Look What the Mailman Brought Us

We got the green light from the RE is this morning and we are ready to go. I take my first shot (150 IU) tomorrow.

Half the stress and heartache in this whole process for us has been the time leading up to the IUIs. Will it work, will the cycle be canceled, etc. Now that's taken out of the equation so a whole new world has opened up to us. Next appointment is on Saturday for our first scan and blood work.

And even better all of our doctors will be available even though it's likely that our IUI will fall on Easter weekend!!

This is the Face of Epilepsy

Poor Campbell. Back in December, Amy and I came home from her company Christmas party to Cam laying in our bedroom having a seizure. We took him to the emergency clinic where they poked, prodded and ran tests only to have no answer. Simply giving the advice to wait and see. Well as of last night we don't have to wait anymore and I saw enough.

I came home from work to find our bedroom floor covered in urine and vomit with my poor furry baby laying in the middle of it all having a seizure. He went on to have 2 seizures when I was there and based on the look of the room he had many more before I had arrived. After taking him to emergency last night and to our regular vet this morning he has officially been diagnosed with epilepsy. He's been given a prescription that hopefully will limit the number of seizures he has from now on.


Ivy was none to pleased that Cam ruined her 6th birthday with all his drama.

Rough Week

We're not off to a very good start. Anyone have suggestions of fun blogs/websites they visit to make them happy or pass the time?

Mine are:
Cake Wrecks
Fail Blog
CuteOverload
Goodreads
and of course Facebook

oh and reading Doc Jensen's theories on LOST.
Doc Jensen

I need a distraction! Anyone have other guilty pleasures?

TTC History

One of the things I love on others' blogs is a brief (or in our case not so brief) history of how long they've been doing this and what they've done. Makes old timers like us feel less alone. So here goes:

Cycles
Feb. 2007 - Started temping
Jul. 2007 - 50mg Clomid, Dry Run
Aug. 2007 - 50mg Clomid, IUI #1 - BFN
Sep. 2007 - 50mg Clomid, IUI #2 - BFN
Oct. 2007 - 50mg Clomid, IUI #3 - Annovulatory cycle
Dec. 2007 - Break (timing didn't work due to holidays)
Jan. 2008 - 100mg Clomid, IUI #4 - BFN (moved to monitored cycles)
Feb. 2008 - 100mg Clomid, IUI #5 - BFN
Mar. 2008 - 100mg Clomid - Annovulatory cycle
Apr. - Jun 2008 - 3 months forced break by OB/GY. Put on birth control
Jul. 2008 - 50mg Clomid, Annovulatory cycle
Aug. 2008 - 100mg Clomid, IUI #6 - BFN (switched donors)
Sep. 2008 - Break to meet with RE (had HSG and put on Cabergoline X2 a week because of high prolactin levels)
Oct. 2008 - Break for laparoscopy and hysteroscopy (fibroids removed)
Nov. 2008 - Break to recover from surgery
Dec. 2008 - 50mg Clomid - Annovulatory cycle
Jan. 2009 - 100mg Clomid, IUI #7 - BFN
Feb. 2009 - 100mg Clomid, Annovulatory cycle (moved to injectables) - BFN
Mar. 2009 - Try #8 Follistim - BFN
Scan #1: CD3: no cysts
Scan #2: CD6: E2=466, Endo: 8.3mm
Scan #3: CD8: E2=1247, Endo: 11.1mm; Ovidrel Trigger (Dominant Follicles: 2- 20mm)
IUI #1: CD9 (4/7)
IUI #2: CD10 (4/8)
Apr. 2009 - Break due to cysts (put on birth control)
May 2009 - Try #9 Follistim - BFP!! (6/5/09)
Scan #1: CD3: no cysts
Scan #2: CD7: E2=235, Endo: 5.9mm
Scan #3: CD10: E2=860, Endo: 8.6mm
Scan #4: CD12: E2=617, Endo: 11.3mm
Scan #5: CD13: E2=732, Endo: 10.8mm; Ovidril Trigger (Dominant Follicles: 20mm, 18mm and 17mm)
IUI #1: CD14 (5/21) - count: 18 million
IUI #2: CD15 (5/22) - count: 12 million

Betas
Beta #1: 14DPO - 115
Beta #2: 21DPO - 2420
Beta #3: 28DPO - 22,971

Ultrasounds
U/S #1: 7w6d (6/2)- singleton: 174BPM (measuring 7w5d)
U/S #2: 9w6d (7/16)- 180BPM (measuring 9w6d)
U/S #3: 11w6d (7/30)- 171BPM (measuring 12w2d)
U/S #4: 19w3d (9/21)- 133BPM (measuring 20w4d and weighs 14oz): Diagnosed with velamentous cord insertion
U/S #5: 23w5d (10/21)- 141BPM (measuring 25w6d and weighs 2.5 lbs.): rediagnosed(not velamentous cord insertion) with marginal cord insertion

Midwife Appointments:
27w5d (11/18/09): Estimated weight 2.5 lbs, still breech (pike position)

Olive's Birthday

My good friend Claudia and her husband welcomed their daughter Olivia (Olive) into the world today. Isn't she AMAZING!?!

Closing a Door and Opening a Window

Well the RE visit this morning went as expected. This cycle has officially been canceled. Not too upset about it since I knew it was coming so I made sure to take full advantage of a bust cycle by having a great birthday weekend!!

This is officially our last clomid cycle. We are moving on to injectables. I go in for "needle training" on Wednesday and then we just wait (with the help of Provera) for the next cycle.

In other exciting news, we found out the mystery of the "no single ladies" treatment at the RE. Turns out my OB was halfway misinformed. It turns out the REs office doesn't deal with donor sperm. Granted, it's still a round about way of discriminating but the good news is that my RE told me this visit that they are seriously considering changing the policy so we might not have to do the 2 doctor shuffle for much longer.

Putting Things Into Perspective

Well the visit today was so so. Bunch of follicles, largest measuring 12mm. She said there will be a lot to work with if we have to move on to injectables, which is comforting. We're going to go back for another follicle scan to see if they are making any progress. I have a feeling they won't so I've more or less written this try as a no go. Given this, I think Amy and I are going to discuss doing injectables next cycle with our RE.

I was all ready to go in with my guns blazing about how stressed out I was about having to coordinate with the 2 doctors, how I was upset this time might not work etc. when I was slapped in the face with a heavy dose of reality.

In my initial complaint to the RE I mentioned my OBs mother-in-law was ill and that we were having trouble coordinating the insemination. It was then she told us that our OB/GYN is going through a lot right now. Apparently, her billing manager was murdered (shot by her husband)in the OBs office in December and our OB was the one who tried to resuscitate her.

As we sat there listening to this horrifying story of what had transpired in our doctor's office I felt both very fortunate and very small. As big and all encompassing as this whole process is in our life in the grand scheme of things I need to remember to give thanks for the things that I do have rather than just look at the things that others are getting or the things that I don't have.

So basically right now we are in a bit of state of limbo and I'm okay with that.

I want to thank you all for your support for the unfairness we have to go through at our REs clinic. Unfortunately (or fortunately) we love our RE and our OB/GYN. The practice our RE works for is run by a bunch of old curmudgeons and they are the ones dictating the "single woman" rule. Because we love her and our OB/GYN ALWAYS finds a way to fit us in during the week and comes in on the weekends just for us we're sticking where we are for now.

Whatever the Opposite of Nerves of Steel Is

This is always the worst part of this whole process for me. The few days before we go in for our fist follicle scan. I think if I really counted we have been put on a break more than we’ve been able to give it a go. The news that this cycle will not move forward has always been given during our first follicle scan, so needless to say I always go in with a nervous stomach and a small level of dread that the visit will end with bad rather than good news.

This try we have additional stress in that our other doctor’s mother-in-law is sick so we don’t know if we will even get to move forward this cycle. Long story short we have two doctors we have to work with and coordinate during this whole process. Our RE gets us ready for ovulation and then my OB/GYN does the insemination. The reason for this is the practice where our RE is has a rule that they don’t service “single women” which basically means no lesbians allowed. So after our follicle scan Wednesday I have to call the OB/GYN to see if she is going to be available to do the IUI this cycle. I honestly don’t know what I’m going to do if this gets canceled. There have been double digits of births and pregnancies since we started trying and I’m tired of being left of the sidelines.