Today, We Are Blessed

Out of the 12 eggs retrieved, 10 were mature...and 7 have fertilized!

That's right, we have 7 embabies as of this morning. That's much better than the phone call I received during IVF #1 saying that we only had 1. The embryologist will let them stay in the incubator until early Tuesday. We will get a call that morning to let us know how many have continued to survive, and if we are going to do a transfer on Tuesday or Thursday. They will transfer the 2 best embryos and freeze the remaining for future use.

Just a small favor...we appreciate your enthusiasm and support for our situation. However, this blog was created as a forum to share personal information about our infertility with those we wish to share it with. All of our family, close friends, and the fellow bloggers who come across it are welcome to this blog. Please respect our privacy by not posting our private matters as comments/status updates on a public forum, i.e. facebook, myspace, etc. This has spawned from several incidents, not just one in particular. All of those we wish to communicate our information to have been led to this blog, which is unsearchable by search engines. Let's face it...facebook is the world's biggest gossip mill, and my ex boyfriend from 6th grade doesn't need to know about my wonky reproductive system. Please direct all of your comments to this site. Thanks:)

Please pray that our "Lucky 7" continue to divide and stay healthy. We want to thank everyone for all of the prayers lately...they worked!

God is good.

Can't. Move.

Stimulation Day 8

Ouch.

I've already forgotten how uncomfortable this is. I need to take a picture of my belly because it already looks like I'm 5 months pregnant. I'll just pretend I'm pregnant...with two sasquatch ovaries.

As of this morning, my estrogen is a little over 1000, progesterone is 1.04, and uterine lining is 10.4 mm...thumbs up! The increasing estrogen shows that my follicles are growing, and the decreased progesterone shows that I haven't had an "oops" ovulation. They usually see a lining of around 7-9, so mine is exceptional. I believe the total follicle count is around 13. The biggest follicle is around 16 mm and all of the others are right behind it trying to play catch up. We are hoping that all will be mature by retrieval time.

This cycle is already looking MUCH better than last, but I'm more concerned about the quality vs. quantity. Are there going to be some good eggs inside of those follies? I'm praying every second of every day that it will work this time. I do not want to go through this again:(

I go back on Wednesday morning for labs and another ultrasound. We'll be able to better pinpoint the retrieval date at that time. They are still guessing that it will be Friday, so we shall see. I hope I can still walk by then!

This Is Your Ovary...And This Is Your Ovary On Drugs.

***Note: These are not my ultrasound pics...however, this is very similar to what I see each time I get an ultrasound. Each black area is a follicle on the ovary. The bottom half of the pic is a stimulated ovary***

We are almost there!!! Yay! I have about 5 mature follicles along with quite a few smaller ones. My labs look really good and they told me that I was almost ready for retrieval. I was told to take another stimulation shot tonight, then my other injections in the morning before going back to the doctor for more labwork and another ultrasound. My nurse believes that I will have to "trigger" tomorrow night and have the retrieval on Sunday morning in Charleston. My appointment tomorrow will give us the final answer. Let's hope I don't have to wait almost TWO hours to be called back like I did today! I guess they don't care that you have to take off work every other day to do this.

The trigger injection is one of the most critical parts of the cycle. It induces the final maturation of the eggs, loosens the egg's attachment from the follicle wall, and allows for timing of the egg retrieval. It basically prepares my body for ovulation...however, my doctor will manually ovulate me before my body does the deed itself. I will have the retrieval exactly 36 hours after I give myself the trigger.

The trigger is called HCG (human chorionic gonadotropin) and is the same hormone that is present in pregnancy. This hormone is what makes a pee stick turn positive when you are preggo. Therefore, if I try to pee on a stick (too much info, I know) in the next couple of weeks, it will say that I'm pregnant. The only way to confirm that the IVF works is through a blood test 14 days after the retrieval.

I know this because I had to take this injection with all 6 of my IUI's and made the mistake of testing too early. It is pretty cool to see a positive on a pregnancy test though. Sometimes I would just do it for the fun of it, haha!

And P.S...My ovaries don't feel like peaches, they feel like WATERMELONS!