Part 6 – We’re Pregnant!

If you’re reading this and haven’t read the first 5 parts of our story, I would encourage you to start at Part 1 to get the full scope of our journey.

If you know me personally, odds are you already know our story… so you can imagine how excited I am to be sharing this!

I have always dreamed of sharing our pregnancy since the day Josh and I got married.

This moment is so incredibly special to the both of us.

I have healed so much through candidly sharing our infertility journey and I thank God every day for getting us through all the hard times that have led to this moment.

Well, if you haven’t gathered by now… WE’RE PREGNANT!

The joy we have experienced in this new season has been truly incredible.

Praying for something for so long, and then seeing it come to fruition – it’s simply magical.

I want to share how we got to this moment and share how thankful we are.

As I left off in the last post, we had our embryo transfer on February 1st.

February 1st was an amazing day. It was filled with so much hope for what was to come… Since going through IVF does not guarantee a baby, we are over the moon and so grateful that our first round worked.

When we first began our IVF journey, just like an new journey one embarks on, you can feel so lost.

There is so much to learn, so many unknowns, and so many “what if’s”…

To those unfamiliar with IVF, the transfer day is the most exciting part!

Everything you’ve done boils down to this moment!

Below is a picture of me on our transfer day! Under that mask is the biggest smile ever.

Since Josh couldn’t be with me in the hospital that day, he sat in the car and we were able to Facetime- thank goodness!

(Side note: I teased Josh and told him how funny it was that we were “making a baby today” and he couldn’t even be there! HA!) Gotta keep the humor….

Anyways, before an embryo transfer, you are told by your doctor to arrive with a full bladder. (Reason being, a full bladder changes the shape of your uterus allowing for better placement of the embryo!)

Man oh man this was SO hard!! This was something that nobody had warned me about! I had such a full bladder half way in to the drive to the hospital, and had a couple accidents while I was in the hospital… lol. I will keep those stories for another day, but I can’t wait to share those stories with Baby Sanicky one day! lol.

The actual transfer was super quick. It took just a few minutes!

They used a catheter to transfer the embryo into the uterus.

I honestly don’t even remember how any of this felt because the moment we saw our embryo on the screen, we lost it! I was crying such happy tears! It was crazy getting to see the science behind all of this. Everything we had done had led to this moment and it was incredible to finally be there.

They gave us a photo of our embryo and even the petri dish that baby was in! It was SO special!

Now that the transfer was done, we had to wait 14 days until we tested to see if we were pregnant.

Basically, we were pregnant until proven otherwise.

It was such an odd feeling KNOWING I had our baby in me, but not knowing for sure what the outcome would be.

Those next 14 days while waiting were SOOO long! (I’m telling you, nothing tests your patience like IVF!!!)

With doing IVF through the Cleveland Clinic, they do a blood draw on the 14th day to check your HCG (the pregnancy hormone), so on day 14, I would go into the lab and get my blood drawn to have my HCG levels checked to see if they were within pregnant range.

I was tempted a couple times to test at home with a home pregnancy test, but with support from Josh and lots of will power, I waited the full two weeks. I did not want to try and control this situation because I knew that no matter what, God was in control!

On February 15th, I went in to get my blood drawn first thing in the morning! By 8:30 AM I had already gotten the results!

I was literally still driving home, only 2 miles from being back! Most hospitals use some kind of portal service where you can download an app to see test results and other health related items. The clinic uses MyChart. So within the hour, I had already gotten a notification from the MyChart app that my results were in. I immediately prayed and as I opened the app, I read the HCG level….

MY HCG LEVELS WERE 1,514!!!!

I BAWLED. I could not stop crying.

An average range for HCG levels at this time are usually between 5-426. So with mine being so high, the doctor said, “Cady, congratulations… you are VERY pregnant!”. I couldn’t control myself. After all this time of so much heartache, worry, anxiousness, sadness, everything… ALL of it was overcome by a feeling of such JOY!

Can you imagine the feeling I had when I read that number? I immediately cried and cried and just kept saying, ‘Thank you Jesus! Thank you Jesus!’

Being 14 weeks pregnant now, I can still feel the excitement in my bones when I think about that moment, it’s truly one I will NEVER forget!

Although our pregnancy was confirmed through bloodwork, when I got home I immediately took a pregnancy test just so I could see those positive lines!

After crying so many tears of sadness for a couple years, I cried so many tears of JOY and THANKFULNESS that day!

Below is a video I compiled of all of the daily PIO (progesterone in oil) shots I needed. Josh did EVERY SINGLE SHOT.
I am so thankful for him.

The reason I needed these is because women who go through IVF don’t naturally produce 2 pregnancy hormones’ (progesterone and estrogen) when they conceive since the conceiving is outside of our bodies (in a petri dish!). In a normal woman’s body, progesterone and estrogen begin when implantation happens. In order to help sustain and grow the embryo, our clinic had me start 3 estrogen pills every day 5 days before transfer and then PIO shots every day in the upper glute muscle. I graduated from these shots on March 23rd!

It’s absolutely amazing to see what our bodies can do and I am so thankful that God created scientist to know exactly what to do for women like me who need treatment! I will forever be thankful for this journey that God has taken us on. It’s made Josh and I a stronger couple and it’s allowed us to grow in patience and persistence. We are thankful for all the bumps in the road, as they have shaped us in to exactly who we are today.

IVF is an absolute MIRACLE. Every baby is a miracle. We have seen first-hand the work that God does in creating each and every one of us.

We give God all the glory and look forward to this next chapter of our lives!

If you are reading this and in the middle of an infertility journey of your own, my best advice to you is to keep God close, never give up, and know that you can do hard things!

Joshua 1:9 and Romans 8:8 are two verses that kept me so grounded.

This week is also National Infertility Awareness Week and I find it incredibly special that God would allow us to share and experience this joy during this time…as the last two years at this time I was so sad…

If that is you, know that you’re not alone! Reach out for support and stay rooted in God’s word!

‘The suffering of this present time is not worth comparing to the joy that is to come’.

NEVER GIVE UP!!

xoxo Cady