A comparison

Day 1 of stims:




Day 7 of stims:


I go in again tomorrow morning for monitoring. Just wondering what my dosage will end up being after that! Oh, and I can feel my ovaries all the time now, especially when I have to pee. Weird.

Monitoring updates

So I've been stimming for a week now and I think things are going ok. I've had 3 monitoring appts so far. At this morning's appt I had 4 follicles between 11-12mm on the right side and 3 11's on the left. Yesterday when I went in the tech counted 17 follicles on the right and 9 on the left so I'm hoping that more continue to grow and become measurable. I started out on 150iu Brave.lle and 75iu Meno.pur and I'm now up to 225iu of each. That's 6 powders in 1cc of liquid... can you say sludge??;) I think I'm tolerating them pretty well. Haven't had too many noticeable side effects. Tonight I also start the cetrocide so my body doesn't decide to ovulate on it's own. I take it tonight and then again tomorrow morning and then each morning until my ER. As much as I don't want to take another shot, I'm excited that it's time for it now... just means I'm getting that much closer!


It's so weird to be this close to the ER. I mean, I feel like I've been waiting FOREVER to get here and like I've jumped through so many hoops. I'm just thankful to be at this point and hope that it all pays off. I'm still very hopeful but I've got more thoughts of, what if this doesn't work. I'm trying to take everything one day at a time and not worry about things before they happen.

Eeek! Hoping for more good news this week and so anxious to find out when we're actually doing this (the ER/ET that is)! Fingers are still soo crossed!

I got an award?!?!

I never get awards! My new friend Kathy4678 gave it to me:) Thank you to my new friend! You can check out her blog here. So for the rules of this loverly Stylish Blogger Award:


1. Thank and link back to the person who gave you this award.
2. Share 7 things about yourself.
3. Award 15 recently discovered new bloggers.
4. Contact these bloggers and let them know about the award.

So, here goes:) My 7 things:

1. I have a chocolate/fruit/milk/water rule. Chocolate flavored things cannot be water based and fruit flavored things cannot be milk based. For example: creme savers EW and chocolate water ice Double EW!
2. I can't swallow seeds or the skin of purple grapes. Yes, I realize that's weird.
3. I'm doing EXACTLY what I want to be doing job wise. I remember thinking in grad school that I just wanted a job where I could work with kids and test all day long... that's pretty much what I do;)
4. I REALLY REALLY REALLY want to go on a cruise through the mediterranean. I'd settle for taking a cruise through the Caribbean on the Allure of the Seas:P
5. Some of the best dates I had with DH were going to the movies and seeing like 3 movies in a row at the theater. We're both big movie people and it was just fun and seemed "crazy" to do:P
6. I have 1 biological brother, 1 half brother, 1 step sister and 2 step brothers. We're all TOTALLY different and yet I love it when we're all together:)
7. Every once in a while I get the idea to go back for my PhD... and then I come back to my senses. It's not that I wouldn't love to have my PhD, I just don't think I care enough or am motivated enough to spend another 5 years in school. Especially when for right now #3 is true.

I follow a few blogs and most have already gotten the award and posted about it. Missing Baby Carriage hasn't yet so maybe she can do this? She's pretty freaking awesome and has been amazingly supportive of my journey thus far.

Lots of updates!

So I'm writing this from my "post-op" recovery room... aka my bed:P I went in on Saturday morning for my pre-IVF bloodwork and ultrasound since the 21st was supposed to be my last birth control pill. I was praying the cyst would be gone and figured it would be because I had been doubling up on birth control pills. Well of course my body had other plans. The cyst was still there AND it was bigger. Thankfully the doctor had already told me that if it was still there we'd just aspirate it so that I could start stims on time so I didn't freak out thinking I'd have to stay on bcp's for another month. After waiting for the phone call telling me when it would be, I got a phone call telling me that they couldn't get me in for monday but they'd call back on Sunday to see when they could get me in-- hopefully Tuesday. Well Sunday morning I woke up to a phone call from a nurse saying that my doctor didn't want to wait so he was going to fit me in during his lunch hour on Monday! YAYYYY!!!

So today we got up and headed to Rockville. My appt was for 10:30a but I wasn't going into the operating room until 12p. J and I both wondered what the heck we'd be doing for that time from 10:30-12. When I got there they took me to the pre-op room (well corner with a curtain), had me strip down and put on one of those loverly tie in the back gowns and lay down. They got my vitals and the anesthesiologist eventually came and started an IV. Never had one of those before so that was pretty weird. After all that it was about 11a. J read and I tried to relax and read but my thoughts were just running non-stop. It didn't help that everyone else that was there was there for their egg retrieval. So I got to hear the doctor talking to each of the women beforehand and then hear them wake up. Like I said, just curtains were separating everyone so I heard everything. I heard one couple asking about how many eggs were retrieved and another lady yelling at her husband to stop trying to wake her up (that was pretty funny). I also took the time to note the amount of time each retrieval took... about 15 minutes:P

Annnnyyywaaayyy, it was finally my turn. I walked into the operating room, got onto the table and the anesthesiologist stuck something in my IV (that hurt!) and the next thing I remember is getting my blood pressure taken which I think woke me up. It's such a weird feeling to not remember part of your life. Like absolutely NO CLUE what happened during that time. They said I was out for a total of 15 minutes. I woke up fine and wasn't too groggy. I was in pain but they gave me extra strength tylenol to help. They said if it was really bad I could take a vico.din but it really wasn't that bad. I probably stayed for another 1/2 hour and then was sent on my way. When J and I got home I crawled into bed and took an awesome nap:)

I'm kind of sore now but not too bad. I'll be fine to go to work tomorrow. I got some more good news this morning though:) My nurse called and said since I'm getting the cyst aspirated today I can start stims tonight! Starting with 150 iu Brav.elle mixed with 75iu of Meno.pur. SO excited to get this thing started. Can't believe that we're finally here. SO much hope going into this cycle. Praying I'm not devastated at the end of it. For now, happy thoughts:) Off to shoot up!

Delays and Insurance

"Breathe Breathe Breathe"

That's what I was telling myself when I got off the phone with my doctor yesterday afternoon. I went into the doctor's office that morning to have my mock transfer (and SHG) and blood work done. The blood work was being done to get the last requirement in for our IVF insurance approval. I didn't realize how big of a thing it was. More on that later...

The mock was fine. I will NEVER get used to having a speculum shoved up my vag. That's always the worse part. I asked the doctor to talk me through what he saw as he completed the mock/SHG. After everything was in place he showed me on the monitor what the catheter looked like (which was inside my ute at this point). That was pretty cool. Then I watched him fill my uterus with water (saline, whatever). That was very cool (yes I realize I'm a dork). The best part was that everything looked great! No polyps, perfect shape, no obstructions. My doctor even said "your uterus is beautiful!" Let me just say that never in a million years would I expect to hear that in my lifetime, but I did, and words can't describe the relief I felt. So all was well and I was sent on my way to enjoy the feeling of all that water leaking back out. Looooverly.

Oh, and not that the doctor was too concerned but I have a nice sized cyst on my left ovary. Why might you ask? No, I haven't been on any stims in about 2 months and it wasn't there when my last day 3 blood work was done. So why would I have one? Because my body likes to fvck with me thats why. Thankfully this time it doesn't seem as earth shattering since I'm already on the the pill and my date to start stims is still a few weeks out.

I didn't really expect to get a call in the afternoon because I already knew the results and because I'm on birth control. The next thing we need to do is get the consents signed (which we planned to do that morning but they did the mock 2 hours before I anticipated and J wasn't with me yet). Then I get to have my "pre-IVF" blood work done and start stims. Right?... WRONG!

My DOCTOR called around 5pm. I was leaving my weekly Friday afternoon meeting looking forward to my weekend. I picked up the phone and it totally didn't register "this means bad news" when my doctor himself was on the line to talk to me. He explained that the blood work I had done in the morning wasn't accepted by our insurance as day 3 blood work because I'm on the pill which meant that it was denied. I apparently didn't understand what he meant because when I pressed the issue of coming in for blood work because THEY said to and I'm NOT paying for that my doctor just said this "No, you don't understand, they didn't approve your IVF cycle." I think I managed to choke out "oh". He was on damage control and already had a plan. Hopefully this plan will work and my insurance company will accept this and approve the cycle. I'm pretty confident about that part. The part I'm not confident about is it not delaying anything.

So the plan is to discontinue the pill. Get AF and then go in for true day 3 blood work. Once the insurance company gets that and approves the cycle I'll go back on the pill. He said that we should be able to keep the same timeline because he doesn't think I'll have to do a full month of pills again. He'll just have me do a week (or whatever's left before the 25th) and start the cycle as scheduled. Phew... good plan. I didn't take the pill last night and hopefully AF will show up ASAP!

The wrench... and you should have seen it coming because there's ALWAYS a wrench. Remember that cyst we weren't so worried about that morning? Yeah well by going off the pill that means the cyst could grow instead of shrink. Which means that when I go back on the pill, there might not have enough time to shrink the stupid thing before I'm scheduled to start everything. Which could mean that I have to stay on the pill for longer and delay everything. That scares the crap out of me.

Now to most of the world (and that includes J) a couple of days/weeks delay isn't that big of a deal in the scheme of things. But to me, it's earth shattering. This process has already been a good year longer than I anticipated it being. I want everything done NOW. I am not more of a patient person because of this process though if I would just learn some patience my sanity would certainly benefit from it. I can't help it. And now I can't help but think that our insurance won't approve things. If they had such a bullshit reason not to approve it this time, I'm sure they can come up with something else too. (I mean seriously... they have EVERY day 3 blood work record from EVERY period I've had for the past year-- why exactly is that not enough??)

So thats where we are. I'm waiting around for AF to show up and praying that this is only a week of pills I'm missing. I pray that there are no more delays and I pray that my insurance gets its act together and just accepts that I NEED this. Nothing else has/ or will work.