Our Pea, Her Pod : Counting down until retrieval!!

Since my last post I went in to see Dr. McKenzie last Thursday for my suppression check- the purpose of this appointment was to check my levels and ovaries to make sure they were responding to the medication they had me on. During the first round my estrogen was extremely high and they are doing everything they can to prevent this from happening again and causing me to hyperstimmualte--not good. When you hyperstimmulate your ovaries retain fluid around them, causing a number of issues some as minor as bloating and nausea but can become very severe where the fluid can start pushing on your organs causing a number of problems. Their goal this round is to keep my estrogen level within a certain range so they had to have me on two different medications prior to starting the stimmulation to basically place my body in a "meopausal state" where my estrogen would be very low so that when I start stimualtions they can build me up slowly. At the suppression check Dr. McKenzie wasn't avaiable for my ultrasound so Dr. Hickman who is the owner and director of the office completed my ultrasound on Thursday. The best surprise of the appointment was when we walked into the reception area to sign in and my best friend, Heidi was there. She surprised me! Now the next surprise was that when Dr. Hickman did the ultrasound he found about 20 follicles in my right ovary and 25 in the left. He told us he feels that I have poly cystic ovaries but not the syndrome. For me this means I produce numerous follicles in each ovary-- which is not always a good thing. The first round total we had 25 follicles and I hyperstimmulated and now I have nearly double that. Dr. Hickman called Dr. Scollcraft who is the the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine to discuss my case-- he is like the guru of gurus-- I thought this was so neat and I was really pleased that they had taken such an intrest in my case. They decided to stop the Lupron that I had been on for 10 days and switch me to ganarelix for the weekend. Friday- Sunday.. it is similar to the lurpon for suppression but just a different med. Over the weekend we went with some friends (Khahn and JW) to Louisiana to celebrate her 30th birthday. We had such a great time getting away from everything and leaving all of our worries behind. It was much needed!! Unforutnatly we had to come back to reality and start stimualtion meds on Monday. Lacy had her appointment on Monday and everything looked perfect. Her uterus was just how they wanted it to be and all of her bloodwork looked great. Paul came also to have his bloodwork done and everything was great. I am currently on day 3 and I am already bloated and have gained about 4-5 pounds. I went Wednesday for bloodwork to check my estrogen level and it was right where they wanted it to be. The lowered one of the dosages of my injections from 150 to 75. I will go in tomorrow (Friday) to find out more of a timeline of when my retrieval will be. I am anxious to find out because I am such a planner and not knowing has kind of thrown me for a loop... Actually it's not only that I am a planner but kind of a control freak (haha) so not knowing and having it all out of my hands has been very interesting. The first round Thomas and I discussed names a lot and of course I couldn't help but think about names again this round. There are so many names I just love it will be hard to just choose 1 or maybe 2 :) It has been raining quite a bit around here so we haven't been able to do much outside, which actrually works out for me considering I am so tired from all the meds and already so bloated. I actually embrace my little egg bump, after all it is the closest thing I will have to a baby bump so it kind of gives me an idea of what it would be like. During our first round I keep in close contact with 3 other girls who were all going through IVF and all stories were very different; one used an egg donor, one did traditional IVF and after multiple failed IVFs one is now using a surrogate-- and they are all PREGNANT!! I'm hoping this is a good sign for our furture and that we will be next!! Thomas' sister is due the first week in June but could go any day now.. She is having a little girl and reminds me of why I think I want a boy so bad.. I could go broke buying cute clothes really quickly! Today will be day 4 of my injections and tomorrow I will hopefully be given good news! I do have to add a little something-- This week at church we are hosting families through family promise. What we do is house families who are involved in the program. It is up to a 90 day program that helps families who have been displaced from their homes. There is a facility that they go to during the day where they can shower, job search and get ready for the day. Local churches participate and from 630pm-530am they stay at the church. We all sign up for different duties throughout the week. I always sign up to bring dinner for two nights. During those two nights I met a mother and her two daughters and just clicked with them. The girls were so sweet and just gravtitated to me. When I left last night the 11 year old hugged me tight and asked if I could please stay with them... just broke my heart. Another girl from a different family asked if they could stay here on the weekends, not having any idea that next week they will be a different church. It definitely puts things into perspective and makes me so ashamed at how down I get. I have a house, nice vehicles, food on the table and a family that loves me. Sometimes we just forget how blessed we are. Here are some photos from the week. #babybray #justonegoodone #blessed