Apple Turnovers and NC Knitting

I’ve been to the fertility clinic 5 times in the past 8 days.  I’ve decided to make it a habit to go to a bakery and buy an apple turn over and a small cup of coffee after every blood draw/ultrasound.  After going to a few different ones, I think I’ve found the most delicious apple turnover in Cary, North Carolina: Once in a Blue Moon Bakery.  Seriously, the best I’ve ever eaten.  Sugar Buzz Bakery is a close second. 😉  It’s the little things, right?  And it makes blood draw/ ultrasound day a little less unpleasant.

And how is everything going?

So far so good!  I went in for blood work on Monday and they found my estrogen was just a bit lower than they wanted it (135) so they upped the gonal-f to 100 and left the menopur at 75.  I went back in Tuesday and my estrogen had gone up to 245, which is great.  My ultrasound showed at least 20 follicles all 7mm to 11mm.  Tuesday’s ultrasound was pretty unpleasant as I’m starting to feel my ovaries.  They don’t hurt unless they get pushed on, but it’s not the most comfortable.  And considering my retrieval is at least a week away, I’m assuming it’s only going to get worse.

Today’s ultrasound showed at least 12 follicles (she didn’t count them all) measuring between 8 mm and 13 mm. My estrogen came back at a whopping 753!  That’s a huge jump in just a couple days. 🙂  Starting ganirelix tonight to make sure no ovulating happens before everything gets nice and big.  They like to trigger when most follicles are between 18 mm and 23 mm.  We’re getting there!

Symptom-wise, my headache isn’t as bad as it was over the weekend.  It’s just dull and in the background now.  I am tired and super bloated.  I would love to just sleep for the next week.  I know i was bored pre-IVF, but these days I am so incredibly thankful that I don’t have to do this AND go to work.  You ladies who do both are super women!

I’ve been knitting up a storm for the past few weeks.  Want to see? 🙂

The floor in our new house is very… scratchable… And our dinning room furniture was in desperate need of a makeover… AND the dark furniture and the dark floors needed to be broken up…
Thus.. Chair Socks.  I just love how cute they are.  And they can go right into the washer and dryer. 🙂

I started these before Christmas and finished them up a couple weeks ago.  They were an interesting knit, but I think I’ll do the heels differently next time.

Click for pattern

I made these for my mom’s birthday.  She got them on Monday, just in time to wear them through Illinois’s bitter cold week.

Click for pattern

I made these baby socks out of some left over sock yarn.  I made myself these socks a couple years ago and just love that our baby will have socks that look just like mine. 🙂

Click for pattern

And finally, this baby sweater.  I bought this undyed wool specifically to knit during our IVF.  I knew I’d want to knit something baby related, but didn’t feel like trying to find a gender neutral color that I loved.  After I knit it and a matching hat up, I found I actually really liked the color.  It’s a soft cream color.  I might end up dying it later, but for now it’s going to stay like this.

Click for pattern.

I’m sure more baby knitting and sewing will commence over the next 6 weeks until we know the results of our FET.  It feels hopeful, like I’m putting good vibes out there and preparing for the best possible outcome.  We’ve been joking that if both of our embryos make it, I’ll have to duplicate everything I’ve made so far. 😉

Blood work tomorrow and blood work and ultrasound on Saturday.  More soon! ❤

And We’re Off!

I went in for blood work and ultrasound on Thursday.  I was so excited when they told me that as long as my blood work came back normal that I would be starting injections!!  I was bummed when my estrogen came back way too low and went in the next day for more blood work.

Thankfully, Friday’s estrogen level was great and I was cleared to start meds last night.  I’m taking 75 ius of gonal-f, 75 ius of menopur, a prenatal, and an aspirin every night.  I go back in Monday for more blood work and another ultrasound and they’ll probably raise my meds then.

By this morning, I had a nice migraine going on.  I hope that’s not going to be a trend for the next 10 days.  The injections themselves are killing me.  My gonal-f and menopur are mixed together into one injection, but instead of going into my lower tummy, they’re going into my upper arm. 😦  I’ve never given myself an injection in the arm before and it’s hard.  And it hurts!  It’s intramuscular, so the plunger does NOT want to push down and it burns the entire time.  BUT, it’s doable.  And I can give them to myself, so it can’t be that bad.  Jeremy is assisting by pinching skin for me, but even that is a little hard for him.

I still don’t have my lupron, my prometrium, or my progesterone in oil.  My insurance company is taking its sweet time approving them.  Thank goodness I still don’t need them just yet.

Estimated retrieval dates?  February 5, 6, or 7.  Less than 2 weeks to go!! 🙂

Meds are Here!

Fedex came at a decent hour this afternoon and dropped this crazy mess on my front porch.  Things just got real. Yikes!

 

The gonal-f is stored safely in the fridge and the rest has taken up residence on the counter that houses my coffee maker.  Because I won’t be needing that for a while.  The length of some of those needles is nauseating…  It’s hard to believe I’m still missing three medications.

This week is going to consist of a lot of waiting.  Jeremy is working in Maryland for the week.  I never love it when he goes out of town, but this time is different because our parents aren’t just down the street anymore.  It’s going to be a very quiet week until things start moving.  And I do hope they start moving soon because I am ready to get going.  I am ready to get this show on the road!

Medication.

These past two weeks have been dragging by.  But I’m through them, which means injections start this week!! 🙂

This past week has been full of ups and downs as I’ve been fighting since last Tuesday to get my meds.  It doesn’t help that Dr. T’s office didn’t call my prescription into the pharmacy until I’d been taking my birth control for a full week.  I called a few times and it seems like they just didn’t understand my hurry.  Maybe it’s a southern thing?  I wanted to make sure they were ordered and delivered with plenty of time to spare just in case anything should go wrong.  Apparently I’m the only one who thinks that way.  But I was completely warranted as getting ANY of my meds was a total nightmare that involved a lot of tears, hours and hours of phone calls, and transferring to 4 different pharmacies….  I still don’t have my prometrium, my progesterone in oil, or my lupron, but at least all of that isn’t necessary right away.  I won’t need any progesterone for at least another month since we’re not doing a fresh transfer.  It’s not any one person’s fault either, but rather a collective of the Dr’s office, my insurance company, and 2 of the pharmacies.

My gonal-f, menopur, and ganirelix are on their way here via Fedex and I find myself staring at the tracking page hitting “refresh” every hour or so… Still in Memphis….
On the plus side, I ended up pay half of what I was expecting for those three drugs.   Now that things are sorted out, I feel like I can breathe again.  I don’t know when I’ll start injecting this week, but I do know that it will be this week.  If my period hasn’t started by Thursday then I go in for an ultrasound and bloodwork and we go from there.

I’d been doing such a good job keeping it together, but the medication debacle really threw me for a loop and I’m starting to get a little anxious about this.  IVF.  2 months ago I never would have imagined that we’d be living in North Carolina getting ready for our first IVF cycle where a doctor has given us a 70% chance of having our own baby.  WOW!  We never imagined that we’d get this opportunity and I can’t believe it’s here.

I’ll update tomorrow once I have medication in hand.  I think it will make things feel even more real!

37: HERE WE GO!

Yes.  It’s starting.  This is our IVF cycle.  I’ve never been so excited to take a birth control pill in my whole life.  I’m eyeballing the box and waiting waiting waiting until bedtime tomorrow to pry it open.  Woohoo!

In other news, we took our Christmas decorations down.  We put our tree up before our furniture was delivered, which means we set up around the tree… I’m in dire need of another bookshelf, so I think this calls for a road trip to Charlotte, NC this week to visit their Ikea.  I’m soooo used to having one 25 minutes away (hence why my entire house is made up of Ikea furniture;) ) and this whole 2 hours away thing is throwing me for a loop.  BUT, it’s going to keep me occupied for most of a full day, which is an excellent thing right now. 🙂

Have I mentioned that I’m bored?  I’m trying really hard to keep busy, but I miss working.  (What?!).  My house is mostly clean and dinner gets made every night.  I’m sewing up a storm.  And I’ve gotten a ton of reading done.  But I’m really starting to miss teaching and leaving the house on a regular basis.  Although I can tell the greyhounds enjoy having someone home most of the time.  And I am enjoying getting projects done that I’ve been putting off.  I’m trying to look at it like a mini, stress relieving vacation before IVF.  If this goes well, I might never go back to teaching.  And it will be so worth it. 🙂

2014!

Well, 2013 is officially behind us and I am so excited!  2013 was a big year for us.  I finally got a diagnosis, had my lap and lupron, had 3 more IUI’s, started looking into adoption/foster care, moved to North Carolina, sold our house, and finally got IVF coverage.  A year ago I wouldn’t have been able to fathom all that happened this past year.  It was a hard year, but it was so productive.

Our current timeline looks like we’re about 4 weeks out from my egg retrieval and 7 weeks out from our first transfer (give or take a few days here and there).  I’m not nervous yet.  Just excited.  All 6 of our IUIs filled me with complete dread.  My goal is to go into our transfer feeling calm and positive.  So far, so good. 7 weeks to go… 🙂

We had our IVF education class on Tuesday.  It was basically going over all of the various medication and how to inject them.  The class consisted of us and another couple who were obviously new to fertility treatments.  Jeremy and I sat and took it in.  There wasn’t much that we already didn’t know.  The other couple took notes frantically on everything the video was saying.  I feel bad for them because the video did a good job at scaring you with medication side effects.  I wanted to hold their hands and tell them it’s all going to be ok either way.   They looked nervous.  Did I look that was when we first started?  Do I still?

The one difference we learned at this class is that they don’t want subcutaneous injections injected into my belly like I usually do.  They want it done intramuscularly into my upper arm.  When I asked her why, she told me they’ve found they get better responses to the meds that way.  Good enough for me.  Follistim, menopur, and ganirelix acetate in the arm, progesterone and lupron in the butt, and then baby aspirin to fight the clotting.  Excellent.   Jeremy didn’t realize that progesterone in oil injections are daily.  Poor husband.  If you remember, Jeremy doesn’t like needles.  I made him promise when we moved here that he would suck it up and give me my injections because our clinic is a good 40 minutes away.  I used to drive to Dr. B’s for my lupron and novarel injections, but that’s not really an option any more.  Hopefully after the first few, he’ll be a little more desensitized. 😉

That’s all for now.  Just waiting for my period to start. WOOO, periods!! 😉