Day 9 - Day 10

Day 9
Tuesday, April 19

I drove to SLC for an early morning ultrasound and blood draw. Though the ultrasounds are starting to feel extra unpleasant due to my bulging ovaries, it has been fun to watch and see what is going on inside of my body. My ovaries look more and more like cobwebs at every visit. They are very active and stimulated, so I am really praying for a successful egg retrieval with LOTS of healthy eggs.

Not the best pic, but here's a quick pic of my ovaries

Not mine, but my ultrasounds look a lot like this one

The nurses said it was probably looking like I could take my last tummy shots and start my trigger shot that evening (to tell my body when to ovulate). Yay! After my blood test was verified, I received a phone call later that day with exact times to take my last stomach injections and trigger shot. Egg retrieval has been scheduled for early Thursday morning!

We took my last dosage of Menapur and Gonal-F at 6:15. After taking these and eating dinner, I was BLOATED. I could barely breathe and kept cursing myself for eating too much food. I was so bloated that I had to take off my pants and put on some stretchy pants. Good news I suppose, as it just means my ovaries are growing and producing Grade A eggs for our future children :)

Two hours later at exactly 8:15 we took Pregnyl (trigger shot), that goes in the hip. This needle has been making me nervous because it is longer and fatter than the others we have taken, so I called a nurse in our ward to come do this one for us. I knew that if it was up to Vance and me, we might psyche ourselves out and not get the injection in at the exact time we were supposed to. Therefore, I was so grateful to find an experienced nurse be willing to come to our house and help us out. She showed Vance how to do it properly, since he will be giving me very similar shots in the hip with large needles for the Progesterone that I need to start next week.

(Note: 36 hours after the trigger shot is taken, I will ovulate. Hence the 7:45am appointment to collect eggs on Thursday). 

After this shot was over I felt like I could relax, knowing that we followed all of the steps correctly and that I didn't have to take any shots the following day. I took all my supplements early (prenatals, fish oil, DHEA, and Co-Q10----all prescribed by my doctor to help with the IVF conception), washed up for bed, and treated myself to starting a new show on Netflix (One Tree Hill....not new but new to me. I just finished Hart of Dixie and decided that OTH will be my next new girly show).

By 10:00, I was exhausted and passed out on the bed.

Day 10
Wednesday, April 20

No shots today, wahoo! Just feeling very bloated and am super excited for tomorrow morning.

Today I am just supposed to drink lots and lots of water (and Gatorade too if I want). I start doxycycline with dinner tonight, which is an antibiotic to help prevent infection. Vance has been taking this for the past week to help his little swimmers be as clean and pure as possible. They will collect his last sample of swimmers tomorrow so that we have fresh eggs and fresh sperm ready to go!

I can't eat or drink anything after midnight tonight, but that shouldn't be an issue since I don't eat past 8:00 anyway. Just hope I don't forget and start drinking water tomorrow morning. I am so excited for the egg retrieval. I find this whole IVF process so fascinating.

Here is a little bit about the egg retrieval for anyone who is curious how the process works:
 
Typically ER take about 30-45 minutes.  The doctor uses a transvaginal ultrasound to guide a needle through the back wall of your vagina, up to your ovaries. Each follicle is a small fluid filled space in the ovary that contains one egg. They use the needle to aspirate the follicle, gently suck the fluid and egg from the follicle to the needle and collecting it into a test tube.  These eggs are then promptly transferred to the embryology lab for fertilization. 

I will be taking the whole day off for this so that I can heal and relax after it is over. I am pretty excited to spend the rest of the day reading, watching movies, and sleeping when I would normally be at work. (Note: I will be put under for this procedure as it is quite invasive)

Here's to hoping for lots and LOTS of good eggs and fertilization of these eggs! I will post more about the actual retrieval after it happens. Next week will be embryo transfer! We pray we will have lots of good embryos to choose from, with many left over that we can freeze and use when we decide to get pregnant again. Pretty crazy that we can freeze and store our unborn children until we are ready for them, huh?

For those following our journey, please pray that we will get a good egg count tomorrow and lots of healthy embryos (unborn or unhatched offspring in the process of development) out of this. I've never been so nervous or excited about anything in my whole life! I'm nervous because I'm scared of more disappointment and our hearts getting broken again, and so excited thinking that everything will work out and we will have a miracle on the way!