Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Stim Check #1

So after 3 days of meds, I had my first monitoring appointment this morning. My ultrasound looked good with 6 good sized follicles (an egg is inside each follicle for those of who are not up on the infertility lingo :)) and about 7-8 smaller ones that will hopefully catch up eventually. My E2 level was 776 today which is a GREAT start according to the nurse. I am definitely starting to feel the pressure, heaviness and pains in my ovaries now. I am also peeing every hour.....my ovaries are swollen, therefore they push on my bladder etc. etc. Similar to the uterus pushing on the bladder during pregnancy I've heard. :) So I've got that going for me.......which is nice. I keep thinking that all of this has definitely prepped me for pregnancy and childbirth. Hopefully, I'll be like "seriously? this is it?" Probably not, but a girl can hope.

We're just about packed and set to fly out tomorrow afternoon. I can't wait to go through carry-on security with my bag of fun.......needles, syringes, alcohol wipes, a cooler to keep my meds cool, vials of drugs. Should be a good time. I had my nurse e-mail me a letter I can carry with me just in case they give me a hard time. If you see us on the news as the couple who tried to board the plane with weapons....it's all legit, I promise.

I had a massage today at my chiropractor which was WONDERFUL and very relaxing. I cleaned the house today too. I have this wierd thing where I can't go on vacation if the house isn't clean. I just love coming home to a clean house after being away. I'm starting to get sad about leaving my "girls," but I know they will be in good hands at my parent's house. They are so spoiled over there. :)

An update on Tenley. We took her back to the vet last night for a follow-up and the vet thinks she's improved about 10%. Her pupil reaction is a little quicker than it was so we're moving in the right direction. I've never seen her so calm at the vet before. We usually have to hold her and comfort her up on the table for the vet, but this time she just sat down and relaxed on the table. It was almost a defeated..."let's get this over with" look. She looked completely disgusted. We're holding off on the opthamologist for now because our vet doesn't think it's necessary to spend thousands of dollars at this point when she seems to be getting a little better. She can see enough now to get around. When we throw her toy now she can see the general direction it goes (which is a big improvement), but still can't see it when it's right in front of her. She has to smell for it. It's so sad to watch. Her eyes also look really bug-eyed still. I know, I know, Pugs have big eyes anyway, but her eyes are really swollen and are definitely bigger than normal. Poor baby. She is on a daily medication now to keep the swelling down. We'll take her back in when we get back from Denver for another follow-up and if things haven't improved, we'll take her to the opthamologist. What's another couple of thousand dollars at this point? :) That damn rubber chicken she got for Christmas........thanks Santa! (Adam :) )

I've had a few questions regarding why we're not doing the transfer right away. We're doing what they call a "freeze all." We are trying to grow our embryos out to 5 days where they are called "blastocysts." Once the embryos reach blastocyst stage....which is tough to do in a lab, the cells that will eventually become the placental cells will be biopsied and sent out. It takes about 6 weeks to get the results back. This testing is called CGH testing, which tests all 23 pairs of chromosomes. The test is ideal for us because of our miscarriages and our failed previous cycles. Once we get the results back, then we "prep" for the transfer, which will probably be in early June. Hope that's a good enough explanation for now. :)

I can't thank everyone enough for all of the e-mails we've received wishing us well. We have the best families and friends anyone could ask for. I bought a new laptop bag yesterday and even the Macy's salesperson said he would pray for us. How cool is that.

Love you and thanks for being here!

1 comment:

Sky said...

You're getting there - so exciting!

I hear ya on taking meds through security. It just seems counter-intuitive that the same agency that will not let you take an innocuous bottle of water through the security gate, will allow you to hop on a cross-country jet with those enormous PIO needles. I mean, those could do damage.

Let me shut up here. The last thing I want is for some psycho pathetic waste-of-life-loser to get some idea on how to harm people on a jet.

Wishing you a safe journey to CCRM and that they retrieve LOTS of awesome eggs and make great embryos!