I had my cycle day 21 (CD21), on the pill, appointment this morning and everything looked good (i.e. no cysts on my ovaries, which could keep us from going ahead with this cycle)! I did get clarification that I will not start my stimulation medications until this Sunday, July 22, as opposed to Saturday, July 21, which Bob and I misunderstood from our previous appointment, to be the start date.
So our adjusted schedule (based on the new start date) appears to be as follows (give or take some days on either side):
Monitoring appointments next Monday, Wednesday & Friday (week of July 23 – 27), with possible monitoring appointments at the downtown office that weekend on July 28, July 29 and/or the following Monday, July 30 & Tuesday, July 31.
Trigger shot (HcG) between Sunday, July 29 – Tuesday, July 31.
Egg Retrieval (ER) between Tuesday, July 31 – Thursday, August 2.
Embryo Transfer (ET) between Sunday, August 5 – Tuesday, August 7.
Beta blood test (to determine if we are pregnant) between Wednesday, August 15 – Friday, August 17.
Estimated due date (EDD), if it works, between Tuesday, April 22 – Thursday, April 24, 2008.
It looks like based on this projected schedule, that there is a very good chance that I will be able to attend Bob’s cousin’s wedding on Saturday, August 4 after all! 🙂
In addition to getting the good news that we can proceed with this next IVF cycle this morning, it has been a day full of excitement and new arrivals in both our family and our circle of friends! This morning Bob’s sister gave birth to her third son/our newest nephew and one of our friends (from the neighborhood playgroup that Sean and I are in) had a baby girl (she has two older boys) also born this morning! YAY!!! WAHOO!!! YIPEE!!!
After my appointment this morning, Sean and I spent the day in downtown Chicago at Navy Pier with my parents (who were gracious enough to watch Sean while I was at the RE’s office). We had an awesome day there with them! We started out at “Build-A-Bear” where Sean had his first experience picking out his very own stuffed animal and helping to “bring it to life” and make it his own! He chose a “special edition” penguin from the movie Surfs Up called Cody Maverick and delighted in every moment of Cody’s creation (from deciding how much fluff should fill Cody’s insides, to picking out Cody’s heart before he got sewn up, giving him his first bath and then helping to fill out Cody’s birth certificate)! Then the five of us (Grandma, Grandpa, Mommy, Sean & Cody) had a yummy lunch at the Forrest Gump movie themed restaurant “Bubba Gump Shrimp Company!” After lunch we spent the afternoon at the Chicago Children’s Museum (for free — thanks to being Chicago residents and having the privilege to check out admission passes from our local library)! Then my parents (who drove) dropped Sean and I off at a train station and we took a train home to our neighborhood! One of Sean’s favorite past times is riding and watching trains, so he was definitely in his glory!
Some other highlights, from this past weekend, included celebrating our niece’s first birthday on Saturday afternoon with Bob’s family which was great fun! Sunday we celebrated my sister’s thirtysomething birthday out at her new house with her fiance which was also very fun! We played badminton in their big backyard, which we hadn’t done in years and I forgot how much I enjoy! There is a lot more I could probably share about the adventures we have had over the past week or so, but I have a lot I need to get done in the next day in preparation for, if you can believe, still more family travels in the week to come! Early Thursday morning we will be leaving for a road trip with Bob’s parents to Tennessee for a family reunion on his Mom’s side of the family! I had to make sure that my new medications for this cycle could be delivered by tomorrow, so I would have them in time to start on Sunday, as we will be on our way home that day and I am to do the Repronex in the AM again this cycle.
Finally, as if I didn’t have enough bizarre and unexplained medical issues in my life (as some of you know, in addition to our secondary infertility over the past three years, I have also suffered some chronic pain/problems with my left knee that began last October has kept me from exercising off and on)… This morning I woke up with an itchy rash on my fore arms, neck and face! I actually had a very similar rash appear all over my body (but starting in the same way/locations) in mid-August last year. At the time my primary care physician (PCP) treated it with a combination of Benadryl and Allegra, but in the end it lasted about three weeks and I am not sure if the medications did much to help it clear up. Ugh! 🙁 So I have an appointment with our new PCP (we switched since this time last year) tomorrow afternoon to have him check it out and see what he thinks before I leave town on Thursday, with no access to his expertise, should it get worse!
I will probably not check in again until Monday afternoon, at which point I will be able to report back on how my first monitoring appointment, that morning, went (though since it will only be day two of stimming, it likely will be uneventful). Thank you for your continued support, thoughts and prayers! I do believe that prayers work, especially after finding out that my PUPO friend turned out to be P with so many of you sending her positive thoughts and praying for her, so PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE keep your positive thoughts and prayers coming our way and maybe this will be the cycle that we get the miracle that we have been hoping, praying and working so hard for over the past three years!
One more thing, this Friday, July 20 is the 2nd anniversary of our first angel baby’s EDD. It is hard to believe sometimes that if we hadn’t lost our first pregnancy after Sean was born, that he would have a 2 year old brother or sister right now and we might even be on to baby #3 by now, as some of our friends and family are. That said, Bob and I believe things happen for a reason and time will hopefully help us to make some sense of why our quest to expand our family has taken the path and duration it has thus far. Please say a special prayer on Friday for our 1st angel baby and our family as we honor it’s memory and continue to be grateful to have him or her watching over us from heaven.
I hope that you all have a wonderful rest of the week and weekend with your families and friends! Thank you for reading!
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