She laughs without fear of the future.

Posted on July 20, 2018 by MelGrim

Life sure can throw a lot of storms your way. We’ve been thrown some crazy curve balls in our marriage (as everyone does in different ways), but God has never let us down. I could list example after example after example where God has taken care of us in ways that we never could have imagined. Stress about money? Bonus comes through for work or re-enlistment covers our entire $10k+ IVF cycle for our babies. Stressing about finally getting to apply to flight school? Picked up first round go and one of the first classes to EVER have the availability number of his dream aircraft (the hardest helicopter to get in the Army). Terrified of not being able to have kids after 3 failed rounds of infertility treatments? First round success of IVF with strong, healthy miracle twins!

So why do I have moments where the fear seems to overwhelm and swallow me whole? Why do I stress about things that are beyond my control, but are the deepest desires of my heart?

I try not to be terrified that I won’t get to bring my 4 waiting embabies home. What if my Graves’ disease keeps me from being able to conceive again or carry to term? What if I can’t get pregnant before we PCS and we are sent OCONUS and I can’t get back for another transfer? Will we finally have a duty station of our dreams and get back up North or OCONUS? This verse hung in my bathroom in Savannah and I prayed it and believed it every day of our fertility treatments. I’m believing it once again!

“He gives the barren woman a home, He makes her the joyous mother of children. Praise the Lord!” Psalm 113:9

We wrestle not against flesh and blood and the devil sure knows my weaknesses. The most important thing in the world to me has always been family. That’s no secret and I can’t even turn my back and pretend that it’s not true. So where does he attack me? Loneliness in waiting for my dream husband to come along. Infertility, Secondary Infertility, distant family abandonment.

“Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5: 6-8

I refuse to let him win. I’m still human, but I believe that my God is bigger than all of this. I have to pray and have faith that He can turn situations around for His benefit. If hearts will not allow that, then I pray He heals me, my husband, and my kids’ hearts and fills that void with His love.

“For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the Lord will take me in.” Psalm 27:10

“Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is there anything too hard for me?” Jeremiah 32:27

“He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” Psalm 147:3

“When you’ve done everything you can do, that’s when God will step in and do what you can’t do.” 2 Corinthians 12:10

I know that I NEVER tire of my kids wanting me and needing me. I want to give them all of the desires of their hearts, so how much more does God desire to help us through all that we’re up against? He’s already performed so many miracles in our lives. He has been so faithful to us in everything, so who am I to ever doubt Him? My flesh is weak, but I know He’s in control! Praying His words over our lives!

~Melissa G.

Praying for baby(ies) Grim…again

Posted on July 10, 2018 by MelGrim

When you experience infertility (or miscarriages), it never leaves you. Even after you have babies those thoughts and feelings can still resurface and sometimes continuing to complete your family is just as difficult the second time around. We believed once we beat it and had 4 embabies waiting for us, that we might get blessed for this next round to be a bit easier. Unfortunately, we’ve hit some new roadblocks. Throw in a life in the military and it becomes a tad more complicated.

With Ryan in flight school and unable to take any leave (he has over a month saved up at this point), the scheduling to have another baby (or two) has been interesting, to say the least. We should be PCS-ing again (we won’t find out where until August/September time frame) sometime after the new year pending him not hitting any “bubbles” in his training schedule. I couldn’t be too far along or just had a baby. However, we do have to travel to Savannah, GA where our embabies are frozen, so I have to be pregnant prior to us leaving Fort Rucker. If the first transfer doesn’t work and we lose the babies, we’ll have to transfer our last embabies and travel from wherever we’re stationed after here.

We were able to get everything planned and scheduled and all of my drugs had arrived! I went to my OB/GYN on post for some preliminary testing to make sure that my body was set for the transfer, but we discovered a few abnormalities on my lab work. My RE (Reproductive Endocrinologist) from Savannah ran some of his own labs and my PCM doctor here ran some as well. We discovered that I have Graves’ disease causing Hyperthyroidism. Graves is an autoimmune disease attacking your thyroid making it go into overdrive. After speaking to my RE and doing some of my own research, I was devastated to learn that this can make it impossible to get pregnant and carry to term without the proper treatment. I let myself grieve for another day once our transfer was put on hold once more.

I received a referral for a local endocrinologist and, after speaking to them, discovered that they couldn’t get me in until September! I may have cried again. 😦 My RE sent over a special request with his series of lab tests and through much prayer I received a call that they could get me in at the beginning of June.

My endo spent an hour going over my 3 options moving forward. And This past week I went for a Radioactive Iodine Uptake Scan to confirm the diagnosis of Graves. The options going forward are:

1) Radioactive Iodine to kill my thyroid. This would keep me quarantined for about a week away from my babies (Just NO!). Plus I couldn’t get pregnant for 6-12 months after undergoing this treatment.

2) Anti-thyroid meds. These cross the placenta and can be very dangerous during pregnancy. There is some research stating this can be rare, but they can cause birth defects and thyroid problems for the baby. My RE has said he won’t allow me to do an Embryo Transfer on the meds or within months of taking them.

3) Thyroidectomy. 97% of the time goes smoothly, but I’ll need hormone replacement for life. 1-3% of the time it can damage your larynx and/or your parathyroid depending upon my anatomy and how invasive the surgery ends up. After that I’ll instantly become hypothyroid and will need to have my hormones regulated before we can do the transfer. However, hopefully we can pregnant possibly within 2-3 months.

Finally, on a smaller note: He thinks the reason I haven’t been able to lose weight is also due to sleep apnea. So I have to do a sleep study. Not a big deal, but I HATE being away from my babies!

I now have an appt with a surgeon to schedule a Thyroidectomy, which Ryan and I feel like is the best option going forward. I’m a little nervous to literally have my life depend on a little pill forever and for the surgery itself. However, I’m confident that we’ve made the correct decision and I’m ready to finally feel normal again and to hopefully get pregnant as soon as possible to be healthy for all of us.

Please keep me and the family in your prayers. We desperately want to bring home more of our embabies and this has all been a little overwhelming!

A person’s a person no matter how small

Posted on February 4, 2016 by MelGrim

I’ve struggled for awhile on how to put this all into words. IVF, In-Vitro Fertilization….I keep saying those words and it is still so surreal that this is real life for us. Mayo Clinic defines it as“…a complex series of procedures used to treat fertility or genetic problems and assist with the conception of a child. During IVF, mature eggs are collected (retrieved) from your ovaries and fertilized by sperm in a lab.”

It all sounds so very clinical, simple, and unemotional. Well, that first part can be true, but the rest is far from it. This has been the most difficult, emotional, expensive, trying, beautiful, scary, exciting, exhilarating experience of my entire life. The first time we met with our Reproductive Endocrinologist he walked us through the process of diagnostic tests that we would need and gave us our options moving forward. Hearing IVF made my stomach tie up in our knots, but I never truly believed we’d have to go this far. IVF is just something someone else does…lots of people get pregnant from IUI/Superovulation, right? By the time that our 2nd round of SuperO failed and we put down the deposit to reserve our start date of 24 NOV it started to hit me, but it wasn’t until we went to our orientation that everything hit me. Seeing the many, many drugs arrive on top of what we had done, reading through the file of documentation/paperwork/releases and having slips to get tested for all kinds of different diseases so that our embryos wouldn’t possibly be infected or affect others is just so much to take in.

Pretty much everyone I know in real life that has been through infertility did super-ovulation (like we did first) or IUI’s (similar to super-ovulation, only instead of intercourse, the sperm is placed inside the cervix to naturally fertilize any eggs) so I didn’t even have a community of people who understood. Thankfully, I found an online community/support group of AMAZING women who understand and are going through/have gone through the same path that we’re traveling and understand all of the emotions. Infertility, and especially IVF is very isolating. While we had so many distant friends and family that were so supportive, we dealt with so many insensitive comments. A few people even made us feel even worse by invalidating our feelings because it’s not “as bad as cancer or real problems”.

The first part of the process, the “Stimulation Cycle” was pretty close to what we had been through with our 3 superovulation cycles with a few new drugs. However, it was definitely more intense. There was so much riding on each of the appointments and we were much more nervous to make sure that my body was progressing the right way. Plus, I was more sore since we had to have many more eggs than before (in superovulation, you only want one or two eggs to release).

The toughest part came after the retrieval “surgery” when I came off of all of the drugs. My body had NO IDEA what to do going through withdrawals from all of the hormones and the wait to find out if we had embryos/would they make it/would they be healthy/would he have some left to freeze…the whole week was unbearable. I also had some pretty insensitive comments directed toward me, but I guess many people just don’t think and empathize what someone is going through. It was extra hurtful though being that I wasn’t in my right mindset either.

IVF is just so much to wrap your mind around. The idea that your embryos are being created in a lab is a lot to come to terms with and be okay. What I wasn’t expecting was the need I felt to protect them and be close to them. After my surgery I missed my babies that I didn’t even know I had…I just wanted them back! It’s like my maternal instincts kicked in automatically. Poor Ryan had to deal with a few emotional breakdowns that I had that week, but he’s always the best at calming me down and getting me through it. I can’t imagine the gut wrenching pain of losing babies that have been implanted back in you. No matter how early it’s still the same or close to the same pain of having a miscarriage. While many might disagree…our babies were our babies before they were ever put back in me. I can’t explain how thankful we are and how blessed we truly are that they are both still with us!

It’s still hard to think about PCS’ing and having to leave the other babies behind until we can use them again, but i’m still thankful that we have some left for the future. I still feel like it’s all been a dream and I can’t believe it’s finally our turn and it finally worked!!!

~Melissa Grim, IVF Twin Mommy

IVF Embryo Transfer!!! – 11 DEC 2015

Posted on December 26, 2015 by MelGrim

I don’t even know where to begin. I’m still on such an emotional high and keep crying off and on after the most beautiful, most emotional procedure I’ve ever had in my life!

We arrived at the clinic at about 7:40 (after taking a few pics, of course) and were able to speak to my Doctor about where we stood on everything. He said that our embryos looked very, VERY good and he was confident in our chances. He also gave us the opportunity to elect out of the 2 embryo transfer since we had pretty good chances anyway.

Transfer 1 embryo: 40-45% chance of the embryo resulting in a successful pregnancy with a very slim chance of it splitting into identical twins (I can’t remember the exact number).

Transfer 2 embryos: 70-75% chance of the embryo resulting in a successful pregnancy with a 35-40% (pushing 45%) chance of twins if we stuck with the two.

We elected to still proceed with the two embryo transfer to better our chances and we really want twins anyway! (Come on, Twins!!!!)

After that, Ryan gave me a good luck kiss and I was escorted back to the pre-op area (right outside their private O.R.) to get into my gown and ready for the transfer! The embryos can’t be out of incubation for more than 3 minutes (MAX) so it’s important that I was set up and completely ready before the embabies were brought out. Another perfect design of our doctor is that he built the embryology lab directly attached to the OR so it’s easy to bring them in and out. I was put on the bed with my upper part of my body tilted down at a crazy angle and my favorite nurse checked me with an ultrasound (a normal abdominal one this time) to see if we were ready to proceed. Next, my Doc came in and got everything in place for the transfer. It’s all very specific exactly where the embryos go into the uterus and the catheter that’s used has to be in the exact right spot. Finally he was able to bring in the embryos and get those embabies settled in there!!!! My nurse was so great and she turned the screen to me so that I could see the little babies on the screen!!!! (They’re microscopic so you can only see a “flash” where the fluid is, but they were in there!) My only wish was that Ryan could have experienced it with me, but I wore his green army socks (under my surgical booties) to have a piece of him with me and it’s safer for the OR/embryos to have as few people back there as possible.

The whole thing was so incredibly surreal!!! I was officially/unofficially pregnant!!!! To actually see something in there and know that there were two 5-day old babies ready to grow and make me a mommy was the most beautiful moment!!! That moment alone made all of this worth it. Every tear we cried, every doubt, every fear, every pain I felt when I saw someone else get pregnant or have a baby or get pregnant AGAIN in the time we were trying ALL became worth it!!! To have this incredible joy and to experience the beautiful nature that is IVF and the science that God has given us is so incredible. I’m so thankful that we understand the true value of this and just how incredibly precious life is!!!

I was officially pregnant at 9:50 am on 11 DEC 2015! How cool is it that I know the exact moment that I got pregnant??!

As an added bonus, Doc took my phone back into the lab with the flash turned off and surprised us with pictures of the embryos before we got started!!!! It was a total surprise that he did for us because he knew had badly I wanted one.

Once we were done I layed on the stretcher and chit chatted with my nurse until my 20 minutes were up and was able to get dressed and grab Ryan. 🙂 🙂 Once we got in the car, I surprised him with the picture of OUR BABIES!!!!! He totally wasn’t expecting it and it was such a precious moment to share with him and watch his reaction! A moment that i’ll never forget…and another blessing of doing a procedure like this.

Also, my two week wait cut down to 10 days was then cut to 8 to take my Beta blood test. Then Doc said I could come back in in exactly one week to see if i’m officially pregnant!!!! We’re so thankful that everything went great and are confident that this is going to work. We love these sweet babies so much already…I can’t even believe it! 🙂 🙂 We hope and pray that they both get buried in there and make themselves comfortable to stick around for 9ish months!!!

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Embryo Report: Also, we already have 3 frosties (frozen embryos for the future) and 5 more waiting to see how they do so we might be able to freeze even more 🙂

UPDATE: We had one more embryo make it to freeze, so we’re hoping for future siblings! 🙂

~Hopeful mommy to be,

Melissa Grim

IVF Egg Retrieval – 06 DEC 2015

Posted on December 12, 2015 by MelGrim

On Friday, we received the go ahead from our doc to do our last night of injections and add in the “Trigger” HCG shot at 8pm!!! The HCG shot helps your follicles to complete their final maturing process and exactly 36-39 hours later you ovulate. Everything is extremely time sensitive as you can imagine, so we were scheduled to be at Dr. Blohm’s office on Sunday by 0730 to prepare for an 0800 egg retrieval time.

Shots by a tree

My shot administrator 🙂

Trigger Shot Time

We arrived at Dr. Blohm’s office a few minutes early (Ryan always has to be there 15 minutes prior to the 15 minutes prior) and got settled in. It was a little weird not having a coffee or water since I was NPO (nothing by mouth) from midnight the night before, but so worth it!

I was taken back to the pre-op area that was connected to the OR (all private for my Dr.) to get changed into a hospital gown and ready to go. My anesthesiologist was already in there waiting with my nurse and she got the IV started for me. After I asked when Ryan could come back she looked a little surprised and said he wasn’t allowed back at all. I was a little upset that I couldn’t give him a hug and a kiss before the procedure and give him my jewelry, but she gave me my phone so I could text him and even took a pic of me all ready to go. She was so awesome and constantly made me feel relaxed and in good hands. 🙂 Besides, he had a very important job to do himself! 😉 Finally I was taken back into the OR and transferred to the operating table for the procedure and the anesthesiologist got me started on the good drugs. LoL I don’t think I was awake for another minute after that and didn’t wake up until I was back in the pre-op/post-op area.

I was told that I did great, but my eggs were a little difficult to get out of my follicles in my ovaries. The procedure took at least twice as long as it should have normally, but we were able to get 13!!!

Again, after hearing that so many people get between 20-30 it seemed like a small number, but I was confident that they would all fertilize and we would have “Quality over quantity”. We were also doing a procedure called ICSI (Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection) where the sperm would be injected directly into the eggs to up the chances of healthy fertilization.

I was still groggy, but ecstatic while I was getting changed. My nurse, of course, had to take me outside in my stylish wheelchair and Ryan already had the Xterra pulled around to get me. 🙂 I stayed on bed rest the next 1 and half days partly due to the doc’s orders and partly since I was so sore. Having needles jammed into you to get out stubborn eggs isn’t always the most pleasant. The most important part was that it worked and everything was all so worth it in the end!!

We would soon learn that the hardest part of the whole thing would be the wait between the Retrieval and the Transfer. We had to wait two whole days to find out if and how many embryos we had. With the procedure that we were doing (ICSI or Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection), the sperm would be injected directly into the eggs to ensure the best chances of conception and pregnancy. Finally, late in the afternoon on Tuesday, Dr. Blohm told us that we had 10 4-cell embryos left!!!!! 10!!!!!! We were so ecstatic that I just started crying…it was such a blessing. He told us “I’ll be honest with you, Melissa, I didn’t think you’d have any good eggs with as hard as it was to get your eggs out. It would be easier to pull your molars than it was to get these eggs. I’ve been doing this for 25 years and it’s an absolute miracle that you guys are here right now.” GOD IS SO GOOD!!!! He was also confident that we could do a 5 day transfer instead of a 3 day…which was also our prayer. It’s better to see how well the embryos survive in the lab to transfer the ones that will have the best chance of sticking. The next few days were spent in MUCH prayer and hope that we would receive more good news on Friday during our Embryo Transfer!

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IVF Cycle – Stimming

Posted on December 12, 2015 by MelGrim

First shot: Saturday, 21 NOV 2015 I took my last BCP (Birth Control Pill) and began my 0530 shot called Lupron. The Lupron basically stops your body from ovulating on your own so that the mature eggs don’t release before the doctor has a chance to the retrieval. It’s a drug that I was on during my last two cycles of Super Ovulation, so at least we were used to it. Ryan set an alarm and gave me my shot every single morning. 🙂 This would continue every morning until the day of my trigger shot.

Last day of down-reg and first day of Lupron!

Morning Lupron Shots

First IVF Appt: Tuesday, 24 NOV 2015 We counted down to this day for over 6 weeks and were so excited to go in for my baseline ultrasound and blood work. However, while everything looked good to proceed, we had to wait a few days because my body wasn’t quite ready to begin the stimulation drugs. With IVF, everything has to be absolutely perfect to go forward to each next step (you are putting thousands of $$ into this after all). We left the appointment extremely disappointed and felt like it wasn’t the best way to begin the cycle of positivity, but by the end of the day I got the call that we could begin the stimulation drugs in 2 days…on Thanksgiving.

1st Appt

Day 1: Thursday, 26 NOV 2015 Happy Thanksgiving!!! We were so excited to get started on the rest of our shots (FINALLY!!!!) and it couldn’t have worked out any better to begin them on Thanksgiving. No doubt about what we were thankful for. I started off on 250 IU’s of Follistim (again, a drug I was familiar with from my 3 Super Ovulation cycles) and 1 vial of the Menopur (a new drug). The Menopur required mixing right before giving the shot (daily at 6pm on the dot) so Ryan handled all of that while I did the “easy” Follistim. 🙂 They definitely burned a little, especially the Menopur, but they were subcutaneous rather than intramuscular so not too bad.

Stimming Day 1 – Thanksgiving

My nurse shot prepping the Menopur

Menopur shot prepping

Day 2: Friday, 27 NOV 2015 So far so good and still not a whole lot of symptoms (except for the headaches and hot flashes) and I couldn’t take anything but small doses of Tylenol as NSAIDS aren’t good for the eggs and can make you ovulate prematurely as well. (Follistim 250/Menopur 1 Vial)

Stimming Day 2

Day 3: Saturday, 28 NOV 2015 Shots were still going well and the headaches were starting to dwindle. No real side effects except a few hot flashes. I was actually feeling scared and anxious that I wasn’t feeling any pain or discomfort. Was everything working?? This road can feel so overwhelming and you can’t help but to worry about every little thing. Thankfully, Ryan was there to remind me to “Just Be Held” by God and give Him control. That always seemed to calm me down. 🙂 (Follistim 250/Menopur 1 Vial)

Stimming Day 3

Day 4: Sunday, 29 NOV 2015 Still feeling good and positive, although getting more and more nervous for my first appointment in the morning! Since I wasn’t feeling any pain, was everything working?? (Follistim 250/Menopur 1 Vial)

Stimming Day 4

Day 5: Monday, 30 NOV 2015 (Ultrasound/Bloodwork) Definitely started to feel a little bit of pain and cramping my ovaries being pushed. First progress ultrasound scan and bloodwork. The goal is to have as many follicles as possible while balancing your hormones and staying healthy/not overstimulating. Originally Dr. Blohm had told us he wanted close to 20 for retrieval so we had the odds in our favor for a good amount of mature eggs that were able to be fertilized and make it to the transfer back into my body and/or cryopreservation (freezing for later attempts and/or siblings). Left Ovary: 10, 9, 9, 8, 5 – Right Ovary: 10, 10, 9, 9, 8 From everything I was told, this really disappointed me. I was hoping for at least 10 on each side! This was only 10 total…half of the amount that we should have had. My doctor assured me that it while it wasn’t perfect, it was still good numbers and that he could work with these. Quality trumps quantity after all. Again, I left in tears, but a few of my friends through my IVF support group made me feel TONS better. While some had had better numbers, I was doing very well. However, we did up my drugs a bit to push my follicles to a little more growth. (Follistim 300/Menopur 1 Vial)

Good Numbers for Day 5

Stimming Day 5

Day 6: Tuesday, 01 DEC 2015 Back to regular stimulation and definitely feeling the cramping and some pain from all of the drugs. Very normal for an IVF cycle, but nothing I couldn’t handle. It was also Yawkey’s birthday!!! Hopefully it’s his last as an only child 😉 (Follistim 300/Menopur 1 Vial)

Stimming Day 6

Follistim Shots – One of my 2 daily night shots

Day 7: Wednesday, 02 DEC 2015 Still sore and had another headache, but just felt like pressure (kinda like a sinus headache but all over). I allowed myself to take a little bit of tylenol and a half a cup of coffee to knock out the headache since i’d given up caffeine. (Follistim 300/Menopur 1 Vial)

Stimming Day 7

Yawkey was very supportive and protective

Day 8: Thursday, 03 DEC 2015 (Ultrasound/Bloodwork) Was REALLY feeling the discomfort of the shots now!!! However, we were getting really close by our appointment that morning. Left: 18,17,16,16,16,14 and Right: 18,17,16,16,15,14. Doc asked us to come back the next day to see if we were ready to rock and roll. We were just getting more and more excited to be getting close to the important parts of the cycle: Egg Retrieval and Embryo Transfer! (Follistim 300/Menopur 1 Vial)

Follicle Scan

Stimming Day 8

Day 9: Friday, 04 DEC 2015 (Ultrasound Bloodwork) Dr. Blohm said everything looked great!!! I was still a little nervous that I didn’t have more follicles and that some were still on the smaller side. He reassured us that some of the smaller follicles can end up having better quality eggs that are more mature in them so I felt a lot better about that. He also said my uterus was PERFECT and ready for us “to place two beautiful embryos in here and be good to go!” Pending the results of my blood-work down in the lab after my appointment, we were ready to rock and roll! We left with all of our instructions to do one final shot of Follistim that night at our regularly scheduled time (1800 hours or 6pm) and then to “trigger” at 2000 hours or 8pm with the HCG shot intramuscularly. We were ready for the egg retrieval come Sunday morning at 0800! (Follistim 300)