Almost Healthy Again!

Back to the doctors office today, for the last time before the BIG test, thank goodness. Today I had to have my progesterone level checked, just what I needed another blood test. I'm not sure what the amount of progesterone in your body really means but I know that when going through IVF they want it to be pretty high, hence the shots of the stuff right in to your butt muscle. They told me that if they didn't call that meant that my levels were good and they didn't so no change to my protocol.

I also had to have my ovaries checked again. I went in on Friday because I was still having pain that didn't seem to want to go away and found out that not only had I developed ovarian hyper stimulation but also a urinary tract infection, how super fun! The antibiotics that she gave me on Friday seemed to work really fast so the urinary tract infection has cleared out, but the ovaries are still large and in charge. Normally your ovaries should be around 2cm, mine can't seem to shrink below 8cm. Plus they are covered in cysts and leaking what they call "free fluid", basically water, in to my abdominal cavity. The leaking part may sound gross, but it isn't too dangerous unless the fluid begins to leak in to your lungs, then you got some serious problems. Luckily for me I didn't leak out too much, although I did get to have an ultrasound done on my lungs which was cool and ticklish at the same time.

So that's it for now. I don't think I will be posting anything new until next Tuesday after my pregnancy test. Keep me in your thoughts and prayers and remember we aren't praying for triplets people, I know who you are and I have already asked God to override your prayers!

Now All We Have to do is Wait

We are done with the fun stuff now, can you believe it!! Now is the dreaded 2 week wait, my pregnancy test isn't until October 4th, that seems eons away.

This morning, well it was really 11:15am, we went back to the Fertility Center. Remember how I cheated with the full bladder test the last time; well once a cheater always a cheater, I started drinking my water around 10:45am, that was when I was supposed to be done. But once again it worked; I have my cheating down to an art form. Nat was freaking out that I wouldn't have a full bladder in time, he of little faith! We got there a little early and they were all ready for us.

The first thing that happened when we got there was the run down from our doctor about the quality of our embryos and the number we wanted tranfered. Yesterday I was pretty positive that we were going to be transferring 2 and freezing the other 8; Nat and I had decided that would be our magic number. Well we were wrong. Dr. Filer suggested that we transfer 3; anybody else just jump a little there? He said with 3 we had a 50% chance of getting pregnant, and a 30% chance of twins. Triplets, please keep praying here, are a less than 5%; if we have triplets I am moving in with my parents or my inlaws. Could you imagine??

So we also got the grading system for our embryos. #1's were the best and #4's the worst; we had 7-#1, 2-#2 and 1#3. So three of the #1's were transferred in me today, let's go number 1's!!! All the others were frozen for siblings, unless triplets, I'm serious people this freaks me out a bit.

The actual procedure wasn't bad at all. Nat was allowed in to the room, which was a welcome change. First they gave me a shot of Versed, a mild muscle relaxer, right in the butt, of course. Then the tranfer was under way. It took about 15 minutes and then I had to lay on the table for another 30 minutes. The table was the star of the show, it was tilted backwards so my head was closest to the ground and my legs were up in the air. I figured that it had something to do with making the embryos enjoy their new home, but really I have no idea because all it did was make it impossible to read a magazine. After my 30 minutes was up we came for the start of my 24 hours of bed rest!!

The next time I am at the doctors office is on the 26th when they will be checking my progesterone level and then the 4th for the pregnancy test.

On the 4th we will be telling you, our friends and family, about the results of our test. In a normal pregnancy we would wait until we heard the heartbeat to let everyone know, but this is such a different situation. I feel that this situation warrants the celebration of being pregnant as soon as we hear, no matter what happens. You have all shared my ups and downs and I would like to continue sharing it all with you; you are my support system and I need friends and family more now than ever. I CAN'T BELIVE I HAVE TO WAIT 2 WEEKS!!!

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend and if you are in the way of Rita, be safe!! Thanks for all of your continued prayers and support, we couldn't have gotten this far without it!

Happy, Happy, Joy-Joy!!

Well my doctor just called to give me the good news; out of the 15 eggs retrieved yesterday 10 were mature and all 10 have fertilized!! I am scheduled for my transfer tomorrow at 11:45am and I am super pumped! Tomorrow Dr. Filer will sit down with Nat and I before the procedure and discuss how many embryos he is going to transfer, we are thinking it will be two. The decision on the number is in the end ours alone to make, but once again I think I am going to defer to the people with all of the degrees.

As you can probably tell I am thrilled with the news. I'm very much looking forward to the transfer tomorrow and hopefully a positive beta, blood pregnancy test, in two weeks.

On a side note not totally unrelated, last night was my first shot in the butt from Nat. It wasn't as bad as we both thought it would be, he didn't pass out and I wasn't bleeding. Nat was really nervous, like I thought of pouring him a stiff drink before hand nervous. I was trying to calm him down by talking him through it and I guess I was just annoying him because he finally yelled, "Shut up and drop your pants." And that was it. It didn't hurt at all, although today it is a bit sore. Hopefully with a good heating pad and some hot baths the soreness will go away, but then again if I do end up pregnant he will have to do this for the next 10 weeks, my poor tush.

For now that's all I have. I will update everyone tomorrow on the status of the transfer. If you all remember my blog from the trial transfer you might remember the problem I had with keeping a full bladder, well game on again tomorrow. I am supposed to be there at 11:15am, the transfer is at 11:45am and it takes about 15-20 minutes for the procedure. You do the math, that's over 45 minutes with a full bladder, major problemo!!

Fingers and toes crossed people, I'll be excited with a full bladder tomorrow who knows what could happen!!!

A Basket Full of Eggs

It's now 9:16am and I am home and feeling great! The egg retrieval went well and they were able to aspirate 15 eggs. Tomorrow morning they will call us and let us know how many of those eggs were fertilized. How exciting!

I can't believe how nervous I was this morning, I was pretty crazy. We had to be there at 7:30am where we signed some papers and went over the rules of the day, no operating heavy machinery, that kind of stuff. They then took me to a separate room where they hooked me up to an EKG, a finger pulse taker, and an IV in the hand; out of everything that hurt the worst. The anesthetist was so comforting, she basically held my hand and stroked my forehead while she put the knock out juice in me. And that was all I remember until waking up in the recovery room.

Nat was there and so was my LPN Michele, ready with water and a snack. I actually don't have anything to complain about other than the fact that I was a worry wart over nothing. I still feel a little groggy and after I eat my lemon poppy seed bread I am going to lay down and watch some toons. Yay!!

Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers, they worked, I feel pretty good. I will update you all tomorrow to let you know how many eggs fertilized!!!

I feel yucky, oh so yucky...

This morning I woke up early, 6:45am, went downstairs ate some breakfast and read the paper. I took my first doxycycline, an antibiotic so I don't get any infections with the procedure tomorrow, and within 25 minutes I was so cramped up I couldn't even lay down. I don't know whether to blame it on breakfast, frosted mini-wheats, or the antibiotic, but whatever got in to me is taking its sweet time to get out. It's now 3pm and I am still nauseous, cramped up, and basically feeling like crud. My cat and I have been laying on the bed watching the Eagles and now an old Perry Mason movie on CourtTV. I'm so jealous that she can just fall asleep, between the upset stomach and my being nervous about tomorrow I have a feeling that I won't see the inside of my eyes until they knock me out in the morning. I guess this is just of prelude of what will hopefully come in the next 9 months....Oh Boy!!

It's Go Time!!

Today was my last ultrasound and round of bloodwork, which is good because I'm running out of non-bruised arm for them to use. I woke up this morning feeling the worst I have felt yet; I have back cramps, front cramps and now I seemed to have developed nausea. How awesome is that!!!

It is all worth it though because today I had 21 follicles, 10 on the right and 11 on the left. I am starting to feel like a farm animal, a chicken in fact, with all of my eggs. That is going to be it for me though, no more are developing, I have my trigger shot to loosen the follicles tomorrow. My retrieval is scheduled for Monday at 9am and just like all of my books said, I am sooooo ready.

The retrieval should take about 15-30 minutes and I will be in the recovery room for another 30-60 minutes. After that I will go home rest up and wait to hear how the eggs turned out. On Thursday I will go back in and have either 2 or 3 eggs implanted, we will have to wait to see the quality of the little guys to decide. My E2 level today was 1581, which is starting to border on high so my doctor also decided to put me on another drug, starting Monday, to make sure my ovaries still don't hyperstimulate. I'm not sure how they can do that if the follicles have all been removed, but she's the one with all of the degrees so I'll listen to her.

Ok well I am getting ready for my sister's bachelorette party, hopefully I can at least make it through dinner. Please think of me on Monday and keep me in your prayers and keep Nat in mind too, he has to deal with me after anesthesia!!!

Have a good weekend!!

Searching for a few good eggs

Yeah for me, I can grow follicles!!

Today was a big day for me, huge actually, because this was the first ultrasound, since beginning the Follistim, and if nothing is going on in there they can scrap the mission and BAM, you are back to the beginning. Luckily for me there was a lot going on in there so I am on for my next round of bloodwork and ultrasound on Friday.

I knew something was going on in there because yesterday I started getting some pain on my right side. Having gone through 6 rounds of clomid the pain is a familiar one, it means that something is tugging on your ovaries, hopefully a maturing follicle. The bigger they get the more pain and yesterday it was enough for me to complain about it to Nat, more like whine about it to Nat.

So back to today; I went in and had the ultrasound done first and right away I was able to see the follicles on the ultrasound. I actually knew what I was looking at!! For follicles to be mature enough to harvest they need to be larger than 18mm, sometimes they will take them as small as 15mm but we want big fat ones here. The ultrasound tech said that today she would be looking for follicles that measure 10mm or above, that's the average size that they should be on day 7, that's today for me. Well she found 9, yeah that's right n-I-n-e!! There were 6 on my right side, hence the pain, and 3 on my left. She said there were a few more that were just under 10mm and that by Friday some will catch up with the others. I'm a machine!!

I then had to get my blood taken and at this point the thing they are looking for is your Estradiol level, or your E2 level. What they are looking for is a level that coincides with the number of developing follicles, if the level is low they aren't developing fast enough and if they are too high than you could be developing ovarian hyperstimulation, which I am at a higher risk of getting because of my polycystic ovaries. Anyhow, my levels were good 697, which the nurse said is a good high number, too high would be over 2,000.

I'm super happy with my results today. After reading all of the books about IVF and getting on the message boards you hear all of these stories about what can go wrong and how sometimes the medicines don't work at all, well I guess I'm relieved that things are going along smoothly. I learned today that out of the 18 scheduled IVF patients this month, three have already been cancelled due to poor response from the medicine. I also learned that I am the youngest patient, which really doesn't mean too much, the lab tech just thought she would let me know.

Ok, keep your fingers and toes crossed for more good news on Friday. I will most likely be posting almost everyday from now until next Friday, there will be so much going on; so if you feel like ignoring me for a few days and just hitting the blog once or twice you can wait until next week to get the full story, I wouldn't recommend it, but I'll allow it. (unless you are related to me, than it's manditory that you check, I'll be giving quizzes!)

More Friday!!!!

When Good Shots Go Bad

First of all this picture is taken upside down and I was laying down so please excuse the belly, and don't stare at it too much, it's camera shy. I just wanted to show you my first injection bruise, isn't it cute!! The weird thing is that it doesn't hurt at all and I didn't even know it was there until I went to get in the shower. In fact I never did take that shower because it was scary enough to make me run to the doctor to see what I was doing wrong. It turns out that I probably jiggled the needle around a little, sorry if that makes you wince, so now she said I am to ice down the region before giving myself injections. I hope I didn't frighten you with either the bruise or the belly! More on wednesday!!

A Great Way To Forget About Injections

Sorry about my tardiness. I promised a blog by Thursday and here it is Sunday and I'm just starting, but I have a good reason to be late. I swear I do, but I'll get to that later.

So this past Wednesday was my first round of bloodwork and ultrasound, the first of five. This coming week I will have four more rounds with the needle.

Don't be jealous.

Now that I started my newest injection, Follistim, I have to have my ovaries monitored constantly. With PolyCystic Ovaries there is a chance that you can hyperstimulate the little things and too many eggs develop too quickly and then they have to scrap the IVF for this month. I guess the constant surveillance of my ovaries is a good thing, and the bloodletting for that reason, I guess it's just another freakin' needle right?!

So far so good with the Follistim though; I'm four shots in and I don't think I'm having any side effects. In fact I think my mood has actually been lifted but who knows how temporary that could be. I'm also still on Lupron and still getting hot flashes. Hopefully tomorrow the doctor will tell me that the Lupron is over with, I'm so looking forward to waking up with dry clothes and being able to sit on my chenille couch again. Aah, the good old days.

Well as for my excuse for not getting anything done this weekend; it was Karen's wedding weekend!!! We had a blast! I honestly couldn't think of a better way to distract myself, from myself, than this wedding. The 80's band was slammin', the people were awesome and all of the bridesmaids were wild and crazy, just what the doctor ordered. I've never danced so much in my life; I also never purposely destroyed a bridesmaids dress either, but hey, that was what happened because it was too damn hot and the dress was too damn long. Woo-hoo!!

(Emotional Blogging)
It was so nice having my girlfriends around all weekend to talk to, I really miss that. A big part of growing up is moving on with your own life and it seems as though our lives have all gone in opposite directions and spread us across the eastern seaboard. I selfishly wish they would all move home just so we could continue our friendships the way they were in high school, back before husbands and now children. But things are different now, we have added new friends and made new relationships, we are married and we even have a new little baby to spoil. (Makenzine) Everything has changed and yet nothing has changed at all. We still have the same inside jokes, we still laugh at each other and we still turn to one another for reactions when something funny happens. I look at my girlfriends that have now become women through the same eyes but with a different focus. I cherish our memories, anticipate our futures and know that these friendships will always stay exactly the way they are, the way friendships should aspire to be, filled with love and laughter. Thanks for the memories.....