Saturday u/s

So my dreams of sleeping in today were dashed, instead I was off for b/w and u/s at 6:45 this morning. First stop, the lab for another arm poke. Fortunately they weren't busy and I was in and out in no time.
Then on to the drs. office for u/s and pre-op appt. Dana (the u/s tech) pulled in the parking lot right behind me so we got started a little early. She said my lining looked beautiful and my ovaries were full of follicles! Hence the uncomfortableness I've had the last few days! I think at final count there were 18 that she measured, 10 of them were over 10mm and 7 were between 13-16. We want them to be 18-20ish for retrieval so we are right on track for a great retrieval I think!
Did a quick pre-op with Nurse Wendy (blood pressure, weight, temp) and then was on my way.
A few hours later Wendy called with my estrogen, now up to 1521 (increasingly nicely, I think). I don't have anything to compare it to because for whatever reason I quit recording my levels with Em at this point. We are upping the follistim to 250 again tonight and tomorrow, staying with 2 vials of repronex, and back into the office early Monday morning for another check. At that point we will determine whether I will trigger Mon. or Tues. night, for retrieval Weds. or Thurs.
So--things still looking good-we hope next week continues to bring us good news :)

Hohum..

I'm running out of ideas for blog titles--we are simply moving along just as expected, which is great for us, boring for a blog title!
I had another blood draw this morning, estrogen came back at 671. I don't have last cycle's number because I am still at work, but I believe it was in the 500s so fairly close. We are to up the dosage of repronex to work on maturing these growing follicles tonight and tomorrow, then another round of bloodwork and an ultrasound on Sat. The only downer is that I have to be at the drs. office by 8, with b/w done before that, which means no sleeping in for me on Sat :( Otherwise things are looking great!
I am noticing some slight discomfort today, hopefully it's just because all these follicles are running out of room in there because they are growing :) Watch for another update on Sat. At that point I should get my trigger date which will tell us our retrival date!

Back to school...

We are officially back to school and back into our school routine this week. That means Em is in a different place every day and loving every minute of it (well except for the get up at 6:30 to go to school on Mon. and Fri!). Yesterday was her 1st day back at preschool and she apparently never missed a beat. Here is the note her teacher left for me.
Emily had a great first day back! It was like she did not leave for the summer. We had a new Pooh Bear (her class) start today so we painted and played and read stories. We will start all of our class activities in a few days when everyone is settled. She had a great lunch (as usual)
As much as I hate leaving her every day I love the fact that she loves how she spends her days! Mon and Fri are at Kids and Co with Miss Deb, Tues are with Gramma, Weds are with Miss Tanahya and baby Molly (and possibly Brennan) and Thurs are with Papa. The girl has a lot of love coming to her from lots of different people and we really couldn't ask for a better arrangement!

Right on track....

I had a blood draw this morning and things are right on track. My estrogen came back at 271. As a point of reference it was 190 with our Em cycle at this point..so very close. Our goal is to get up towards 2000-3000 before triggering, but not too quickly so we are in a good place. They made the same changes in meds that we did in the 1st cycle. We will continue with the lupron 5 units to suppress my hormones, decrease the follistim from 225 to 150 and add in 1 ml of repronex. So far no side effects to report, one of my co-workers was asking me today about side effects with Em's cycle, and I said either I didn't have any, or I have blocked them all out because of the wonderful outcome. Either way we hope to continue with things going so smoothly! I go in again Thurs. for more blood work, then we are expecting blood work and an ultrasound Sat. We continue to appreciate prayers for this cycle and the timing of everything. So far things seem to be falling into place perfectly...we pray that it continues that way!

Some pictures of our summer...

It is hard to believe that tomorrow is the start of the school year! Here is a small sampling of some of our summer adventures 1st in pictures--

Click here to view these pictures larger

Emily has been very busy this summer. Here most favorite activity by far has been swimming. She loves anything swimming related, slides, jumping, splashing, all of it. She has no fear and no problems going under water.
We've also spent a lot of time this summer hanging out with the high school girls from church. We had Bible study and book club at our house so the girls were here quite a bit and Em loved every minute of it!
We took a quick weekend trip to St. Louis to visit Martha and Nick--it was ridiculously hot that weekend, so we spent a lot of time in air conditioning, but we did venture out for a few hours to go to Grant's Farm which overall was a great time, except for the tram ride, when Em decided about 3/4 of the way that she was done, and repeatedly tried to tell us "all done".
Some of Em's current favorites--
roni's and hot dogs
noodles
jumping off high things and landing on soft things
running down the hill in the front yard
playing wii
repeating EVERYTHING anybody says
the phrases "I do it" and "watch Emily" (which is usually followed by some dangerous stunt)
Dora and Diego and talking in Spanish
cookies and milk with Daddy

Moving along...

Things are moving along just as they should be! I had my u/s check a couple of weeks ago and everything looked great. We started Lupron injections on Weds. the 14th, and took my last birth control pill on Sat. My period arrived just as expected and I had the 1st of many blood draws this morning. I don't so much mind the blood draw--it's the being at the lab by 7:45 that I don't find enjoyable! Next week will be even worse, I will need to be there by 7 in order to make it to school on time :( No fun, but worth it in the end.

Nurse Wendy called this afternoon and said everything looked perfect, continue Lupron until Sat. then add in the Follistim. I will do both Lupron and Follistim until further notice. On Tuesday I go in for the 2nd blood draw to see what my body is doing and to adjust meds accordingly. As of now everything is calm and quiet and on schedule just the way we like it!

Same start.....same outcome??

I've been doing some cleaning and organizing before school starts and came across my calendar for the IVF cycle that produced Emily and made an interesting discovery. Emily's cycle started on April 11th, last bcp on April 14th, stims start on April 21st and ER on May 2nd.
This cycle starts on August 11th, last bcp August 14th, stims start on Aug. 21st and estimated ER on Sept. 2nd.

The plan is in action...

I had a drs. appt. on Tuesday (our 8th wedding anniversary!). First off was an u/s to make sure everything was doing what it is supposed to on the birth control pills, and it is. Next was to meet with Nurse Wendy to go over the calendar and meds for this cycle. I have been worried and praying about the timing of this cycle and the start of the school year.

Originally Wendy had thought we would be able to do it before school started, my biggest fear was that I would have to miss days at the very beginning of the year. While we won't get the cycle in before school, I also won't have to miss any days the 1st week of school so I am happy. We are to start Lupron on the 11th, and stop birth control on the 14th. The Lupron will start the process of suppressing my body's natural hormones. After a period starts I will start stims, tentatively scheduled for the 21st. I will stim for 8-12 days and have various blood draws and ultrasounds during that time. These should for the most part be able to be done before school starts, so as not to interfere. Our tentative retrieval date is the 1st-2nd with transfer 3-5 days after that. We will follow the same protocol I was on last time, and the same guidelines for transfer. If we have more than 7 embies then the transfer will automatically be a day 5, if it is less than 7 it will be a day 3. We will know that information the day after the retrieval.

We are praying that this cycle will go as smoothly as the cycle that brought us Emily and with the same success. The only snafu we are hoping to avoid is a trip to Ohio Labor Day weekend. I'm hoping the drs. will want to avoid working that weekend as much as we want to avoid having to come in! If my retrieval is the 2nd and we go 5 days we will be fine....so that is the prayer! In Bible Study we have been talking about how God wants us to go to Him with all of our request and be specific...so I am doing my best this cycle to trust in Him and His timing! We continue to appreciate all your prayers and support!

P.S. I believe we have fixed the commenting glitch that some were having...so you should be free to comment now!