Trigger Tonight!

Triggering tonight at 8pm! ER on Sunday - we have to be to DC @ 6am - YUCK! Still working on a story for the in-laws. Hmmm...we have to be up and out by 4:30am on a Sunday because...???

Seems like everything should go off without a hitch. My nurse even gave me permission to have a glass of wine tonight! Mmmm! We are heading to F.ogo De Chao for a late dinner and I can't think of anything better to compliment my steak than a nice glass of red wine. Yay for wine! Yay for steak! Double yay for wine and steak and maybe even dessert!!!

I had a wonderful nurse today and she put my mind even more at ease. She said again that they are really happy with my cycle. It is looking like 8ish eggies and possibly a couple more if some smaller follies kick it up a notch.

Oh, and guess what??? I am a math genius and today is Day 9 not day 7 or whatever the hell I thought it was! I have no idea how I did it, but I somehow lost time and had myself all worked up about timing for NO REASON. Day 9 is wonderful - I have triggered on day 9 before. Silly me! I think the hormones are messing with my brain power ;)

E2 was 1611 today. Lower than it has been historically on trigger day, but I am done obsessing for today.

I plan to write a "real" post tomorrow. You know, something thoughtful and not filled with numbers and stats and freakouts and dosages.

Feeling Better

My nurse called and the follies will grow another day!!!! Whew! She said everything is looking good and no reason to freak out (yeah - easy for her to say!). She said the right side was looking beautiful and my E2 was 1589 - higher then it has ever been at this point before. My Follistim and Menopur have been cut back for tonight. Tomorrow will likely be trigger!

I am going to have to come up with some tale to tell my in-laws about why we are getting up and driving to DC at the crack of dawn on a Sunday morning... Oh well, better then ruining the football game. They'll have to lock up and see themselves out- a little rude of us, but what can I do???

I am feeling better and I think this was just a pre-ER freakout. Thanks for your support and hopefully and I will have a more insightful post sometime soon.

Talk Me Down

I just got back from my stim check and my anxiety is sky high. My u/s tech, Hope, (isn't that a perfect name for u/s tech at a fertility clinic?) said things looked great and I would possibly trigger tonight or tomorrow. What??? Trigger tonight? It has only been 6 days of stims! Then, I go have a sit down with some random nurse that I did not particularly care for and she tells me the same thing! I ask about my 16 follies and she says it looks like 8 are ready to go. 8? WTF??? What about the other half? What about the fact that this protocol was supposed to boost me to the 15ish mark. I have a sneaking suspicion that the antagonist protocol is not for me. She did say my bw will be determining factor and she would like to see me go one more day.

You may be wondering why this all has me freaking? Well, I think it is too fast, but the real anxiety factor is that I have my father-in-law, brother-in-law and nephew arriving tomorrow for the entire weekend. They have tickets to the Navy vs. Notre Dame game on Saturday!!! If I trigger tonight, ER will be on Saturday, Dh won't be able to go to the game and the whole weekend will be ruined. Not to mention, we haven't even told family we are doing IVF #3! I was already stressed about their visit and now my anxiety is sky high.

Please, please, please, let me go one more day!!! That would still be soon and a little complicated, but it would be better. So much better.

I know I need to take a deep breath and probably go meditate to the wonderful IVF meditation that Gretchen raved about during her last cycle. It really is wonderful and you can find it here. I should go do that now and just relax until I get the phone call this afternoon.

Stim Check #2

Well, things are looking good. I have 14 follies on the right and still only 2 on the left with none hiding. The largest are measuring 13-15 and that my friends, means we add Ganirelix to the mix tonight!

My E2 was 595.

Follistim stays at 225 - evenings only

Menopur increased to 225 -whoa!

1 pre-filled Ganirelix syringe

I checked my records from IVF #2 and I am up by a couple of follicles this time and my E2 is a smidge higher. My nurse said I am "right on track" and looks like I will trigger on Saturday for a Monday ER. That would be 9 days of stims and one less day than usual. So far, this new protocol is not really shaping up to be that different from my usual Lupron protocol. As long as the outcome is different, I am ok with that!

Back on Thursday for next stim check!

Quick Draw McGraw

First stim check was the morning and it seems the new protocol is working, perhaps too well. I had 14 measurable follicles - 12 on the right and 2 on the left (left always lags for me). That would explain why I am already feeling my right ovary!

The nurse called this afternoon and said that my E2 was, "way over 300" and I would not be taking any Follistim for 24 hours.

I have to do the 2 amps of Menopur tonite, skip my follistim tonight and in the morning and then resume follstim tomorrow night - dosage 225.

I was so busy making sure I had all the directions correct that I never asked for my exact E2.

Back for stim check #2 on Tues! In the mean time, I coast and hope this did not eff up the entire cycle...

IVF #3 and Unwelcome Visitors

I am a little late in posting this, but IVF#3 is underway!!!! I took last BCP on Sunday, had my suppression check on Monday and started stims on Thursday morning. I am doing an antagonist protocol this time and here it is:

225u Follistim in the morning

75u Follistim at night

150u Menopur

1 baby aspirin

1 prenatal vitamin with DHA/EPA

Ganirelix when my follicles start to reach the 14mm mark. No Lupron for me!!!

ER is tentatively scheduled for 11/18, but I am betting on sooner by a day or so.

5 day ET with AH (assisted hatching) tentatively scheduled for 11/23

I will be doing PIO and Estrace starting on day of ER.

My first stim check is Sunday morning.

This protocol is brand new for me:

higher stim doses

stims 2x per day

antagonist protocol

5 day ET

AH

Estrace

It is exciting - sort of. I said before that the one word that summarizes my feelings about this cycle is apprehension and that is still very much the case. When it was time for the 1st dose, I had to refrain from running screaming the other direction. When it was done, I felt a little, tiny bit better. I am hopeful as well, but that is definitely not the overwhelming feeling.

We have not told anyone (minus the entire blogosphere) except my best friend & my mom. We are very leery about sharing every aspect of this cycle with our family and friends. At this point, we have opted to keep it (mostly) to ourselves. If we have good news, they'll be the first to know. Otherwise, it is just too painful to have so many other people disappointed and sad along with us. Telling the story over and over pretty much sucks!

In other news, we have unwelcome visitors in our neighborhood. 30+ turkey vultures have ascended into our yards. Even worse, they gave us a special wake-up call this morning.

At 6:30 we heard a tapping and scratching sound coming from the master bath. We went in to find 3 HUGE turkey vultures on our skylight very captivated by something. They wanted in and they were going to work on the glass pane. It was freaky!!! We felt like we were on the set of a horror movie. Sean tried to scare them off, but they were unfazed. They finally got bored after awhile and took off to the tree tops where they look like the harbingers of doom.

I stepped out a few hours later to snap some photos. They are down right CREEPY and I hope they will be on their way soon.

For your viewing pleasure - the scavengers!

A New Day

I woke up this morning feeling like a new day had dawned for America. I am over the moon about the election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States of America.

Yesterday was incredibly emotional. I was all misty while casting my vote, then I swelled with a sense of pride as I knew I just helped make history. I spent the next five hours phone banking at the Obama headquarters. I called hundreds of voters in PA and the calls were so uplifting. I spoke to many, many people. I even helped get Florence, an 83 year old, partially blind African American woman, a ride to the polls to cast her vote for Obama. It was an amazing feeling. The atmosphere at the campaign office was electric and for the first time I allowed myself to really believe this might be happening.

The rest of the day felt like "the day that never ends" and I was anxiously awaiting the results to begin rolling in. Sean, a recovering Republican, kept insisting it would be a landslide for Obama, but I didn't believe it until I saw it happening before my very eyes. When they called Ohio for Barack, I broke out the tissues.

At 11pm when the election was called and Barack Obama was President-Elect, the floodgates opened. Tears of joy spilled from my eyes and I was filled to the brim with hope and pride and optimism. I am so proud to be an American today.

As I listened to Obama's acceptance speech, so somber and yet so inspiring, and I saw the faces in the crowd, young, old, black, white, Asian, Indian, Hispanic, male & female, I knew a new era had dawned in this country. YES WE CAN, YES WE CAN, YES WE CAN!

This morning as I watched the news, the words of Martin Luther King rang out loud and clear,

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character...

With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day...

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with new meaning:

My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true." MLK 8/28/63

Martin Luther King's dream has come true today. We are a great nation and yesterday we elected a man based on the content of his character, not the color of his skin.

Now I am not naive enough to believe the nation is healed over night, but I do believe this is one giant step in the right direction.

YES WE DID!