Follicle Check

To start off, for those who may be reading who are not in the world of IVF: a little Biology 101 about how follicles work: your ovaries have a certain number of follicles which remains the same throughout your life. In my case, I have twelve. This means that during every cycle, before ovulation, twelve eggs come up to bat and compete to be *the* winning egg who gets to make the trip down one of the fallopian tubes. The body then chooses the dominant egg of the twelve, the "winner," and it is released. The other eleven eggs are so devastated by this that they commit suicide (a term called apoptosis). Thank goodness the human body is able to choose one egg per cycle, or else we'd have litters like dogs and cats.

During my follicle check yesterday, the doctor did an ultrasound and counted *sixteen* follicles. That means the stimulation meds I have been on for almost a week have allowed me to grow four more follicles than usual. This is a very good number, as it means they could get sixteen eggs when they retrieve. He then measured the follicles. Measurements ranged from 9.5mm to 14.6mm. They want all of my follicles to hit 18-20mm for egg retrieval, since the bigger the follicle is, the more likely they will be able to retrieve an egg. My follicles are growing at a rate of about two millimeters a day! So, I will continue as I have been over the weekend and go in on Monday morning for another scan. My nurse has predicted my trigger shot will be done Monday night (more on that later), which means egg retrieval would be Wednesday morning!

Here is a picture of my left ovary with four follicles showing:

Here is a picture of Marc giving blood! Eight vials! For surrogacy, the FDA requires lots and lots of blood to make sure no one is carrying any diseases (I had mine done a couple of weeks ago, as did Jenn and Michael):

(he seems entirely too happy about this, if you ask me!)

This morning I cried, because there were no forks...

just spoons. How am I supposed to eat my breakfast without a fork? Why do we run out of forks so quickly?

So I've been a little more emotional lately. Today I am really feeling the crampiness in my abdomen and bloatedness. I took Tylenol, as it is the only drug I am allowed to take while I am in cycle. Other drugs (such as Advil) use the same receptors that the fertility drugs need to work.

Good news is, my estrogen is looking good. Since the ovaries are primarily responsible for producing estrogen, my estrogen number indicates how they are responding to the FSH (Follicle Stimulating Hormone) I have been injecting every day. I had labwork done yesterday, and my estrogen went from a 42 from last Wednesday at the suppression check, to a 227. Our nurse practitioner, Barb, said this means the medicines are working and I am heading in the right direction. When I go back on Friday for more bloodwork and a scan, we will know much more about when I will be ready for the egg retrieval. Jenn, on the other hand, is the overachiever. Her lining is at 11 mm (minimum needed is 8 mm) and her estrogen is a whopping 498 (they like for it to be over 300). So right now, she is all ready and in a holding pattern until our embryos are ready!

Look who I ran in to at the clinic! Early morning (7:30) appt.s at HIVF are our lives now.

Long Overdue

This is Jenn:

And here I am!  I live!!!  Barely, but I live :)

I've been extremely neglectful of posting, but I have allot on my plate at the moment, so sitting here at the computer hasn't happened much.

So, here's my update in a nutshell:  I started meds just a few weeks ago, and all has been good so far.  No Lupron headaches, no mood-swings, and no other side effects that I know of.  I did have a weird achy-leg thing happen (felt like the flu but I felt totally normal), but that passed with a few doses of Ibuprofen (which I had permission to take from my NC).  Thankfully, its been smooth sailing so far....maybe its just that I knew what to anticipate this time around, so that's helped?  Who knows....

Anyway, after a week on Lupron, I went in for my lining check and labs...a week too soon.  My NC (nurse coordinator) gave me the wrong date :-/  So, rather than waste the trip (of 65 miles), we went ahead and did my FDA labs and a pelvic swab (TMI?) to rule-out all of the communicable diseases that we had already ruled out with the CDC labs!  Go figure...the government (FDA) is repeating labs that we just ran less than 2 weeks ago....just in case they missed something the 1st time around?!?

So, this past Friday was my REAL lining check and first labs.  Lining measured a beautiful 11.3 :)  So, my body is responding just as it should, so far!  I haven't heard back on my estradiol (estrogen) level, so I'm just assuming no news is good news for the time being.  Before the lining check I had a bit of spotting for a few days, so I was worried that maybe my measurement might not be what it should, but the doc and NC said the spotting was likely caused by hormone flux and nothing more.

And on a personal level, last week was just flat-out rough.  Michael had an out-of-town training class in ATX last week, so he left on Monday.  On Tuesday (8/6) I started a new job - not quite full time since I'm off on Monday, but that will likely change by January.  All 3 of my kiddos got sick - started with the youngest who came home from church camp on the prior Saturday sick with a cold, then spread to my daughter Morgann, then my oldest, Alex, a few days later.  By Thursday, Morgann's asthma had kicked into high-gear and she had to call me home around lunch for help.  I did a breathing treatment with her and her wheezing subsided enough for me to return to work.  But, by the time I returned home Thursday night, she was in bad shape, so I called the pediatrician who sent us to the ER.  Lucky for us, we got to spend 6 hours there!  By the time we made it home Friday morning, it was a little after 3, and I was back up at 8:30 getting ready to leave for work.  Don't know exactly how I managed, but I did, and we all spent a good weekend resting and recovering.

On the horizon is another lining scan and estradiol check tomorrow morning, and I am prayerfully hopeful that all will still look good!  I will do my best to update again when I have those results :)

For now, I'm off to bed....G'night!

The Most Complicated Drug

So here is the picture of Menopur. To start off, I am supposed to be taking three vials of powdered "stuff." Marc says it's lyophilized compound of (this is from the product information in the box), get this, "the urine of postmenopausal women, which has undergone additional steps for purification." I would hope so. Anyway, the three vials each need to be reconstituted with 1 ml of saline solution, one at a time, in the big syringe. Hallelujah this is not the needle that's being stuck in me. The needle being used is the smaller one, still wrapped. So it's the same size as the subcutaneous Gonal-F and Lupron needles. That was great news to me, as I had a small panic attack looking at the size of that needle!

Yay! I conquered a new device

Well, this little pen sure is nifty. This morning was my first time injecting Gonal-F, and it comes in this pre-measured pen. Each pen has two doses. Thank goodness for the pharmacy videos online, I only watched this one four times starting and stopping. I just wanted to make sure I was doing this right! Though I am injecting a lot of drugs right now (this morning was 225 iu- the max), it is to kick start my hormones and get things rolling, so I can hopefully go down later in the week and closer to the actual egg retrieval. All I know is that I'll have ovaries the size of grapefruits by the end of the week (jk)! I've gotten used to the pricks of Lupron every night and the dexamethasone (which I learned is to suppress the cortisol excreted by the adrenal glands). So far so good... will post again about all the chemistry that will go on tonight- this next drug (Menopur) needs to be mixed beforehand.

Our Calendars

Here are our calendars I have taped to my bathroom mirror. Though I am thrilled every time I get to mark out a day with my sharpie(!), I am scared about getting closer to that last week when the stimulation meds begin and the "big gun" needles are brought out. These are some hard core drugs people! BTW, as you can see, compared to Jenn's calendar (hers is on the right), what I have to take is *nothing*!! I just want the next couple of weeks to be over with!

Would You Trust This Man?

Lupron injections started last Monday. I think Marc enjoys poking me with a needle. Feeling fine five days in... but would you trust this man?