The Fast of Karvachauth

Friday, October 17, was the Karvachauth fast. For those of my friends, who do not know the significance of this fast, here is some explantation:

Karvachauth- A fast that ensures the well-being, prosperity and longevity of their husbands, the festival of Karwa Chauth provides an opportunity for all married women to get close to their in-laws. Possessing a tremendous social and cultural significance, this festival is celebrated by keeping fast, applying henna and exchange of gifts. Married women fast one whole day without food or water for the long life of their husbands.

Wives start their fast at morning just before the sunrise, within sight of their husbands. They then wait until the night's moonrise to begin the fast completion ceremonies. In the evening women dress in their best clothing, and adorn themselves with jewelry and henna. On sighting the moon, they look and offer prayers and worship to it, and then receive their first bite of food and water from their husbands.

Thereafter, women consume their special meal prepared for the occasion. Worshipping the moon involves filling up the karwa (thalis prepared for the special occasion) with specially prepared food and jewellery and offering it to the god. Karwas are also exchanged with other women after that. Further practices involve telling and listening to stories regarding origin of Karwa Chauth.

The story of Karva (name of woman) is well known. Her husband was caught by a crocodile. Karva bound the crocodile with a cotton yarn. She then asked Yama to send the crocodile to hell. Yama refused. Karva threatened to curse Yama. Yama, afraid of being cursed by Pati-vrat (devoted) wife, sent the crocodile to hell. Karva and her husband enjoyed many years of wedded bliss. The fact that Yama was afraid of being cursed by a devoted wife showed the power a good faithful woman!

There you have it. Check out some pictures of the event.

The Process Has Begun!

The process to do our FET (Frozen Embryo Transfer) has finally started. A Progesterone blood test was taken at the consultation to determine whether I had ovulated or not. If I had ovulated, we would have had to wait for my cycle to come naturally. If I had not ovulated, which was the case, the process would begin almost immediately.

As of Friday, October 17, 2008, I started my birth control pills and Lupron shots. You wonder, why birth control pills when you're trying to conceive? Well, the birth control pills are given to get rid of any cysts I might have in my ovaries and the Lupron is given to supress the ovaries. My ovaries can just sit back and relax as they don't need to produce any eggs that need to be retrieved and inseminated. This is a frozen embryo transfer, remember?

One thing I forgot to mention, our doctor, upon looking at the embryology report also said that we have a hatching blastocyst (see the picture). A hatching blastocyst is a type of blastocyst which is almost completely hatched out of its shell or zona pellucida. After it hatches, it begins to invade the uterine lining to "implant".

The birth control pills are no fun, of course! Even though the pill is so little, I believe that it is one of the most annoying medications that I have taken in my life. Believe me when I say, I have taken a lot of birth control pills. Don't ask!!

The Lupron shot has been okay. So far no side effects. My husband is giving it to me in my stomach and yesterday I dared to give it to myself. It was exciting. I need to be on the birth control pills for 10 days and then I stop. Lupron will be continued. Once I get my cycle, I will call the doctor's office. They will do a baseline ultrasound to determine my ovaries are quiet, the uterus is okay, and the endometrium lining is where they want it to be. Once I get an A-ok, we move forward.

The Consultation

So we picked up our embryos from our old clinic today and transferred them to the new one. Although I was scared at first, the entire process was pretty smooth. Our old clinic let us borrow a tank for the transfer. When we reached the new clinic, the embryologist came out, opened the tank and took out something similar to an oxygen tank. He then proceeded towards the IVF lab with our precious embabies.

He came back a short while later and told us that our embabies are stored in their IVF lab safely. We were very excited. My husband had to take the empty tank to the old clinic before 2:00 PM so he left rather quickly. I went back downstairs for the pending consultation with our doctor. My husband was going to join me in just a few minutes.

We met with the doctor around 2:00 PM and went through the details on an FET (Frozen Embryo Transfer) procedure. Things were pretty clear to us as we have done many transfer cycles in the past. Our doctor basically wanted to point out to us that there is a possibility that both of our embryos might not survive. The thought was heart wrenching but this is something that we have to prepare ourselves for.

Since I have not even ovulated this cycle, they are ready to get me started. Most probably, I will be starting Provera tomorrow. This is a drug that’s given to induce a menstrual cycle. I would take Provera for approximately 10 days. On the 7th day of Provera, I will also begin Lupron. The purpose of Lupron is to suppress ovaries. Because this cycle is a FET, my ovaries do not need to respond by ovulating so they just want to keep them quiet. This will cause me to have a withdrawl bleed.

I will be introduced to many other drugs in the course of this cycle and I will cover them later. The main thing for me to remember is that I will be very moody and irritable so I have already apologized to my husband for my upcoming horrible attitude. I hope he understands.

Moving the Embabies

Tommorrow is a big day for us. We will be finally moving our embabies from one doctor's office to another. I must say that I am very nervous. I mean, is there a particular way to hold the tank in which the embabies are stored? What if we accidentally drop it? I hope not. Once we move the embabies to the new location, we will be also meeting with the doctor for an IVF consultation.

The IVF consulation will cover: protocol, calendar, medications, process, and the possible risk of failure. I am pretty much aware of all the topics. I am freaked out about my emotions. I am not sure how I would be able to handle myself if everything fails. This whole process is so complicated that if one little thing changes, everything else is impacted. Take the uterine lining, for example. If I don't have a good uterine lining, the thawed embryos cannot implant, hence a failed cycle.

I hope and pray that the new clinic is able to store our embabies perfectly fine and that the thawing process is great. I can't wait to have the babies in me. I am excited.

Tough Decison

I had to deal with a big question this week. Should we save our frozen blastocysts or discard them? For my readers who do not know, a blastocyst is- a human embryo which has grown about 5-6 days in an IVF lab. It is an embryo which has developed to a point of having two cell components and a fluid cavity. A blastocyst is a special embryo that has reached a stage in development that requires activation of the embryo's own genes. See the picture.


During early growth of the embryo, all of the energy and chemicals required for cell division come from the mother's egg. In order to continue to develop past the third or fourth day of life, the embryo must activate its own genes to produce energy for further cell division and differentiation.

Doesn't that sound interesting? It sure does. We have 2 blastocysts stored in a IVF lab and we couldn't decide on what to do. We wanted to try an IUI cycle in which they do not retrieve the eggs from my body like in an IVF, but simply put the sperm close to the uterus in hopes that one of the sperm can catch the egg and inseminate it. Well, we couldn't just make up my minds!


My husband wanted us to start fresh and recommended discarding the blastocysts. I just could not part from my frozen babies. I mean, so what if they were just frozen? I do care about their existence. After much talk, we decided not to do an IUI cycle but do a Frozen Embryo Transfer in which they will thaw both of our blastocysts and then transfer them in my uterus! Whew! Sounds easy, doesn't it? Not really.

Thawing is a much complex procedure in which crystals that may have formed in the blastocysts during the freezing process, need to be removed...carefully. The blastocysts are then allowed to thaw at room temperature. If any of the blastocyst make it during the thawing process, consider yourself lucky otherwise, get prepared to start all over.

I feel that I went through a lot to have blastocysts in the IVF lab. I cannot forget all those miserable shots, hormonal changes, and mood swings. It is not easy to get to this point. Many women never have blastocysts. Heck, I want to give my frozen embabies the chance they deserve. The chance to thrive!

Who am I?

My name is Anu and I am one of the many women fighting my war to get pregnant and stay pregnant. This war has been going for about 8 years now. I have had 3 miscarriages since trying to bring a baby home. They all ended before the completion of the first trimester. I was heart broken each and everytime. With 3 angels to watch over us, we are going to start trying again this month.