Where do I begin?? I was told about 15 years ago after an ectopic pregnancy that I would not be able to have any children. At that time I was 24 years old and could not imagine such terrible news. They had to remove the tube that burst from the ectopic and they tried to repair the other badly scarred tube. I don't know why my tubes were so badly scarred. I had what I thought was a urinary tract infection in college, which probably wasn't.

I was married in 1990. My husband knew that we would not be able to have children and we married with that knowledge. In May of 1991 I found out that I was pregnant. Of course, I just knew that it was another ectopic and was at the OB the very next day after the HPT. She monitored my BETA levels and everything was progressing as normal. We had an ultrasound at 7 weeks and saw a heartbeat. Oh what joy that was!!!! It was truly a miracle and now she is 7 years old.

I again became pregnant in 1993. I was very excited about this pregnancy, as I wanted to have children close together in age. All of my symptoms were the same as with my daughter so I really wasn't too concerned about an ectopic. I had an ultrasound at 6 weeks but we did not see a heartbeat. The tech said that perhaps it was too early. Shortly after the ultrasound I began to bleed. It was another ectopic. I was devastated and confused. I had assumed that my tube was clear because my daughter somehow had made it down and implanted correctly.

After my ectopic I proceeded to have an infertility workup. I had an HSG and they determined that my tube was totally blocked and another pregnancy would result in another ectopic. Our only hope would be IVF, which I knew little about at the time. After reading about IVF I knew that our financial situation at the time would not allow us to proceed. We decided to wait.

In July of 1998 we began our journey through IVF. I was told that because of my age (I'm 39 years old) I would probably need to be put on a very high dosage of fertility medications. We began our cycle in October with Lupron once a day .5 mg. We began Gonal-F at 6 amps a day (3 in morning 3 in evening). The shots made me tired and irritable. After about 3 days of monitoring they reduced my dosage to 2 in morning 2 in evening. I began Humegon (3 amps in morning) on cycle day 7. After starting the Humegon they took me off the Gonal-F (I was producing too many follicles) and cut me down to 1 amp of Humegon in the morning.

On retrieval Day (Nov 4) they retrieved 22 mature eggs. On Nov 5 they called and said that 19 had fertilized. On Nov 7 (transfer day) they transferred 4 beautiful 8-celled embryos. We still had 11 left at that time and I signed something that stated that they would try to go to blasto before freezing them.

On Nov 9 they called and said that only 2 had made it to blast and they froze the remaining 2 embies.

I had my Pregnancy test on Nov 19 at 9:00 a.m. I received a call at 11:00 a.m. to congratulate us on our pregnancy and that there was a possibility of multiples based on the BETA. I had bloodwork done every other day for the next two weeks. The nurse backed off on the statement that she made about multiples. She was convinced it was only one.

On December 12th we had our first Ultrasound. What an incredible sight!!! We saw two beautiful babies, both with strong heartbeats and the topper was we actually got to hear the heartbeats through the U/S doppler. Again, I had been worried about ectopic. (Worry worry worry).

I am now almost 14 weeks pregnant with twins. I feel blessed and fortunate that the first IVF cycle was a success. I pray that my pregnancy goes as smoothly. IVF does work and it is worth the tedious timing of shots and bloodwork. I have heard that the Gonal-F is the most effective fertility medication and my RE has had continued success with it. I was blessed with a wonderful staff of nurses and an RE that really seemed to care about me and my progress.

I wish everyone good luck and positive thoughts in their dreams!!!
Tami