2 days In

So I started my shots yesterday. I'm taking 75IU of Menopur in the morning and 150IU of Gonal F in the evening so far. I'm also taking a steroid called Dexamthesone. As we go along, I will be adding a 3rd shot everyday, but not yet. :) I wasn't happy that the first shot I did, was bleeding pretty badly. I consider myself somewhat of an expert shot giver / taker and this was definitely not my best work. The rest have been fine though. :)

Two days down and about 8 more to go. I can definitely feel some twinges and pains in my ovaries which is a good sign that there is some activity going on in there. Hopefully there are quite a few eggs growing in there and my ovaries are slowly waking up. I compare the medications to coffee. It gives you that much needed jolt of energy to get going. I imagine my little ovaries drinking some gonal F and menopur out of their little Starbucks mug.

The more eggs the merrier. Our first IVF, we retrieved 19 eggs. Our 2nd IVF, we retrieved 18 eggs and our 3rd IVF we also retrieved 18 eggs. If there's one thing I'm good at in all of this, I'm pretty consistant. I am on lower dosages this time because I seem to stim really fast which is not such a good thing. Stimming too fast could affect the quality of your eggs, so I'm happy we're trying to slow things down a little bit this time. My only concern now is that we won't have as many eggs form because of the lower dosages. The other difference is that with my previous IVF's, I took my shots all at the same time every evening. Now, I am taking one every 12 hours essentially. Who knows what will happen.

The only thing I do know is that all of this is out of my hands and I just have to go with it. I need to have confidence in my Dr., in myself, Adam, and most importantly, God.....even though at times it's felt like he has abandoned me completely. I know this isn't true though and I just need to have faith.

I'll update again after my stim check on Tuesday.

In other news, Adam and I had a very scary night on Friday night. Our 5-year old Pug, Tenley, was playing with her toys one minute and completely blind the next. It was awful. She was shaking and couldn't walk because she suddenly couldn't see and was scared. We took her to the emergency vet, who told us her eyes were completely fogged over and he could see blood behind her eyes, along with a "tortured vessel." He also mentioned something about swelling of her brain and asked if she had suffered any trauma like hitting her head on something. We couldn't think of anything. They did bloodwork to rule out kidney or liver failure, seizures, diabetes etc. The bloodwork came back normal. So they sent us home, me bawling uncontrollably, and told us we should take her to a veterinary opthamologist. It was a LONG night for all of us. Adam and I couldn't sleep because we kept checking on her. We called our regular vet the next morning and they got us in right away as an emergency. Our vet looked at her and noticed swelling on her eyes too. He gave her a steroid shot and some antibiotics in an IV to help with the swelling. He also mentioned trauma and that's when it hit us. She has this rubber chicken toy she got for X-mas that is pretty heavy. Anyway, she loves to shake it.....not just shake it, but violently shake it. She holds it by the neck and whips the rest of it around...sounds lovely doesn't it? It's the hunter in her. She had hit Adam and I with it a few times while she was playing with it and shaking it, and it actually really hurts. Our vet thinks she may have hit herself "just right" with it while shaking it and caused temporary vision loss. The opthamologist wasn't open over the weekend, so we are just waiting to see how she is tomorrow when we take her back to her regular vet for a follow-up. She still can't see very well, but she can see enough now where she can get around etc. We won't know if she caused permanent damage for awhile. Anyway, it's been a very emotional and stressful weekend. I'll keep you posted after her follow-up appointment tomorrow. Basically, our family needs prayers all around.

Thanks for being here!!!!