Egg Retrieval Tomorrow

I'm absolutely terrified Egg retrieval is tomorrow.
I'm not scared of the pain I'm scared of the results, how many eggs will there be? how many will fertilize?
My E2 number is a lot lower than I expected makes me nervous, but it's all out of my hands now,
I can't make this any different than it is,
God please let this be our time guide me through this safely.
Now I'm just paranoid like
Am I in enough pain to have as many eggs as I have,or why am'nt I more bloated?
Crazy I Know I think my over medicated brain is irrational.
I am praying this will work out 6 and a half years has been such a long time, and We've been through a lot,
emergency surgeries on both Dh and me (at different times)
Radical lifestyle changes, planned surgery, ectopic pregnancy and 5 failed iui's
I've prayed and cried for this miracle for so long,
makes me wonder will my prayers ever be answered?are they meant to be?
I hope so, We both really do.

Waiting for retrieval time seems like forever away

Well I had my appointment yesterday
I now have 24 follicles ranging from 7mm to 18mm a lot of them are over 11mm so thats good.
There are nine on my left ovary and 15 on my right.
My puregon dosage is now 100iu per day every day until Wednesday
On thursday I have my blood test in the morning,
ultrasound in the evening and if my blood results are not too high and my follicles have grown enough,
We will trigger so that could be on thursday evening or on friday depending how it all goes.
If my estradiol is too high then we have to stop everything and wait for it to go down.
Anyone whose reading this please pray for me that this won't happen as I'm scared what will happen to my follies if their left hanging.

I'm really anxious but trying to stay calm,
its just we've come so far and pumped my body full of these meds and I want to get my chance to do this, to make it to transfer (hoping for blastocyst) and then hopefully BFP after that.

First ultrasound during stims

So yesterday I had my first follicle check cd6.
I have about 15 follicles mostly on my right ovary and only 3 or four on the left, the biggest is measuring 10mm so still a while to go
my meds are reduced to 100iu one day,150iu the next.
I was on 150iu every day for the first 3 days of stims.
I've had massive headaches from day one of the puregon but they come and go and I felt twinges in my ovaries from the day after the first shot.
I'm drinking so much water plus 1 protein drink per day.
I'm really nervous I'll get a lot of eggs but the quality will be poor, I've been preparing for months to prevent this with wheatgrass,nuts,seeds and protein supplements but you can never tell what will happen until it does.
I'm not feeling really well on these meds it seems to be getting harder but my doc checked my over and I'm still ok to go ahead its just the side effects are wreaking havoc on my body but it'll all be worth it if I get a positive end result. Thats what I'm really praying for thats what all of us out there battling infertility are praying and dreaming for and I really hope its true that 2010 is our year.
Babydust to everyone reading this who needs it.

IVF THE BEGINING OF A NEW JOURNEY

Monday 17th I had my cd2 scan the cyst is gone :)

Tuesday 18th (my moms birthday) I started my first puregon(Follistim)injection at 10pm that night at 150iu's dosage.

Wednesday I already feel alot of twinges in both my ovaries could be because of the cyst that burst or the meds starting to react even though its very early.

My first follicle check is tomorrow friday the 21st of may at 8.30pm.
Then we'll see how I'm responding will my dose go up or down or just stay the same.

Excited but nervous, today thursday morning I felt very nausous and couldn't stand up for longer than 20 mins with out feeling something in my ovaries this is all so different to me.
I have headaches on and off since the first injection and also feel emotional at times.
I'm eating 1 egg every day and drinking my protein drink as well as lots of fruit and vegetables and my pile of supplements. And drinking up to 2 litres of liquids mostly water every day.

I'm really praying this will work out for us because I'm so scared of how we will feel if it doesn't after so much effort physicaly,emotionaly and financialy.

The final countdown for IVF

So I've neglected my blog lately,

I'm now back in Lithuania since April 26th, Things were very hectic.
Last monday the 3rd May I had my first appointment back with my fertility specialist.
I was 2dpo and at the time would could see on the transvaginal ultrasound,
that I had ovulated from the right ovary (my good side :) as I only have one full fallopian tube)
However I have a cyst (3cm) on my left side, potentially what's been making my cycles so out of whack the last 6 months.
Anyways if worst comes to worst I have to do 'long protocol IVF'

But if it goes away BY Af time then I will start stimming on cd3-5 of my next cycle.
It will be my first transvaginal scan on my period so not looking forward to that, but we have to do what we have to do.

Of course I'm hoping AF won't turn up at all :) but we'll see, need to wait another week to find out about that.

Dh had a new semen analysis on wednesday the 5th ( ironiclly our 3rd wedding anniversary)
The results were pretty good 60% good morphology, 84 million sperm per ml,30% fastest (A),50% (B) and 6%(c)not moving 14% (d) dead

Now is on exciting time maybe just maybe we can do this naturally or if not we get to start IVF and get a much bigger chance of having our much wanted child.
Its so hard to be positive all the time when you know that it might not work out.
It is such a huge investment physcially, emotionally and obviously financially we've wanted to do this for years especially since 2008 but it took us from april 2009 to now to save up enough money to do this and even then it will send us broke to do it but we're so over ready and we cannot wait any longer to take the next step.

How Infertility changed things.

How Infertility has changed us,

I will never again be able to say 'When we have a baby'
it's usually 'if I get pregnant' or sometimes when I'm feeling optimistic in the ttc world I say I sure hope I will be pregnant soon myself, but deep down its always only 'if'
That's the way it's been for the past 6 years or so since I realised it probably won't just happen even though it did happen once but that was October 2006 which went horrifically wrong and nothing since then despite then both me and Dh weren't the fittest or healthiest then but
Ironically now we are both in peak condition living a super healthy lifestyle and fertility treatments and nothing.

I wake up everyday like this is a dream, then I remember its real and although I'm far from alone in infertility I've met so many who were or who are in my shoes,
It was simply a shock to the system to be 18,19,20 and just not get pregnant easily then finally get their at 21 to end only to in surgery and pregnancy loss.

And the renewed hopes of the years of 21,22 thinking it would happen, because it did before.
I had my first IUI at age 22 by age 23 I had 3 failed iui's.
I know age is just a number but in the fertility world it matters and it made me feel like such a failure as this is the time that your supposed to do it 'once' accidentally and your guaranteed to be knocked up.
I had to learn the hard way that is not true for everyone.


So what good has come of Infertility?

Well both Dh and I no longer smoke and haven't done so for years,
We don't drink, We both lost weight and have maintained the loss,
We exercise,
We have routines and we keep a very healthy lifestyle which is wonderful for us.

Relationship wise it has brought us closer and closer together he was there for me through all my doctors appointments and procedures.
Sometimes its really hard for him as I get emotional and cry alot.
But We always feel like its just Us against the world fighting together side by side because in our real life few understand and many don't even attempt to.
But it's not too bad all the time
We understand each and we can talk about anything we try to never repress any of our feelings, We disagree often but we always come to understand the other side.

I really hope people don't perceive this as a big pity party because it's not
Infertility has made me stronger,
made my marriage strong and has made us fighting fit.
I'm somewhat religious and I believe in a way that we are being tested in life.
I have a message for 'him'
I think we're ready already to move on to the next level please let the next great test in our lives be parenthood.

Whats going on with me now

April 8th another bfn :(
April 9th Af started so here we are now at cd8 of cycle 38 trying to conceive since my ectopic pregnancy.
This is probably my last 'natural chance' cycle as I'm due to start IVF in mid May if my cycle doesn't go awol again.
1: I'm doing wheatgrass (doing this for the past 3 months ) 2:
Pineapple after ovulation and before too in the earlier stages of cycle as it boosts uterine lining but not too close 'o' as it can cause acidic Cm (cervical mucus)
3: Evening primrose oil 1000mg x 3 times daily until 'o'
4: benylin cough syrup for me and dh in fertile window to thin my cm and thin out his semem. Been doing this for about 6/7 cycles mostly focusing on Dh due to his previous viscosity issue.
5:All our usual healthy living,supplements and rountines. And of course temping and opks.

Quite nervous about IVF We have all the meds now awhole lot of them, all the needles and the puregon (follistim in america) injector pen.
For us its a little more complicated as we're supposed to fly on the 25/26th of April to my husbands country for treatment then have my pre ivf scan/ultrasound either before or during Af (eek) to check for cysts then we start hopefully around May 11-13th.
We don't know what will happen to our flight,
as all of european airspace is in standstill (closed airports) due to a volcanic ash clouds from on erupting volcano in Iceland.
Hopefully it stops soon as there is talk of flight restrictions of up to 6 months depending on severity.