Thursday, February 21, 2013

Why I Transfer Only One Embryo

     I hear a lot of people going through IVF say how they hope to have two or three or even more embryos to implant at once.  Some want to implant more the one for financial reasons.  Some want to in the hopes it increases their chances of getting pregnant. Some do it because it is standard protocol and what their RE reccomends. 

     Your RE might want to implant two embryos because of their quality in the hopes that one will implant.  They will warn you that one or both embryos might not implant.  You can prepare yourself for that.  You get your positive beta and wait for the ultrasound to hear your babies heartbeat.  That is when your clinic declares your pregnancy a sucess and off you go to your ob/gyn. I was seven and a half weeks pregnant.

     At this point you feel pretty good both your embryos implanted now to get through the first trimester.  Everyone always says onces your out of the first trimester your safe.  The chances of a miscarriage are slim.  You Dr will tell you this is true but with twins they worry about early labor and the complications of it.  You prepare yourself for the chance that your babies might come early and have to be in the NICU.

     The second trimester is called the honeymoon period.  Morning sickness is usually gone and your energy level is increasing.  Nothing to worry about till the third trimester and that's only if you go into labor early.  My honeymoon ended at week 21.

     This is what I wish I had been prepared for:

    - Even when every ultrasound of your babies looks perfect you can still lose one or both unexpectedly.

    - That you can carry one living baby and one that has passed away for 14 weeks in my case before going into labor.

    - That even though the ultrasound doctors tell you all that will be left of that baby is tissue and there will be nothing recognizable of that baby when you go into labor they can be wrong.  In my case my baby was a small baby that fit in my hand.  He had an angelic face and tiny finger and toes.

    - That you will grieve for your baby when you first find out you have lost him but then you will wonder if it was a mistake untill you go into labor and then hold him.  Then you will grieve all over again.

    - You will alway want to know what happened to your angel baby and you  know that you will never have the answer to that question.

    - You will always wonder how and what your living baby felt when his twins heart stopped beating and his playmate stopped playing with him.

   - That when you get home with your baby it will be so hard to be happy and enjoy him because you are still mourning your baby that is in heaven and you will feel guilty for those feelings.

    - Finally when the time comes you wonder how you will explain to your baby what happened to his twin and pray that they don't blame themselves for things that are unknown.

     If I had known that this would be the fate of my twin pregnancy I would have only transfer one embryo and froze the other.  Who knows if there fate would have been the same.  Or maybe I would of had one baby boy and a few years later the other and none of the heartache.

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