Regrouping

I have the next two weeks off....well more like 1 1/2 now! I'm just using it to spend my time loving my little man and spending time with him. He amazes me everyday with what he is learning. We've had some appointments, had some lunch dates, but overall just regrouping and spending time together.

We have an appointment with the Dr on Friday of this week to go over my cancelled cycle. I was glad that we were able to get in so fast and I'm interested to see what he has to say about everything. I will update after the appointment.

CD12 Appt

So today I went in for my CD12 appt. I started again with my ultrasound. My lining was still around 10.5, so that was good. He looked at my left and I had one large follicle and then a few smaller ones. He commented that this was more like it......he went to the right next and I had 3 large follicles. He said that he was thinking that I would probably trigger tonight with my ER on Saturday. I had my blood drawn next and then waited a bit before I met with my coordinator. When I went in to meet with her, she thought that I might go one more night and trigger tomorrow night with my ER on Sunday. OK...I was feeling better that my eggs had grown and that I was probably going to have my ER this weekend. She said that she would call me when they got the results of my E2 and let me know what the doctor had decided.

So, off to my work training I went waiting for my telephone call to see when I would trigger. The call came about 1:30....and it wasn't good news. My coordinator said that my E2 came back low....only 484....when it should have been at least 800.....so the doctor wanted to cancel me. So, I'm done for now.....I'm still in a little bit of shock about it all. In the long run I know that it is the best thing if the doctor is thinking that my eggs will not be of good quality and won't result in a good outcome in the end, why go through it all? It also saves us on insurance as well.....we still have two full-cycles left since I didn't go through egg retrieval....but those are the only positives I can see right now........now we wait until we meet with the doctor and see what he says....

CD9 Appt

So today was my CD9 appt. To refresh, CD9 is the first monitoring appt since I started all of my stimulating medicines last week. They check the growth of the follicles, my E2 (Estradiol) levels (hormone that correlates with the follicle growth) and check my uterine lining to make sure that everything is in sync. Based on all of the info, it is decided whether or not I continue meds, stop meds, when my retrieval will be, etc. Needless to say.....it didn't go as well as I would have hoped.

I was/am feeling pretty bloated, so I was expecting to see lots of eggs on my ultrasound.....but I only have 4!! One on the left and 3 on the right.....I think the doctor was a little surprised as well! In my past cycles I have always had around 10.....so 4 is really low! Do 2 years really make that much of a difference?! My uterine lining was a 10.5 and anything over 8 is considered good....so I guess that was a positive:) Next I had my E2 levels drawn, but of course it takes a while to get those results so I went in to see my coordinator. Since the only info they had at the moment was my ultrasound, she gave me some "generic" instructions to continue my meds at the same amount as I had been doing and also gave me a prescription for an antibiotic. The antibiotic must be something new that they started since my last cycle.....guess they want to make sure that we don't have any lingering infections as we go through the major part of the cycle. I was supposed to go back on Tuesday morning for another ultrasound and bloodwork, so I made those appointments on my way out.

Later in the afternoon I got a call from my coordinator. She said that based on my bloodwork, that I needed to continue my meds for the next 3 nights and not come back until Thursday morning for an ultrasound and bloodwork......I made a statement that my levels must have been pretty low....and she said that it was 190! Each mature follicle should produce somewhere between 200-600....so needless to say I am way off.....

So, I have to say that I am not feeling as optimistic about this cycle as I was in the beginning. I know it only takes 1....but to not have that many to start with is a little disheartening. So, I'm continuing my meds and waiting to see where Thursday leaves us....

18 Month Pics

We had Owen's 18 month pictures taken a couple of weeks ago. We had Tony's friend, Ryan Prouty, take them again. He came to the house and got lots of good ones....here are my favorites:

Can't believe that my little man is already 18 months old.......time goes SO fast!

Cycle Update

So, I thought I would update everyone with where we are in our current cycle. I have been on Dex (steroid), Lupron (drug that makes your body only respond to meds and not what it usually does) and Lovenox (blood thinner) since the end of June. Tonight I start my Follistim (egg stimulating medicine) and then on Wednesday I start Menopur (medicine to help the eggs mature). I go in on Friday to have my intralipid infusion (medicine to quiet my natural killer cells) and then on Monday I go in for my first monitoring appointment. It will be sometime later next week when my egg retrieval will be scheduled and then 3-5 days after that I will have my embryo transfer. It is all kind of surreal that we are going through all of this again.....

One change that has been made in my protocol is that I am back on Menopur. I was on this drug my first two cycles and the thought was that maybe it wasn't the best combo for my eggs.....like it "overcooked" them or something. They changed me to the drug Luveris on our cycle that gave us Owen.....so I kind of like Luveris better! However, there is a new doctor at the clinic and he does not believe that there is anything wrong with Menopur, so he is putting me on it for this cycle. I did question him on it, but he gave a very convincing argument as to why he felt that it was not any different than Luveris....so I'm on it again. I guess we will see how or if it will change anything for us this cycle....

So that is where we are....

Trying Again?

The short answer.....yes:) Tony and I have decided to go through IVF again to try and give Owen a sibling. We made the decision a couple of months ago and only shared with a few people....my mom: because she would need to help extra with watching Owen for a couple of weeks while we went through the retrieval and transfer again and my coworkers: because it was going to directly conflict with an upcoming training that I was to be a part of. For a long time, those were the only people who knew and we were going to keep it that way.....but then it became apparent that we weren't going to be able to keep it quiet throughout the duration of the cycle. I am currently signed up for the July cycle and I started my shots about 10 days ago. So far things have been going ok, although I am out of practice with the shots and have left huge bruises all over my stomach and legs....hence the reason why we could not keep the cycle secret:) We went boating with some friends on July 4th and there was going to be no explaining away all the bruises, so we fessed up!

A little back story: We met with Dr. H at SIRM back in May. We had to have all of our testing redone, which all came back as well as could be expected. He is going to change a few things up with this cycle...mostly the same meds, but he is not as strong of a believer in all of the supplements and such so we are not taking those this time. I will again use this blog to update my progress through the cycle....it seems to be the easiest way of informing everyone. For those of you who are FB friends....I won't be posting about it there...too big of a forum for us. We're excited, nervous, and scared about this but are looking forward to the possibility of another baby:)

Tooth #16....a little late

So I just realized that I forgot to post about tooth #16. The right top eye tooth popped through a little over a week ago. Both of the top ones are still just a little bit through, but they definitely are there. They are still bothering him a little too, so I hope they come all the way through soon so we can have a little break:)

First Family Trip

We took our first family trip this last weekend. We went to Chicago and had a blast! I tried to decide if I wanted to do a few smaller posts or one big one, but the one big one won:) So I picked a few pictures from each of our "excursions" and thought that I would share how it all went!

Owen loved the hotel! We joked that we could have saved a lot of money and just got a hotel here in town! Luckily Tony knows a girl who works at the hotel we were staying at (the same one we stayed at 2 years ago when I was just newly pregnant) and she was able to upgrade our room....we were really excited when they told us it was a loft! We had two separate rooms that we could pull curtains closed in between....so when he needed to go to bed we could put him in the other room and still have a 2nd room all to ourselves. He slept great too....so that was a plus as well! The only downside...hotel rooms are not toddler proof!

He loved standing in the window and looking at the things below! He was very excited when he discovered he could do it himself....not so much for mommy and daddy!

There were some pretty big storms that came through Chicago on Thursday night. Luckily we made it back to the hotel just before they started! On Friday morning, we saw the aftermath on our run down Lakeshore....the storms were still brewing on the Lake, but we managed to stay dry in the city for the most part.

A tree along Lakeshore that was struck by lightening and was laying across the path!

A picture of us on our run/walk. Tony would run one way and I would walk to Navy Pier....then I would turn and run the other way and he would meet me at the cross-under to go back to the hotel.

Owen and the Hancock Building!

A picture of Owen and some of the crazy clouds over the Lake.

Later on Friday we took Owen to his first Cubs game. We rode the train there and Owen loved it! Every time it stopped at a stop, he would say "more, more." We weren't sure how he would do at the game, but overall we were pretty impressed! The seat next to us was open, so I was able to move over and give him his own seat and a little room to move around. We got up after every couple of innings and walked around a bit. He was definitely getting tired by the end and he finally gave it up around the 8th inning!

Waiting for the train.

A picture in front of the marquee. Not the best, but we didn't want to be picky when asking strangers to take the picture!

The view from our seats.

Hot Dogs! His favorite...he ate almost 3/4 of it!

Daddy introduced him to peanuts in the shell!

After he finally gave it up:)

Riding the train on the way home....there was a little more room to move around then!

On Saturday we headed to do a little shopping and then to Navy Pier. We did a sightseeing boat tour around the Lake and Owen road the little train and the carousel. He had a great time even though it was 100 degrees outside!

A picture of us on the boat tour.

Owen and mommy on the carousel:)

Drinking mommy's Jamba Juice! I could barely get it back from him! He's lucky I shared at all.....they are my favorite!

Overall it was a great trip! We were very impressed with our little guy, especially since his nap schedule was a little messed up! We're pretty sure he enjoyed himself too....he didn't make it out of downtown before he was asleep on Saturday! We're looking forward to our next trip together as a family:)