little update

Just a quick update to say hello. Today I met Angie for lunch and got to see how much Josh has grown - my goodness! I guess breast milk every 2 hrs will do that to you! But he is as handsome as ever. I think at times he looks like Matt, but then at times he looks like Angie.

Other small updates are that work continues to kick my a$$ and Oracle 11i continues to stress me out. Blah! And I had a doctor appt today and things look good and just as they should. I have the green light to start stimulation meds tomorrow (whoo hoo for estrogen!!)

Have a great weekend everyone! Be safe and enjoy!

XO
B.

Splash the Dress- Crash the Body

This weekend was a blur. So much going on, and now I am paying for it! The combination of intense work and cycling for IVF is taking its toll on my body. Trying to do my other normal activities I guess was too much as last night I got a whopper of a migraine.

I know it is from the Lupron; I have no estrogen in my body and it is freaking out. I got like this the last time, and I'm a week in, so my poor body is very confused. It knows it should be a girl and have estrogen but has none! The only difference between last time and this time is that I have none of my Rx migraine meds. I have a call into my PCP to try and get some, but no sure if they will comply. And I'm too weak at this point to fight; migraine #2 in the last 24 hrs is beginning to develop and no doubt will be full fledged by the time the 4:00 Lurpon shot rolls around.

On a happier note, Saturday Dave and I participated in an event called "Splash the dress". It's hosted by my two friends Cyndy & Paul. They are professional wedding photographers. What the event does is provide an opportunity for them to experiment with new lenses, techniques, etc without ruining someones real wedding. So we get to dress up in a wedding gown (only fun for the ladies as the men seem like they were supposed to be done with this when the wedding was done!) . We headed up to Presque Isle (at Lake Erie) with 3 other couples and had a blast!

A few of the shots are shown here; some are not me obviously but I think are really cool! They took about 1000 pictures so when the link comes up for viewing, I'll have to pass it along. Please respect the copyright of these pictures and no copying please. All images are the property of Paul Meyer Photography (who by the way is just amazing and I'd recommend to anyone!)

Oh, and no, it's not my own wedding dress; that is tucked safely in my basement.

Love to all-

B.

New Addition to the Family

Well, the newest addition to the family is here!

Honestly, the pictures don't do it justice. The screen color and picture quality is amazing . Watching football on the TV is going to be my new favorite past time! The TV takes up less space than our previous one so the room looks even bigger.

On the IVF front - my last birth control pill is tonight, and I'm really excited! The Lupron shots (a.k.a. menopausal shots) have been going okay. They are making me sleepy for some reason, and I get a daily headache, but I guess that means they are working. Having no estrogen in your body will make you feel a little crappy.

Dave is home safe from Vermont! He said the camping was awesome and the scenery beautiful! The 100 on 100 race went well but with the unexpected hitch of one of the runners on the team getting stranded in JFK airport and not being able to make the race. So Dave and his cousins picked up and ran the extra miles. Congrats to the Red Dog Ramblers!

Ready to take a chance again...

That Barry Manilow song is stuck in my head, but probably for good reason. I'm ready to take a chance again. While I enjoyed a really relaxing weekend, one of the things I did was to take all of the baby items out of the back of the closet. I placed them into the armoire that we'd purchased for the babies. I'm ready, and I'm not only thinking positive for this cycle, I'm feeling positive.

I also started up again with my yoga. There are specific poses that enhance blood flow and fertility, and interestingly enough, they are some of the most relaxing for me. But what always strikes me as most amazing is that Zoe (my cat) seems to love to rub up against my legs or lay right underneath me when I do my poses. I've read that animals can sense the positive energy and qui flow that comes from doing yoga, and this is why they are drawn to you when doing these poses.

So I'm doing all I can to put myself in a good place physically, emotionally and spiritually. Tomorrow I start up with my acupuncture and first shot of Lupron. The lupron places my ovaries into further suppression / rest. It ensures that I won't ovulate on my own which would "ruin" the IVF cycle. This is accomplished by basically placing my body into menopause. And yes, that means I get all the fun side effects - hot flashes, moodiness, sleeplessness, etc. Sounds like fun huh? Wish me luck!

And we're Live!!!

I've been busy working. Oracle rolled out (after a 24 hr delay) at our work and I have been working very late. I even worked 12 hrs this past Sunday. I'm sick of working these late hours! But on a positive note, I've been getting some internal recognition at work with eStars.... eStars are points that you can turn in for merchandise or gift cards. I've accumulated a ton, and talked to Dave about getting Circuit City gift cards for my eStars and buying.....

Polaroid 46" LCD HDTV - enhance your home theater with full HD 1080p resolution in this 46" LCD flat panel HDTV from Polaroid. With the included stand and capability to be mounted, you have display options to fit any design.

I'd like to get this before the football regular season starts and I start going through the surgeries for IVF (what a better way to pass the time between the embryo transfer and pregnancy test than starting at a lovely TV!) But we'll see how many eStars I get and how much leftover we'll have to pay.....

Speaking of IVF - we signed consent forms again this week and met with our doctor again. She said after speaking to the embryologist, that she'd like to do an extra procedure with the eggs and sperm. They would like to do ICSI. This stands for intracytoplasmic sperm injection . Basically, rather than just put my eggs in a petri dish with Dave's sperm, they want to manually inject a sperm into each egg.

The reason they want to do this is because last time I had 15 mature eggs, but only 6 fertilized. They normally expect about 70% of eggs to fertilize with IVF, and we were below that. The embryologist felt that the sperm weren't able to penetrate the zona surrounding the egg as well as they should.

Previously, we'd discussed ICSI as an option, but felt that there was no need to do it because Dave's tests turned out to show no true problems. They normally reserve ICSI for male infertility issues. But tests don't show everything and no test is conclusive. (heck, both our tests show us to be normal yet 2 yrs later, we can't conceive "normally"). And for all I know, it could be that it isn't a sperm issue but that my eggs are as stubborn and as tough as I am!

In any case, we've decided to use ICSI. It means it will give us more embryos. The more we have in reserve, the better our chances will be both now (to be able to choose from the best of our embies to implant into me) as well as in the future (as we plan to freeze our extras should we need to use them in the future - not all frozen embies thaw to survive and are able to be implanted).

Hopefully we won't need it down the line, but it is a good option!

Love to all-

Gift

I got a package in the mail yesterday. My IVF meds! It's always scary to dump everything out and see what I am going to be putting into my body in a 3 week time period....

On a happier note, I've found that taking the BCPs at night doesn't make me sick - hurray!!!

Kad's 2nd B-day

I'm terribly biased, but I have THE CUTEST niece in the world! Sunday was Kadence's 2nd birthday party and was a lot of fun. Too much good food and presents everywhere and cake and kid's laughter.... to be followed by a Steeler's game..... how could it not be a perfect day! (I am so stinking excited that football is back I can't stand it. I don't care that it's preseason.... football is back!!!)

Aside from feeling like crap from the BCPs, things are good. I just wish the weather would break from this muggy, humid soup, but on second thought, I am going to save all my wishes for IVF instead!

Here we go again....

We're ready to jump back into the icy waters of IVF. We had almost tried earlier this summer, but I just couldn't do it. I guess I wasn't ready, and physically the pills were making me sick. I guess it was a sign it wasn't time. But we're forging ahead; we only get 1 more shot at a fresh cycle from our insurance for the rest of our lives / as long we have the insurance. So we decided to do our attempt now before the insurance renews. That way we can drop the insurance (which is through my work and expensive) and save a few hundred each month. Not to worry - we still have health insurance through Dave's work.

Anyway - here we go again. I start my first birth control pill on Sunday. The first part of the IVF cycle is to shut off my ovaries and allow them to rest. This is accomplished by BCPs (birth control pills). I'll be taking them for about 3 weeks before I start shots to suppress my ovaries even more. Unfortunately, the BCPs always make me sick - they give me a daily migraine, cause extreme moodiness, and just make me feel like I'm not myself. Honestly, it is the worst part of the IVF process for me (aside from the waiting to find out if I'm pregnant).

To be very honest, I am so sacred. I am scared because I've not been taking care of my body like I was when we first underwent the IVF. I gave up caffeine and alcohol and that isn't the case now. I was doing acupuncture weekly, and now we just can't afford it. I was in a much better state of mind as I was meditating twice a day, and that has fallen way off my to do list. And I think those positive steps really made a difference. It isn't like I can't do those things now, but I feel like I was doing them in advance last time, and now I'm playing catch up.

And of course there is the fear of miscarrying again. What if I get pregnant with twins again? The miscarriage rate is higher for multiples. I guess I'm just plain old scared.

So the next 8 weeks look to be fairly stressful with IVF on top of my stresses at work. Yes, work is still crazy. And I've recently decided to start painting the kitchen - it's a creative release for me to not think about work or IVF or infertility or anything I don't want to think about. But as Dave says, I am going to run out of things to paint!

Looking forward to the weekend. Hope everyone is staying cool in this hot weather!