Baby #2?!!

Chris and I have always agreed we'd like our children to be close in age, but how close has always been up in the air.  My goal was to breastfeed Caleb a year and I knew I didn't want to cut that short to undergo another embryo transfer.  As Caleb's first birthday approached and I reached my 1 year goal of breastfeeding, we talked about when we would like to do another embryo transfer and January 2017 sounded like a good time.

On July 21st, Chris and I had a consultation with our fertility doctor to discuss a frozen embryo transfer. We talked about the 3 embryos we still had frozen from my retrieval in July 2014 and which ones our Doctor thought we should transfer. I initially only wanted to transfer one embryo because the thought of having twins after having one baby makes me a bit anxious; but, our two better quality embryos are frozen together and to re-freeze an embryo "would be a lot to ask of an embryo" according to our Doctor. 

So, the way our 3 embryos are graded are 4BC, 3BB and 3BB.  The number represents the size of the embryo. They're ranked 1-6 and optimal size is 3-5. The first letter represents the quality of the cells that make the baby and the second letter represents the quality of the cells that make the placenta. A is excellent, B is very good/good, C is poor/fair. So, based on this our better embryos are the 3BB's. Once the embryos are thawed, about 18 hours before the transfer, they can continue to improve in quality which is exactly what the embryos we transferred to conceive Caleb did.  Embryos can stop expanding and developing during the thaw and not survive, but the current thaw survival rate per embryo is 95%. Our two embryos we transferred when we conceived Caleb thawed perfectly and had no problems, so we're hopeful we won't have any issues. 

Our Doctor told us we could do the transfer in 6 weeks if we wanted to, but that's a bit too soon for us. We talked about time lines and have agreed on a transfer some time in late November/early December. I need to have a saline ultrasound done in September to make sure I don't have any fibroids of polyps in my uterus first and if all goes well with that, we'll move forward with the transfer. 

As we get closer to September and scheduling the saline ultrasound, I'll update more.  I want to document our journey for baby #2 just like I did with Caleb and I plan to be an open book. Some day I hope our children will read all my blog entries and know how loved and wanted they were and are. I have a lot of mixed emotions as we embark on this next step in our lives, but more than anything my heart explodes any time I think about Caleb being a big brother.  

Alissha