Recovering

Day 2 after the retrieval and I'm doing ok.  I'm still very bloated which they said I will still be after how many follicles there were.  I'm hoping it goes away soon so I can stop worrying about getting the hyperstimulation, I have to take my weight each day so I can monitor the change except now I am doing it about 3 times a day.  So I've been over thinking it a lot but I have gained about 5 pounds since Tuesday and all in my stomach!  I have been working from home cause I am supposed to rest and intake a lot of protein to avoid the hyperstimulation.  Other than that things have been going alright, Harley has been helpful and thank goodness it has been rainy out the last few days cause that means the dogs sleep all day so they have not needed to get out a million times a day while I have been home.

I received a call from the embryologist and they said that out of the 7 eggs they retrieved there were only 4 that were mature and all 4 fertilized!  Very luck that all of them fertilized!!  And a good thing that we had so many follicles to work with from the beginning, the body is a weird thing!  So we did get what we wanted in the end as long as things go good.  We will transfer 2 embryos on Sunday and then freeze 2 of them for if this try doesn't work or if we need to try again in the future.

I'm staying home from work again tomorrow cause I need to take it easy and then Sunday- Tuesday I will be on bed rest after the transfer so I feel I'm going to get sick of this house!  A few friends might come visit this weekend which would be nice but being a holiday weekend I know a lot of  people will be gone.

I will check in again after the transfer.  Hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial weekend and even though I am hoping it rains all weekend since I will be in bed the whole time, I hope it doesn't rain on everyone elses weekend!

Retrieval... check!

Today went great for the retrieval!  We got in at 8:30 and met with a nurse, then Dr Casey and then the anaesthesiologist to go over the procedure.  At 9:30 they took me to do the retrieval and Harley went to do his business.  I got in the room and laid down while they tried putting in my IV, and I do mean tried!  They tried my arm and they tried my wrist and finally got it in the top of my hand.  I knew they would have a problem cause all the nurses have a hard time drawing my blood all the time.  After the IV was in the anaesthesiologist and nurse were saying I would feel like one tequila, two tequila, floor and man did I ever!  I last remember him talking about Mexico and then I was out, I woke up in the recovery room with Harley there.  We sat in there for 30 minutes or so while I woke up and let the drugs wear off.  I hate it when your husband is so funny that he finds it necessary to constantly say things that makes me laugh after having a procedure in your stomach! :)  I couldn't stop laughing and am not sure if it was cause of the drugs or not but he just wouldn't stop.  It's been interesting going through this with him, kind of like this morning when I could not eat or drink since midnight last night and he decides to stop at McDonald's on the way down  this morning for breakfast and coffee!  Who does that? :)  Oh well, I got my McDonald's on our way home.

We talked with Dr Casey after everything, well Harley did and I just laid there pretending I was listening, and she said that there are 7 good eggs that they will be fertilizing over the next 5 days.  I will get a call from the lab in a day or two to see how things are going and how many have promise to become embryos.  We are hoping all or at least most of them make it to that so we can transfer 2 and freeze the rest!

This week I will just rest a bit, work from home most the week and get ready for Sunday when we have the transfer.  I'll keep in touch over the week to let you know how it develops!

Step 1 here we go!!

Well I went in Sunday morning and brought mom to show her what the ultrasound looks like with 21 mature follicles!  Yes 21!  They told me at the appointment to keep my phone on in the afternoon cause they would be calling me and letting me know when I should take my 'trigger' shot that evening.  Finally it is time!  So we set up my last shot for 9:30 pm that evening and scheduled my retrieval for Tuesday at 9:30 am.  They said this is what happens when you have PCOS, you get so many eggs it is crazy.  They said it is really good though and there should be a lot of good eggs and my estrogen is perfect, everything looks really great!

The only thing they warned me about was hyperstimulation which happens when you have a lot of eggs and they remove the eggs and fluid in the ovaries which makes them fill up with fluid to replace what was taken out. In some cases the fluid can spread to your body cavity and you would have to go to the hospital till it drained out.  That doesn't happen often but I could get a mild case of it where I feel sick and get bloated.  Right now I am pretty bloated, which isn't surprising since normally people only have 1 mature egg at a time and I had 21 on Sunday... and I'm told 5 others probably turned mature over the last few days.  So they are hoping there will be 26 eggs to retrieve.

I am told to keep it easy until the transfer next Sunday.  With my estrogen so high I will experience many things like hot flashes, tired feeling and dizziness.  I had to leave work today around 2 cause I did start to get dizzy and tired so I came home to rest.  Now I get pretty worn out if I am up and moving around for a little bit of time, hopefully it isn't this bad when I'm pregnant!

We will go in tomorrow morning at 8:30 am and get all set up for things, I will go in and have my procedure at 9:30 am and Harley will go make his contribution to things :)  After that I will be home resting, the nurses said that normally women go home and sleep and in the afternoon they wake up feeling great.  No more bloating/ full feeling like I feel right now.  After that I will be working from home for a day or two recovering and waiting until Sunday when we do the transfer.

The transfer will happen 5 days later which will be Sunday, so everyone cross your fingers and toes that we will get some good embryos out of this.  I'm going to take a shower and get ready for the morning!  Talk to you all soon and I'll let you know how it goes.

Appointments, appointments and more appointments!

We are so close now so of course they want to see me everyday, the only thing that stinks is that we are on a weekend now so I have to drive a hour each way to go to a 15-20 minute appointment.  But at least this time it's been good news day after day!  Friday's ultrasound went great, there were many more follicles overnight that grew quite a bit.  There was the first 18mm one and then some 16mms, 14mms and many 12mm and 11mms as well.  The nurse told me to take things easy this weekend and not overdo anything, she said to just relax in the sun in my lounge chair... who can argue with that prescription!  My estrogen is great and there is a great follicle count so the nurse was thinking a Monday or Tuesday retrieval day.

So I went in this morning for my next appointment and things are continuing to go great!  There is so much going on in there, there are many that are averaging what they need.  She said there are 6 mature follicles right now and there are a few at 14mm still that should get to it as well in the next day or so.  They want me to come in again Sunday morning to check again, depending on how many follicles there are and what my estrogen level is they will decide which day we do the retrieval.  They will keep me going on medicine until Monday if they can since that will guarantee more follicles as long as my estrogen doesn't get too high and put me at risk of hyper-stimulation.  If I get to that point they will not do the retrieval, right now I am perfectly fine but they want to keep monitoring it.  Hopefully tomorrow we will know which day we are going to do the retrieval!

Wish me luck for tomorrow!

Today's ultrasound

Had some more great news today!  Things are really coming along now with the follicles there is a 14mm, 13mm, SEVEN 12mm and a few 11mm on the right side alone.  And then there is a 14mm, 12mm and 11mm on the left side.  My lining is great still and estrogen is rising as it should be.  The nurse called this afternoon after the Dr reviewed everything and they said it is all going as they want it to and we will wait till they get between about 18-20mm size follicles and then do the retrieval.  I go in everyday now for a ultrasound until things are ready cause at this point they should grow 1-2 mm per day, so if that is the case I would say by Monday or Tuesday things should be ready!  Very excited and hope things keep going as smoothly as they are now.

But just wanted to give everyone a quick update and hopefully I will continue to have good news to share!

We are getting so close!

I haven't posted much lately since not a whole lot has changed until Friday.  Friday I started my other shots, so right now I have two in the morning and one at night!  I didn't think it was going to be a big difference but my poor stomach is full of needle pokes on either side of my belly button, looks like I will definitely need a new tankini swim suit for our weekend up at Scott's cabin in early June!

I am on one shot that will stop me from ovulating and then two stimulation shots.  The stimulation shots started Friday and things are going good so far.  I went in for blood work on Sunday and my estrogen is rising as they want.  I went in today for my first ultrasound to see how things are going, I had a very good feeling about today cause I could feel lots of stuff going on.  It's weird to say but I can usually tell if things are growing in there, thank god I was right!  I could tell right away before they even got the ultrasound wand to my ovaries that there were already a few that were pretty large.  On the right side there is one at 13mm, 12mm and three 11mm and then on the left side there is one at 12mm and one at 11mm.  They were very pleased and so was I!  They will wait till there are enough at around 17mm so there is a little more to go but we might be set by the end of the week as planned!  I will go back in on Thursday to see how much they grew and then probably again on Friday or else on Saturday, I'll go in Friday if they are very close otherwise they might have me skip a day.

We have had a few good laughs over the last week or two, with all of these hormone drugs going in me I can have pretty big mood swings and things like that so if you see poor Harley give him a hug :)  It's pretty common to hear him look at me and say- "is this the drugs talking or you?" or him say to himself over and over "it's just the drugs, it's just the drugs", so at least there is humor keeping us sane through all of this.  He also made me laugh the other morning when I was in the middle of taking my largest shot!  Halfway through I started laughing and the needle came out of my stomach, so for that one I had to do it twice!  I was mad at the time but also couldn't stop laughing.

In the meantime I have gotten hooked on the Fifty Shades series!  I can't put the books down and I think Harley is getting tired of me carrying my book around with me everywhere.  I read the first book in about a week and now I am about done with the second book that I started Friday night!  I usually take many months to finish a book but this one I cannot stop reading.   And I think I've gotten a few others hooked too!

Now we are getting ready for the IVF procedure and hopefully some fun weekends after it.  Just trying to enjoy our time right now, trying to stay relaxed and stress free!

I hope everyone had a great mothers day weekend and I will post again the end of the week with hopefully another great update!

Goodnight!