Waiting and waiting and waiting and...

oh yeah, let's wait some more. Well I am on the down hill slide now with the 2ww. Not much going on other than just waiting. The OHSS has gotten better which I am thinking is not a good sign. The RE told me it would get worse if I got pg. I am still bloated, just not nearly as bad and I am having cramping on and off and breast tenderness on and off. So what does all this mean? Probably not a thing. So, I am desperately trying to reserve judgement on this cycle and just see what happens at our beta on Wednesday. Hunter has forbidden me to POAS and just wait for the official results from the RE. UGH...I just want to be prepared if it is going to be negative. So, I think I have decided to have the RE call Hunter with the results. If it is negative, I would much rather hear it from my hubby than from the doctor. Of course I am trying to remain positive but with everything that went wrong this cycle it is kind of hard at times. So, what will we do if it is negative? We are getting the heck out of dodge and going somewhere tropical. Since we will be getting a nice check back from the RE I think we deserve it! After that who knows?? The 3rd time was supposed to be it for us, but now that it is here I am not quite ready to throw in the towel. Other things to distract ourselves during this 2ww - home improvement! Which mostly means Hunter has been working his rear-end off since I can't really do much to help him. Our guest bathroom is starting to look live-able again and hopefully we will have a nice new tile counter top by the end of the week. It is wonderful being married to such a handy man! Saturday I went for lunch and pedis with some fellow IFers which was great!! We had a fabulous time. It is great to know I have so much support out there! Hopefully we will have something to celebrate on Wednesday!

It has been a bumpy ride, but...

we are home with 4 on board. Granted 2 of them looked pretty shabby, but we have nicknamed the lot of them "scrappy" in the hopes that we have at least one fighter bean that hangs with us for the long haul. The OHSS is still in full effect and I look like I swallowed a watermelon. Of course the RE promised that it will get worse before it gets better, especially if I get pg. I will take 2 or 3 watermelons if it means we get a baby out of the deal!! The moms have both been here this weekend which has been a lifesaver. My house is clean and all my laundry has been done...what wonderful mothers! I can only hope to be as good a mother as they are. I will update more tomorrow on the whole experience but the couch is calling my name!

ER Complete and OHSS!

After 2 more liters of fluid in the RE's office my ER is finally complete. We only got 8 eggs which I am quite disappointed by considering they had been telling me all along that it looked like I had about 15 and I was on twice the dose that I had been on in my last two cycles. To go along with the wonderful stomach bug I have I also have OHSS, great! My stomach looks like I am about 5 mths pg and that is after the RE drained a lot of the fluid during the retrieval. I thought Good Friday was supposed to be our good omen for our 3rd and likely final IVF. I know it only takes one and I need to concentrate on thinking the positive thoughts right now. We should hear from our fert report tomorrow morning so I am praying that the majority of our little egglets fertilize. We are likely going in for a 3 day transfer on Saturday, but it all depends on how the little ones are growing. If you are the religious kind, any prayers you can offer would be greatly appreciated! One great thing about today, I am finally keeping some food down...granted it is only soup but it sure tasted good!

Triggered in the ED last night...

What a miserable past couple of days! Sunday night Hunter came down with some sort of stomach bug or food poisoning and then lucky me got it yesterday morning. Well by 8:00 last night after I hadn't kept anything down, not even water, for 24 hours Hunter took me to the ED. Of course my ER is supposed to be tomorrow so I had to trigger last night at 11:30 - believe me I got questioned pretty hard by the nurse when I pulled out my syringe. So after 12 hours in the ED, 4 bags of fluid, and lots of nausea medicine I came home this morning. One neat thing was the physician who took care of me the in ED had actually gone through IVF so she knew what I was dealing with and even called my RE to let him know what was going on. As of right now he says we are still a go for ER tomorrow, but my fever has gone up today instead of going down. The good news is that I have kept some chicken soup down for a couple of hours now. While I hate to throw away $3,000 on meds, I also hate to go forward with this cycle when things aren't as good as they could be??? So now I am just waiting on the RE to call me back and then I guess we will go from there. This just sucks! We have had the best response this time than we have ever had over 15 follicles and my last E2 was over 2,100. What timing, huh??

Nothing like an early morning wanding

to get the day started! My u/s this morning revealed a few more follies than we had on Tuesday. Right now we have about 14...7 on each side. Luckily they are all pretty much measuring the same (b/t 11 & 12). Isn't there some saying about slow and steady winning the race? Haven't gotten my E2 yet as they were quite busy this morning so it will probably be late afternoon before they call. I go back on Monday and hopefully will trigger on Monday or Tuesday for an ER on Wednesday or Thursday. Since we are going a little slower than I anticipated I have to order more drugs. My knocked up buddy from my Mind/Body group has graciously offered me her left over Follistim. Hopefully they are some lucky drugs...although I feel like I should be meeting her in a dark alley to make the exchange. We have a pretty low-key weekend planned. My body is pretty tired and bloated, so sleep and rest are my friend right now. No early signs up hyperstimulation which is great news!! All in all I am feeling pretty positive right now. Happy Friday to all!!

Not cooking as much as I thought...

They ran my E2 this morning (from yesterday's appt) and it only came back at 125??? Last time on a lower dose my first E2 was over 200. Who knows...my body is probably just rebelling from all the drugs. They are increasing my dose from 300 to 450 which means more $$$ for drugs. Guess I need to plant me another money tree, huh? They pushed my next u/s and b/w back to Friday so hopefully my levels will be much beter by then.

We are just getting cookin'!

Good news today from my 1st u/s! We have about 11 follicles so far...5 on the right and 6 on the left. We go back on Thursday and should be adding the Antagon and Menopur as long as everything looks good and my E2 levels are rising appropriately. Dr. C also told me not to take any more of my allergy medicine...UGH! My poor nose is running like a faucet with all this pollen. It is for a good cause though and I don't want to do anything to jeopardize this cycle. They also wrote off the $1K Assisted Hatching charge from my last cycle that we didn't even know anything about until we got the bill in the mail. I hate to be a difficult patient, but I just had a problem paying for something that no one told me about! They made sure to cover their bases this time though so we owe them another $1K for this cycle. It is only money, right?! If this cycle works I am sure we won't even think about it. Let's hope things keep cookin'!!

IVF#3 Officially Underway!

After much discussion about my "less than ideal" lining and no period for 46, yes 46 days IVF#3 is officially underway. AF FINALLY decided to show her face on Friday just in time for me to start stims on schedule. Good Friday was supposed to be my good omen so I was freaking out a bit about my body not cooperating, but luckily for me at the last minute it all worked out. Friday night I started 300ius of Gonal-F. So far so good, just a little bloated and crampy which is to be expected. Hopefully there will be lots of little egglets cooking when I go back for my u/s on Tuesday.

Give me a break!

90% of the time I am amazed by the nurses that I come into contact with. They have been compassionate, caring, understanding...you name it. Well the past week I have definitely been dealing with the other 10%! It all started with my annual GYN exam last Thursday. My absolute favorite NP left the infertility practice that I am going to and has joined an OBGYN practice. Since she has been such a wonderful source of support to Hunter and I through this whole journey I followed her to the land of the fertile. Of course I walk in the practice and am immediately greeted by a waiting room full of "fertiles"...but like I said, it was my choice to go there so I knew what to expect. Well the nurse calls me back to take my medical history ... pretty much everything under the sun since I was a new patient. So of course one of the questions is "Have you had any pregnancies?" Yes. "Deliveries?" No, two miscarriages. At that point she realized that I was on CD38 so she thought it was a grand idea for me to take a pregnancy test. Give me a break! It was quite humorous actually...she actually believed it might be positive - ha! So after another battery of questions I again get the question "Have you had any pregnancies?" Yes. (Trying not to look at her like an idiot) "Deliveries?" No, two miscarriages. (Really? Didn't you already write that down somewhere??) Once again there is a whole other battery of questions...family history of illness, etc. The the really kicker "How old are your two children?" Once again for the 3rd time, they were miscarriages. (Are you f***ing kidding me??? Give me a break!) I didn't even get a sorry from her on that. I do realize that not everyone understands, or should understand this whole world of IF, but give me a break.

So now it is a new week and I am starting fresh. This is the week that I start stims (I hope!). First thing Monday morning I call the REs office to get my prescriptions for this cycle filled. Nothing like waiting until the last minute, but who wants to turn loose of that kind of $$ before they have to?? The nurse does get points for calling me back pretty quickly (within 3 hrs...that is quick at my REs office). The first thing she says to me is "I didn't look at your chart, what meds do you need?" Uhh...Well I think Gonal-F, Menopur, etc. but since I don't have my protocol I don't know for sure. (Once again, are you kidding me? You are the nurse, you are supposed to be telling me what I need. How hard it is to look at my chart before you call me back...all of their stuff is on EMR so it isn't even like they had to go looking for a paper chart) "Well I guess I should talk to Dr. M before I call in your prescription." That sounds like a good idea (and why couldn't you have done that before you just wasted my time?). Well I made the call to the pharmacy to arrange delivery and find out exactly how big a chunk of change I was going to have to shell out and believe it or not the nurse had called in some of the prescriptions wrong! Why should I be surprised?! Hopefully they have it all squared away now and my drug dealer (aka the FedEx man) will be visiting me on Thursday.

What a way to start my 3rd IVF...smooth sailing, huh?