First Entry ~ IVF Cycle Day 6 ~ 3/31/08

My girlfriend Veronica predicted that I would be a raving lunatic by now - she was right!

It has been 2 hours now and I cannot seem to stop crying. Today is IVF cycle day 6... I am home alone - and the hormones have taken over. Thankfully, IVF cycle days 1-3 were spent watching my 3 awesome nephews and IVF cycle days 4-5 were spent celebrating my very good friend Tamara's bachelorette party in Vegas.

Let me rewind a bit to get you all caught up. Last September, after trying for 9 months, I started taking Clomid to assist Mark and I in getting pregnant. After 3 cycles, it worked. We found out we were pregnant on Dec. 29, 2007. What a way to celebrate the New Year with our best friends up at Lake Arrowhead! Our excitement did not last long however, as the third week in January we lost the baby (a little girl). We spoke with our doctor and decided that based on my age (39) we were going to bypass trying the Clomid again and go straight for In-Vitro Fertilization. We have been blessed with fantastic insurance and were thrilled to find out that we are covered at 100% for this process. Totally unheard of in the IVF world- lucky for us!

Here is a brief rundown of how it works:

On Febuary 28, 2008, we started our first IVF cycle. What a process this is! I am posting a photo of my calendar that has become such a huge part of my daily routine. The days are going by very slowly and I find that looking at the calendar and crossing the days off as they pass really helps.

On March 14, I received my shipment of medications. As you can tell by the photo, this is no joke- I took the picture with my slipper in front of the bags of meds so you can get an idea of the size of the bags. CRAZY!!! At this point, I am up to 4 injections daily in the belly. Besides being a little tender, my belly is holding up fine. We are about a week away now from our egg retrieval- which is the day they go into my ovaries and extract the (hopefully) many eggs that have formed in the past month of injections and meds. On the same day, Mark will make a visit to the doctor's "Oval Office" where he will make his contribution to this whole thing. An embryologist will take his sperm and place it with my eggs in hopes that some will fertilize. Three days later, if all goes well, we will have some fertilized embryos to transfer into my uterus. I will be on immediate bed rest for 3 days and 12 -14 days later, we will be able to take a pregnancy test to see if it worked. We are hoping for twins - please keep us in your thoughts and prayers.

I have now stopped crying- hopefully I can keep it together for the remainder of the day. I have a doctor's appointment for an ultrasound tomorrow to check the size and number of follicles that are forming in my ovaries. Will keep you posted...