And another...uuugghh!

Day 12

Birth control pill, vitamin, folic acid and the doxycycllin... you know the rest. Anything bad has to go, any thing good has went so I'm seeking out recipes for Air Au gratin, or a spinach mousse that resembles the likeness of chocolate~actually I think that I will be doing the soup thing for a while the antibiotic is starting to make my gut swirl about two hours after I take them, so only 4 more days of them left...yeah for me.

And another ...

Day 11

Happy Thanksgiving...I do have a lot to be thankful for, one of them is being able to do this IVF cycle. Who would have ever thought that would be in my Thanksgiving prayers...

Kinda sad, but I am kinda not because just going through all theses steps is getting me closer than I could on my own, so anything is better than nothing..right?

Not much other than all the craziness of the holidays swarming around us but I did manage to take the "pill", the vitamin and the supplement. Oh and the lovely docxcylline.

Avoided the junk food, ate some good food...will try to be better tomorrow.

I hope my ovaries are appreciating what I am trying to do for them...

Another calander day...

Day 10

My contribution to a successful IVF is as follows:

Birth control pill taken with force, a prenatal vitamin and an extra supplement of folic acid.

No smoking, no drinking, no soda, no caffeine and avoiding as much sugar and white flour as possible.

And waiting...Uhmmm.

Did the phone ring?

Day 9
Called the clinic, left a message, waiting for the phone to ring.

On the good news front, the scripts that were ordered the other day went through the insurance and Whewww! I am sooo happy. This was the other shoe I was waiting to drop.

So here is my IVF cocktail...

Birth Control Pills ~ Plain Jane birth control pills to harbor ovulation and not lose any more eggs (good or bad ones), also allows them to take control of the cycle.

Baby Asprin ~ Over the counter answer to better lining and blood flow to the uterus.


Ovadrel (injectable) ~ I will have to recheck but I think this one is the trigger that will boost the mature eggs for retrieval "harvest".

Zithromax ~ I will take after the retrieval "harvest" to ward off any infection.

Estrace ~ Estrogen supplement that I will take following the transfer procedure to support the transfer until implantation occurs or doesn't.

Progesterone Oil (injectable) ~ Simple injection to supplement the natural progesterone that is needed in the first weeks of pregnancy, especially for implantation and the first 12 weeks for placenta nutrition.

Gonal 450 (injectable) ~ This is the egg maker in layman terms, it will stimulate the ovaries to produce as many eggs as it can.

Menopur (not sure of this one?)

Lupron (injectable) ~ I will take this on day 14 of my birth control pills , this will put me basically in a menopause kind of state so the can stimulate more eggs other than the one or two that would normally grow to a mature state.

Doxicycline ~ Tom and I start to take in the morning has to be prior to the IVF procedure to avoid infection from current infection of unknown sources.


Yeah, there are a lot of injection, but honestly when the end results are what they are...really it is so not anything. After 9 years of fertility treatments and a google amount of testing, and being financially poor, a shot a day, it is like brushing your teeth. In a non-hypocondriatic way I sorta of like the militant regimen during that phase of the cycle it is a reminder that you are working toward something greater than today, which makes today's issues seem less hyped.


So, here I sit, waiting...

Ring, ring...later that day.
Oh yeah, I need the scripts by the 23rd because I will start them on the 24th. So we are going full steam ahead in this cycle.

Did you ask me if I was scared to death? Oh yeah. There is a lot to start praying for at this point. There is a lot at stake.

Is this a joke?

Day 8

A pill, a vitamin and a supplement walk into a bar.

Sorry, that is all I got today.

Told you this is a roller coaster ride. Today is the part where you are waiting for all the other people to get in their seats and fasten the belts.

Aaahhh, Duhhh?

Day 9
Very confused.

I sit here very confused.

Came back from a early Thanksgiving family deal this weekend to find a message on the answering machine. The message is from the IVF pharmacy wanting to get my scripts filled. They said to make note that the Doctor ordering said that it was necessary that I receive these before November the 23rd.

Aaaahhh, duhhh?

I went ahead because I am sure I will need them, however now I am waiting for them to call me back with the amount I need to have ready for them. This is where we need some prayer folks. Not that we don't need it on any other day but it is very crucial that out insurance help pay for the drug part of this...they ditched on us for everything else.

I am very nervous that they are not going to do this...I can hardly even think of this to even type it. We are talking thousands if not and the IVF procedure alone wiped us out.

Please dear Lord help us get these medications.

The other thing. I have no idea why I need them prior to my mock on the 26th. Now I have something to do. Call the clinic.

Gulp!

Day 7

Took the pill, and the vitamins. Prenatal one and a extra folic acid.

This took all of 5 mins. I think if I took the pills out of the blister and the prenatal and folic acid out of the child proof bottles it could be done in less than a minute assuming I had a glass of water near me.

This is the stuff that eats at me, I am a do'er. I want to do something that will assure that this goes well and we have great success. If they told me that I needed to walk for 8 hours a day and gave me a list of outrageous task, I think I probably would feel up though this whole thing.

IVF requires that you surrender your body to the clinic and doctors, your heart and soul to your faith and your mind, well, that is all you get to keep and holding on to that is a enough I guess.

Almost nothing.

Day 6

There is nothing to do. Well, almost nothing to do. I took a pill. Oh, yeah, I called the lab to get times and date for the sperm count and morphology and our blood work. We go on Tuesday the 20th.

Doesn't seem like enough being we are trying to get pregnant.

It's just a pill.

Day 5

This is so hard for me. Taking this pill, It is only a pill in the grand scheme of IVF, right?

The pill allows for the follicles and potential eggs to gear up but not allow my ovaries to release them.

My take on this is that it will help during the process in which they will stimulate my ovaries to make more than the typical one or two eggs for the retrieval.

I like to think of it as a "harvest" you know the power of positive thinking and all. I want there to be a bunch of good eggs, like a fall harvest, not a few skimpy ones that they have to go "retrieve".

Screwed up huh? Here we are trying so desperately to get pregnant and I am taking pills to keep my eggs dormant. Although egg quality hasn't always been so much my big issue it is one because according to the "Reproductive Law of How It Goes", I'm old and my ovaries are probably blowing dust out of those follicles.

Now in all fairness to my posse' at the clinic, they didn't tell me this but hey, it isn't hard to read between the lines when your hanging in stirrups looking for a miracle.

What do you typically do on Day 5? Well, I after I chase myself around the bathroom to take this pill, I will wait for tomorrow....Day 6.

The clinic we will go, the clinic we will go....

Day 4

If I had to do this in the words of a song, it would go a bit like this.

Well, off to the clinic we go with check book in hand and all the nervousness and fear I could muster up!

Today was the typical. Committed to the cycle. Got scrips for Birth control pills and lab orders. Had blood work and ultrasounds done.

They saw a lining in the uterus, and on the left there was 10 follicles and on the right 16 follicles. I can't remember what this means at this point, but it must have meant something.

I was insanely excited, almost giddy. Very distracted and forgot to ask a bunch of questions. The office had changed locations and things are a bit more "rockville" than it was, but I still saw A and Dr. E so I was calm a bit after that.

I may start the pills today on day 4. I don't like this it makes me feel as though there is a loophole for something to happen. They mentioned that they will have to adjust something....there was ringing in my ears so I don't know?

I will wait, the first day of many to come, for the phone to ring. Wat will the messenger bring me today? Blood levels and a plan. Hummm....a plan. I love plans, I love plans even better with out hitches. Lets pray for no hitches for right now...and we will get to the eggs and babies later. The first rule to IVF is patience, and small steady steps.

So for now, like that little engine....I know I can do this, I know I can do this....

Ring, ring : later that day.
My levels are right where they should be,, things looked good. Start the pills, get the blood work done and oh yeah the Tom needs another sperm count done as soon as possible.

The mock is set for November the 26th. We don't go back until then, so....

Off to the pharmacy I go, the pharmacy I go...high~ho the ovaries to the pharmacy I go.

It's looking like 8:30 am.

Day 3

Called the clinic 7 am sharp.

Good news is that they are planning to start the pills, and go right into the IVF protocol. Bad news is that I couldn't go today because the nurse in the other clinic was obviously unaware that all morning monitoring has to be done by 8:30 am. So we will start our monitoring on day 4. This bugs me.

We live about 45 minutes away from the satellite clinic, 75 minutes from the Main Campus Clinic.

I hope gas prices start leveling out or even going down, there will be a lot of driving to do.

I'm nervous, excited but already tired.

Still no plan. Umph.

Day 2

Well, I called the clinic again to talk to someone in greater detail and we ended up right where we started. How ever she was going to email my nurse and doctor so that I could call them at 7am in the morning on Monday to get things straight. They are saying that I should start monitoring on Monday, and will need an appointment between 7-11:00am.

We will see.

Umph.

We got off on the wrong foot.

Day 1
Called the clinic, my husband took the return call. The nurse on call covering for our office is "out of the loop", so she says "on Monday start the Birth Control pills and call the clinic for appointments... Today is day 1 as far as they are concerned."

With that I respond "where did they call the pills into?"

He looks at me like crap, I already messed up, she is going to flip."Ugh, she didn't say." then a gulp and "You'll just have to call her back."

Okay not going to get too bent on this spoke of the tour yet, but something as small as not starting the pills, and not getting the levels done on day 3, 5, 7, and 9 could cost us inaccurate information that will eventually determine how to orchestrate the IVF.

This cycle I was 3 weeks late. I have started almost like clock work over the last two years. There has been a lot of stress and worry of starting this so I am attributing this to emotional stress. But this period is so different. Right out of the gate my cycle was heavier than normal, it usually takes about day 2 for that to occur. Lets hope that this is all a good thing.

I am trying to find a chilled out happy place this week. During these things I seem to be a magnet to stress, especially emotional. I can attract it as well as cause it. I feel I owe myself that I do everything to the precise instruction given, I can't live thinking our IVF didn't work because I skipped a step that turned out to play a bigger role than I wrote off. I almost think just knowing me is probably setting you up for some kind of trauma. Let's hope not.

It starts as simple as this....

Pre Day 1
I started my period today. Yeah!

Since I started after 3:00 pm yesterday that day doesn't count, today will be counted as day 1 of our mock cycle. We contact the clinic to get days for testing set up.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

To an average women, even a young women this would be dreaded, a real bumming event in their lives. Probably there are women out there who sigh with relieve they started.

For Tom and I this has been the day that we have been waiting for. I know this sounds weird if you know us and how bad we are trying to have a baby, but we are going to do IVF, in vitro fertilization, and if you follow, you will see that even the simple things are a reason to celebrate. With IVF each day brings the unknown, and each unknown has the potential to rip your heart out, we laugh when we can, cry when we are defeated. Some posts here will be funny, some will cruel and mean. IVF isn't for sissies, hell, infertility isn't for sissies.

Infertility alone is madding and I feel that any women that has dealt with infertility for at least 3 years should get an honorable discharge from anything gynecological for the rest of her life, as well as should never have to ever shave her legs again.

I marvel at the natural precision involve for conception to the birth of a healthy baby. It really is mind boggling that the world is as populated as it is, or better yet, there really are "accidental" pregnancies. It is really very interesting IVF.

So your invited to follow us along. You might even laugh, or maybe learn something, or if the worse case occurs, you will count your blessings.

If everything goes well, we should get results in about 3 months. Please start to pray for good things for us. I believe in miracles, I have seen them, I know that faith and prayer can move mountains.

"Welcome to the roller coaster of Hopes and Dreams sponsored by PCOS, infertility and IVF! Guaranteed to be a thrill and adventure around every corner! Please remain seated during the ride,please keep all arms, hands and legs in the ride at all times, do not, I repeat do not, remove the seat belt until the ride has come to a complete stop. Enjoy the ride, hope you make it!."