I'm getting close to ovulation, so I broke out the OPK's today. No LH surge as of yet. I'm predicting a Friday/Saturday surge. We will see. Once I see it, then I go in the next day to the RE for blood work and to update my culture on file.
It's crazy that the IVF cycle is upon us. I'm technically in the IVF cycle(s) right now. Weird.
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
Eh
I'm having an off day. The kiddos at work were in full tantrum mode most of the day. The little one in particular was having quite the attitude. I'm feeling sad and missing my little one. I can't help but keep track of where I would have been if I was still pregnant. I am feeling really scared that with our next IVF the same thing could happen. Most of the time I have hope and faith that all will go well and I'll get pregnant and STAY pregnant. But today I just don't.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Relief
I am feeling at peace and relieved regarding my church work. I met with my Bishop today and told him all that we've been going through and asked him what I should do about my music work with the children. He asked if I wanted to keep working with them, and I told him that I would love to, but through the IVF from retrieval through pregnancy test through ultrasound I wouldn't be able to do the work or plan the work for a sub to do. His solution is that they (he and the Primary president) will find a long-term sub that would assume the responsibilities for the position, including planning, until I'm able to return. I feel like this is the right decision. I love working with the children at church. Their pure, testimonies of Jesus come through when they sing and it's my favorite place to be on Sunday. I'm happy that I'll be able to return to work with them and that they'll be taken care of while I am gone so that I don't need to worry about it. Ahhh.... relief.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
CD 3 Poke-N-Prod
We got up early this AM (for a Saturday anyway) and went to the cd3 appointment. The u/s was painful as expected, as I'm still cramping. Dr K found 8-9 antral follicles on the right and 3-4 on the left. That is pretty normal for me. Nurse Tina called back to let me know that all the blood work looks good and that the next step is for me to monitor myself with OPK's and once I surge (or by April 3rd if no surge) to call and I'll go back in for blood work again. After ovulation is confirmed, I'll start the meds ten days later: cetrotide, estrace and baby aspirin. I'm glad that everything is looking as it should. We also paid our IVF deposit for this cycle, and it was much less than I was expecting due to us still having some deposit left from the last cycle.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
CD1
Wow. CD 1 of our IVF cycle. It's here. Some of the meds are here. (More on that later) Here we go again....
Work front: Told my employers the time off needed and they are on board with it. They are so positive and happy to help out in any way that they can.
Church front: Have requested an appointment with the Bishop to lay it out to him. He can then decide what to do with my church job.
Cleanse front: AHHHHH!!! Week 1 was not bad at all. I had to cut out: gluten, soy, dairy, refined sugar and corn. I could eat lean protein, veggies, fruit and non-gluten grains. I also had a 1x a day rice protein shake (SO Chalky!). Week 2, this week, has been SOOOOO hard. This week is vegan week. I am very tired of eating legumes. Very, very, very tired. I feel awful physically. My traditional Chinese medicine Dr/acupuncturist (the one who put me on this 3-week cleanse) told me that I would feel yucky as the toxins are moving out of my system. She suggested a drink more water. I could float away with the amount of water I've been drinking. I have 1 more day of vegan week and then I'm on the last week. Week 3 goes back to week 1 stuff. Which means I can reintroduce lean protein. I'm not a HUGE protein eater, I mean we eat vegetarian in our normal diets probably 2-3x's a week. However, when that is my only option, it is difficult.
Meds front: I called my nurse on Monday and had her order my meds from two pharmacies. I am using Freedom for the gonal-f and Walgreens (IVPCare) for the rest. Freedom called on Tuesday and I paid the staggering amount of $$$$ for my gonal-f (2- 300 units, 1- 450 unit, 5-900 units) and had it delivered Thursday. I didn't hear from Walgreens by the end of their workday on Tuesday, which meant that all of my meds wouldn't be delivered on the day DH had taken off from work to stay home to sign for the meds. I called them on Wednesday, and they didn't have my prescription on file. I called the nurse. She argued with me that they had sent it on Monday. I told her that I am glad that they did, but could they re-send it as Walgreens didn't have it. She did. Today Walgreens called to set up my order. I am having it sent next Thursday. My sister will be at our place and can sign for the meds. About 2 hours later Walgreens calls back. They can't order the traxene as they don't carry it. She offers to call it into a local pharmacy for me. I give her my pharmacy's name. She doesn't have it on file. I then have to call DH to get the number and then call them back. A 1/2-hour later Walgreens calls- my local pharmacy doesn't stock tranxene as it has been out so long and is only available in generic form. My prescription states to "dispense as written" which means they can't substitute a generic without my Dr's approval. She tells me she will call the Dr. I also call my RE and leave a message about CD1 and the pharmacy issue. It finally gets resolve and the rest of my meds should be delivered next week.
Next step on this IVF is for me to go in Saturday for an ultrasound and blood work. They will also repeat my IVF panel at that time. I think our deposit needs to be in place at that time too. I am hoping to get a chance to call the receptionist at the RE tomorrow to find out our balance on file and then figure out the difference.
Work front: Told my employers the time off needed and they are on board with it. They are so positive and happy to help out in any way that they can.
Church front: Have requested an appointment with the Bishop to lay it out to him. He can then decide what to do with my church job.
Cleanse front: AHHHHH!!! Week 1 was not bad at all. I had to cut out: gluten, soy, dairy, refined sugar and corn. I could eat lean protein, veggies, fruit and non-gluten grains. I also had a 1x a day rice protein shake (SO Chalky!). Week 2, this week, has been SOOOOO hard. This week is vegan week. I am very tired of eating legumes. Very, very, very tired. I feel awful physically. My traditional Chinese medicine Dr/acupuncturist (the one who put me on this 3-week cleanse) told me that I would feel yucky as the toxins are moving out of my system. She suggested a drink more water. I could float away with the amount of water I've been drinking. I have 1 more day of vegan week and then I'm on the last week. Week 3 goes back to week 1 stuff. Which means I can reintroduce lean protein. I'm not a HUGE protein eater, I mean we eat vegetarian in our normal diets probably 2-3x's a week. However, when that is my only option, it is difficult.
Meds front: I called my nurse on Monday and had her order my meds from two pharmacies. I am using Freedom for the gonal-f and Walgreens (IVPCare) for the rest. Freedom called on Tuesday and I paid the staggering amount of $$$$ for my gonal-f (2- 300 units, 1- 450 unit, 5-900 units) and had it delivered Thursday. I didn't hear from Walgreens by the end of their workday on Tuesday, which meant that all of my meds wouldn't be delivered on the day DH had taken off from work to stay home to sign for the meds. I called them on Wednesday, and they didn't have my prescription on file. I called the nurse. She argued with me that they had sent it on Monday. I told her that I am glad that they did, but could they re-send it as Walgreens didn't have it. She did. Today Walgreens called to set up my order. I am having it sent next Thursday. My sister will be at our place and can sign for the meds. About 2 hours later Walgreens calls back. They can't order the traxene as they don't carry it. She offers to call it into a local pharmacy for me. I give her my pharmacy's name. She doesn't have it on file. I then have to call DH to get the number and then call them back. A 1/2-hour later Walgreens calls- my local pharmacy doesn't stock tranxene as it has been out so long and is only available in generic form. My prescription states to "dispense as written" which means they can't substitute a generic without my Dr's approval. She tells me she will call the Dr. I also call my RE and leave a message about CD1 and the pharmacy issue. It finally gets resolve and the rest of my meds should be delivered next week.
Next step on this IVF is for me to go in Saturday for an ultrasound and blood work. They will also repeat my IVF panel at that time. I think our deposit needs to be in place at that time too. I am hoping to get a chance to call the receptionist at the RE tomorrow to find out our balance on file and then figure out the difference.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
We Have a Plan
I heard back from a nurse (Tina- not my fav, but ok) regarding our need to do/not do the HSG and SHG. The final verdict is that if we wait until my April cycle to do our IVF (our ideal plan) we would need to repeat both tests. If we move forward with the next cycle (March-not so ideal, but ok) then we do not need to repeat the tests. DH and I discussed it, and we are moving forward with March.
*Gulp* Moving forward in March.
It is March. AHHHH!!
Excited and terrified all at the same time. It's the feeling you get at the top of a hill on a roller coaster... right before your stomach is up in your throat. With this being the plan we have put several things in motion. The first is my liver cleanse (TCM through my acupuncturist) is starting today. This is a 3-week cleanse intended to give my liver a break and help it remove any lingering hormones that I took for our last IVF or have hanging around from my pregnancy. The second is that I'm cracking down on exercise. Once I'm stimming, I'm planning on only doing walking/yoga. So right now, I'm using this time to really push myself to lose the last bit of the 20 lbs. goal I set. As of today, I'm down 11.2 of the 20 lbs. Thirdly, I've called all the pharmacies again to get updated prices. So far, we will be going with the same 2 pharmacies from the last cycle as they have the best OOP pricing and are in the US so that we can hopefully write off that money next tax time. Speaking of taxes, we are also filing those this week and hope to get a nice fat refund to apply towards this cycle.
On the work front, I plan to alert the family about my time off in a week or so. Hopefully, by waiting to tell them about this then the mom will be a bit more stable. I'm planning on working while I go to all of my pre-ER appointments as I did before. This time around I'm going to take off work from ER through Beta. With a +++ beta I am going to take the additional 2 weeks off until the first u/s. This is more to give me piece of mind than anything. I know myself. I would be a wreck at work going back before we saw a heartbeat. Truly, I don't know that I will ever relax until I deliver, but I think I could go back to work once I've passed the 6w mark (miscarriage last time around) and have seen the little one(s) on an u/s. If we have a -- Beta then I would go back to work as soon as possible.
For my church job I'm planning on taking off the same amount of time 2-4 weeks. With that being the case I'm thinking I may ask to be released from this position. I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to do yet, but for now that's what I'm thinking.
I'm cautiously optimistic. I feel healthy again and more myself physically. Emotionally I still have bad moments, but overall, I am feeling good. I think a spring transfer is a good thing. I'm hopeful that the new protocol will work as well as Dr Opie thinks it will. Who knows, maybe this is what we've been needing to do all along.
So, with this plan our protocol begins with next AF eta March 20th. Wow. Here we go again...
*Gulp* Moving forward in March.
It is March. AHHHH!!
Excited and terrified all at the same time. It's the feeling you get at the top of a hill on a roller coaster... right before your stomach is up in your throat. With this being the plan we have put several things in motion. The first is my liver cleanse (TCM through my acupuncturist) is starting today. This is a 3-week cleanse intended to give my liver a break and help it remove any lingering hormones that I took for our last IVF or have hanging around from my pregnancy. The second is that I'm cracking down on exercise. Once I'm stimming, I'm planning on only doing walking/yoga. So right now, I'm using this time to really push myself to lose the last bit of the 20 lbs. goal I set. As of today, I'm down 11.2 of the 20 lbs. Thirdly, I've called all the pharmacies again to get updated prices. So far, we will be going with the same 2 pharmacies from the last cycle as they have the best OOP pricing and are in the US so that we can hopefully write off that money next tax time. Speaking of taxes, we are also filing those this week and hope to get a nice fat refund to apply towards this cycle.
On the work front, I plan to alert the family about my time off in a week or so. Hopefully, by waiting to tell them about this then the mom will be a bit more stable. I'm planning on working while I go to all of my pre-ER appointments as I did before. This time around I'm going to take off work from ER through Beta. With a +++ beta I am going to take the additional 2 weeks off until the first u/s. This is more to give me piece of mind than anything. I know myself. I would be a wreck at work going back before we saw a heartbeat. Truly, I don't know that I will ever relax until I deliver, but I think I could go back to work once I've passed the 6w mark (miscarriage last time around) and have seen the little one(s) on an u/s. If we have a -- Beta then I would go back to work as soon as possible.
For my church job I'm planning on taking off the same amount of time 2-4 weeks. With that being the case I'm thinking I may ask to be released from this position. I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to do yet, but for now that's what I'm thinking.
I'm cautiously optimistic. I feel healthy again and more myself physically. Emotionally I still have bad moments, but overall, I am feeling good. I think a spring transfer is a good thing. I'm hopeful that the new protocol will work as well as Dr Opie thinks it will. Who knows, maybe this is what we've been needing to do all along.
So, with this plan our protocol begins with next AF eta March 20th. Wow. Here we go again...
Monday, March 1, 2010
What now?
I called the RE office today to figure out what was up with adding tests for me to do before the next IVF. I did not receive a call back. I got home and, in my email, inbox was a calendar based on my next cycle. The spreadsheet doesn't look right to me as it appears to have me on stims for a month. Then the nurse told me I have to repeat my IVF blood panel and she's not sure if I need to redo the HSG as she didn't talk to Dr O yet. I'm so frustrated that they can't give me a straight answer. It seems like every time I talk to them; they find a new test they want me to redo. I wish that someone there could look at my file and make a list of all that I need done so I don't have to keep going in for a test here and a test there. Plus, she didn't give me the list of medications for the cycle so that I can start pricing them. I am so frustrated with them!!!! Clomid Agro engaged.
On the work front. The mom was scheduled to return to work today. However, over the entire weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) she had less than 10 hours sleep. She is starting to show impaired judgement, and her husband is concerned we are heading down the psychotic path again. Her Dr is gone today and tomorrow so they called the on-call Dr but as of 5 (when I left) they hadn't heard back from him yet. I hope this is just a small setback and not the beginning of another long hospitalization.
On the work front. The mom was scheduled to return to work today. However, over the entire weekend (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) she had less than 10 hours sleep. She is starting to show impaired judgement, and her husband is concerned we are heading down the psychotic path again. Her Dr is gone today and tomorrow so they called the on-call Dr but as of 5 (when I left) they hadn't heard back from him yet. I hope this is just a small setback and not the beginning of another long hospitalization.
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