, I had to call my twin she had to know right now, even though it was 7am on a Saturday she had to know right now. I called screaming and she probably thought I was going crazy or something bad. When she finally could understand what I was saying she was crying too.
From that second on I was a mess. A complete and utter mess. I thought something bad would happen. A few days after that I went for the blood work to test. It came back with great numbers. I repeated the test 2 days later and again it was great. A week later I had my first sonogram. We were told what we would be expected to see in the sonogram. No heartbeat yet but we would see something. Well we saw something and then we saw another something! My husbands grasp on my shoulder when she said ok here is your baby...and oh there is a second baby. My husband said he was hoping she didn't say and here is your third baby. He probably would have fainted. That was the happiest moment I had throughout this entire process. TWO babies! I fell in love with those babies instantly. They were all mine and they were very loved already.
I had a pretty uneventful pregnancy. I loved my doctor and he never once told me how overweight I was and to be careful. He was amazing. At 36 weeks pregnant (my birthday) I had my weekly visit. They took my blood pressure and the nurse immediately told me go in the room and lay on your side. I knew something had to be wrong she was very stern and seemed scared. The doctor came in calm like always and said OK how does tomorrow sound to have these babies? I said it sounded great. He told me I formed per-ecclampsia and he wanted to deliver that day but he wanted to do it and he was not the on-call doctor at the hospital. The next day I went in for a c-section (one baby was not head down).
At 11:53 am and 11:54 am my two miracle babies arrived! They were beautiful perfect babies and everything I ever dreamed of and more.
I think that is enough for now. I did not know which direction I would take with this blog. I am new at this and have always wanted to write. If you stick with me and like crazy mommy stories or just crazy stories in general then you will be pleased. Share with friends and enjoy the ride.
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