blood draw #1 results

so after a defeated morning, I was anxiously awaiting the doctor to call with my blood levels from this morning...
**drum roll please**
my estrogen was over 700!!! The doctor said that I have to have more than 4 follicles based on that number and their size. this made me SO relieved. so the cycle is definitely forging ahead and! the greatest news is that I don't have to be scanned or have my blood drawn tomorrow! my poor little vein could use a day of rest.

AND! because the estrogen level was high we got to start our 2nd injection...

BOOM! and it comes prefilled but the needle seems to resist you as you inject it? it's strange. so from now on, we will inject this at ~7am and still do bravelle at 6pm. two injections a day. at least with >4 follicles I feel like it's worth it.

Scan #1

at 8am this morning we had our first stim scan.
I was hoping that the meds worked. and if all went according to plan, we would be starting our second medication today..
but of course my body was like "hahha, fooled you!" and we only got 4 lousy, tiny follicles.

the good:
4 is better that one, or none.
none is a lead follicle
"it's still really early"

so the nurse drew blood to check on my estrogen levels and I get to go back tomorrow morning at 8am to do it all over. I am very underwhelmed. 4 sucks. normally 6 is what good responders see after 5 days of stims. I am worried that my treatment isn't aggressive enough. I feel like the doctor discounts me because of my age and tells me that my hormone levels look really good- yet I responded poorly to all the other fertility drugs so why would I respond any different to this one. I am so frustrated.

day 5 down! woot half way!!

so I just did my day 5 shot!! unlike yesterday, today's shot was smooth sailing. no pain, no blood vessels. woot! and we initially planned for 10 days of stims, which makes us HALF WAY!!

I definitely am starting to feel pressure/bloating down there, so I am hoping for a good scan. Tomorrow.. in T-minus 13 hours is my first scan!! We will get an idea of how the meds were working and what kind of follicles we're getting. woohoo!

stim day 4

T-minus 36 hours until my first monitoring appointment! I am super nervous to find out if all these drugs have been working. I feeeeel like there is stuff going on, but I have felt this way before only for disappointment. If I have things my way (which I won't because my body has a mind of it's own..) the schedule would go like such:

Saturday (6): u/s bloodwork, bravelle + start ganirellix
Sunday (7): u/s bw, b + g
Monday (8): u/s bw, b + g
Tuesday (9): u/s bw, b + g
Wednesday (10): u/s bw, b + g *TRIGGER*
Thursday (11): NO SHOTS!!
Friday (12): egg retrieval
Sat/Sun/Mon (13-15): recover
and transfer a beautiful 5 day blastocyst on Wednesday (sept 17).

What will probably happen is we will go in Saturday and have a lacklust scan, the doc will say "stay the course" and if we're REALLY unlucky, we will order more drugs and keep stimming, or we will just "wait it out" and not end up triggering until Friday or Saturday, and I will have to take off a TON of work for egg retrieval and recovery. I suppose I should just be happy if we have >2 eggs.

So stim day 4: I held it together much better. this morning I felt a little weepy but didn't break a single tear. I just took the bravelle and I think I hit a vein or something. it hurt SO bad and seriously bled for a while. not cool.

Here's to 200$ into my belly! Ignore the lap scar and fat indentation from my pants :-P

stim day 3

so I finally mastered the self injections. tonight's was easy and painless. did I just say that? wow.
unfortunately, I think the hormones have finally reach crazy status. I just broke down and cried HARD for about an hour.
I am just so anxious.
I fear we won't get any eggs.
Or that we will only get 1 egg.
And that one egg won't fertilize. or grow. or expand.
I fear that we have spent all this money and hope and will get nothing.
I fear that all these injections and crazy moods will be for nothing.

but I know it's not for nothing. I guess it could be worse.
We could still be doing the same thing over and over expecting new results.
And maybe even if this fails, we will have new answers.

Philippeans 4:6-7
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

I am just going to lift up all these anxieties to the Lord and know that he is in control.

stim day 2!

so today was day 2 of my injections and it went MUCH better than yesterday. stabbing is definitely the way to go! so excited for this.

And it begins!

It's September 1st aka the first day of stims! We are starting with just one injection- Bravelle 2 vials. You're supposed to pick a time and do it every day at the same time. I decided on 6:15.
so at 6:00, I got up, opened my box of drugs and pulled out my first pack of Bravelle, mixed it and went to the sofa. I badly wanted to let hubby do the shot but he's going to gone all week, so I had to do it myself.
OUCH.
I went way too slow and didn't let the alcohol dry first. lessons learned. one day down! 9 more stim days to go (hopefully less!)