What a roller coaster!

This past week has been crazy.  I had monitoring appointments on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.  On Wednesday my RE was concerned because I had "muchos, muchos follicles".  That was his words.  He was afraid we were looking at OHSS (Ovarian Hyper Stimulation Syndrome) which can be very painful and even land you in the hospital.  To avoid OHSS he suggested possibly doing a Lupron trigger (instead of Ovidrel) to avoid it.  The problem with Lupron is that it can interfere with implantation so if we did Lupron we would have to freeze all the embryos and do a FET later.  This didn't make me happy in the least.  I know the stats on a fresh cycle are a little higher than FET so I wanted that opportunity.  We just crossed our fingers and prayed for the best.

Fast forward to Saturday and our prayers were answered.  My estrogen came back at just over 3,000 and my lead follicle was 17 mm with most follicles at 16 mm.  My RE instructed me to stim one more night and trigger on Sunday. 

I'm so excited to finally be through with stims!  I trigger tonight at 9:15 pm and go in Tuesday morning, March 13th for my egg retrieval.  I'm nervous, excited, hopeful, terrified, scared, and so ready for this.

And were off!

My baseline u/s and b/w were Monday February 27th.  My AFC was 30+ and everything was perfect!  I am now 3 days into stims and already feeling bloated.  Could be the leftovers from the lovely BCP I was on for 6 weeks.  Anyway, I'm now going for monitoring every other day.  Looks like ER should be the week of March 11th which is my spring break. 

I'm am so excited to do my shots every night and am looking forward to my next appt on Friday.  This all so so surreal.  I never thought we would have to resort to IVF to have a baby and I certainly never thought we could afford it.  I feel so blessed for this opportunity.  I'm trying not to get my hopes up too much but it's really hard.  I feel really positive about my new RE, the practice, and this IVF in general.

FX!

Hysteroscopy...check

I had my hysteroscopy on Monday and it wasn't too bad.  The worst pain I felt was the IV going into my wrist.  So that isn't too bad.  I walked into the procedure room with the anesthesiologist where she explained what I would experience.  I was in a gown with a blanket covering my back side.  She had me lay down on the bed and slide until my butt was right at the edge of a whole in the bed (kinda weird).  The nurse covered me with another blanket and had me put my legs in the stirrups.  Even though I was covered with a blanket I felt completely exposed.  The anesthesiologist let me know that I was about to feel drowsy.  My face immediately felt numb and that was the last thing I remember.  Next thing I knew, I woke up to conversation between the nurses about all their kids.  One had a 1 year old and the other had a 5 year old.  Do they not realize where they work?  Not appropriate.  Anywho, I was too out of it to think much about it.

I felt much better after the procedure than I expected.  They made me leave in a wheelchair but I felt okay walking.  I had originally planned to sleep it off in the guest room downstairs but was I was able to walk up the stairs to the 3rd floor to go to bed in my own bed.  I slept off and on all day and only had mild cramping.  I'm sure that the Vicodin helped with that.  :)

Today is Thursday and I feel almost completely back to normal.  I still have some cramping and spotting but not enough to wear a liner anymore.  I'm also very relieved that everything looked great so we can move forward with the IVF.

This feels so real!

My IVF meds arrived today.  I'm overwhelmed and excited at the same time.  Here is the stash!

This is the list:
1950iu Gonal-F
22 - 75iu Menopur
30 - Crinone
6 - Ganirelix
12 - Endometrin
25 - Vivelle
1 - Ovidrel
1 - Diazepam
1 - 800mg Ibuprofen
90 - 2mg Estradiol
20 - Doxycycline
8 - Prednisone

Wow!  That is a long list.  I hope they give me really good instructions so I can keep all of this straight.

IVF, here we come!

Well, after our latest disappointment I thought we would be on a break saving for IVF.  We are fortunate enough to have parents that want to help and, although, I don't like taking money I feel this is important enough that I need to get over myself.

So, here we are getting ready for IVF!  I'm on BCP until my hysteroscopy that is scheduled for February 13th and will start the cycle right after that.  I'm excited and terrified at the same time.  Really scared it won't work and even more scared it will.  I've never been pregnant before and I'm so terrified that I'll be over the moon excited when it works (because I just know it will work) and then miscarry.  I really hate that IF has made me so scared.

I've also switched REs (hopefully for the last time).  I'm now with Dr Witz at Houston Fertility Institute.  I really didn't want to go there because of their cheesy awful commercials but it seemed like everyone recommended them.  One of my dear support system friends recommended Dr Witz and I agree that he is amazing.  He has already called me twice.  The first time it scared me to death!  I've never been called by the actual RE so I assumed it had to be bad news.  Nope, he was just calling to apologize for a delay in b/w results.  The next day he called to make sure I didn't have any questions about my upcoming procedure.  I'm so impressed with guy.  I sure hope he knocks me up!

Oh, and one more thing!  Everything costs more than expected.  Who knows how much the hysteroscopy will cost plus the gallons of b/w they did.  But the biggest shock was my meds.  They told me $2-5K but average is $3K.  I have been very fortunate to receive some direct donations from the awesome ladies in my support system and also some samples from my previous RE and leftovers from previous cycles.  I have $3K worth of meds in my house right now (all of which I can use for this IVF).  I got the meds total from the pharmacy on Friday.  Another $3K!  What?!?  That's right at $6K!  I think it's a mistake.  I plan to call the RE tomorrow.  I'm not DOR so I'm not sure why they prescribed so much.  Maybe I'll be making a large meds donation after I get my BFP!