The Wifey Likes the Drugs

Hey Everyone,

Today was another appointment. Jen had her regular Ultrasound and Blood Test. Things seem to keep improving this time. On the ultrasound, Dr. H counted out 22 eggs! The largest measuring about 15 mm. Last month on our first protocol, we only made 10 or 11. So Jen's body seems to be responding perfectly. Dr H mentioned that she believes the endometriosis is on the right side because the images were much fuzzier than those on the left. Next up is another appointment on Saturday with the trigger shot following soon thereafter. The retrieval is tentatively planned for Tuesday with the transfer on Friday or Sunday. That of course could change depending on how the next couple days go.

Jen is still not feeling well. She has an appointment with our regular doctor today at 3:30. Dr H is hoping that if she needs antibiotics that she can be on them for a few days before the retrieval. If she is not better by then, the anesthesiologist could cancel it. Please keep us in your prayers so she gets better and everything goes smoothly.

D

Things look good...

Darryl and I had another early morning appointment today. So far the hormone levels are good and we have 15 follicles which was more than what we had the first round at this time. Last time our follicles were all different sizes. We had big ones and small ones. This time they are all pretty much the same size which is good! Hopefully they will all grow simultaneously so they can be considered "good eggs" on retrieval day. :) The higher the egg number, the better our chances of getting the best egg quality before implantation. We have another appointment Thursday morning but until then, we will stay on the same dosage of Lupron and Follistim. We'll keep you updated! :) Thank you for all the prayers! xoxo

Prayer Requests...
1. Pray that on our Thursday morning appointment, we have a wonderful looking ultrasound with the perfect amount of follicles.
2. Pray that Darryl and I can stay free from sickness during this time. (I'm already feeling better! :)
3. Pray that we can add a baby (babies) to our family within the year.

Doctor's Appointment

This morning Jennifer and I had another appointment, the first of many where they will do an ultrasound and then draw blood to check hormone level. We got to see Dr. Werlin today. If you don't know about him, he is a genius fertility doctor that looks like Albert Einstein. He said that everything is looking great. We had about 10 follicles and that more can come since it is so early in the process. The hormone levels checked out good and we do not need to make any changes to our protocol.

Jen is not feeling well right now. She always seems to get sick at the beginning of the year. Those dirty little kids... :) She is going to her regular doctor tomorrow if she doesn't feel any better. The only restriction on medication is sudafed. So I guess that means no sinus relief or crystal meth for us any time soon...

Please pray that Jen feels better and that everything continues to move forward smoothly.

D

New shots...

Darryl and I had an appointment Thursday morning and were given all of our free Folistim (YAY!) and our calendar for our second round of IVF. We began our new shot (Lupron) which we take 10 units of in the morning and 10 units of at night, along with a full 450 units of Follistim every night. Hopefully this time the medicine will kick in early and our doctor will be much happier with the results. I'm definitely feeling much moodier this time around so stay outta my way! :) Thank you for the continuous prayers and I will try my best to keep this updated with each appointment. On a side note, my first week of teaching my K/1 combo class went pretty good. I had a week to decorate my room, start teaching a class full of 24 new students in two different grade levels, and do Back to School Night! I'm exhausted but I'm glad everything went well! :) It will get much easier as the weeks go on and the students and I get used to the daily routine. I'm very grateful for the full time job and excited that it's something I love to do!

Prayer Request: Please pray...
1. that Dr. H is very happy about our numbers at tomorrow morning's appointment
2. that Darryl and I can keep from getting sick during this time. Teaching kindergartners and first graders is almost asking to get sick. I'm feeling a little yucky so hopefully with some Airborne and prayer I will feel much better soon.
3. that we can add a baby (babies) to our family within the year.

Thank you. xoxo

New Beginnings

Hi everyone! Well a lot has changed over the past few weeks. I was called back to work by my district last Tuesday night, had 2 days to set up my classroom, and began teaching a kindergarten/first grade combo class this morning. Today went well but I feel so far behind since I wasn't able to teach the first 13 days of school. I'm sure after a few weeks, my class will be up and running like a well oiled machine. :) (let's hope!) Darryl and I also started our round 2 of invitro today. We had our first appointment with Dr. H and she said everything looked great and we will start our new meds this Thursday night. We will begin with the highest dose of Follistim and and 10 units of Lupron. We are praying that this time, the medicine will do it's job from day 1 and that the doctor will end up with plenty of eggs to choose from at the time of the transfer. Thank you for all of you who have continued to pray for us during this time. It seems like things are turning around for us and we are very excited to see what wonderful things God has in store for us.

Prayer Requests:
1. Please pray that the new medicine has no negative side effects and that it will do it's job from day 1.
2. Pray that Darryl and I continue to have faith that God knows what he is doing.
3. Pray that we can add a baby (babies) to our family within the year.

THANK YOU!!!!!! XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX

Monday's appointment

Sorry everyone... I totally forgot to update our blog after our last appointment. We had another early appointment on Monday (8:15) which sucks when it's a holiday and we both could have slept in. And it sucked even more because we ended up sitting in the waiting room for about an hour because Dr. H and Dr. Werlin were not there that day. So we had to see the RN who I really don't care for too much. I think she's new and for some reason she can never find what she's looking for on my ultrasounds. After poking around for a bit, she found 4 follicles on one side and 3 on the other. This must be normal at this stage, because she told us we would start birth control pills that night and come back in 2 weeks. I'm thinking that if everything looks good in 2 weeks, we will start our medications.
After our doctor appointment, Darryl and I went to Chick Fil-A for breakfast (yummy chicken biscuits and.....of course a Dr. Pepper!), we went to Home Depot to pick up some paint stuff and then spent the ENTIRE day painting our kitchen and hallway!!! It will look awesome once we get our cabinets stained to the dark cherry wood color we both like. "Dad? You're going to help us with that right?"
And this week I'm back to work. I missed the little girls I nanny for so much! Ava gave me the biggest hug when I picked her up from school yesterday and Ella is learning things sooooo fast! I can't wait for the day to be doing all these things with my own children. :) I'll also be subbing more now that I can be up and around again. It will be nice to see all my teacher friends and my students. And the best part is that school gets out at 1:40 now!!!! Whoo hooo!
Anyway...that's what's going on with us. Hope you are all having a great day!

Prayer Requests:
1. Pray that with each one of our appointments, our doctor has good news for us and that my body is reacting the way she would like.
2. Pray that we can add a baby (babies) to our family within the year.
3. Pray that we can continue to trust God and know that he knows what is best for us.

The best things happen when you least expect them...

We had our follow up appointment with Dr. H this morning at 7:00am. As soon as we walked in her office, she gave me a big hug and asked how I was doing. I told her I was ok. Then she looked at Darryl and said, "No, really, how is she?" He told her that I was doing pretty good considering everything that had happened. (I'm normally a total mess whenever we talk in her office, but I had prayed that I wouldn't be a bawling disaster, and God gave me complete peace during our conversation). So she began to tell us that she learned a lot from our first round of IVF. She said that she uses a certain protocol depending on the height, weight, and age of the woman doing the IVF. With the meds I was prescribed, she was a little worried that my ovaries would be overstimulated and make too many eggs. She was surprised that they didn't start doing their job until she added in the menopur shots to the follistim shots. So pretty much for the first 3 days of taking the follistim shots my body wasn't doing anything. Once we added in the menopur shots, the ovaries started working harder but by that time the 12 follicles were the only ones there and it was up to the menopur to make them grow. So with this next round she is being very aggressive with the meds. We are starting on the highest dose of follistim and adding lupron instead of the ganirelex. She didn't mention the menopur so I may not be on that at all this time. She said that it could be that 12 follicles is my peak or that my body just didn't like that protocol. (I still believe that because I was VERY sick the week before, it may have made a difference but Dr. H said it shouldn't have). Dr. H explained that lupron is much cheaper than ganirelex which made us happy but when she said I would be on the highest dose of follistim, all I could see was $$$$$$$$$$$$$ because follistim is $5oo per shot and I knew I was going to need 10-12 of them. (And insurance does not cover any of this). She explained that she would like to start me on birth control for 2 weeks to get the timing right and then start up the shots again. Darryl explained that we were hoping to get started in November so we could save up the money for the meds. She then told us with much excitement that she met with the follistim rep over the weekend and she told him about us and begged for some samples for us. He gave her 10 shots and she said they should be here in the next couple of days and they have our name on them! She said we don't need to worry about paying for them! Well my "not crying in her office" almost went out the window. I held it together but with tears in my eyes I said, "That is so cool!!!! Thank you so much!" This was such an unexpected surprise and she said even if the rep didn't come into the office that weekend, she would have called him anyway. I can tell that she REALLY wants us to be pregnant and is going out of her way to try to make things easier on us. As we walked out of her office, she gave me another hug and told me to not lose hope yet. She told us to call her on the first day of my period, we'll set up an ultrasound appointment and go from there. So it looks like we will be starting round 2 a little earlier than what we thought. :) Darryl and I are excited to see what's next and are so thankful to God for the financial help!

Prayer Requests:
1. First of all....praise God for this unexpected surprise!
2. Pray that this new medicine plan will show very positive results and that the final result of this second IVF round will be a healthy baby (babies).
3. Pray that we can continue to feel the peace God has given us and remember how blessed we truly are.

Thank you for the continued prayers and support! We love you all!