The trigger shot...

The night finally came upon us and I was ready for my shot but Phil, not so much! It started at dinner when he was so nervous! He actually told me let's not talk about it, ha ha.  I was actually not nervous at all for it but I find it adorable that he was.

Here we go...meds are ready for mixing!

Next step was to pull out the liquid to add to the powder for the medication...

 then add the liquid into the powder and mix...draw the mixed medication back out into the needle...

now time to switch to a different needle...

Shot is ready to go... during this time I was icing my injection site (upper right quadrant of my booty)!

INJECTION TIME....EXACTLY 9 PM!

........

......

Sorry you won't be seeing this part!

Count down was given...and I felt nothing! I actually had to look behind me to make sure it went in. The ice did it's job and numbed the area. Yay! All done and look at this face of relief!

Definite Times!

I received a phone call from the nurse today!  We are all set for our procedure on Friday.  Tonight is the big shot at 9 pm...pictures will come - of the needle no booty, lol!  Then we are scheduled for our procedure Phil goes in at 6 am, a large needle extraction from a place we dare not speak of, I am way nervous for him!  My procedure is at 7 am, mine is an actual surgery so I'm a little nervous but I am becoming a pro at these little surgeries since I just had a laparoscopy surgery last October.  I'm in good hands.  We both have to be at the Torrance office at 5:30 am.  Way so early, but as our nurse said at least we won't hit traffic! 

Please lots of prayers, good thoughts and fingers crossed!  We will keep you posted on how things go. 

Are they growing?

We had our second ultrasound to look at our follicles this morning.  Unfortunately, Phil had to work so I was going alone until I lucked out and my cousin Amber was able to go with me.  It's so funny, I was so nervous on the drive to the appointment.  I think knowing everything is so close to happening plus we have had some exciting things on the home front also so it all just hit me at once!   I was just nervous as could be.  My cousin happened to be in the area because her son goes to preschool right near my doctor's office so she met me at the office.  No joke the second she pulled up so much anxiety went away, just having someone with me to distract my brain was so helpful...thanks Am!

Amber and I entered the lobby waited a few minutes and then we proceeded back to the ultrasound room.  I made a pit stop in the bathroom because boy oh boy does having 8 follicles fill your lower body up quickly.  I think it's preparation for the days to come of peeing every 5 seconds while pregnant, lol!  For last 2 days the pain of cramping has been getting worse as it can be expected so I assumed that everything was moving forward as it should be. 

The doctor came in and started the ultrasound.  Looks like everything is good, the 2 follicles on the right aren't growing as much as they had hoped and the 8 on left are now 9, and a few are almost to the measurements they would like.  She decided to give me one more dose of meds so that hopefully everything will grow even larger but she doesn't want the ones that are almost there to mature too much.  It's such a scientific process, of course, but I am glad they know exactly what they are doing.  The doctor believes I will have about 9 follicles, however, some may not contain mature eggs and some may not contain eggs at all.  She is hoping to get at least 6 mature eggs that they will be able to fertilize.  I was sent from there to get my blood drawn to double check my hormone levels because she isn't sure why things aren't maturing as they should.  Of course she said not worry, so I'm not going to.

We left with a new calendar, with a few blanks in it but here is how the next few days go.  Tomorrow Wednesday - shot in the morning, meds as usual no night shot, wait for a call to see when I give myself the HCG shot (which I believe releases the eggs for retrieval), Thursday just lunch meds which are prenatal vitamin and steroid, and then Friday will be egg retrieval day!  Amy showed me how to mix the HCG med for the shot that releases the eggs.  It is a huge needle, a lot of meds and this time it goes into my rear end!!!!  OUCH!  But I am ready for this!

I came home and shared all of the paperwork with Phil.  I found him hunched over the kitchen counter with this worried look on his face...he said he is so nervous to give me this shot.  Lately, the shots in my stomach have been burning and he hates to see me in pain, so sweet right?  Ha ha....  This one will hurt there's no doubt about it but it's for a great cause!

First look at follicles!

Good morning...we just finished up at our ultrasound appt for this week. I will say the last day I have really felt more twangs (cramps) then usual so I assumed my ovaries were doing their job producing lots of follicles. Just a preface for where my thoughts are, we decided to go with this route of infertility journey because we can't get any swimmers. I have had 2 children and 1 miscarriage so 3 pregnancies and 2 of those I was on birth control, so I'm thinking my body knows how to be fertile. But I forget that my last child was born 9 years ago and I am getting older, I still feel like I'm 20 something but I guess I'm not, lol! Anyway, today when we went in for our ultrasound I figured I would have tons of follicles on both sides.

With that said, I had 2 follicles in my right ovary measuring about 10 mm, and 6 in my left ovary measuring from 8 mm to 12 mm. I guess I was a little shocked, this didn't seem like very many. The doctor must have noticed my disappointment because she quickly began taking more positive in what she was explaining. She told us that the follicles need to measure between 18 mm and 20 mm, so we continue meds until Tuesday when we come in for another ultrasound. She thinks at that point we will be good for my next shot and egg retrieval on Thursday.

Now, trust me 8 follicles is great, that's 8 precious little opportunities to create the beautiful baby God has planned for us. I had a moment of reality with the fact that this is completely still in his hands and I have to continue to pray and allow him to guide this journey. He knows what he had in store for our family and my trust needs to be continuously in him. Easier said than done of course because I am definitely a control freak! But since this has started I told myself it was truly a journey God would control, he has allowed us to get through this financially, he has been by my side not letting the meds make me crazy and hewill also guide the doctors hands and my body to what is best. Thank you God for giving us this day and eight opportunities ahead of us!

Newest shots!

I think it's been almost 2 weeks since I last blogged and tried introducing our blog to some family and friends. Hopefully in this post I can fill you in on the most recent activities of our journey. We started our first set of shots about 2 weeks ago. These we did for 10 days straight, every morning between 630 and 730 am. We had smooth sailing for most of these. It wasn't too bad at all. I had one day, I believe it was the fourth shot that my body had a reaction! Here's a picture....

Please ignore the close up of my stomach, just not a picture anyone wants to see of themself, lol!

This only happened this one time, we have no clue why or what was different and of course it was Saturday so couldn't call the nurse and I didn't think it was an issue to call the doctor about. The weirdest part was that area turned into a bruise.

Other than this one incident everything was good. Phil was great about doing the shots with me everyday and staying on top of the meds so I didn't have to think.  The side affects weren't too bad. I was getting a few headaches, extremely tired and I think this made me a little irritable at times but nothing out of the ordinary because trust me I have my fair share of irritability!

We went back to the doctor last week on Wednesday, this was for an ultrasound, blood draw and learning the newest shot regimen. It was another exciting appointment for us, I think we just enjoy spending the time together in the middle of the week. They called us back to get my blood drawn first, this was to make sure I'm not pregnant and check my level of hormones. The lupron was used to shut down my system, after looking at the ultrasound the doctor said we were perfect, everything looked quiet! Onto the next step...

The nurse showed us how to do the next set of medications and we got a week calendar. I now am doing a shot in the morning still the same lupron but smaller dose, baby aspirin with breakfast, prenatal vitamin at lunch along with a steroid then another shot at night. I know, tons of drugs, ha ha but well worth it! The nurse explained the meds to me but it went in one ear and out the other, that's why I have Phil, he understands all of it! And of course he did. You have to mix the meds, then fill one syringe then get more meds with another syringe, and add those two together, etc, etc... and this is done every night for this shot!

 These are all the needles and meds! Crazy if you ask me!

I have been doing this regiment  for one week now and have another doctor appt this Friday to see how we are progressing.These medications are supposed to make me very irritable but honestly it has been a great week! I will say the headaches are miserable and my stomach is extremely polka dotted but other than that we are good to go!  it has been fun toshare this journey not only with Phil but the kids too. They have watched me get the shot acouple times, asked how I have been feeling and have been genuinely interested and curious. Looking forward to what's to come after this weeks doctor appt!

Here is my polka dot belly...it's even worse now and the picture doesn't show it all!

I just can't sleep!

Oh my goodness...I am the best at waking up in the morning to the alarm, pressing snooze and then immediately falling back into a deep sleep!  But not this morning.   Today is my first shot!  Like I had said I really am not afraid of needles at all but I guess just the excitement and anxiety of not knowing if it would hurt was why I couldn't sleep. 

Phil and I decided we would get up and get a little ready before we did the shots.  You have to do the shots within the same one hour window each day so we didn't want to do that too early in case we ever sleep in accidentally.  I got up, tried distracting myself and finally said can we please just get this over with it.  But my ever so calm and level headed husband giggled and kept getting ready.  After I was dressed and Phil was pretty much ready we were ready to do this.  Here we go step by step...

 

Alcohol wipe the area....

 

 

Fill the vile with medicine...

 

 

Ready to go now...

 

I would show a picture of the actual needle going in but I didn't think I could do that at the exact time so we did a video and I don't even know if you can add that to a blog!  

 

 

Voila...the tiny needle prick mark in my tummy!   Actually it was not painful at all.  A little itchy after but nothing else.

 

 

And here is that nerdy couple again with their silly grins of excitement!

 

There will be many more days of shots but we are ready and willing.  We can't wait to keep on this journey and see where it takes us!  I forgot to mention for those of you who know we bought a new house that we have been waiting on opening escrow because it's a short sale, well we got an email yesterday that today we should have everything for that too!  Haven't received anything yet but I think it is so funny how we had news on the first doctor appointment day!  We are just on an amazing adventure!

 



First real doctor's appointment!

Here we are headed to our first doctor's appointment!

We are such nerds!

 

 

Phil and I met with Leslie, who is our head nurse for our IVF clinic.  Amy is our personal nurse but she only works Mondays and Wednesdays so since our first real appointment was today on a Tuesday it was handled with Leslie.  This was the first time Leslie met Phil, and of course like most people do, they hit it off just going back and forth with sarcasm.  Normally, this would annoy me just a little because you all have to understand, my amazing husband is a smart a@# most of the time and it's funny however, all of our children have now developed his behavior and being around smart booties all day long gets exhausting!  Ha Ha!  SO we walk in the room to sit down and Leslie gets out her fake stomach, a needle and some sodium chloride to show us how to do the first set of shots.  She begins with "have you ever given yourself shots before?'  And of course Phil chimes in with yeah back in the day with your crack habit, and Leslie proceeds to say I know I couldn't kick my Heroin addiction either but this is a different kind of pricking!  Needless to say, those of you that know me, know that I am the goodie goodie that never touched any drugs so I was so glad the nurse just rolled with my husband's humor! 

 

 

Leslie proceeded to explain and show us how much and where to put the medicine.  I begin on 15U of Lupron given in the morning with a tiny needle, very similar to an insulin needle.  It didn't look that painful at all!  I really don't get affected by shots, it's more the side effects of meds that always gets me.  And of course this one has it's fair share of side effects; mood swings (this is the one the whole family keeps commenting on, I guess I must already be MOODY, lol), headaches, and hot flashes.  I should be able to handle those just fine.  We think we will be good to go for our first dose tomorrow morning. 

 

 

After meeting with Leslie, she sent us over to Maria the financial side of this process.  Yes, it is not free to handle this procedure.  Now, when we set out on this journey, I prayed and fasted because I really wanted to rely on God to help us along the way.  I am what you would nicely call frugal, but most just call me cheap!  I really don't like to spend money on much, especially on myself.  However, after prayer and a few excel sheets of preparation I knew that with hard work we could really reach the goal.  We are fortunate enough to have an insurance plan that pays for half of the procedure and a "side" (I say side because it is definitely full time nowadays) catering and event planning business that would help us reach our half goal.  After a month and a half of putting money aside...I never really counted it regularly I just kept it away from all other money, having to take some out because you know things always come up and then put some more in sometimes a little (literally $5 a few times) and sometimes a lot...well we were only short $450.00 of our goal amount!  I was absolutely so proud of us, it has been a rough month of a lot of extra work, which for my husband and I meant working 12 to 15 days straight him harder than me I would say because he actually has a full time job as well.  My full time job is taking care of the kids which of course can be a lot but I think it has way more rewards than his desk job!  We have another savings account that we were able to pull the last little bit from and move forward with the process!  Definitely so rewarding and exciting.  We are now able to relax and enjoy the day to day ride with you all! 

 

That is our box of meds that we had to take in...so that they could inventory that we had everything we needed! 

Don't you just love our reflections...you see the excitement grins on our faces!



Including the kids...

I think I may have already talked about the kids here or there but today we decided we would completely include the kids in our process.  Now our oldest 3 who are 21, 17 and 12 we had already told that we were starting this process.  We explained a few things that they asked about but just wanted them to know ahead of time because we know we could need help along the way if I am not feeling well from medications or if I get a little moody!  However, after receiving this box in the mail...

We figured it would be harder to hide a lot from them and that we wanted them to enjoy the journey with us.  We have always been a very open family, we try to communicate with the kids as much as we can, of course, we aren't perfect but we try!  I know there are probably a lot of mixed feelings on this because our youngest girls are both 9 so we didn't give them details of anything but tried explaining things in "kid" terms. We went a little scientific but nothing crazy.  So funny though our middle son said ''What are you saying they are going to get dad pregnant! This is way too much scientific stuff for me!"  Kids gotta love their exaggerations on everything.  They were all very excited and concerned for us.  We wanted to be honest about the chance that this may not work but include them in the journey no matter the outcome because we love the fact that they can get excited with us.  They were all worried about me taking shots but I told them I am in great hands with Daddy.