One Last Trip!

Ok, so I booked my flight to go out to KC and STL for what will hopefully be my LAST trip before I'm ::smiles really big like the grinch:: PREGGO! I will fly into Kansas City on Wednesday the 29th to see my very pregnant (with twins) sister! I am going to help her out as much as I can in preparation for their arrival. She has been on bed rest for the majority of her pregnancy. She also informed me that I will be taking her to the pool and to be sure to bring my swimsuit! Lol

After my time there I will be driving to St. Louis with my mom and staying at her house. I have lots of people to see! I'm sure I will have many lunch and dinner dates planned! So after visiting everyone there I will return back to San Diego on the 6th of September. 

On the IVF front......I kinda planned this trip in hopes to keep my mind off of all this fertility mess. The day after I come back is my last day of taking bcp's! Then we move to stims!!!!!! Yay! I have my next appointment set for the 11th. That's when I will have blood work done and a ultrasound to make sure my ovaries are suppressed. They will also show me how to give me injections! ::eek:: not to excited for this part. Aw well, anything for a little mini Mark and Amber running around.........wait ::starts sweating a little then reassures herself::.......yes anything!!

Anyway hope everyone has a great weekend!

Saline Sono/Trial Transfer

So today I went in for my saline sono and mock transfer. I was really nervous for it but it went well! The only thing that was painful was the catheter and having to have a FULL bladder. If you don't know what this prcedure is here is a link.....https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0AkrVJ6udU40ndDBidU5saHdXRnc2bXU3aFgyUWNRR+2c  Dr. Garzo said that everything looked good and we are good to go.

So now we wait some more! I stop bcp's on the 7th of September and I go in for my next appointment on the 12th of September. Until then nothing will be really going on around here.

I am still looking for a job! I just can't seem to find anything and it's really starting to bug me. I don't understand why it is taking so long. I also have lost a total of 12 pounds. I am for sure slowing down. I was losing about 2 pounds a week but it has slowed down big time! Almost at a stop. I haven't lost anything in a while. I guess I need to change some things up.

Thats all for now! Have a good week!

Baseline appointment

Just got back from my baseline today. I had no cysts!!!!:clap: So I start on birth control pills today and my last day is on September 7th. I was kinda bummed about that to tell u the truth. I was hoping it would only be for 10 days. Oh well. Anyway we have a tentative Egg retrieval of September 23rd. He also said that we may or may not do a FET (Frozen transfer) instead of fresh. He said it depends on how I respond to the meds. If I have a lot of follicles then we will do a lupron trigger to eliminate ohss (ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome). Then do a FET with the next cycle. I also have my saline sono and mock transfer scheduled for next Monday. Looks like we are moving right along. Now we are in the dreaded waiting period before stims.

It's GO Time!!!!

So today marked the start of our IVF cycle!!!!! Yay for us! I will be going in for blood work and a ultrasound in a few days. Then I will start on birth control pills ( crazy right, trying to get pregnant and they put you on those!)for 10-20 days. After that we start our meds for our stimulation phase! When I start on those injectables I will be monitored daily at the clinic with blood draws and ultrasounds. Not excited about that part really. But we are super excited to get the ball rolling. We will be doing a frozen transfer in October hopefully. It's hard to believe its finally starting but we a ready for this next chapter in our life. 

TMI alert!!!!

This may be a little to much personal info for some of you so you can just skip over this one.

My nurse called me today and gave me the results of the hubby's semen analysis. Here they are......... Concentration was 1 million per milliliter (normal is 15 million and up) morphology was 1% ( normal is >14%) and motility was 27% ( normal is considered above 60%)   With these results they also did a culture to make sure no bacteria was there and that came back normal.
So as planned we will proceed with IVF/ICSI.

That's all the news I have for now.

Just waiting!

So much going on! We are closing on our house this week which is a relief for sure. It will be so nice to not have to worry about two mortgage payments! In my weight loss journey I am happy to announce that I am down 9 pounds! Woohooo!!!! I have been working really hard at it and so far it has paid off. I hope to lose another 11 before we start injections. But I know I can't control that. So I will just continue to work hard and hope for great results. Mark had his testing done this past week and we are waiting on the results. The nurse told me to call her next week. Hoping everything is normal. I will post again when I get the results back. That's all that's really going on around here. Just the waiting game.

Test Results

My OBGYN's office called today and said that they got my results from my biopsy and blood work back and everything looks good! Mark rescheduled his appointment for Monday since he has been out of town. I talked with my nurse at the clinic this morning and she said to call on cycle day 1 of my next cycle!!!! Looks like things are moving right along! That is all the news I have right now.

                                       

Down 6 pounds!!!!! GO ME! I guess working out and cutting calories does work. I have cut my calories to 1200 a day and I have been going to the gym everyday!! I am sure the metformin (devil pill isn't so devilish anymore) helped some to. I have not been eating sweets and carbs like I was before because of it. I have been eating TONS of fruit, yummy. Everytime I crave something sweet like chocolate or ice cream I go eat a few strawberries, watermelon, an apple or a plum.

Other than that there isn't much going on. Mark has been in Riverside CA this week and last week. He was supposed to get his blood work done but I guess that will have to wait. I think this is his last week there. I can't wait to have him back home for good. I forgot how lonely it gets when he is gone.

I hope to get my blood results back soon and the biopsy should be in next week.

Biopsy

So I went in today for my endometrial biopsy and blood work (infectious disease). Not a fun procedure!

I'm not a big fan of my OBGYN. He has always seemed kinda shady to me and I could never put my finger on the reason why. Well he recommended a different RE specialist for us to see and after a lot of research I went with the one with the better stats and more well known. Apparently he didn't care to much for that. He almost refused to do the procedure. Really??!!?? He kept asking questions about the Dr. I went to and why he was needing the biopsy done and why he didn't agree. He also asked me if I was sure I agreed with this doctor and his protocol he was doing. WHAT?!? You never ask a patient that!!!! I was thinking, why do you care so much? I think a reproductive endocrinologist would know a little more about this than him! I sat there liswtening to him for about a half hour going on and on about how he would have done it. Then he sprung it on me, "are you sure you don't want to do one more IUI? I'm pretty confident I will get you pregnant." AHHHHHH, so that's why he is mad! He wants me to waist more money with him. What an ass! Anyway, I told him I was sure that I liked the doctor I was seeing and that I trusted him to make the right decisions on my behalf. Sheesh!

The biopsy itself was very uncomfortable. I don't want to go into to much detail so lets just say..... it involves a metal tube going inside your uterus and scraping inside for about 15 seconds. This is done not one but TWO times!! The longest 15 seconds EVER!! I took some ibuprofen before hand but it didn't help much and if it did then I can't imagine what it would have felt like without it. If you want to know the details click here.....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endometrial_biopsy. 

After being violated there I went to the lab to get tortured some more. I told the nurse ahead of time I was a hard stick and I also told her where they usually go, just to help her out. She didn't listen though. She thought for sure she was better than all the rest. She stuck me 3 times before getting the vein in my hand. She took like 10 vials of blood. Not a good day for my uterus, arms or hand. :(

On the weight loss front. NOTHING! I don't know why. I have been going to the gym and I cut my calorie intake down to 1200 a day. Not really eating many carbs either. I guess only time will tell. I'm going to keep going and hope for the best!


                                                      The nurse that took my blood!
                                                       

                                                          My greedy OBGYN
                                                          
                                                        Some infertility humor
                                               
                                                 

Random pics

A few pics of my fur babies and family!

The Weight Battle

Not much to really talk about so I am just gunna ramble a bit! LOL

For a while now I have been overweight. I try different diets and exercise for a while but I always give up before I can get any results. I am very impatient! It's hard work. I don't understand why its so easy to gain weight but so hard to lose it. My main problem is I LOVE sweets! I can't help it. It's a genetic thing, thanks MOM! lol Anyway, ever since I started taking one of my new medicines (metformin) I haven't really been able to eat my favorite sweets. It gives me the "bubble guts". So I have kinda backed away for the most part. With that being said, I have lost 4lbs! Not enough to get real excited about but hey, it's something. I hope to lose at least 10-15lbs before I start my IVF injections. Fingers crossed! I think if I were to start working out more often I would lose it faster. Easier said than done.

In other news, Mark just got back from Riverside, CA. He was there all this past week and will go again next week. Poor guy works his butt off. It's to bad he is salary and not hourly! I just hope this next week is a little easier for him. I hate when he is gone. It gets very lonely around here.

As for a job........ NOTHING!! I can't seem to find anywhere that will hire me! I have tried dental offices, clothing department stores, restaurants and even places like Target. I hope to find something soon.

That's all I got at this moment. Nothing really new. I have a my biopsy and blood work on Tuesday. I just hope they don't have to stick me a million times. I'm a "hard stick", apparently I have tiny veins and the few good ones I have roll. I feel like a pin cushion usually after leaving. Band-aids everywhere.  grrrrr! I will post again then.  


                                               

                                               

Appointments Set

I made my appointment for my biopsy, it's set for Tuesday at 9:30am. I will also get all my blood work done. Mark also has his appointment for his blood work that day. I'm glad that everything is moving along. I called my insurance to see if some of the medications were covered. Turns out ALL of them are covered!!!!! Wow, I can't believe that I got that lucky. That takes our total for IVF down by at least $2-4,000.00!!!! Can you say AWESOME!
I have also been taking the increased dose of Metformin, baby aspirin and prenatals. I lost a few pounds since starting the metformin. I just hope I keep losing more! :)

Moving Ahead!

Got a call from our nurse today saying that my blood work came back and I have not ovulated. So that means that we are good to go to do the biopsy of my uterus lining. It's hard to believe that I did not ovulate at all in 56 days! WTH That just doesn't add up. Anyway I plan on calling my OBGYN on Monday to set up my appointment for that and to get my infectious disease testing done. Mark made his appointment for his testing today. Looks like we are getting everything started that we need done. I really hope that the next two months go by relatively fast. I am anxious to get things going. I am very impatient. 

On another note, Mark and I are going deep sea fishing in the morning! WOOHOO!! I am super excited about this. I have been telling Mark I wanted to do this ever since we moved to San Diego. I hope to catch something big. I also hope no one gets sea sick :-/  

SOOOO Much Information!! IVF Consult.

So today was my appointment with my RE (Reproductive Endocrinologist). There was a lot of information thrown at us in a few hours. He also did a trans vaginal ultrasound to get a better idea of whats going on in there. One thing he did tell me is that I have a tipped uterus. He didn't seem to concerned about that though. He was a little concerned on my lining in my uterus because it showed signs of ovulation but he was not able to locate a ruptured follicle. Because of that he want to do a biopsy of my lining before we proceed. A nurse took some blood to see if ovulation had occurred. They will be calling me back tomorrow with the results. If I didn't ovulate then I will proceed with the biopsy. If I didn't then we will wait for my next cycle to start and then have one done. After the ultrasound we went over the protocol that I will be doing. Here is all the info I got from our appointment.......


For the next two months I will basically be getting healthy. I will start taking some new vitamins and increase the dose of metformin (devil pill as I like to call it) from 1500mg a day to 2000mg a day. Just to clear up why I hate metformin, it make me have the "bubble guts" when I eat sweets or to many carbs. The only thing that is good about it is that it does keep me from eating crap all the time. Also during this two months he advised that we get all of our genetic testing done. We both need infectious disease testing and few other genetic tests. Mark has to do a few "man tests" done as well :). I will need a few other tests as well. One of the tests will be a sonohysterogram. This is where they inject saline in the uterus to check for abnormalities of the uterine cavity. The other is a trial transfer. This is basically a procedure where they map out my uterus so the actual transfer goes smoothly.


After these two months we are supposed to go back for a re-eval appointment. Just to make sure we have all of our ducks in a row. 


Then its time for IVF!!! Instead of a "fresh cycle" of IVF we will be doing it a little different. We will start out as a normal cycle by stimulating my ovaries to produce follicles (a follicle is what holds the egg). Once I have a few follicles of good size we will do a ER (egg retrieval). After the eggs are retrieved they will be injected with a single sperm (ICSI). They will then be cultured for 5 days in the lab and then flash frozen. After the retrieval I will then have a regular cycle or two before we transfer any embryos. The reason for this is to reduce my risk of OHSS. This is basically when the follicles fill up with fluid and it can cause complication. There are a few other reasons for waiting but they are far to complicated to explain. Sorry.


Anyway, that is what we found out today. So I guess its going to be a while or at least a few months before we are possibly pregnant. I really hope that this works cause we basically only have 1 shot at this.   

Happy Independence Day!!