the rice cakes Updated

That's what Josh calls them... I hope they are getting all nestled in :) I get a report on the rest tomorrow... The one on the right is a slightly higher grade than the left, but both are excellent...

UPDATE

Got a call from the embryologist - 2 more made it to freeze! I asked her what grade they were and she said they don't freeze anything lower than a 1, which is perfect....

I can't wait til I am able to get out of bed.. my back is killing me. I am able to lie on my back, side, or stomach but I cannot have my head elevated higher than 2 pillows. I can elevate my legs which helps! All for my little rice cakes. I am already in-love :)

Strange or Normal? TMI edition

I am sure this is all about the drugs I am taking (estrace, baby asprin, doxycycline, medrol,prenatal, and PIO shots.... I think that's it), but I have the weirdest pains. My uterus feels full like I am going to have a doozy of an AF or like I have to pee. It is actually uncomfortable to walk around, even at work. Anyone else have this feeling? Last check on my lining was 11.5mm and I have been in triple pattern for a while now, so I would imagine I have a nice thick lining now since that was last Sunday. So that's it, right?

My boobs hurt too, I know that has everything to do with the PIO shots. Speaking of which...

I have had 2 shots so far. Josh is a pro at giving them to me and they don't hurt so far. But the whole idea that they are going to start hurting freaks me out a bit. josh makes sure I don't see the needle at all, he waits until my back is turned and my eyes are closed before he takes the cap off. So sweet :)

So my embies have been incubating for 3 days now. They should have 8 perfect cells and all snug in their petri dish beds, waiting for their home on Sunday. Tomorrow they should begin compacting and by Sunday morning be blastocysts.

Still babies to me...

The embryologist hasn't called me about them or how they are doing. I take it as "no news is good news".

I guess we will find out Sunday morning!

I will most likely not have an update until Tuesday. I will be on bedrest for 48 hours following the transfer and I don't think my notebook computer on my lap will be a good idea. Well, maybe a little update from my phone... But I will post pictures of the embies when I can. As Katie calls them "baby's first picture", which I love...

Doin' the Pidgeon

Yesterday while in Seaside I saw a flight of pidgeons and it reminded me of a Sesame Street skit with Bert. I told Josh about it and he didn't remember it. So thanks to the magic of the iphone I youtubed it to show him. for the rest of the day he would "do the pidgeon" every once in a while... I know why I married him :)




I love this video.... even though you see Bert's legs and feet and puppets with feet have always kinda freaked me out.....

It was a good day...

Good/bad day...

While I sit here typing, I can't help but think about my impending IVF cycle. I am so scared. I am not afraid of the injections, the retreival, the transfer. I am scared to death it won't work.

This is our only shot. My insurance covers up to $10K of fertility treatments. This treatment will cost about that much. I can't afford another one. I have gone through so much and I feel like if it doesn't work I am out of resources. We can do maybe one FET, but that's if we have any embies to freeze. I usually don't have a problem producing eggs with medical intervention. I respond well to injections. At least I did. My injection cycles were interesting. First one I was 'shooting up" 14 days, progressing from 75UI at first ten 100UI towards the end. 2nd one was only 8 days, but I surged on my own and had to rush the IUI. 3rd cycle was 7 days, and again, I started surging early.

Each of these resulted in negatives.

I actually POASed after my trigger shot once just to *see* 2 lines. How sad is that? I had never seen them in person, I wanted to know what they looked like. I am deathly afraid that I will never see that *for real*.

Now I know IVF is different from injection cycles, but that's all I have to go by.

I am planning my entire life and future around the possibility of having a baby. Everything I do right now is only for the benefit of my potential future child. If it doesn't work...

Ugh. I don't want to think about it.

On to the better part of the day. DH and I took a nice long walk with our doggies and just enjoyed each other's company. So much of our time is either spent away form eachother, asleep, or watching something on tv. Tomorrow we are driving out to the beach for the day, and I am so looking forward to it.

The dogs will have fun too..

ICLW :)

I wanted to give a quick shout out to all of the ICLW peeps visiting. I just discovered it a few days ago and have read some great blogs! for those of you who don't know what ICLW is, click on the link to the right with the little cartoon doggie - it will explain it all and there's a list of blogs too. Most have to do with TTC experiences.. great idea!

Anyway, I wanted to give you all a quick background on me. There's a TTC timeline on this blog too, but here's the gist...

I am 35, DH is 36. We have 2 labradors and a cat and have been married for 10 years now, TTC for nearly that long. I have "unexplained infertility". As we continue with our RE (Oregon Reproductive Medicine) I have found bit by bit that I have a hormonal imbalance which causes me to not ovulate. I didn't respond to Clomid, and did 3 injection cycles which I did respond to, but ended up BFN each time. I ws supposed to start IVF this past March but my RE found that the fibroid I had was too big and ordered surgery. My abdominal myomectomy was March 11. I have been off work for 6 weeks and I go back next week.

DH and I will be trying one last natural cycle next month. Actually in a week. The big differences now are:

1. No more fibroid pumping estrogen into my system!
2. Dietary changes - I am mostly organic now and have cut back on everything processed, although I can't resist peanut m&m's :)
3. Currently on BCP, which I am hoping will kick my next cycle into high gear.

If that fails I will have IVF in June/July. If THAT fails... well, I don't know.

That's my TTC life in a nutshell. Similar to others, with the same emotional rollercoaster that goes along with it. I try to stay positive, in fact my RE has commented on how positive I am despite the disappointments I have had.

It's a front.

I am miserable through this. BUT I keep my hopes up that something will work this year and I will no longer have to deal with this.

I don't only blog about TTC, if you read further you will know I am pretty random.

Now if you will excuse me my dog is kicking her water bowl around the kitchen. I think she's trying to tell me something. :)

Thanks for this Chele and Coco, you have saved me from 10 minutes of boredom! :) Anyone reading this, consider yourself tagged and comment so I can check out your answers :)
A - Age: 35
B - Bed: comfy and warm
C - Chore you hate: dishes
D- Dogs: My Jelly and Lucy!!
E - Essential start your day item: My glasses until I get my contasts in
F - Favorite color: dark ones :-)
G - Gold or Silver: silver.... or platinum
H - Height: 5'7"
I - Instruments you play: None, but I do know some guitar chords. I would have to cut my nails if I wanted to play though...
J- Job title: Store Manager
K- Kids: see D.. plus cat Lucky... and ask me again in a year....
L - Living arrangements: Apartment... but again, ask me in a year...
M - Mom's name: Shirley
N - Nicknames: Carlos, kitten, honey...
O - Overnight hospital stay other than birth: the only one was my recent surgery...
P - Pet Peeve: cold feet
Q - Movie Quote: "Slappa the bass" From I love you, man
R - Right or left handed: Lefty
S- Siblings: 4 sisters - Cat, Barbara, Shelby, Grace... 1 bro - John
T - Time you wake up: umm, I don't sleep!
U - Underwear: boy shorts
V - Vegetable you dislike: Eggplant (blech!)
W - Why Not: tastes like vomit
X - X-rays you've had: wrist, hand, abdominal, I think that's it... do ultrasounds count? then ovaries, uterus, fallopian tubes, etc etc
Y - Yummy food you make: chicken salad YUMMMM
Z - Zoo favorite: Giraffes at Oregon Zoo

Ok, off to mail my taxes now....

Silent night...

Christmas was quiet and nice... Just Josh and I (and Lucy and Molly and Lucky, of course). we opened presents in the morning, tried to find somewhere the eat in the evening, settled on Shari's (kinda like Denny's) and then went to a movie. (Yes Man, funny)



I am writing this blog on my brand new laptop computer :-) Now I can sit in bed, watch TV, be on the phone, blog, and surf the net at the same time... talk about multi-tasking....



My darling dear husband also gave me a digital camera and some UGG boots.... so now you will see more pictures of my life so far, the dogs, and of course new cute heels when I buy them!


Josh got a new guitar (Gretsch electromatic hollowbody - All Brian Setzer-like) and lessons... I told him he needs to sing the future not-yet-conceived baby lullabies all rockabilly-style.**



*but he needs to get a leopard-print velvet jacket and do his hair in a pompadour for the full effect...

Wonderful weekend....

My sister, bro-in-law, and beautiful, perfect nephew Hunter were here over the weekend... It was so nice to see them :-) They all look great and we had a fabulous time. Some highlights:

- Went hiking in the Columbia River Gorge, specifically Horsetail and Pony Falls. the trail goes behind the waterfall, how cool is that?- Got *lost* trying to find Lucky Labrador Brewery in Portland, said screw it and went to Rock Bottom, still very good...
- Hunter spent most of the time in a fuzzy snake costume I found at a yard sale a few years back. He wouldn't even take it off for the trip back down to California

***I would totally have pics to share had my dear sweet husband not erased them. The pic above is, ahem, borrowed from the internet...***

It was awesome... It made me wish I had family closer, the closest is my sister-in-law 3 1/2 hours away... Next closest is my sis Shelby 600 miles away... sad....

Here we go again...

*YEOUCH!*
No, not really. Actually, poking myself with needles everynight doesn't hurt one bit.

So I will officially be on Follistim for one more month before....

dun dun DUUNNNN

IVF!!

IVF stands for "In-Vitro Fertilization"... Basically, a test tube baby. Or two.

I am actually pretty confident that this will work. I don't think the Follistim will, but what the hell, might as well use it if I've got it, right?

The thing I am most worried about is the cost. We are basically putting all of our eggs into one basket (get it?!) and my doctor will freeze any unused embryos* (baby-cicles) to use later.

That aside... My dear sweet husband and I have FINALLY agreed on a couple of names (for now!) For a boy we like Dexter David Tudor Jones, and a girl Daphne Anne Amador Jones. So if we have both they will be Dex and Daph. Too cutesy? The middle names are family names, they ain't goin' nowhere...

* My husband says if we use any of the frozen ones they must be named after OTTER POPS such as Poncho Punch, Lil' Orphan Orange, or my personal favorite, Strawberry Short-kook.

With my glasses, my husband says I look like Velma from Scooby Doo. Why can't it be Daphne? She's way hotter...

That's ok, Daphne was a little ho anyway...

The Ocean

So we went away to forget about work, fertility, blah blah... enjoy the pics....

Keeping her warm.

Lucy being very happy

A very cold Molly

Molly trying to figure out how to get us to live on the beach.

She was scared of the fire, but too cold to really care.


I do luvz the ocean...