Day 4 Stats

Here are my injection day 4 stats for my IVF ladies.

Day 1-3: Gonal-F @225, 1 powder of Menopur

Day 4: b/w, u/s

  Follicles: 8-L, 10-R

  E2 Level: 562

Reducing Gonal-F to 150 for day 4, 5 & 6 injections
Hubby & I started our Z-Packs on day 5

*Next b/w, u/s morning of day 7

Lazy Left is back in the game baby!

This picture represents all the follicles in my ovaries.  It's like a snow day in there.  10 follicles in my right ovary and 8 in my left.  You read that right people, 8!!  My lazy left ovary has created more follicles.  No more cookies for it.  The ultra-sound technician informed us that there is a chance my E2 level will be high and they'll have to lower my hormone dosage.  Don't want the E2 level to be too high.  We'll wait for the doctor's office to call and I'll find out then what the level is and what "normal" is. 

Lets chat about side effects.  I've had a bad cold for about 2 weeks now so I'm not sure what side effects are being caused by it and what the meds are causing.  Other then the horrendous cough and the stuffy nose, I'm walking into things (I'm a little loopy, but that could be the cold), and the injection site on my tummy is sensitive.  I've had a little cramping every morning at around 4:15am which wakes me up.  Bad timing, but I'll just consider it prep for parenthood.  Other then that, I'm feeling pretty good.  

Now we just wait for our nurse to call us and give us instructions for this evenings injections and when we'll need to be back at the doctors office for another blood test and ultra-sound.  In the meantime, I hope my snow flakes continue growing:)

Dzień drugi, że boli

Day 2: Same shots, but switched the location of the Menopur to see if yesterday pain was because of the spot we chose on my stomach....survey says....that bitch hurts no matter where it's going in.  Good to know.  Gonal-F, not a problem.   I'll have to look around online and see if thats normal, it will also be a question I ask the doctor tomorrow.  

On a fun note, we spent the day decorating the house for Christmas.  It looks beautiful thanks to one of my amazing friends who came over with her boyfriend and loads of decorations.  We're on a tight budget, so a big thank you and lots of love to them.

Shots Fired

We are done with day 1 folks.  It wasn't the most pleasant thing I've ever felt but it most definitely wasn't horrible. 1st Shot: Gonal-F went in smoothly.  2nd Shot: Menopur went in a little more rough.  When we inject, we are supposed to hold the needle in for 5 seconds.  A real 5 seconds people...not the quick seconds we did as children.  I definitely felt the Menopur needle going in and let out a tiny little yelp that scared my husband a little and he pulled the needle out.  I'm not sure if its because of the meds, the needle or if it was that side of my stomach.  No matter what, he was a super star.  It can't feel good hurting the person you love the mostest.  Tomorrow we'll make a few adjustments with the location.  

All Systems Go!

We are a go, people!  After a quick trip to the Doctors office this morning for blood work and an ultra sound, we got the call and my numbers are good. 

In order for me to start the injections, my follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and estradiol levels needed to be tested on day 3 of my period.   These tests are used to determine the the initial drug dosage and to make sure everything is working in there.  We start Gonal-F and Menopur injections this evening.  I’ve got 10 follicles in my right ovary (it’s a superstar) and 5 in my left (that’s my lazy side, I blame this ovary for all my lazy days on the couch eating chocolate chip cookies.)

We are extremely excited and I can’t believe the day is finally here.  We’ll see how upbeat I am in the next few days but right now my body is feeling positive and ready for this. 

The hubs is cracking his knuckles and practicing his jabbing.  I’m working on different ways of saying“Ouch…I wanna cookie now:(” 

Peace, love, and feel free to give yourselves a little pinch tonight at 9pm (PST) in honor of my belly.

Happy Thanksgiving...

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!  I’m thankful for my amazing family and friends. This has been an incredibly difficult year for us but we made it through with the love that surrounds us.    I also want to give a shout-out to my period that arrived today.  I’m thankful that you have started so that I can start to jab my belly on Saturday.  It’s been great fun, but 
I hope you disappear for 40 weeks. 

Holy $hot!!!

Love hipstamatic, it makes everything look better, but don't let it fool you.  All those med's are going into me.  I’m not gonna lie, I was a little overwhelmed when I saw it all.  My husband unpacked them and took inventory and the moment he finished he called me and professed his love to me and gave me the ultimate “card”.  You know the “card”, the one I get to hold up in situations where he is being an ass and I get my way because I’ve done him an enormous favor.  Well, the favor this time is injecting all those medicines into my body while he just sits around waiting to do his part.  This “card” is a picture of a bunch needles going into my stomach and I’m going to use it for as long as I can. 

Lets break it down; the injectable medicines ended up costing us $2,940.45.  The pills (which no one told me about until I was basically picking them up) cost about $123.73.  Luckily those are actually partially covered by my insurance!  Praise the Lord!!! 

Off to injection lessons we go.  Now…they give you one lesson on how to do this all.  My husband secretly records the entire thing on his iPhone, because knowing us; we will most likely forget the process the moment we leave here.  There is a nurse on hand at all times that you can call and there are loads of videos emailed to us as well as websites that have them all.  But other then that we are on our own.   Our lesson became a chemistry class.  It took me back to high school, sitting in front of those freezing cold black top tables, only now we are sitting in uncomfortable chairs using the top of a file cabinet as a workspace in the smallest room they could find.  We mix water with water in our class to show us how to mix the solutions and powders.   There are different size needles that we have the capability of changing.  They give us a fake belly pad to practice on.  The hubby goes to insert the needle and my face turns to horror.  He’s forgotten to remove the 20 gauge needle!  For those who don’t know how long that is, it looks to be about 2 inches to my horrified eyes.  YOU AIN’T JABBING ME WITH THAT NEEDLE, BITCH…he stops just in time and realizes.  That poor fake belly almost got it. 

Maria, our nurse, suggests that my husband do all the injections while I lie down.   Did she not just see what happened?  At the end of the day, I agree that it’s probably the best idea.  I do have a high tolerance for pain, however I’m not sure if I have the guts to jab myself 2-3 times daily with something I know won’t feel good.  She gives us our calendar, which explains what shots I’ll be taking when and an idea of the timing of my retrieval surgery.   I love me a calendar. 

I’ll be taking 2-3 shots every evening at 9pm.  The timing was my choice, but it had to be an evening time.  I start with 2 shots and then move to 3 when my body is “ready” for it.  On day 7, both the hubs and I start on a z-pack.  Not sure why, but I’ll find out closer to that day.  I’m assuming it’s to kill any infections in our body so that my eggs and his sperm are at their prime.  I have no idea what these shots do exactly.  Other then the fact that they are hormones and they will make my body drop more eggs, I really don’t know what they are.  In my case I’d like to keep it this way.  To much information can make me a crazy person.  No need for me to obsess over something I can’t control. 

Once the shots have done their thing, and my body is ready for retrieval, I’ll be headed to the surgical center.  Out they go and I start on all of the oral meds (and another type of med that I’m not gonna chat about because I have boundaries to grossing people out, but lets just say it may as well be a tampon).  As of right now Maria says that these meds are to make my uterine lining the thickest and bestest it can be for embryo attachment.  YAY for modern medicine!

And there you go, a quick download on the meds and the process.  All I have to wait for now is for the “flow” to arrive.  We take off on a jet plane tomorrow and head to my parents.  Our amazing families have moved Thanksgiving to Monday so that we can spend it with them since it looks like I’ll have to fly home before the actual Thanksgiving to get the process started.  

Where is my f'ing baby already?!?!?

While I sit here waiting to start my first (and hopefully only) IVF treatment I wonder; how do women go thru this every day?  I am just over four and a half years into this form of waiting, waiting for a baby.  My days go from positive to almost ready to just end it all.  This makes me realize how genetically ingrained the need for a baby is.  The fact that it can affect my thoughts this much is almost scary.  I have heard stories that are worse then mine and I’ve heard stories that make me look like a saint, but at the end of the day, all I feel is lonely.  Why do women hide from the world when going thru such a horrible thing?  I decided early on in my journey to be open and honest about everything going on.  I refuse to make myself or anyone else feel like this is embarrassing or that this should be hidden away deep in my heart.  I refuse to let this define me, or at least I try very hard not too.  I am a loving wife to an amazing man, I have a loving family that I miss every day, I have a great job and 
I am having trouble getting pregnant at the age of 33.  

My husband and I got married 7/7/07, the 37^th anniversary of my parents wedding.  I stopped taking birth control long before our wedding and we decided that we would try to have a baby right away after getting married.  At this point I was 29 years old and we had been together for 4 years.  My best friend is pregnant at my wedding (however she will sadly have her 1^st of 2 miscarriages just a little bit after our wedding) and my brothers’ wife is pregnant with their 3^rd child (no problems except they were “almost” about to start an IVF treatment when they got pregnant, which btw, IVF is FREE in the state of 
Massachusetts where they live.  Wicked lucky!).  

I understood that the miracle of life was just that…a miracle.  However, I had no idea just how long and painful this process was going to be.  Oddly, the first 3 years are a blur, I don’t remember ever truly feeling sad until August 2010.  This is when for the first time someone finds something wrong with me.  Up to this point we have been to about 5 doctors appointments trying to figure out what was going on.  My husband’s analysis came back a little off and at first I actually felt a little disdain for him.  How could he not have taken better care of himself so that we could get pregnant?  He was a little overweight and I convinced myself that that was the problem.  But, in August of 2010, while having an iodine test done to check if my tubes were ok, a doctor found out that my uterus wasn’t filling with the iodine. I went in for the follow up with my OBGYN so that he could tell me the results which I thought would be perfect, and then my heart broke.  My uterus was filled with growths.  They looked like polyps but he wouldn’t know for sure until he went in and got them out.  All this time it was me.  ME!  I couldn’t believe it.  From that point on I have felt so much guilt.  Guilt that I am not only causing myself mental pain but also that now, my husband, who I was blaming, had to deal with the fact that it was probably me that was the problem.  How do you live with something like that?  I haven’t been the same since. 

At this point of the process, I have checked my ovulation with a kit for four and a half years, I have had sex every month like its my job around ovulation, I have had surgery to remove alien forms from my uterus, I have gone thru three cycles of Clomid, I have had 5 IUI’s, and I have had zero pregnancies.  I am jealous of people who have had miscarriages.  I went thru a six month period where I couldn’t talk to any friends that were pregnant, and I have felt bad about myself almost every day.

It’s November 2011 now, and I start my first IVF in one week.  I spent $29K just this week.  I am excited, terrified, nervous, but most of all my thoughts keep saying “Where is this fucking baby?”  I’m over waiting and I’m ready for this to happen now.

I'm writing this because I haven’t been able to really find anything online that explains to me what I can really expect.  I assume this is because women are almost ashamed of what they go thru that they don’t want to share this process with anyone until after they have that beautiful baby in hand.  And once that happens they forget all about this process. Please remember that this is just my story and every story is different, but I will explain what the injections make me feel like.  I will speak of the side effects that no one has told me about.  I will be honest about the horrible shots that have to be injected into my stomach daily.