The Power of Prayer

I apologize for the delay in updating you all on our embryo testing results. It’s amazing how quickly the days go by when you’re chasing toddlers.

Read on for an update and once again if you’re the praying type, at the end I have another prayer request for the group.

So, when I last updated I had asked you all to say a very specific prayer with me- we asked God to give us 4 healthy embryos and 4 healthy embryos is what we got!!!

My friends, there is so much power in praying together and praying specifically. It doesn’t mean you will always get what you ask for, however I do think it puts the positive out in the universe and gives us something to move towards. I love the phrase- your mind moves towards its focus, you decide if that’s positive or negative.

Okay as promised here’s a bit more information about what we did to our embryos. At the beginning of this process we had 7 embryos frozen. In order to test them the embryologist had to thaw them, make sure the embryos re-expanded and were still growing to ensure they were still “alive,” take a small snip of cells from the area of the embryo that eventually becomes the placenta and then send those cells off to be tested. One of our embryos died in the thaw meaning it did not make it to be tested.

After the thaw we had 6 remining embryos that were successfully tested. The test they perform is called CCS which stands for Comprehensive Chromosome Testing. They are looking at the embryo’s DNA to ensure all chromosomes are present and in the proper place. This is important as it ensures a higher success rate of live births to healthy infants. We had 2 embryos with abnormalities- one had Trisomy 15, meaning 3 chromosomes on the 15th pair of chromosomes- 2 is normal. Our other embryo was missing a chromosome on the 21st pair. Both of these abnormalities are severe, we either would have likely miscarried, lost the baby after birth or had a child that would have had severe special needs.

Losing 3 of our embryos was hard, it’s a grieving process on its own. However, there is a silver lining here. When you go through IVF your embryos are ranked from best quality to least. If you don’t do testing, like we just had done, they simply pick the ones that look the best under the microscope but that doesn’t mean the embryo is actually healthy. The 3 embryos we lost were our next best 3. Meaning, if we hadn’t done the testing we would have continued to transfer embryos that would not have made it and we likely would have had 3 more miscarriages.

When I heard that news, it was surreal to me, our doctor was even shocked that our "strongest" were not normal. I feel so lucky that we have Cooper and Oliver. They were our ONLY healthy day 5 embryos. If God didn’t have a hand in this I don’t know who did. Our 4 normal embryos were all of our day 6 embryos. All 4 are strong and we are relieved to have 4 more amazing chances at growing our family.

Okay on to my prayer request. I have been experiencing some complications from my miscarriage. My HCG is finally down to zero but my doctor is still concerned that all of the tissue did not get out. I have to have a procedure done on Monday called a Hysteroscopy to check my uterus for any signs of dead tissue or polyps. If they find either I will forced to have yet another surgery and delay getting pregnant even more.

Please pray. Please pray that my lining is healthy, that it is ready to receive a baby. Please pray that my doctor finds only healthy thriving tissue. Please pray that we will soon be on the path to a healthy pregnancy.

Thank you for coming along with us on this journey, your support means so much more than you'll ever know.