Sandy and Bambi

Since we live in NY, the threat for hurricane Sandy existed for us. We didn't go crazy preparing, but we did buy a few easily prepared meals, fill our cars up with gas, and put them in the garage to protect them from the giant tree right next to the driveway. Other than that, we weren't too concerned. I guess it was for good reason. 

We got some high winds and rain yesterday and last night, but nothing too exciting. Our lights flickered for a while, but we never lost power. 

Other areas got hit hard, but we got lucky. 

Things were a bit crazier around here early, early Monday morning. I'm a pretty hard sleeper. I don't hear much and it takes a lot to wake me up. Well, apparently one of our dogs started whining around 4 AM. W got up to let the dogs out (I had no clue), but I do remember him coming back to bed. A few minutes later he said, "That's our dogs barking" and disappeared for over 5 minutes. When he came back he told me, "They had a deer." I was super confused and it definitely woke me up.

W said the dogs were barking in a really unusual way, so he went outside in his boxers to check it out. Down in the front corner of the yard the dogs had a deer cornered. He got them to come inside and they were SO excited. They were panting and checking all the windows. 

I advised W to make sure the deer was gone before letting the dogs out in the morning. He said he did and left for work. 

When I got out of the shower I heard strange barking outside. I went downstairs in my bathrobe and looked out the back door. Nothing. The barking continued so I looked out a front window. There were the dogs and this poor little deer. I'm not sure what happened to it, but its back leg was missing all the skin from hip to ankle, and it just had exposed muscle. I'm pretty sure it happened before it made its way into our yard. The dogs were barking, but not getting close enough to do any damage. 

In a complete panic I called W and told him he needed to come home immediately (he only works about 5 minutes away). I then ran outside in my bathrobe and yelled and yelled until the dogs would finally come in. Once the dogs were inside the little deer then starting checking the perimeter for an escape. 

W came home and checked the entire yard and couldn't find it. The gate was opened wide so hopefully it got out. Seeing that little freaked out and injured deer was not a good start to my Monday morning. I was upset about it for a while. The dogs, on the other hand, may have had the best day of their lives. 

"Do You Have Any Children?"

As I've said before I work with little kids (birth-5). I love their little giggles, snuggles, faces, attitudes (ha!), and personalities. Although I am a speech therapist, almost everything I do is done through play (especially with the really little kids). Parents need to be clearly told what early intervention will look like because otherwise they seem confused. Sure, I'm playing with the child, but I use strategies during play to get them talking and accomplishing their other set goals. The strategies aren't rocket science, but a lot of people don't think that way (using short and simple speech when talking to their child to increase opportunities for imitation, repetition and expectant waiting, labeling items of interest, etc.)

I always knew I wanted to work with kids. When I was a child I wanted to be a pediatrician. That was until I realized kids don't like their pediatricians. They are usually scared, sick, and unhappy to see them. 

Both of my parents have a background in special education and they encouraged me to pursue speech as a career path. My Mom did early intervention and preschool speech when I was in middle school and I often accompanied her when it was a therapy session after school. I loved it and thought it would be a great job. 

Almost always on the first visit/session the parents like to ask me if I have my own children. I usually reply with "not yet" and they don't tend to ask much else. Most recently the mom looked at me and said, "Really? That's hard to believe." Well, believe it lady!

Working in this job I am supposed to keep the family involved, give them strategies and "homework" so that their child can progress. My hour a week I spend with them isn't going to change the world, I need carryover from families. Giving someone advice when they know you don't have children is strange. Sure, I'm the expert on the given topic, but I often feel like they are thinking does she really have a clue since she doesn't have her own children?

Service coordinators come to sessions about once a month to observe a child's progress and answer questions/concerns the parents have about the program. They all have children and they talk about them non-stop. I always feel like it discredits or excludes me because I can't participate in the conversation. I just sit there and feel stupid. Hopefully I don't look stupid : )

I don't discuss my infertility with any families. I'm not trying to get them involved in the situation and keep my personal and professional lives as separate as possible. I just wish people understood better that I don't have children yet because we haven't been able, not because I don't want them. I want to understand and be able to relate better, I swear!

How would you feel if your child's therapist didn't have any children, yet they were giving you advice on how to enhance you child's development? Would you take the advice with a grain of salt or respect it? 

Waiting....again

I feel like I've written a post about waiting a hundred times already. But, here I go again! 

 I woke up early this morning and don't have any therapy sessions scheduled until 9:20. I only have to drive ten minutes down the road to get there. It's rainy and gloomy outside this morning and it looks chilly. The leaves are just a little past peak, but still amazingly beautiful. Even though I have tons of time this morning, I will still find a way to be late. 

Here are some photos I look the other day (when it was sunny) of the leaves in the finger lakes. 

It's hard to believe I'm actually "cycling" right now because I'm just taking birth control pills... Again. This protocol for the FET cycle is long and complicated. I don't go back into the clinic until halloween at which time I likely add in Lupron the following day. From the 1st-5th I overlap with birth control pills and Lupron. On the 5th I stop bcp's and on the 6th I'll drop my dosage of Lupron in half. Then I go back for more blood work and a sono on November 8th. If all goes well I start estrogen, Lovenox, baby aspirin, and Neupogen the 9th. I return for blood work and sono on November 14th and 19th. We have a tentative transfer date for November 26th, which feels like a lifetime away right about now.

This is Dr. Br.averman's preferred protocol. He said that the Lupron aids in implantation. I was happy at first to see we would be using Lupron. The main reason? That would be because we bought an entire kit ($199) for a 30 unit trigger. I was glad to see we would be using more of it. That was until I looked at the complete calendar and became completely overwhelmed. I know I will be okay as long as I take it one day at a time.

At my clinic the plan was to bring me back one more time (Oct 29th) for a lining check. As long as everything looked good I would start progesterone that day and transfer 5 days later (Nov 2nd). I'm bummed we are adding in essentially a whole extra month, but I'm trying to convince myself it is a good thing. I emailed Dr. B this morning about trying to fit in an endometrial biopsy since I'm guessing I will get another period before we transfer.

The days are once again dragging as I wait on birth control pills. I'm thinking I need something fun to look forward to, I'm jut trying to figure out what that is. Any suggestions? We had talked about visiting W's cousin and gf in NYC.

I'm not really too great at waiting. I can't find productive enough ways to fill my time. I started quilting a few months ago and have pieced together two of the fronts of two different quilts.

Quilt #2- I started it because I LOVED the fabric and had to have it. 

 That is the part I really enjoyed. Now I have to finish the backing and edges and its just not as rewarding or fun. I recently finished an amazing book and now don't know what to read. The pick for book club this month looks pretty awful. Any tips or tricks for combating boredom?

Blog-iversary

Today marks two years that I have been blogging. At first I never thought anyone would want to read. To be honest, no one did. But as time went on I found lots of great blogs and also gained some followers. It's blows my mind how things have evolved over the past two years! I really appreciate the followers, readers, and commenters! Thanks for sharing your positivity and love. 

Today I was at a house at work and had noticed a piece of gum on the kitchen floor. After about 20 minutes with a little kid he noticed it, got all excited. jumped down from his chair, and popped it in his mouth. All before I could figure out what was going on. After a short chuckle I made him spit it out in the garbage. 

ICLW October

Hello to anyone new visiting my blog this week. Thanks for stopping by!

My name is Liz, I'm 29 and my hubby is W (31). We have been trying to baby #1 for about 2 1/2 years. Cycle wise we've done 4 IVF cycles, 3 FET cycles, and 2 IUI's. We just completed IVF #4 with a freeze all cycle. I found out last week we have 7 frozen embryos and I started meds for FET #4. We are looking at a tentative transfer date of some time in the 20's of November.  

I have PCOS and I lost my left fallopian tube to a paratubal cyst. We unfortunately had 3 miscarriages (1 at 8 weeks, 2 chemical) so sought out advice from a reproductive immunologist, Dr. Br.averman in NYC. From him we found out I had 3 gene mutations (MTHFR, Factor V, PAI-1G) that lead to blood clotting problems, and that W and I have 6 HLA matches. He managed my IVF cycle and is now managing my FET cycle. My current clinic does not love this fact. 

I work in early intervention as a speech therapist and love it. We have 3 furbabies (2 dogs and a car) who provide lots of entertainment for us. Otherwise, I enjoy gardening, house projects, hanging out with friends, reading, going to see live music, and doing fun things outside. 

As part of ICLW I always like to ask a few questions to readers, so here goes:

1. What is your current favorite song?

2. Do you parallel park or drive around to look for another parking spot?

3. Do you have a good luck charm? If so, what it is?

4. What was your childhood nickname?

5. What was your favorite childhood stuffed animal, item?

6. What do you wash first in the shower?

My Replies:

1. Below my Feet by Mumford and Sons 

2. I will parallel park as long as too many people aren't watching/waiting

3. I don't have any good luck charms, maybe that's my problem : (

4. Lizzy 

5. I had this stuffed hippo named Critter. I was so sad when I lost him. 

6. My hair

Freeze Report

I was so nervous to call. I dreaded it. When my friend texted me to get the report and I told her I was too scared, she encouraged me strongly to call. 

I feel more invested in this cycle than previous ones. That's part of why I was so nervous. 

I finally called around 12:30 and spoke with a nurse. She was able to tell me that we have a lucky 7 embryos frozen. I asked for their report cards and she said she would have to get an embryologist to call me back. 

A little while later my phone rang. This is what I found out.

On day five they froze three embryos. Of those we had a 5AC, 4BC, and a 3BC. 

On day six they froze four embryos. They were a 4AC, 4BC, 4BC, and 4CC.

She also said they were watching four more to see if they would be able to freeze them on day seven. I didn't realize that was a possibility. 

When AF showed up on Tuesday I emailed Dr. Br.averman. He suggested I schedule a baseline appointment and we didn't talk a whole lot about instructions beyond that. He wanted to know how many embryos we had before we talked next steps. That's one thing I've figured out about him. He likes to take things one step at a time. I'm always trying to look to the next step, so find this somewhat frustrating. It's forcing me to live more in the moment than plan ahead. We had exchanged a few emails about different protocols but he didn't specifically say what to do for me. 

My baseline appointment was this morning. My ovaries were still pretty big and "angry" as the NP put it, but my lining was thin. Both ovaries had some left over cysts but she didn't seem too concerned about it. She asked what the plan was, and not knowing, I just went with the flow. She came back with instructions and my next appointment scheduled. 

When I asked her to fax the results from today's appointment she stopped and stared at me for a second or two before saying, "If that's what you want." Seriously?

I emailed the nurse at Dr. B's office and asked if Dr. B was going to give me a calendar. Well, come to find out he wants me to do something entirely different. The theme of this IVF cycle all along? Different is better!! I guess I'll have to contact the NP and tell her of the change of plans. 

To those of you who have done FET's, what was your protocol? 

All I know right now is this one involves 2 weeks of birth control pills before anything else. I'm pretty sure it also adds Lupron, Progesterone, and Estrace at some point. It's amazing how many months I have spent on the pill while we have been trying to get pregnant. My clinic was happy to have me take Estrace 3x's/day until I started progesterone. Pretty simple. Things are going to get complicated again. 

I forgot to tell this story sooner. The day before my retrieval I had to go for blood work to be sure the lupron trigger worked. I made the appointment for a bit later in the day and ended up having some cancellations for the time after. I called a friend and my MIL to see if either of them wanted to have lunch with me, but was unsuccessful. So then I called my FIL and he gladly agreed. He was so patient and a fantastic listener as I jabbered on about the newest news with us TTC wise. When I told him I had a procedure the next day he asked me, "Are things coming out or going in?" That's one way to put it!

IVF #4 CD 20- Interesting...

Where to start? How about with me throwing up in my car yesterday? Doesn't that sound like a fun place to start? All weekend my stomach was bothering me and I was feeling super nauseous. By Monday morning I emailed the NP to see if I could stop taking Dostinex (possible culprit for stomach upset). She said fine. By a little later in the day I asked if I could stop Metformin and she said that was fine temporarily as well. 

So I headed off to work. I saw two little boys at the same daycare and struggled to get through the sessions. After, I headed off to a Head Start. I stood outside my car, willing myself to feel better and go inside. When I was mapping out the quickest way to the bathroom in my head I figured I should probably head home. Well, home was about 20 minutes away. On the drive I started to feel really awful, so grabbed for a bag and pulled over. Not fun. Cue me sitting on the couch the rest of the day feeling sorry for myself. 

So work was a no-go yesterday. I'm hoping it goes better today. Especially since I have a long day paired with two evaluations at the end of the day with my boss and someone shadowing us. 

Last night we were sitting on the couch watching some mindless television when W's phone rang. He didn't answer it initially, but it rang again. It was his Dad calling to say his grandmother isn't doing very well. She has been in a nursing home for years and I guess has taken a turn for the worst. W is planning to go down to visit her this afternoon. 

Then my phone rang and it was my Mom. I made W answer it and he has a strange conversation. When he hung up I got the scoop: A family friend is pregnant again and considering adoption this time. The family is very close to mine. The grandparents of this soon-to-be baby were our neighbors growing up (Susie & Angelo) and good friends with my parents. Susie was present at my birth, taking glorious pictures of my head crowning. Susie & Angelo adopted Haylee and another child over 20 years ago. Haylee got pregnant and had a little boy about 17 months ago. The little boy lives with her parents and she isn't a very active participant in his life. A few months ago my mom brought up me adopting the little boy and the family seemed pretty upset. Well, I guess Susie called my mom yesterday to ask if W and I would be interested in adopting this baby. Haylee is due on February 15th with a little girl. My sister's due date is 5 days later.  

I called back my mom and talked to her for a bit. I said we would be interested, but it's not something I'm going to get my hopes up about yet. It doesn't sound like Haylee has made that decision yet. But, it's definitely interesting and somewhat exciting. 

In other interesting news, it looks like my period showed up this morning. It has only been 5 days since my retrieval so I'm going to email Dr. Br.averman to see what he has to say. It seems crazy to start back up already. I'm also a little bummed because I wanted to try the endometrial biopsy this cycle. We don't even know what ended up being frozen. They will be freezing our embryos today and tomorrow. 

So those are the updates! Throwing up in my car, W's grandma not doing well, a possible adoption??!!, and my period. How's that for variety?

IVF #4 CD 16- Fertilization Report

So I got the call this morning from my clinic. Of our 23 eggs they were able to ICSI 19 of them. Of those 19, 13 fertilized (68%). I'm elated that we have 13 lucky little embryos growing. I know that more could still fertilize because it happened last time, so we will see. 

They told me I won't hear again about them unless I want to call. They will freeze the embryos on day 5/6 and I can call if I want to get more information from the embryologist at that time. 

I'm feeling much better today than I was last night. I didn't sleep great because I was super uncomfortable. I weighed myself before bed and was up 4 pounds from the clinic. I can't say my scale is the same as theirs, but my stomach was definitely distended. I weighed myself again this morning and was down 3 pounds. I feel much better. The lupron trigger shot is amazing in comparison!! I can't believe how much better I feel this time around. I almost feel like I could have gone to work today, but I'm glad to be home relaxing and taking it easy.

I'm glad we have the next few weeks to relax and not worry about anything IVF related. I can get my body back to normal and start feeling better before we transfer any embryos. 

Keep growing little ones! I have such a good feeling about this cycle.

IVF #4 CD 15- Catching Up

I haven't blogged in the past few days because things have been a bit crazy and I've just been too exhausted. I returned to my clinic on Tuesday since I wasn't ready to trigger Monday. Things looked much better and I had about 20 measurable follicles. The NP was quite sure I would trigger that day and gave me her cell number so I could confirm things once I heard from Br.averman's office.

Sure enough, I was told to trigger and my retrieval was set for 8:30 on Thursday (today) morning. On Tuesday my estradiol levels had jumped to 6115 from 4537 the day before. They wrote me a prescription for Dostinex to help prevent OHSS.

I triggered Tuesday night after book club dinner with the girls. It was so nice to see them and laugh a lot (as is always the case around them). I took a 30 unit dose of Lupron and was instructed to return to my clinic following day to check LH and progesterone levels. I guess this was to be sure the Lupron trigger worked. As far as I know, everything was good because I didn't hear otherwise.

Yesterday W and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary. He bought me flowers that were just like my wedding bouquet and took me to dinner where we had our rehearsal dinner. It was really good and nice to spend time together. In addition, he refinished and painted an old window that had lots of window panes and put wedding photos in it for decoration on our bedroom wall. It looks really nice and I can't wait to hang it up.

Since I recently read the book Gone Girl I had the idea of traditional wedding gifts. On the third year it is leather. I bought him a table saw, a new leather belt, a leather bathroom travel bag, and some caramel chocolate squares.

Unfortunately, because I was so tired, I came home from dinner and fell asleep a little before 9. It did feel pretty fantastic to get all that sleep.

This morning we got up early and were at the clinic by 7:45. The nurse helping with the retrieval was very nice and my favorite NP also came in and listened to my heart and lungs and wished me good luck. When the anesthesiologist came in he told me there was a nationwide shortage on propofol so they were going to use something else.

Dr. Gr.eene came in and talked to me. He said he was committed to getting every egg and that I wouldn't remember anything. We talked about the freeze all option and he was super optimistic about it. He told me he recently wrote a blog post about it and that there was an article in the WSJ about it last week (a blogger friend had shared with me and I read it.) I asked him abut the uterine scratching that was mentioned in the article and he gave me further details and said he also blogged about that. The scratching is basically an endometrial biopsy. It's definitely something I'm going to ask Dr. Br.averman about. If we are planning the transfer next month we would do the endometrial biopsy in the next week or so. Here is a link to the WSJ article: Article

Retrieval really sucked today. Although I was out of it, I felt a lot and was in a lot of pain during. Although I don't remember complaining of the pain, W said I did at least 10 times. I'm feeling so much better now than I was at that time. I'm uncomfortable and moving slowly, but planning to take tomorrow off from work. I also have the whole weekend to recover. 

So....the number of eggs retrieved? 23!!! I'm pretty pleased about that number but know they won't all be mature. I will get the fert report tomorrow, so I'm hoping we get a good number of embryos.

IVF #4 CD 12- The Final Stretch

Today W joined me for my appointment. The NP measured my right side first and I thought for sure we would trigger tonight. Then she went over to my underachieving left side and the follicles were a bit smaller. On the left side I had 2x13 mm, 2x14 mm, 3x15 mm, and 2x16 mm. On the right there were: 1x11 mm, 1x13 mm, 1x14 mm, 3x16 mm, 2x17 mm, and 2x19 mm. Obviously not all of these are going to be mature at retrieval, but I'm happy with how things are progressing.

Since my clinic was only going to be open for a half day today the NP said it was important I call her ASAP to let her know if we would trigger tonight or not. She gave me her cell phone number and told me to call when I knew. I asked her if she would trigger me tonight and she said she would probably hold off another day, especially since we are planning to freeze everything. She also said it was important to find out from Dr. Br.averman on what day he wants the embryos frozen. I assumed it would be day 5, but she said sometimes the preference is on day 1. I will put in an email to Dr. B to see what he has to say. 

Once I got in the car I emailed the nurse at Dr. B's office and told her I needed to know about triggering ASAP although I was pretty sure I knew the answer. She got back to me fairly quickly and said we were going to hold off another day. I called my clinic and scheduled another appointment for tomorrow.

Based on how I felt this weekend I knew there was going to be a big jump in my estradiol levels. My sense of smell became out of control and I started feeling much more uncomfortable. I'm officially to the walking super slow phase of this cycle. Today my estradiol was 4537, up from 1094 on Friday. We are definitely planning a Lupron trigger and freeze all based on my levels today. They kept my Gonal-F the same and reduced my Menopur to 1 vial.

I finished my crap-tastic book for book club over the weekend. I can't believe people like to read stuff like that, but oh well. It's just not for me. Promptly upon completion I shopped in the Kindle store for a new read. I came across a book called The Light Between Oceans. So far it is amazing. It was so refreshing to start reading a book with good writing! Our book club meets tomorrow and I don't think I'm going to have a whole lot of input. 

We (and by we I mostly mean W) crafted some Halloween decorations for our porch. We made some ghosts and a spider web and put out orange lights for the porch lights. Today we went to the pumpkin patch and got a bunch of pumpkins. I have a thing about white pumpkins since I had them for decoration at our wedding. They didn't have any good big white ones but I got a few small ones. 

We have a freeze warning for tonight and so we covered our raised flower bed full of dahlias with some old sheets, and boy is it attractive! I'm going to be so sad to see my flowers go, they have been so beautiful for months. 

In other news I heard that one of the girls I went to graduate school with is really sick. She is on a ventilator in the hospital in very critical condition. Some friends started a page on Facebook for updates about her. It sounds like last night was really bad. She is in my thoughts and I'm asking that anyone else keep her in your thoughts too. They think she may have an extremely rare neurological condition that has no known cure. I really hope she pulls through. Something like that really puts things in perspective.

IVF #4 CD 9- Follicle Growth

Things are progressing well. My appointment on Friday was the quickest one ever. I was in and out of my clinic in under a half hour. It was amazing to not have to sit forever in the waiting room. 

All of my follicles are growing and my meds were kept the same. I emailed the nurse at Dr. Br.averman's and asked about the trigger. She said she was hoping for significant growth over the weekend with a possible trigger on Monday or Tuesday. A Monday trigger would mean my retrieval would be on our anniversary, so I'm hoping for Tuesday. Also, I don't think I will be ready on Monday based on how things looked yesterday. 

It seems my left ovary is lagging behind a little bit. On the left side I had 7 measurable follicles. They were: 1x9 mm, 5x10 mm, and 1x13 mm. On the right I also had 7 measurable follicles. They were: 2x11 mm, 3x12 mm, and 2x14 mm. My estradiol had a nice jump and a little more than tripled from Wednesday. 

I'm so bloated and getting much more uncomfortable. I still have been feeling nauseous (I think from the dexa) and have been getting headaches. On Friday I felt so crappy I ended up having to cancel all of my afternoon therapy sessions in order to lay at home in bed. I pretty much feel okay when I don't do anything. 

I stated another quilt for my friend who is due with a baby boy in January. She is a friend I met through yoga and conceived through IVF. I got a ton done of the quilt done, and I love the fabric and design. I'm pretty impressed that I was able to teach myself how to quilt. I never took a class and just got some books and taught myself. 

Otherwise, not much is going on. My FIL is here today helping my hubby do some house projects and I'm just laying low and relaxing. Pretty exciting, I know!

IVF #4 CD 7-Trust and More Cats

Today I had another monitoring appointment. I am overwhelmed by how busy the office seems. There practically weren't any places to sit this morning. I waited for quite a bit but was able to do some reading. I'm trying to power read this book for book club and think I will be successful by Tuesday when we plan to meet and talk about it. The downside? It's not very good so that makes it harder to get through. 

My blood pressure was pretty normal today but my pulse was 108. Talked about stressed! For the ultrasound I had one new little follicle join the party to equal 13 total at this point all ranging from 7-12 mm. I asked her about estradiol levels and she said for each person each cycle is different. I told her we had added in Ganirelix the night before and she seemed a bit surprised. When I asked her about it her response was, "there's more than one way to skin a cat." Basically. there's no right or wrong answer as to what to do in an IVF cycle.  

My estradiol levels came in pretty low again today and didn't double. I'm hoping this is just from adding the Ganirelix, but I'm not going to lie, I'm a bit stressed about it. I emailed Dr. Br.averman and asked about the possibility of a HCG trigger with a fresh transfer rather than the lupron trigger and freeze all. He said we will wait until the day of to decide since estradiol levels can jump towards the end. I guess I need to work on getting some Neupogen into my possession so we are prepared in case. I'm having a hard time trusting that everything is going to work out. I'm not sure why I always seem to have this issue. I can't trust that the right decisions are being made. I really don't understand why my Gonal-F wasn't increased when my estradiol didn't even come close to doubling. I just hope everything works out.  

I received my updated calendar and was told to add an extra vial of Menopur in tonight. I didn't see any Gonal-F on the calendar and didn't know what to do. I emailed the nurse back and she responded about 20 minutes prior to my shot time that it must have gotten cut off by accident. I'm definitely starting to feel super bloated and have been insanely thirsty. 

On to the topic of cats, once again. Today I was working with Owen (a 4-year-old twin who was born on Christmas) and we were playing a game. In the game at times you had to take a card and do what it said. Owen picked a card that said "stretch like a cat." 

O: I don't know how to stretch like a cat

Me: What about Molly (their cat). How does she stretch?

O: I don't know. She always hides under Mommy's bed and I don't see her. 

Well played Molly, well played.

IVF #4 CD 5- Monitoring and Hotdogs

Yesterday was a bit of a marathon day. Adding an hour and a half of driving plus an appointment just makes that happen. I usually book my appointments for super early, but the earliest they had available was 8:45. 

I arrived on time and was taken back shortly after. The nurse was very friendly but struggled multiple times with the blood pressure cuff. This was actually good because it gave me some time to relax and the reading ended up being normal. I have such anxiety induced increased blood pressure at that office. My pulse still measured 100 yesterday. She then drew my blood, glanced at the calendar I brought and left the room for the NP to come in. 

The NP was super friendly and good. I was surprised because she has been a bit difficult about different things since she found out that Dr. Br.averman was going to manage this cycle. She asked a few questions and then started the ultrasound. There were lots of little follicles that she measures (12 to be exact) all at under 10 mm. She asked if we were going to be doing any extra procedures (infusions, etc.) and I said the only difference was a Lupron trigger and freeze all. From that she said, "So he is planing to hyperstimulate you?" I replied by saying it happens every time anyway. She didn't have any response to that. You can't deny that fact. 

From there we talked briefly about meds and she sent me on my way. I then went and dropped off my billing paperwork at my bosses house and got a little breakfast. 

When I asked a kid yesterday what a monkey eats he thought about it for a minute and told me hot dogs. Last week I'm pretty sure he said chicken. This was all while he was torturing 4 baby kittens, carrying them around and forcing them to sit on his lap. You should see the scratches on his hands. 

He has 4 kittens in this picture.

My estradiol came in a little lower than usual yesterday at 191 and my initial reaction was to stress about it. From there I waited until almost 6:30 to get instructions from the nurse. I'm trying to realize it's a different cycle. We want things to go differently, even if it means my hormone levels are lower. They didn't increase my dosage but did add in 1 vial on Menopur last night. I go back Wednesday to see how things are progressing. This is the lowest my estradiol has ever been at this point but there are the highest number of follicles. I'll be curious to see how it all works out. What I do know? It's completely out of my control!