Heavy

There is a very literal weight on my heart, and it has been heavy for weeks.  We finally got confirmation that my mom has cancer.  She and her doctors are optimistic, and she keeps telling me not to worry.  But how can I not?  I asked her questions about radiation and chemo and she looked at me like I was insane - how could I not know about this stuff?  She's an oncology nurse so all of these treatments and medical terms are like her second language.  I still have so many questions left, but she doesn't seem to want to dwell on this too much.  She won't even take the time off of work, and when I told her she should she almost laughed at me and said, "why would I do that?"

I stopped by there today after an appointment with the RE who will most likely be doing my transfer in June.  Good and bad news - since we have been advised by multiple doctors to only transfer one embryo, my chances of getting pregnant from an FET is only about 25% (compared to 40% with two embryos, or 50-60% chance if we were doing a fresh transfer).  But I had to remember that statistics apparently mean nothing to me, because I'm always in the minority.  Maybe 25% will be good enough for us.

I also brought up that two MFMs (my high risk OBs) have told me that it was possible that the chorioamnionitis I had was caused by the IVF treatment itself. They said that it was a slim possibility, though. I had high doubts about this, since it seemed highly unlikely that I would make it to 22, almost 23 weeks of pregnancy with a deadly infection that showed no symptoms until 22 weeks.  When I told the RE about this, he was shocked.  He said he had never heard that before.  He has done almost 10,000 transfers and he has never once had an infection come up because of the transfer.  Not only that, but he said he has yet to read a study that indicates chorio as a result of IVF.  He said that if I had an infection due to the embryo transfer or even egg retrieval, there was no way I would have gotten pregnant in the first place.  My uterus would not have allowed it, and even if it did... there's no way I would have made it so far in my pregnancy with an infection that would kill me.  Chorio is a rapid spreading infection.  My symptoms when I was admitted compared to right before I gave birth (span of 40 ish hours)  were like night and day.  I didn't have any symptoms when I was admitted, but I almost died from it a couple days later.  So, at least I can rest a little easy knowing that I am not putting any future pregnancies at risk using IVF.

I was also concerned about assisted hatching, since I know it could possibly damage embryos.  But he assured me that since I have day 5 embryos, there would be no assisted hatching.  Good job, little babies.  You are already making this so much easier!

When I stopped at my mom's house after my appointment, she told me about a sign that Conner and Benjamin sent to her.  My mom recites the rosary every night, and she does it in front of a picture of Conner and Benjamin.  In the picture, Tim and I are holding them.  She doesn't like the pictures where it looks like the boys are alone.  Anyway, this extremely light 4x6 picture frame is propped up with three candles so that sucker isn't moving anywhere.  She was reciting the rosary and before she was finished, the picture moved.  Like, almost fell over. She then realized she forgot to mention Conner and Ben's name in her prayers.  She said it was like Conner and Ben were saying, "hey grandma, don't forget about us!"

Hopefully, my boys are watching over their grandma as she goes through this extremely difficult journey.