Stim Day 1

AM medications:
Baby Aspirin- 80 mg
Lupron - 5 units
Follistim- 300 units

PM medication:
Menopur- 150 units

The morning lupron injection was super-fast. The follistim went well. I still don't think the pen is any easier than a normal syringe/needle combo, but whatever. I then realized about halfway through my morning that I forgot to check for the drop of medication on the needle of the pen before injecting it. Hopefully I actually got meds in me this AM.

Tonight's injection was easy. The whole reconstituting of the menopur was easy and it dissolved quickly. The syringe is bigger and a bit more awkward to hold than the itty bitty lupron syringes, but I was able to quickly stab myself and then s-l-o-w-l-y inject the medicine.

Side effects:
So far just really, really tired. But that is most likely a side effect of the horrible cold/coughing that I've got going on. I am a bit nauseous tonight after eating dinner, but not too bad.


DH came up with a cute nickname for our little embryo. But we need to figure out another nickname in case we transfer 2. He's adorable. Love my guy.

Early Sunday Mornings

I woke up early to do the lupron shot and get ready for my baseline ultrasound and blood work. I left the house and drove frantically to the clinic. (I left later than I should have) I arrived and checked in. I was called back for the blood work. The phlebotomist had a hard time finding a vein but was pretty cheerful and funny about it. Blood was finally drawn. My favorite nurse coordinator, Sarah #1, then took me back to the exam room and gave me a new protocol paper with more detailed instructions for medications. I met her next door in the ultrasound room. She told me Dr. L was running a bit late and gave me the latest People magazine to read. Dr. L showed up and he did the ultrasound. Uterus looks good. 5-7 follicles in each ovary. We are on for this month!! I came home and DH was awake. We chilled out (coughed and rested) the rest of the morning. (I called a sub for the church gig yesterday) We waited and waited for the phone call that the blood work was fine. DH suggested I look online. I did. The results were back. I had no idea what the number meant so I googled it, and it looked fine. I was super tired, so we decided to take a nap (with the phone with us in case Sarah called.) No more than 5 minutes after we laid down, she called. Blood work is great. We are good to go!

Is this what hope feels like? Hope has been gone a long, long time. It's scary.... but I'm praying for all I'm worth that this works for us.

Sick, sick, sick

I have a cold. Blerg. I am super sick. I'm nervous about tomorrow's Dr. appointment. I hope that we are good to go with the stim side of the IVF cycle.

I am happy that I'm off of the birth control pills. I seem to be less nauseous and less emotional. The AF this week was horrendous. It was worse than the one 2 cycles ago. I monitored it and didn't call the night of the bad flow but called my nurse coordinator Friday morning. She called me back and after I described what happened she said "um, that doesn't sound right." She told me to keep extra hydrated and that she would bring it up at the Dr. round table discussion that day, but that since it had slowed down, I should be ok. I didn't hear back, but it was nice to have my feelings that this was abnormal validated.

Our donor sperm arrived at the clinic on Friday as well. Yeah! We really and truly seem to be getting closer to the dream of having a child.

Ok, now I'm crawling back into bed. I'll update the Dr. results tomorrow.

Feeling Sick

I am so, so, so, happy that I only have one more birth control pill to take this cycle. The last one is tomorrow. Woo-hoo! I'm hoping all of the unpleasant side effects go away quickly once I'm done taking it. I'm hoping that the lupron hasn't added side effects that I've been attributing to the birth control pill.
The day of my suppression ultrasound and blood work is fast approaching. I hope that everything will look great and I'll be able to move on to the stim side of the cycle. It still is a bit unreal to me that we're actually doing IVF after deciding to start our family over 10 years ago. Our wedding anniversary (13th) is coming up in less than two weeks, and it seems like just yesterday we were married. Time really flies!
This weekend my sister drove up to spend some time with us (and to get her home-made pickles!) It was wonderful spending time with her. I am so blessed to have her in my life. Poor DH was sick all weekend, so he was unable to do the fun sightseeing stuff we did, but he did join us for the meals we ate out.
I forgot to take a picture for the CSA this week, but we got more delicious veggies. I used a bunch of them in a big pan of roast veggies on Sunday along with a delicious roast chicken and risotto that my DH made it was a great meal.
I've just re-read this post, and it is very rambling. I am blaming it on the meds and the possibility that I'm coming down with what DH had. Today has been hard. Very tired, dizzy, nauseous and pukie. More updates later. Hopefully, my health will take a turn for the better.

Momentous Day

I've started assembling my faith quilt. This is the quilt I decided to make to show the Lord (and myself) that I have faith that we will have a child at the end of this craziness. It's been fun working on it and here are some pictures of the progress so far:


I think the colors and patterns are somewhat gender neutral, but really, this is a baby quilt and I'm the one that has to like looking at it- not the baby. I've been reading up on faith scriptures as well. Here are a few that have stuck with me lately:
"Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as though wilt." -Matthew 15:28
"...whatsoever thing ye shall ask in faith, believing that ye shall receive in the name of Christ, ye shall receive it." -Enos 1:15
"For with God nothing shall be impossible" - Luke 1:37

I am working on having faith that this cycle will bring us our desired child and hopefully I'll also have a great little quilt to share with the baby.
Today was a momentous day as I started my Lupron! I reviewed the technique to give myself the injection and laid out all the supplies last night (except for the meds- they were in the fridge until I pulled them out to use them this morning) so that I would be ready to go this morning.



I had a brief "oh my gosh am I really going to stick myself with a needle?!?" moment and then did it. It was painless and went smoothly. I immediately had itching, redness and swelling. I cleaned up the needle and paraphernalia and then checked Dr. Google for side effects. Sure enough, the itchiness, swelling and redness are common. Phew! I thought maybe I was allergic to it! No side effects were noticed from it today. However, here is my current list of side effects from the stupid Loestrin oral contraceptive pill:
-random nausea
-heightened sense of smell
-spotting
-cramps

-skin break out
-tender/sore breasts
-WILD mood swings
The hot flashes have backed off, but I hear that is the major side effect from Lupron so they may be back soon. I continue with the birth control pills for one more week and then I'm done with them. The Lupron I'm on for about 14 days. I'm feeling hopeful and optimistic today. This cycle is working out well so far. Yeah!

One Week down...

It will be officially 1 week that I've been on suppression medication for our IVF cycle tomorrow morning. I haven't had many side effects. The biggest one has been hot flashes and some mild nausea. (Oh, and emotional beyond belief!!) On Wednesday I start the Lupron and I'm excited to be on to the injectable portion. I think it will feel more real to me when I'm doing that versus just popping pills each morning.

Yesterday DH and I met with the financial person at our clinic to sign off on the new prices. She also informed us that their policy on submitting claims to the insurance company has changed. Because I have used up my entire IF coverage and the clinic is aware of that they will no longer submit the claims. This REALLY sucks, as my insurance company has been paying for the odd blood test or venipuncture here and there because of the code they use to submit it. So, the plan is we will pay for all of it out of pocket and then submit it to the insurance company afterwards to try and be reimbursed for something. DH has only used approximately $800 of his lifetime coverage so we can put all of the embryology costs on his insurance, which is fantastic. We have to have our payment in full to them at my suppression check. Our procedure room fee (separate check/separate company) for the ER will be due in full at the ER. After we signed away our savings, we met with one of the nurse coordinators (other Sarah) to finish signing our IVF consent forms. She was super nice. She went over a few things I had questions on and was funny and helpful and supportive. So, of the 3 nurse coordinators I've worked with so far, both of the Sarah's have been my favorite and weekend nurse was so-so.

After our appointments at the clinic, we walked across the street to pay our bill for the HSG at the hospital. It was a LONG walk through the hospitals basement to get to finance. We then stood around for 10-15 minutes waiting for someone to show up at the desk. She finally came back with a snack (looks like she ran to the cafeteria) and we paid the bill. It kills me to see all this money going out, but as my DH put it, "Do you want a baby, or not?" It's just frustrating that this is the route we have to take. I know it will be all worth it in the end and I know you can't put a price on having a healthy pregnancy and baby, but it still is mind boggling at times.

It's a go!!

I just checked my voicemail (stupid cell was drained so I had to leave it home to charge while we ran errands!!) and the nurse coordinator for the weekend left me a message telling me my lab work came back normal and we can go ahead for this month. She left me a long message with dates, medicine info and when my next appointment will be. I also checked my lab results on the website, and she had left another message on there. My u/s this morning was performed by a Dr. we use to see at our old RE. He didn't remember me of course (it was 5 years ago!) and I didn't bring it up. He did a quick u/s... the fastest I've ever had. My uterus looks great and I have 7-9 antral follicles on each side. I questioned if that was enough and his response was "oh yeah, that will be fine." Ok... so he's not concerned, I'll try not to be concerned. I left a message for the nurse to call me back, but I think they've left for the day. Her instructions were to take my first dose of meds tomorrow... but on paperwork from last month (with the changed protocol that I'm supposed to do this month) it showed the 1st dose of meds to fall the same day as the appointment... CD 2. Hopefully she calls me back today.

Short List

With this next IVF cycle right around the corner DH and I have decided we probably need to figure out what sperm we'll be "adopting" for our IVF cycle. We are clients of a bank in a nearby state that our RE recommended. We've done the legwork to reactivate our account and now we need to pick our donor. I browsed the donor list right before our last IVF cycle and found a few that would be a good match. But the thing is, I already picked who I wanted to be the father of my child- my DH. Unfortunately, the cards we were dealt won't allow that so now we're onto plan B. We've told a select group of friends/family and plan on telling our child. However, we want our child to be able to choose whom they tell and when. With that in mind the donor's appearance needs to match mine and my DH's. So, the criteria I'm using to come up with a short list of donors for DH to pick from are: eye color, hair color, skin tone, height and weight. A match of DH's blood type would be great, but not necessary.

So, this afternoon I grabbed a cup of hot herbal tea (yes, it's cold here now- which is a great relief after last week's heat wave) and pulled up our bank's website. The front page had a new banner on it that read "Donor Look-A-Likes: Have you ever wondered if your favorite donor looks like anyone famous?" Umm... no!?! I then enter the pertinent criteria and start browsing the list. I click on a donor profile and there alongside the medical info/physical appearance info is a list of 3 celebrities the donor looks like. Now, I'm a bit freaked out. I call DH and fill him in. He starts laughing and then tells me that this is a good tool for us to narrow down our choices. He figures that they (the bank employees) submit the donor's picture into a tool/website that uses facial characteristics to match them to famous people. This could be a tool that helps us find someone that looks kind of like us. Hmm... ok, maybe that will work. But it's weird to think that "oh my baby will look like a cross of Hugh Grant and Rainn Wilson." Strange!! But I plan on having a short list to DH by the end of the weekend.

On another front: I'm an emotional wreck. I'm stressed about my appointment tomorrow morning. I'm terrified that there won't be enough antral follicles again. I'm praying that all will go smoothly and I'm praying for peace in my heart. I hope I'll be relieved and happy after the appointment tomorrow and not a mess.

AF around the corner?

Today is Monday. I'm hoping that AF doesn't show until Friday. However, I've had EXTREME pre-AF symptoms today. So much so that I thought I better bring up the subject that the date of my 1st appointment may change with my employer. I chatted her up after work today and she said, "whatever you need, no matter how last minute the appointment is, I will make it work." Wow. What a huge relief. I had been stressing all day since she has been having to go into work last week and this week, but she is planning on either working from home the day of my 1st appointment or just going in late. I hope I can calm down now and just let it be and let whatever is supposed to happen happen. I bought my low-dose aspirin today, so I now have all my meds. Now to relax and wait...

Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. --John 14:27.

August!

It's hard to believe that it is August already. Time has gone pretty fast this past sit-out cycle, and the new cycle should be starting this week. It's still hard to wrap my mind around the fact that our long-awaited IVF cycle will shortly be upon us. It seems very surreal to me right now. I'm sure once I'm taking my daily medications it will become more real, but for now it seems like I'm moving through a dream, trance-like state until it all begins.

This week has been super-hot, with record-breaking temperatures and no A/C. We've seen many movies this week at the theater to cool off and it's been hard to sleep at night. I think the lack of sleep and heat has led to my surreal state of mind.

Hopefully AF will show soon, and we can get the show on the road. I keep reminding myself to keep the faith and know the God will do all he can to help us through this next challenge. I know that it will work out the way it is supposed to and I hope that at the end of it we have a family to show for all the hard work and many prayers.