Good Morning! :) Hope you enjoyed the pictures documenting our adventure this morning. Even though they say you don't need any bed rest, I gave myself some optional bed rest for the rest of the morning. I took a 1/2 day of PTO and will log in to work from home this afternoon.
Things went well - my husband gave his collection, we had a lovely breakfast at Bob Evans, and had Dr. Williams do our insemination. The sperm count was little bit lower than previous times, but Dr. Williams said he's still happy with the number of sperm that we had. He did tell us that if we could "be together" today - that would probably be good. When he left, my husband was like, "What did he mean by that?" We will be sure to follow the doctor's orders. :) Dr. Williams also said my mucus looked good - not something you get complimented on everyday. I asked him if the Gonal-F shots were helping the lining/mucus more than the Clomid did. He said that the Gonal-F is definitely helping with all of that (which is a result of higher estrogen levels) and that the Clomid actually kind of blocks the estrogen. (By the way, my estrogen was around 1300 on Saturday when they checked it.) While we waited for my time to be up on the table after the insemination, we listened to "I Get Around" to inspire the sperm. When that song was over, I played "Meet Me Halfway" to get the sperm/egg to try to cooperate and work together. And just like last cycle, I had my husband take a picture of me from the side - which will hopefully be the start of future baby bump pictures. We are hopeful that with good-looking mucus, thick lining, and lots of big follicles - that the sperm will find the egg(s), the embryo will grow, and implant to get us a pregnancy!
What's next? Well, I need to go in to get my blood tested a week from today (August 1st) to check my progesterone levels. I thought I was done with shots for this cycle - but as part of this protocol, I need to get one more shot of HCG. It's only 1/2 mL and they call it the "HCG booster shot." Assuming that implantation occurs, this shot will help the pregnancy along. Our instructions are for me to get this shot anytime after my blood test next Wednesday. We never did this as part of our other IUI cycles - so hopefully this is another differentiator that will make the difference. Having the booster shot in your system can give you a false positive on home pregnancy tests, so I'm not supposed to take a home pregnancy test until August 11th. As you all know, I'm good at resisting the home pregnancy test - so that won't be a problem for me. ;)
Now we just wait, hope, and pray for the best! Thanks to everyone for their positive thoughts, prayers, blog comments, and texts this morning. One of our buddies called my husband last night to wish us luck today. He also suggested that with the upcoming Olympic games, perhaps my husband's sperm would be inspired by the Olympic swimmers. Love it!
Good Evening! Hope you all had a lovely Tuesday - I worked from home today and picked up my parents from the airport. They were in Japan visiting relatives/friends for the past month - so it was great to see them and hear about their trip.
Tomorrow is our big day - Happy Insemination Eve to us!! :) One of my friends asked if I was nervous for tomorrow - which I think is a great question. I'm not feeling nervous though - we're just excited and hopeful that this time will be our time. I mean, seriously.... how AMAZE-BALLS (copyright Giuliana) would it be if this time it really worked. It was would be so great, beyond great - words could not describe how great that would be. But if for some reason (which I won't pretend to understand) this isn't our time - what I do know is that we will survive and be okay, as we have in previous treatment cycles. So either way - we will be okay, but I think you know which outcome we would prefer. ;)
On Sunday my husband had an excellent idea! He suggested that we perhaps watch the opening to the movie "Look Who's Talking" for extra inspiration - in case his sperm and my eggs aren't sure what they're supposed to be doing. :) I figured it definitely couldn't hurt - so we ended up watching the whole movie tonight. (Being the documenter that I am, you know I took a picture of the movie's opening to share via the blog. But the blog site isn't cooperating or letting me browse to my photos - so I will have to try back another time and see if it will let me post it.) I also downloaded the Beach Boys' song "I Get Around" from iTunes tonight - which is what they play in the movie while the sperm are hunting for the egg. That should be good post-insemination music while we wait for my 15 minutes of resting to be over.
After having 12 days of shots since July 12th, tonight was my first shot-free evening. Tomorrow morning we need to get my husband to the lab by 7:30am, so he can give his collection. Then we will head to Bob Evans for breakfast and come back around 9am for the insemination. We definitely know the drill at this point. Even though it's our first time doing this exact protocol with the Gonal-F shots and insemination - tomorrow will be much like our 3 other insemination attempts. Let's just hope this one has the happy ending!
Last week my 3 year old nephew went to Vacation Bible School with a couple of his friends. The theme for this year's VBS is trusting in God. At church on Sunday they had the kids sing a few songs. I have included a music video below to the theme song - which my nephew was singing for us before bedtime last night. Throughout this journey, it's been tough to be patient - but all we can do is trust in God that He has a plan. Check out the video below if you wish - if your kids went to VBS this year, you may already know it. :)
In closing, I'd like to wish Miss Lyla a very happy 2nd birthday and also welcome Augustus Hudson into the world! :) Also, please pray for my friend, her grandma, and her family.
Tonight at 9:30pm, my husband gave me 1mL of Novarel - the HCG or "trigger" shot. This shot will make me ovulate in 36 hours - just in time for the insemination on Wednesday morning. Dr. Williams recommends intercourse tonight and then asks that we let the "batteries charge up" until then. We have followed his instructions for other cycles, but for this one we're allowing for a little extra charging time. ;)
Last night we used up what was left in our 4th and final Gonal-F pen. I was actually watching the big finale of The Bachelorette at a friends' house with a bunch of friends. Special thanks to my traveling male nurse (aka my husband) who came over to administer the shot.
In closing I'd like to shout out a happy 33rd birthday to PG! Good night!
Getting a little teary-eyed tonight... listening to my husband tell our nephew a bedtime story over the baby monitor. It's quite an elaborate story about treasure chests, hidden keys, genies, and a new swimming pool with a new polar bear! He's such a great story-teller and it's sweet how he's telling such a long and interesting story. Just one of the many reasons why he deserves to be a dad. Our kiddos will be lucky to have him in their lives. Good night!
Good Morning! :) We just got back from our appointment at ORM. I slept in a little this morning, so we made it to LabCorp around 8am for my blood test. It was a little bit longer wait to get my blood drawn - because there's only one person working on Saturday morning and there were other folks ahead of me. But it made our wait at ORM for a doctor a little shorter. We weren't in a rush - so no worries.
We had Dr. Schmidt for the ultrasound this morning - the same doctor I had on Monday. Lots of good stuff on the ultrasound screen. My lining is getting thicker - it's at 12 now and they want it to be at least 6. So he said there must be lots of estrogen doing its job! In checking the follicles, there were about 3 big ones on the left side measuring between 14-15. And the right side had 2 larger ones as well. The goal is to get them to a size of 18 at the time of ovulation. He said at this point, follicles grow about 2 per day - so I still need a couple days to let them grow before the insemination. As of now, the plan is for me to continue the nightly Gonal-F shots tonight and tomorrow. We started our 4th (and last) Gonal-F pen (of 300 mL) last night and used up 150, so technically there should only be 150 left. But he said it doesn't make sense to buy another pen at this point and said that pens typically have a little extra in them. He said we don't really need that much more Gonal-F, so we're supposed to try to do 112 tonight and 112 tomorrow. Then do the trigger shot on Monday night (the Novarel) and plan to have the insemination on Wednesday. So that's our plan - unless they call later today with any changes based on the result of my estrogen levels from the blood test. I really thought we'd be having it on Monday/Tuesday - but if the follicles need more time, that's fine. My husband said that "perfection takes time."
Happy Wedding Day to Brad & Sam! :) We're getting ready to head off to their wedding in a little bit. Looking forward to celebrating with them and their families.
My husband and I got married in 2005 and tried to start our family back in January 2008. We started our 1st round of in-vitro in December 2010 - which is when this blog was started. Despite a near perfect cycle, it resulted in a negative pregnancy test in February 2011. We were fortunate to get 6 extra embryos from that cycle that were frozen. In March 2011 we started a Frozen Embryo Transfer cycle. Despite another great cycle (on paper), all 6 of our frozen embryos had to be thawed to get 2 good ones for transfer - which failed to result in a pregnancy. In 2012, we took the first half of the year off and then tried a couple rounds of IUI with and without fertility shots - still no baby. In 2013, we did our 2nd round of in-vitro with my sister offering to be our gestational carrier. We ended up transferring 2 embryos into each of us and were blessed to welcome 4 babies in October 2013.