Time to Harvest!!!

The time is finally here. We are ready to harvest these 40 some odd follicles. I am ready for this. Get these eggies out of me! Here is what our last couple of days included:

Thursday: Ultra sound & blood work. Not ready to trigger for egg harvesting.

Friday: Ultra sound & blood work. Not ready to trigger for egg harvesting.

Saturday: Ultra sound. Not ready to trigger for egg harvesting.

Sunday: Ultra sound & blood work. Not ready to trigger for egg harvesting.

Monday: 8:00 am Ultra sound & blood work. 5:00 pm We get the call from the fertility clinic that we are good to go. (All that rest and Gatorade finally paid off.) 8:00 pm We trigger with an HCG shot. We are now ready to harvest eggs 36 hours after the shot.

Tuesday: NO SHOTS TODAY. WAHOO!!!!!! Breakfast - Devan takes his antibiotic pill (Cipro).

Wednesday: 7:30 am Check in at the clinic. 8:00 am HARVEST EGGIES. While I'm in for my procedure Devan is in the "other" room doing his business.

I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow. Wish me luck :)

Coasting

Today marked IVF cycle day #10. I went in this morning for yet another ultrasound and blood draw. We are still sitting on roughly 40-45 follicles. Ideally my follicles would grow about 2 millimeters a day. Well, since we had to reduce my hormone injection dosage because of being hyper-stimulated my follicles are not growing quite like they should. Since Friday they have only grown about 1 millimeter a day. When my follicles are ready to go I will take a "trigger shot." Once I take my trigger shot I will be ready to have my eggs harvested 36 hours later...isn't science and medicine crazy!?!
Ideally, we want a least a few follicles to be 18 millimeters in diameter before we trigger. I have a bunch of 15 & 16s along with a few 17s. This means that we are "coasting" for a day. I can only do one injection tomorrow morning instead of 3 because my estrogen levels are so high. We are hoping that my body will help the follicles grow just a little bit more on their own. I was hoping we would trigger tonight, but now we have to wait another day. Fingers crossed that I'm ready tomorrow. Until then I'm just taking it easy and drinking lots of Gatorade. (Our ultrasound revealed some fluid buildup in my abdomen. I hope all this Gatorade and lots of rest does the trick in helping with that.)

45

One of my favorite movies of all time is Alice in Wonderful. Now, I'm not talking about any old (or new) version. I'm talking about the 1985 made for TV movie starring uber famous people like Red Buttons, Carol Channing, Scott Baio, Sammy Davis Jr, and Ringo Starr.

There is a part in this beloved movie where sweet little Alice starts crying because she's locked in a room with many doors. That, and she also happens to be about 20 feet tall. She cries so much that when she eventually shrinks down to the size of mouse she finds herself having to swim in her own tears because she had gone and flooded the place. What's the point you might ask? Today I found myself crying so hard I looked down and realized I had literally created a small puddle on the floor. I then thought to myself, if I shrunk I would have to swim in my own tears like Alice.
Here is the reason for my distress. You know, other than the fact that were smack dab in the middle of IVF. I had some blood work done yesterday to determine my hormone and estrogen levels. I got the call last night that my estrogen level was way too high (it should be at 1000 and I was sitting at 2,000.) I had to go in today for some more blood work and an ultrasound to take a peak at how the ol' ovaries were doing. After I got off the phone call I immediately did what every other normal and totally sane person would do...I hopped on the internet and googled it. I'm teetering on something called Ovarian Hyper-stimulation Syndrome. Get ready for an anatomy lesson. All these shots I'm taking don't actually grow eggs...they grow follicles. When a female ovulates her body creates a follicle, which is like a big empty sac. Eggs call these little babies home. Follicles themselves produce estrogen. Too much estrogen and I run the risk of fluid buildup in my pelvis and abdomen area. Let's just say that its not a good thing.
After much googling I realized that if the hyper-stimulation got worse it could potentially cancel our IVF cycle or postpone it. (Meaning, all embryos created would have to be frozen while my body returned to normal and then they could be transferred in. I think that usually takes a month or two.) So there I am: in the bathroom, sobbing, praying and pleading for a smoother IVF process. It's bad enough we can't do this on our own like everyone else. Then we have to deal with polyps. Now I'm facing hyper-stimulation. Where's my white flag because I feel like throwing in the towel.
Enough with the dramatics, let's get on with it shall we? I went in today and had more blood drawn and an ultra sound performed to look for follicles. An average, woman will have around 20 follicles, or 10 on each side. I have 45!!!!! Can you freakin' believe that. I have 22 follicles on my right ovary and 23 on the left. This is both awesome and painful. Every follicle won't necessarily have an egg in it, but the more follicles the better my chances. Here's the bad part...women get incredibly uncomfortable and crampy and hurty (yes, I made that word up) when they have an average amount of growing follicles. I HAVE DOUBLE THAT AMOUNT. Let's just say these next several days are not going to fun.

Oh ya, so the way we are trying to keep my estrogen levels down is by reducing my Gonal-F shot from 150 units to 75 and by drinking gatorade. I'm totally serious about the gatorade. Apprantently the elecrolytes help with reducing fluid build-up. My doctor literally said, "we are going to prescribe you at least 20 ounces of Gatorade a day." Let me tell you, its the best medicine I have ever tasted. Well...other than smarties.

As we sit right now I will have an ultrasound and get my blood drawn EVERY DAY. Not kidding...I'm pretty damn tired of needles. Yes, I said a bad word. I'm sorry...but I meant it. I'm going to leave you with a picture of the sweet little bruise on my tummy.

Shots, Shots & More Shots

On Thursday Devan and I had appointments at the fertility clinic. I had went in for my baseline ultrasound and to get some blood drawn. Devan had to go deposit a back up sample (read between the lines on that one) just in case something happens and he isn't able to deposit on the day the dr's try to make our petri dish embryos. A baseline ultrasound determines if we are okay to go forth pumping my body full of hormones to grow eggs. In the ultrasound the Dr looks to see if there are an cysts on my ovaries. Hormone injections can not be taken if there are cysts present (and estrogen producing...but that's a lecture for another time.) Good news for me, my ovaries are cyst free and we good to continue with Phase 3.
Phase 3 consists of 3 shots every morning (Lupron, Gonal-F, & Menopur) and a baby aspirin and prenatal vitamin at night.
Here we have what I like to call medication station. I keep all the medicine out that I'm currently using.

Typical morning...wake up, wash my hands, get all three shots ready. Once they're done I tell Devan we're ready. PS...pay no attention to the fact that I desperately need to dust my night stand.

Devan hates giving me my shots. Maybe even more than I hate getting them. He does wonderful job at it.

It is very overwhelming to think of all the shots I'm going to receive over this IVF process. I try to find things that help me relax and forget about everything going on. It might be a good book, a pedicure, coke Slurpee or chocolate milkshake. Sometimes it can even be a great lotion. See...it says right on the bottle "stress relief." Relax and Think Clearly. Words to live by.

Stadium of Fire

The past few days have been difficult. I want to be honest about the IVF process...but I don't want my blog to be full of negative thoughts. It isn't so much that I haven't been feeling well lately (which I haven't), it's more emotional. This is a really hard thing to go through and sometimes I feel incredibly overwhelmed. Yesterday at worked I found out that our fedex guy and his wife (who got married in APRIL) are pregnant. I went in to the bathroom and cried for 10 minutes. Plus, there have been some pretty insensitive things said to me...and I know no ones means to hurt my feelings...its just rough right now.
Enough of the negative, let's move on to something much happier. Something like...STADIUM OF FIRE.
Devan has recently been assigned the LaVell Edwards football stadium at BYU. This means that he has to be present whenever there is something going on there. Typically the guys working Stadium of Fire don't get an extra pass...but this year...the AC shop did. WooHoo for me!!!! I met him down there and we walked around, took in the sights and then settled down in a nice loge.

I love Devan's face.

Each loge has a tv, sink, fridge, and AC. Before the show started we just hung out and watched a little television.

I was surprised at how great the view was from the box. I could get used to this!!!

I was pleasantly surprised at how little "fluff" there was before the concert started. Some kid who won American Idol sang first. He was good, but country music isn't our thing...so we watched TV :) But then the headlining act came on. THE BEACH BOYS!!!!! I have love the beach boys all my life. See this face...

This is what my face looked like the whole time they were playing.

It was a wonderful night. Devan took some video of the fireworks and for some reason the "video link" button isn't showing up. I'll try to post that later.