Bloated, Hot, and Hopeful

Feeling a bit bloated (everything’s fine according to the ultrasound), experiencing hot flashes and night sweats, and trying to stay hopeful. Now 5 days past IUI I went to Dr. McDreamy’s office today for an ultrasound to make sure I don’t have OHSS and for a check of my Progesterone level, everything looks good. They gave me an intramuscular HcG shot to help my body make more Progesterone (their normal protocol not because my levels were bad) and told me to go in for a beta in 10 days if Aunt Flow hasn’t come yet. So now the 10 day wait begins.

All Snug in Their Eggs

At least that’s where we hope our swimmers are (at least one of them).

We drove to the big city bright and early (ok, dark and early) this morning for our IUI. It was pretty uneventful. There was one other couple there that we’d never seen before and they were pretty much looking stunned by the fact that two women were there and being extra friendly with the staff about the prospects of being mommies in the new year.

The IUI seems to have gone well. I swear the cathater went all of the way up to the fallopian tubes, ok it just felt like that. Afterwards we rested with Two rubbing my belly and us thinking and talking about good baby thoughts. Is it crazy to talk about what our children might be like? Does anyone else do that?

I start baby aspirin tonight, Prometrium on Thursday, and we go back for another ultrasound, a progesterone level check, and another shot of HcG on Friday. After that we wait 10 days for a beta.

Oh well, back to the red raspberry leaf tea and good fertilization thoughts.

Trigger Shots and Dreams

I have been feeling really tired and headachy the last couple of days and I’m pretty sure that it’s the Bravelle side effects at work so this morning I actually decided to sleep in. I woke up at 10 (in my own defense it was 3 when I went to bed) and had Two give me my trigger shot (she was still asleep too), but for some strange reason the new (glass) syringe, new medicine, or the fact that she was going to inject me while she was still pretty much asleep made me a bit tentative. I sucked it up and got through.

I decided to go back to sleep and immediately had a weird dream about my needing to give Two an injection of some kind and finding that she was not a welcome patient. She kept running from me and the box of alcohol pads had miraculously become a box of vaginal anti-itch cream! Weird!

Well tomorrow is the day for our IUI. There is something special about a Christmas Eve IUI, right?

Off to a Good Start

I am now on CD 10 and we have had 5 days of Letrozole and 3 days of Bravelle. I went in for my 2nd ultrasound today and there are 5 eggs ranging from 10-16 and uterine lining measuring 9. The doctor is pleased with the limited number of eggs this time around (no more baseball team numbers) so the plan is to do one more unit of Bravelle today to grow the 16ish eggs to 18+, do a trigger shot tomorrow at 10 a.m. and then do an IUI on Christmas Eve.

This has got to be a good omen, right. It’s our Christmas present. I’m feeling really good about this cycle.

And We’re Off (Again)!

Today we started the double dose of Letrozole and we have an appointment for our baseline ultrasound on Monday. Then (if all goes well on Monday) we’ll be starting the Bravelle on Tuesday.

On the homefront we are still staying positive and tonight when we were out stalking bookstores for nutrition books we actually took the plunge and bought a baby name book. We were just having too much fun looking up names and thinking about name pairing. Attitude is a big part of the process, right??

Waiting for Aunt Flow

We meet with Dr. McDreamy yesterday and we have decided to go with 5 days of Letrozole (CDs 2-6) and then start Bravelle on CD 7. We have also decided that this will most likely be our last medicated IUI cycle, after that we will start entertaining the idea of IVF.

I am feeling really positive about this cycle. Hopefully we won’t overproduce eggs again this time and we’ll be ready to do another IUI without insane risks.

We start again tomorrow

Tomorrow we go in for a consult with Dr. McDreamy to talk about the failed Bravelle cycle and to decide what to do next. We have enough Bravelle on hand for one more cycle so we are hoping that the nurse is right and that he’ll simply add Letrozole to the mix this time around.

Two and I have pretty much decided that if this cycle doesn’t take that we won’t keep throwing good money after bad and that we’ll go to IVF the next time. We wanted to avoid that for as long as possible, but 2 Bravelle medicated cycles with monitoring every 2 days easy equal 1 IVF.

For Christmas this year we are staying home and giving each other fertility treatments.