Here we goooooo……..

Jan 22 – I had my baseline U/S today. It didn’t go quite as well as I had hoped. They were looking at my lining and my antral follicle count; which is essentially the number of potential follicles that can develop during the cycle. They expect, in someone my age, to be able to see 15-25 total between each ovary. She only saw 4-5 on each ovary making a total potential of 8-10. Though I will say she had an extremely difficult time seeing my right ovary and it could be there were more she couldn’t see. I am really hoping that is the case. Vaginal U/S are never fun, but when they are having a hard time finding what they are looking for it becomes down right painful. It actually left me feeling sick to my stomach afterwards.

Because of the low AFC they upped my dosage of meds, which kind of freaked me out. I was originally supposed to be on 150IU follistim in the AM and 75IU Menopur in the PM. They changed it to 225IU Follistim in the AM and 75IU Menopur in the PM. It is kind of scary to be starting off on a negative.

I was pretty upset by all of this when I left the office. I know what I have read and women with 25 follies could only have 3 fertilize and women with 8 follies can have 7 fertilize, but I just think the odds for success are better the more follies you have. I am really hoping we have two 5d blasts to transfer and at least a few to freeze.

Anyway, I went from my baseline straight to my Acupuncture appointment. I actually sat in the car for a few minutes before going in because I was near tears. I explained the situation to my acupuncturist who said on top of the normal IVF points, she would do some for anxiety and stress.

I realized that I have been trying to carry the stress, anxiety and burden of all of this alone. So, while I was lying there, stuck with large numbers of needles with electrodes on some of them, I started praying. I prayed that God take my anxiety and my fear. I asked him to carry it for me. I know that it is his will that will be done. Nothing that I do can change anything. I have done and am doing everything in my power to create a child. There is nothing more I can do, it is not up to me. I have this picture in my head of a back pack that is full of all my worry and stress and anxiety about this whole process of IVF and trying to have another child. While lying on that table, I gave my back pack to God to carry for me. Now it is in much more capable hands than my own.

When I left the acupuncturist’s office it felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. I still really, really want this to work. But I know that even if it doesn’t I will be ok. We will move onto adoption knowing that we tried everything we could to have another baby. If it doesn’t work I will not just survive, I will thrive!

Every time I start to freak out now. I close my eyes apologize to God for taking the back pack back and hand it back to him. I am sure I sound crazy, but…………..the moment I do it I feel instant relief. I guess if my options are a stressed out and anxiety ridden or crazy. I will take crazy.

Jan 23-First day of stims – I have to start out my saying Thank goodness for M. I am a big wuss, when it comes to inflicting pain on myself. I have a huge threshold for pain, but cannot do it to myself. When I wax my bikini area, I can’t put the strips off. I can sit there for 10 minutes trying to psych myself out and I can never actually do it. I even have a lot of false starts. Eventually, I just call M in to pull it off for me. So, when it came time to stick myself with needles we both knew there was no way I was going to be able to do it. He has taken on that responsibility like a champ. Watching the video multiple times, asking the nurse awesome questions, mixing meds, cleaning stuff with the alcohol, etc. My husband is incredible!! I could not do this without him.

We woke up a little late so promptly decided we needed to give me my first shot right away. Amazingly it wasn’t bad. The Follistim pen made it really easy. M put the shot in with a little more force than necessary. Ok, maybe a lot more, I actually had a dent in my skin from the pen. But it wasn’t bad. I had a bruise from that one and it was tender for a couple hours, but that was it. The funny part was when M put the pen down his hands were shaking. He was really nervous. Who knew?

That night we did the first menopur shots. Those are a little more complicated. There is a lot of mixing and then switching of needles. We had some problems, wasted a little bit of the sterile water, but in the end it just burned a little. You can’t even see where the shot went in for that one. A lot of women complain about the menopur being really painful, but for me it was actually really easy. I told M that maybe it is all the extra skin left on my belly from having L. I knew there had to be a reason I was left with all this extra skin. 