IVF Timeline

Okay guys Tom & Emily had a good question they posted on a comment page I and thought this would be a good place to address that answer. Anyway, their question was, "What's your timeline?" I got to thinking and I thought most of you would really like the answer to this question as well so I had to pull out my calendar for this one...

I start my injections on Saturday, February 3rd and I'll follow the same routine for the first week. Then on Saturday, February 10th I'll discontinue my birth control pills, but continue with the Lupron injections. They expect me to have a minor period (I'll believe "minor" when I see it) for the next few days and then on Valentine's Day Jim and I will go in for our baseline ultrasound, to make sure I have no cysts preventing us from proceeding. From there things will really start to get hectic and intense since I will be expected to go to Albuquerque on a daily basis for ultrasounds and blood draws.

My follicles will be retrieved sometime during the week of February 25th...could be as early as Monday and as late as Friday. Immediately following the retrieval my follicles will be fertilized and will sit in a petri dish for either three or five days...this will all depend on the follicles. The fertilized follicles will then be transferred back into my uterus sometime during the week of March 5th. And finally our big day will be March 14th, this will be our first pregnancy test. If this test is positive then we will retest again on March 16th to make sure our numbers are doubling as they are suppose to.

I know this was a lot to absorb in one blog so I'm really hoping I didn't confuse any of you. As things proceed I'll try to make more detailed posts about our progress.

IVF Medications Have Arrived

Well my cocktail of IVF medications have arrived (they came via mail). I received five different injectable medications and I begin my injections on Saturday with 20cc's of Lupron. Luckily this is a medication that I'll be able to administer myself and I will not need Jim's help. So, starting Saturday I'll become a human pin cushion. Oh and apparently I need to place a call to my doctors office because I'm missing my heparin injections. Here's a quick run down of all of the medications that I'll be taking starting Saturday (oral and injectable):

Necon (birth control)
Baby Aspirin (81mg)
Prenatal
Lupron (20cc)
Z-Pack (antibiotic)
Lexapro
Trazadone

Jim's First Woodworking Project

I often wonder about my husband...did he ever grow up, or is he still 6 years old and excited about his toys? Then I remembered...as men get older their toys just seem to get more and more expensive but the excitement never fades. Jim has slowly been working on acquiring tools so that he may try his hand at woodworking and this week he was really excited because he finally felt ready to take on his first project. On Friday he took a break from work and bought the last of the tools that he thought he might need for his weekend project.

This morning I was awoken pretty early when I heard/felt Jim moving around in bed and realized he was in the process of getting out of bed. I rolled over and looked at the clock..it was 4:45, so I asked Jim why he had gotten up so early and he told me that he couldn't sleep...he was to excited about his day. All week Jim has been talking about this woodworking project he was planning on doing today and I guess the excitement of his tool pron prevented him from sleeping. So at 4:45 Jim got out of bed...please keep in mind that it's hard to get Jim out of bed before 7:30am so him getting up that early was a shock. Anyway, after I made him breakfast this morning he got right to work constructing two saw horses. Him and Jimmy finished them about an hour ago and the following pictures are the end result.

On The Road To IVF

Okay guys, here's a quick update on our IVF stuff. Jim and I met with Jayme today to discuss our "calendar" for the next couple of weeks. Jayme will be our IVF nurse coordinator for the next several weeks helping us schedule appointments, keeping our medications straight, and keeping our sanity at a relatively low level. Our calendar indicates that I'll start my injections on February 3rd and our baseline ultrasound will probably be on Valentines Day. We're still scheduled for retrieval the last week of February with transfer being the first week of March. Unfortunately, Jim will be in training the first week of March so I have my mother lined up to help me get home that day. Also, once I get home I'll be on bed rest for the next few days so I'm sure my mother will be tying me to the couch since all of us know how well I handle bed rest...haha.

We also received a little bit of annoying news today...since we are now in a new year the Center For Reproductive Medicine (CRM) has decided to up their costs. Of course we are already paying an arm and a leg to have this procedure done and now they decided to increase their charges by $500 for IVF and $200 for freezing any possible follicles. DAMN IT!!!! We can never seem to catch a break! We budgeted for the original amount (an amount I'm not comfortable discussing here) and now we'll pretty much be cutting it close. I swear if it's not one thing it's another....

Crazy About Cats

Okay, I'm sure some of you are sick and tired of seeing pictures of my animals. However, since I don't have children yet I do have a bad habit of doting on my animals. Anyway, Jim and I shot a few cute pictures of the animals this weekend that I thought I would share with all of you...

Here's a great photo that should be the latest ad for Weight Watchers...fat Sasha lying in front of the fireplace. I promise she eats the dog food and not her regular cat food. Can someone tell me how I can get one cat to lose weight and the other to gain weight???

This one should read...all dressed up (or packed) and nowhere to go. Jim used one of his gift certificates this weekend to buy himself a router and Sasha decided the box was bought for her. She spent something like half an hour in this box....just hanging out.

And finally here's Nanook all wiped out after playing with Sasha.

Sorry, I didn't manage to get any cute pictures of Corki this weekend...he's just not as photogenic as the other two.

In His Natural Habitat

Ahh, what a weekend. I've been wanting to have a date with my husband for the last several weeks but things keep coming up and we keep having to reschedule. This weekend however, we finally had our date and it was a wonderful break from all of the busyness to reconnect with each other. Our plans were as follows; go ice skating around 2pm and dinner in Espanola at some point. In true Liberty fashion nothing ever seems to work out the way we hope.

We got to the rink at about 2pm only to find that there was a hockey tournament going on, which meant no public skating until 7pm-ish. Jim was rather hungry at this point so we decided to go to Espanola for a quiet dinner and eventually end up back at the ice rink. Dinner was very tasty and we finished early enough to go back to the house and relax. We were actually at the house long enough to watch a few movies. Eventually we did end up at the rink again, only to find the tournament was running about an hour late. Not wanting to drive back home again we decided to just stay at the rink and watch the rest of the tournament.

For those of you that don't know Jim very well (or Canadians in general) he's a huge hockey freak. So it was certainly a treat watching his face light up while he got to watch some live hockey. Okay, I realize it was just girls playing, but he still enjoyed himself. Oh, and since we got to the rink so early once the tournament was over and ice was resurfaced Jim and I were the first ones on the ice. Not only that, for about 15 minutes we had the entire rink to ourselves...extremely peaceful.

So anyway, I took a few pictures of Jim skating...or should I say Jim in his natural habitat. I'm not sure how well you can tell, but it was snowing while we were skating (Los Alamos is home to the only regulation outdoor rink in the state).

I think this is a great picture of Jim! You can tell he is really enjoying being on the ice.

Can you see all of the wonderful snow in the background? That's the accumulation of the last several snow storms and once again it's snowing tonight.

In the end our date was really nice even though it didn't start out as planned.

For me it was a rather busy weekend as I spent most of the weekend at the office finishing up my quarterly reports (with the exception of Saturday afternoon). However, you'll be happy to hear that all of my year-end reports have been completed, my quarterly reports have been completed, and the auditors could walk in tomorrow and I wouldn't blink an eye. At last my hard work has finally been completed and I can spend the rest of the month relaxing...or so I hope. So with that said, I decided to take the next few days off from work so that I may mentally calm down...I'm so looking forward to doing nothing for the next couple of days.

Breathing a Sigh of Relief

Well I can honestly say that I'm finally breathing a sigh of relief...kind of. I've been really busy at work the last couple of weeks trying to prepare our budget and get ready for our strategic planning session and I'm finally done! I wish you could see my excitement! I've been so stressed out trying to get everything done, making sure that everything was perfect (remember I'm a perfectionist), and now I'm done!

Okay, I have to admit my stress isn't fully over...I still have an audit to prepare for and this weekend I have to do the Call Report for FID. Luckily, the auditors will not be here for a few weeks but the Call Report is due on Monday. So, once I get the Call Report done I do plan on getting a few days to myself. Trust me I can't wait...