Lots of catching up

I'm way behind.

Last Tuesday, 2/19, I drove to Houston for my physical, another lining check, and labs galore.  I met M for lunch, which was amazingly delicious.  N got caught up with work and couldn't go with us, which was a bummer.  Ran over to the clinic and had my yucko physical with Dr. Hickman-- being checked for every type of STD you can imagine is as unpleasant as it sounds.  He also did my lining check.  Didn't tell me the number, but said "Wow!  This is fantastic!  I wish everyone responded like this!"  He's not generally so enthusiastic, so I'll count that as good.  Then I went and gave a dozen or so tubes of blood (estrogen plus all of the FDA labs).  Good times!

On my way out, I got to sit and talk with Barb for a while.  We talked about the benefits of 5 day transfers over 3 day transfers, because M and I had talked about that over lunch.  The main benefit is that you have more information about the embryos at 5 days, so you can really choose the best-looking pair.  Also learned that they grow all of the embryos together, because they do better that way-- interesting, isn't it?

Oh- also got an email from Barb that day confirming that I don't have Hep C.  Not a big surprise.  ;)

On Wednesday, I got my lab results.  Estradiol was 179, I think, so they added one tablet of vaginal Estrace every day.  For the life of me, I do not understand why it has to be smurf blue.  But it is.

I also got a call from Dr. Berry's office on Wednesday, with the results of the testing I did with them.  I have a protein s deficiency, which puts me at a greater risk of clotting-- and late miscarriages.  It can be genetic or aquired, and one of the ways you aquire it is through hormonal therapies like birth control pills, so who knows what the case is with me.  In any case, the treatment will be going on blood thinners (Lovenox injections), which we'd planned to do anyway.  I will only need treatment during pregnancy and if, in the future, I were to need surgery.  I also have one copy of the MTHFR mutation.  That shouldn't put me at any particular risk of anything (and apparently 30%-ish of the population probably has it, if tested), but I need to take 1-2 mg of supplemental folic acid for life. 

On Friday, N had an appointment with Dr. Hickman.  Her texts: "He said 4 follicles above 10 and 9 more developing, so retrieval is going to be later in the week next week" and then "Barb just called with results.  Everything looks good.  They want to see me on Monday next and will decide on Monday when to do M's FDA testing."

Which brings us to today (why did I wait so long to write this update?)!

I went into the lab this morning to get estradiol drawn again.  Then off to Texas Fertility, where I got to see the lovely Dr. Hansard (I really do like her).  She did a quick lining check-- 11.9 and good to go!  Everything looks good on my end.

When I got to work, I got N's update text: "Just got done with appt.  Have 5 above 10 on right side and one is like 9-something and six above 10 on left and 2 at 9-something.  They said depending on bloodwork will trigger either tomorrow or Wednesday."

A Wednesday trigger would put us exactly where I guessed we'd be when I first looked at the calendar, which is to say, exactly on the schedule from last time.  Trigger 2/27, Retrieval 3/1, Transfer 3/6.  And how's this for a coincidence?  Last time, retrieval was on the first and transfer was on the sixth.  Weird!  But maybe we'll be a day earlier... we'll see.  And, of course, there's always the possibility of a 3 day transfer.  Not our goal, but it all depends on how the embryos grow.

In any case, it's here: egg retrieval week.  When N triggers, my meds will change too, so I'm in my final few days of Lupron.  I'm going to be starting Lovenox at transfer, I believe, so I guess I need to call Dr. Berry's office and coordinate getting that prescription ready.  But then I just sit back and watch the magic happen-- my show isn't until next week.  Sunday/Monday or Tuesday/Wednesday.  Getting close!