Egg retrieval was originally projected for today, the 24th. Based on the ED's response to meds, it was moved to tomorrow, the 25th. I am actually pretty excited about it being the 25th, as I see it as a lucky day.
You see, my aunt's 50th birthday is that day:o)
You say, a relative's birthday, no big, but wait. . .
This particular aunt struggled with infertility for years and eventually turned to IVF. You wanna know what happened?
It worked on the first try!!!!!!!!!!
And that is exactly what is going to happen for T & R:o)
I was lucky enough to get pregnant easily, but I know several who weren't so lucky. To my friends and family who have struggled to conceive, you are a big part of my inspiration. Every time I think about the pain and knots to come from the lovely PIO, I remember that there are people out there, including T & R who would be willing to endure even more for that precious gift. And so, I prepare to start phase three of the meds.
Saturday, I will get a very short break from shots. I will start Progesterone support with the first vaginal insert (lovingly nicknamed "vag rockets" by surros) at bedtime.
Sunday, I will do the inserts 3/day, adding PIO (Progesterone in Oil) IM injection, and Medrol (Steroid).
I will continue the handful of vitamins daily, estrodiol tablets (thrice/day) and Delestrogen IM injection every third day.
Progesterone is known as the pregnancy hormone and helps maintain the endometrium (uturine lining) and increases the receptivity of your endometrium for implantation of an embryo.
The Medrol, I believe, is used to keep my body from rejecting the embryos and prevent any swelling that may be caused by the transfer procedure. I will only take it for 6 days.
The estrogen and progesterone will continue with possible adjustments depending on my bloodwork until somewhere between 9 and 14 weeks gestation. At around 8 weeks, the placenta will take over production of estrogen and progesterone, which they will see in my blood work and then release me:o) Remember, I am 2 weeks pregnant tomorrow:o)
Friday, August 24, 2012
Pictures, as Promised
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| This is everything laid out ready to go. |
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| The top one is the larger needle, used to get the Delestrogen out of the vial. The middle one is the smaller needle that goes in my arse (they are both 1.5 inches long for reference's sake). The bottom one is used for the subQ Lupron injection (DH calls it "training wheels"). |
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| This is a farther out view of all 3. |
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Getting Closer to T-Day
Sorry, I didn't take pics of the needles, yet. The second one wasn't as fun as the first, so we have been focusing on getting in the groove and last night's booty shot was the best yet. Let's just say that I have spent the last week wondering what I got myself into. The Estrogen injections are only every third day and the Progesterone shots, which I will be starting soon, will be every day (I think) until about 10 weeks gestation. I have been trying to keep my focus on the goal: Putting a baby (or two) in the arms of two wonderful men!! With the support of my surro sisters and last night's success, I am feeling better about this:o)
I had my 4th monitoring appointment this morning. My lining measured 11 mm and the Dr. said it looked beautiful:o) I just talked to the nurse from the RE's office and everything with me is great and I am to continue meds as I have been. Her guess is that the retrieval will be a couple of days later than originally projected, since the ED's follicles were a little smaller than desired at her appointment yesterday. She has an appointment tomorrow where it will be determined if she will be ready for retrieval Friday, or if she will go back for another appointment Friday and have retrieval Sunday or Monday. For now, we wait.
We are going to be staying with my aunt and uncle. It will be great to have their support and be in a familiar place. We are taking DD with because it is too much to ask my mom to watch her for multiple days and deal with daycare (which she has been crying when I leave her, which is heart wrenching- good thing she seems to change her tune pretty quickly). My aunt will be able to watch DD when we go for the transfer and we will be able to spend time with her other than that!
I had my 4th monitoring appointment this morning. My lining measured 11 mm and the Dr. said it looked beautiful:o) I just talked to the nurse from the RE's office and everything with me is great and I am to continue meds as I have been. Her guess is that the retrieval will be a couple of days later than originally projected, since the ED's follicles were a little smaller than desired at her appointment yesterday. She has an appointment tomorrow where it will be determined if she will be ready for retrieval Friday, or if she will go back for another appointment Friday and have retrieval Sunday or Monday. For now, we wait.
We are going to be staying with my aunt and uncle. It will be great to have their support and be in a familiar place. We are taking DD with because it is too much to ask my mom to watch her for multiple days and deal with daycare (which she has been crying when I leave her, which is heart wrenching- good thing she seems to change her tune pretty quickly). My aunt will be able to watch DD when we go for the transfer and we will be able to spend time with her other than that!
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Meds and Monitoring
The Lupron shots have been a breeze. I really haven't had any side effects. DH thinks I have been a little grouchy, but I think he has been a little grouchy between DD not sleeping normally and work stressing him out. Who knows. Either way, not too bad:o)
Last Thursday (the 2nd), I took my last BCP. AF graced me with her pesence Monday and I had my second monitoring appointment Tuesday. My endometrium (uterine lining) measured 2 mm, which was perfect, since it was shedding. The nurse called Tuesday afternoon and told me I was clear to start Estrogen support and vitamins. Estrogen support consists of Estrace (a pill taken orally) twice a day and an Intramuscular (IM) Delestrogen injection every third day (starting yesterday). The Estrogen is used to thicken my lining for transfer. The vitamins are a prenatal thrice daily plus DHA, Folate and another once per day. The injection wasn't bad at all. It took a little figuring out because you use one, bigger needle to withdraw the medication from the vial into the syringe (because the medication is thicker), then you switch needles to a smaller one for the injection. I will try to take pictures of the needles for my next post, so you can see what is going into my poor booty.
I have my next monitoring appointment Tuesday. They will check my lining and Estrodiol level. The goal is for my lining to be 10 mm or more and show a triple stripe by transfer. Possibly by my appointment, but I will have time if it isn't there yet.
Last Thursday (the 2nd), I took my last BCP. AF graced me with her pesence Monday and I had my second monitoring appointment Tuesday. My endometrium (uterine lining) measured 2 mm, which was perfect, since it was shedding. The nurse called Tuesday afternoon and told me I was clear to start Estrogen support and vitamins. Estrogen support consists of Estrace (a pill taken orally) twice a day and an Intramuscular (IM) Delestrogen injection every third day (starting yesterday). The Estrogen is used to thicken my lining for transfer. The vitamins are a prenatal thrice daily plus DHA, Folate and another once per day. The injection wasn't bad at all. It took a little figuring out because you use one, bigger needle to withdraw the medication from the vial into the syringe (because the medication is thicker), then you switch needles to a smaller one for the injection. I will try to take pictures of the needles for my next post, so you can see what is going into my poor booty.
I have my next monitoring appointment Tuesday. They will check my lining and Estrodiol level. The goal is for my lining to be 10 mm or more and show a triple stripe by transfer. Possibly by my appointment, but I will have time if it isn't there yet.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Cycle Calendar
The last 2 weeks have been a little crazy. Before we left on vacation, I got my box of meds!
I had my first monitoring appointment this morning, which involved a blood draw to check my Estrodiol (E2) level and a vaginal ultrasound to check my uterine lining, ovaries and follicles. The Dr. and staff were pretty nice and I really love that it is so close to my house:D I should hear from the nurse this evening to start Lupron. It is a very small needle, injected sub-cutaneously into the fat of the lower belly. Lupron is used to supress my naturally-ocurring hormones, so they can be controlled through the meds and to prevent ovulation. Hopefully, Lupron will take it easy on me:o) I have my next monitoring appointment next Tuesday, the 7th.
We have a projected egg retrieval date of August 24th, which would give us a 3 day transfer on Aug 27 or 5 day transfer on Aug 29. Of course that date is dependent on how the ED (mostly her) and I respond to meds. I start a week earlier than she does, so I am ready to go whenever she is.
Saturday, we enjoyed a "Skype date" with our IPs. It was awesome to get to talk to them in that casual setting and they got to "meet" our daughter!
I will leave you with a picture of my sweet girl from our vacation to San Diego. I think she loves the beach almost as much as her daddy does:o)
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Things are Moving
We got the final draft of the contract tonight, so after we initial the heck out of it and sign it, that is done! The ED is med and legal cleared and our legal clearance should be sent out this week!
This week I had to get a blood test to see if I have enough immunity for Hep B and, of course, my number was 9 when it needs to be greater than 10:( No biggee really, I just had to go get a single dose booster and we are good to go (though for a few hours I thought I was going to have to get the accelerated version with all 3 doses in 21 days):)
Hopefully we will get our cycle calendars very soon, which means shots will be right around the corner. I don't know exactly when, but I expect it will be sometime the last week of July! Surrogates have got to be some of the few people that get excited and want to celebrate the start of daily injections;o)
We will be on vacation that week, but hopefully the Lupron (which I think is the first thing I do) won't make me feel too cruddy. As I start the meds, I will try to get and provide here the purpose of each drug.
We also have a Skype date with R and T after we get back, so that should be fun:o)
Hopefully I will have more news soon!
This week I had to get a blood test to see if I have enough immunity for Hep B and, of course, my number was 9 when it needs to be greater than 10:( No biggee really, I just had to go get a single dose booster and we are good to go (though for a few hours I thought I was going to have to get the accelerated version with all 3 doses in 21 days):)
Hopefully we will get our cycle calendars very soon, which means shots will be right around the corner. I don't know exactly when, but I expect it will be sometime the last week of July! Surrogates have got to be some of the few people that get excited and want to celebrate the start of daily injections;o)
We will be on vacation that week, but hopefully the Lupron (which I think is the first thing I do) won't make me feel too cruddy. As I start the meds, I will try to get and provide here the purpose of each drug.
We also have a Skype date with R and T after we get back, so that should be fun:o)
Hopefully I will have more news soon!
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Onward and Upward
Since the official match a few things have happened. We have started communication with the IFs (R and T), agreed on a transfer window and signed the legal retainer.
Since we kinda missed out on the getting to know you, casual part of the match meeting, I was really excited to get contact information and think about how we can develop our relationship with the guys from so far away. When I first started this blog, I did a Getting to Know Me post. I thought it would be fun for DH, R and T to answer the questions, as an ice breaker, of sorts. It ended up being a really fun way to find out a little bit about each other, even if they are silly, trivial facts:o)
I also gave R and T the address for my blog and asked them how they felt about it. As you can see, they OKed the use of their first initials, but are very private people, so I will respect that and limit the specific information about them:o)
While we wait for the fun to begin, we hope to have a couple of Skype dates, since we all agree that the more comfortable we are with each other on Transfer Day, the better it will be.
In my last post, I mentioned that I thought we would be aiming for a late July/early August transfer, but as R and T looked at their August calendar, between work, personal stuff and those silly olympics (;o)), August wasn't looking so flexible, which is what the transfer window will be. So, they asked us if we would be OK with shooting for early September. Honestly, that was better for us anyways, as DH is taking the PE (the big engineers' licensing test) April 12th, 2013. A July 27th egg retrieval would have given us a singleton due date of April 19th. We could have made it work, but it would not have been ideal. After GG talked to the ED, we bumped it up a smidge, to the last week of August, since she is in school and September would not have worked for her. Overall, I was super thrilled with the way this discussion took place. R and T asked us first, before taking it to GG and GG contacted me to make sure I was in the loop, so it was double information, but WAY better than no information and those open lines of communication among all involved are what will make this successful:o) We have a vacation planned for mid-late October, so hopefully, we will be able to work around that. The slightly earlier date is actually better for that, and should have me delivering after hubby takes his test, even if it is twins.
We have officially started the legal part (the surrogate agreement/contract). I expect this to be a lot of hurry up, wait, hurry up, wait. When the ball is in our court we will hurry up, read, ask questions and when it is in the IFs court, we will sit and wait and wonder. This whole process is very fascinating to me. I am very curious to see this agreement, how long it is and what it includes. There are so many moving parts and it is amazing how it all comes together to create such a miracle!
DH and I celebrated our 8 year wedding Anniversary this week! I feel like I haven't included enough pictures in my blog, so I will leave you with a couple from that beautiful day, 8 years ago!
Since we kinda missed out on the getting to know you, casual part of the match meeting, I was really excited to get contact information and think about how we can develop our relationship with the guys from so far away. When I first started this blog, I did a Getting to Know Me post. I thought it would be fun for DH, R and T to answer the questions, as an ice breaker, of sorts. It ended up being a really fun way to find out a little bit about each other, even if they are silly, trivial facts:o)
I also gave R and T the address for my blog and asked them how they felt about it. As you can see, they OKed the use of their first initials, but are very private people, so I will respect that and limit the specific information about them:o)
While we wait for the fun to begin, we hope to have a couple of Skype dates, since we all agree that the more comfortable we are with each other on Transfer Day, the better it will be.
In my last post, I mentioned that I thought we would be aiming for a late July/early August transfer, but as R and T looked at their August calendar, between work, personal stuff and those silly olympics (;o)), August wasn't looking so flexible, which is what the transfer window will be. So, they asked us if we would be OK with shooting for early September. Honestly, that was better for us anyways, as DH is taking the PE (the big engineers' licensing test) April 12th, 2013. A July 27th egg retrieval would have given us a singleton due date of April 19th. We could have made it work, but it would not have been ideal. After GG talked to the ED, we bumped it up a smidge, to the last week of August, since she is in school and September would not have worked for her. Overall, I was super thrilled with the way this discussion took place. R and T asked us first, before taking it to GG and GG contacted me to make sure I was in the loop, so it was double information, but WAY better than no information and those open lines of communication among all involved are what will make this successful:o) We have a vacation planned for mid-late October, so hopefully, we will be able to work around that. The slightly earlier date is actually better for that, and should have me delivering after hubby takes his test, even if it is twins.
We have officially started the legal part (the surrogate agreement/contract). I expect this to be a lot of hurry up, wait, hurry up, wait. When the ball is in our court we will hurry up, read, ask questions and when it is in the IFs court, we will sit and wait and wonder. This whole process is very fascinating to me. I am very curious to see this agreement, how long it is and what it includes. There are so many moving parts and it is amazing how it all comes together to create such a miracle!
DH and I celebrated our 8 year wedding Anniversary this week! I feel like I haven't included enough pictures in my blog, so I will leave you with a couple from that beautiful day, 8 years ago!
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