Dreams...

I have another one for ya...

Just a little back story... we were watching a show about shrimp fishermen in the south before I went to bed. 

The dream started out fairly realistic with Hubs and I sitting in the waiting room at our RE's office. We were waiting for the appointment we have this afternoon, our 9w3d ultrasound. When we arrived in the room for the ultrasound, my husband informed our doctor that we wouldn't be needing her today because get this, 'I have an app. for that.' That may be one of my least favorite phrases EVER. Anyway, my husband waved his iphone over my abdomen and we had a little peek at our babes. I then asked about printing some pictures and listening to that whoosh of their hearts beating... apparently, there is NOT an app. for that. Cue alligator tears. 

I then got up and searched out our doctor. She was just getting ready to call another patient back, but agreed to give me a quick ultrasound. Unfortunately, there was only one open room. It had three chairs inside and just a portable ultrasound machine. She told me to go ahead and lay on the ground and she then inserted the wand. This is where it takes a turn for the worse. She turned into one of those men we'd watched on the shrimp fishing  show. Now the person working the wand in my whoo-ha was missing teeth, wearing a ripped shirt, had likely not washed his hands in weeks years and was calling my lady bits a bur-gina. WOW. 

No wonder I slept like garbage that night... who could possibly have restful sleep during that!

One.More.Day.

24 hours... which might as well be 24 days. I can't wait to find out exactly what is going on inside there! I'm feeling slightly more confident than I was earlier in the week, but I just want it to hurry up and happen. I'm pretty sure I've never been so excited for a vaginal ultrasound in all of my life!!!

P.S I was dreaming of pickles all.night.long. Perhaps I'll have one with my lunch and see if I find them as amazing as I did in my dreams last night!

And the crazy dreams continue....

For the last several days I've been complaining that my mouth tastes like I've been sucking on dirty pennies. It is so incredibly gross. I feel like I'm constantly brushing my teeth.

Last night I had a dream in which I needed to take some pills and therefore needed to eat something. My husband suggested something with some fiber- dollar bills. He fed me three, similar to how you'd feed them into a vending machine. Gross. Upon waking up my mouth tasted like I'd been sucking on a bag of old dirty coins all night... Ick!

Other over the top dreams I've had recently have included my brother dressed as Santa trying to 'put me to sleep for a little while' with a syringe in his hand, being caught audibly growling in my sleep and  there was also one about riding a turtle as a form of transportation. Just keeping things interesting I guess.

In other news, we had to remove our Christmas tree from the house today. I don't know if it was just now starting to smell like a fir tree or if my supernatural sense of smell is just arriving, but I couldn't take the smell. It is usually one that I love, not today- it had to come down!

One week from tomorrow!!

4dp5dt

I'm kicking myself for not writing down more of my symptoms from our last IVF cycle. Why, you ask? Because, I'm becoming more neurotic by the day.

Seriously, there is no fooling myself this time that I'll be able to wait until beta day (Tuesday) to know my fate.. At this point I'll be lucky if I make it to the weekend without peeing on something that has the ability to make some lines.

As for symptoms? They can pretty much all be explained by hormonal changes thanks to all of the supplementation I'm on. Buuuut, in case you're wondering, or God forbid, I have to do this ever again......

• Effing crazy dreams
• Uterine cramping
• A seriously oily face
• Random dizzy spell in line at  the grocery store
• Weight loss - with ZERO effort
• Extremely sore nipples
• Decreased blood pressure
• Fatigue
• Pretty serious aversion to toast (weirdest aversion ever!)
• The beginnings of a rash on my belly (3dp5dt)

For the record I had all of these, minus the oily face and the weird toast thing last time... And I was pregnant.

This is totally normal, right?!?

Effing crazy dream. Like for serious.

Last night the following things happened in my dream....

• Hubs and I arrived 3 hours early for our embryo transfer. 
• He decided to have an elective surgery while we waited. I stayed in the car during said surgery.
• The doctor who did my ET walked by the car while I was sitting in it, knocked on the window and asked if I wanted to have an ultrasound. He said he'd bring the machine out to the car. (uh, what?)
• Just then, my husband came out from his surgery and we drove away. We passed the doctor pushing the ultrasound machine while driving away. 
• We ended up at my parent's house (2 hours away) just before my transfer was scheduled to start. At this point I went to lunch with a bunch of people I didn't know. 
• I finally realized that I needed to be at the transfer, so I started frantically trying to call the clinic. 
• I could not for the life of me get my phone to work. It did look an awful lot like a tv remote and did seem to work with the TV, perhaps that was the problem! 
• In fact, my phone was so useless it seemed like a good idea to walk into a grocery store, cut a head of cabbage into quarters with a freaking sword and use it to call the embryologist.... in London. 
• At this point, I lost my shoes (pretty sure that is when I took off my socks in my sleep) stole a car and took about 85 wrong turns trying to get to the clinic for my transfer.
• And then I woke up... 

Someone please interpret that mess...

So much to say...

I have approximately one million things to say, so here they are in no particular order....

Today is stim day four. I'm starting to feel bloated and sore-ish. And the bruises- they're annoying!

We cut down our christmas tree over the weekend- hopefully I'll have it decorated by the end of the day.

I had lunch with E today- I'm already totally bummed that she is moving away next year!

Monitoring appointment #1 was today. It looks like we have about 20 possible contenders. The largest was about 9mm and my lining was 5.5 with a triple stripe. So far so good! I heard back from the nurse after my blood work came back. She said the levels looked great, so we're keeping at the same dose (1 vial menopur and 150iu of foll.istim). I'm back in the office Wednesday and Friday for ultrasounds and blood work.

I think I missed the boat on exercise during stims. I was hoping to make a couple more trips to the gym, but I have a feeling that ship has sailed.

We bought a fraction of a cow... I'm a recovering vegetarian. In a typical week we eat beef maybe once or twice. I have a feeling that is about to change. What exactly is a person supposed to do with cube steak?

I hate it when there isn't enough left in your foll.istim cartridge for your whole dose. Two pokes=two bruises. Lame.

When I arrived home from our thanksgiving travels I had a package waiting on my doorstep from Janet! She sent me some seriously rad socks and her favorite book! What a fun and thoughtful little surprise! Thanks, Janet!!!!

I've started drinking Gatorade to combat the bloat, so far it is not that bad. I'm sure I'll be singing a different tune a couple weeks from now. So far light blue and red are winners.

I got to snuggle with my nephews over the holiday- I love those boys!!!

I didn't witness a single black Friday fight! I did manage to find some good deals, but I didn't buy a single thing for anyone other than us. I scored some new sheets, jeans and a movie. I'm saving the nice new sheets for bed rest!

We managed the injection without letting on what we were up to. We just decided to take it early (5am) before I had to meet up with my Mom and SILs for shopping at 530. Since then, we've slowly pushed the time later and now we're up to our usual morning injection time of 6am.

Here's a picture of today's socks:

I got the results back from the pap with my new OB/gyn- everything is normal in there. Well,at least as far as that us concerned.

I had a dream over the weekend that I gave birth to a baby girl. She was perfect in every way, even if she was 27 inches long at birth!

Get Outta My Head...

I've been having some absurd dreams lately. The first couple were just pain outrageous and left me thinking about carnies when I woke up in the morning. Last night's dream was about our egg retrieval.

You may remember that during our first IVF cycle I had a recurring dream about my doctor showing up to my ER wearing flannel pj's with kittens on them- I'm hoping this new dream doesn't become a staple of my dreamy state. At least the last one was kinda funny- this one was just concerning.

In my dream Hubs decides that he doesn't want to go with me to the ER (NOT acceptable!) so I asked my parents to go instead. Keep in mind my parents don't even know that we're starting another cycle right now- and my mother is WAY too high strung to be in attendance at my ER/ET- no way, no how. In addition to it being totally weird that my parents were there, I had the nurse from HELL. She knew absolutely nothing about the IVF process and didn't think it was a big deal that I had no idea how many eggs were collected. Then, although  I've done this before, I think that it would be important for them to go over the post-ER restrictions- they didn't agree. So weird.

I woke up this morning VERY thankful to be in my bed with my alarm buzzing on my nightstand. I know that none of those things would ever happen, but that doesn't mean it doesn't mess with my stress level a little bit.

In more exciting news... 8 more BCPs! I'm oddly excited to start injecting myself with lu.pron on Monday- I know that sounds odd, but I'm well aware how quickly things start moving at that point!!!

I have my annual tomorrow with the doctor we are hoping to use for OB care in the near future- I'm sure I'll be back here with an opinion mid-morning.... because, I always have an opinion!

Sometimes boring is a good thing...

Things are pretty boring right now (read: RELAXED!!), so I don't have much to report. As an update I'll give you a few bullet points.

• I had a dream last night that I was about 39 weeks pregnant. I went into labor, and my doctor was sick. He ended up laying in a bed next to mine while my husband delivered a sweet baby girl after a single push and the use of a set of tweezers. Yeah, figure that one out. 
• I made a batch of cookies today... good thing we have a few events in the next couple of weeks because it made about five dozen. To the freezer they go!
• Speaking of cookies, the 8 pounds I gained on prov.era are gone! I'd like to lose another 14 in the next seven weeks before I start stims, but I'm not sure how feasible that is. Perhaps I should stop baking cookies and head to the gym :)
• During my last IVF cycle I took 17 birth control pills as part of the suppression phase. I almost threw away the remaining 4, but for some reason decided to keep them in the drawer with all of my other fertility meds. It turns out this time I will take 25 active birth control pills during suppression. That means I would have needed two packs if I didn't already have four spares hanging around. 
• My husband and I bought our house a little over two years ago. We live right in the heart of wine country and had yet to go wine tasting until this past weekend. We had an awesome time, and look forward to squeezing in some more time for this in the next few weeks before I cut alcohol out completely. 
• I can't stop eating apples. I've been eating at least two Honey Crisps a day lately. So good!
• We're planning a little getaway in couple of weeks and I cannot wait to get out of town for a few days and just relax. No plans, no appointments, no interruptions. 
• Other than the annual exam I need to schedule, I don't have another appointment until my suppression check on 11/23- FREEDOM!
• I've been getting out all of my fall decor, and I LOVE it. I absolutely adore fall candles and already had them lit this morning before my husband left for work at 6:45- he gave me a crazy look as he walked out the door this morning. 
• I made a really fun fall banner last week. My plan was for it to say HARVEST, but when I started drawing the letters the first one I did was an F.... there is no F in harvest! So, instead it says BE THANKFUL, which happens to be perfect because I really could use that reminder on a daily basis right now. Mine is really similar to this one.............. AMY, this craft project has your name on it! Seriously, a sharpie, some scissors and glue!
• Wow, please don't stop following me because I'm all of a sudden SUPER boring- I'm sure I'll have something more entertaining to share soon! But for now, I'm going to enjoy my quiet, boring little life with my fall candles burning away :)

Stim Day 6...

It is starting to feel like I have a couple dozen marbles hanging out in my abdomen.

We increased my dose of foll.istim to 125iu for last night and tonight.

The dreams I've had recently have been CRAZY!

Monitoring ultrasound/blood work #3 is tomorrow morning... grow follies, GROW!!

I am not a very emotional person, however in the last 3 days I've cried while listening to the radio twice- over ridiculous things. Thank you raging hormones!

.... that is all for now! I'll be back with an update after tomorrow's appointment!

Change of Heart...

After the events that unfolded last night, I may have had a brief breakdown. It wasn't huge, and I'm pretty sure the main reason I was upset was because one of my first thoughts was, 'what if this IVF doesn't work and she ends up having a sweet little baby right around the time I should be having a sweet little baby?' I HATE that this was even a thought, because it hasn't even been an option up until now. I honestly have just been throwing all of my energy into being hopeful and not really allowing myself to go there.

So, this morning, I am making a conscious choice to go back to yesterday, before the announcement. I am not going to allow this to make my mood take a speeding downward spiral into a poor me state of mind. No thank you. I'd rather spend these days thankful for the opportunity to pursue IVF and our family. Sure, I'm a slave to my pill box, but it is all of a good reason, and I need to remember that. This IS exactly what I want, even when it is hard and wearing.

Last night I had exactly the dream I needed to have. A dream that our baby/babies were here! I say babies because there were two little girls that looked to be the same age running around our home. I called one by name, and it was our second girl name. Our front runner girl name is nonnegotiable. I honestly can't imagine having a daughter and NOT naming her this name. It has been my absolute favorite for YEARS and it has since become very popular, but I don't care. So, this makes me fairly certain that we had twin girls- exactly what I've thought we would have from the moment we decided to do IVF. Crazy to think that is a few weeks we will know if this will be our reality!!!

Dreamland...

After information overload at our IVF class last week we went to dinner, laughed about some comical parts of the class and then came home and snuggled into bed. Snuggled in for some of the most absurd dreams yet. I've shared some of my crazy dreams with you all before, and I'm pretty sure the ultrasound in Target still wins for ridiculousness, but this one is pretty great too.

So, to set the scene a little let me first take you back to the very first course I took in college. It was a math class for educators and my teacher happened to become one of my favorites, even if it was impossible to understand half of what she said through her Bulgarian accent. She was thin, dark haired and pregnant, all three characteristics of my current RE (well, she isn't pregnant anymore).

So in my dream I arrive at the clinic for my retrieval. I wasn't nervous at all, but was very tired and was wearing yoga pants and a T-shirt. I remember climbing onto a bed in the procedure room (fully clothed!) and then hearing a woman who looked like my doctor, but sounded just like my Bulgarian math professor talking on the phone. There were also two nurses in the room sitting in the corner chit chatting. I still had not had any medication, the IV had been placed, but wasn't current hooked up to anything. The bed was set at an odd angle and I kept falling off of it, and just barely being able to climb back onto the table because I was so tired. Every time it happened no one seemed alarmed and they would just would tell we I wasn't allowed to eat, drink or go to the bathroom so I might as well just try to sleep until they were ready.

After several falls I finally just curled up on the floor and went to sleep. When I woke up, my doctor was there and said that they were done and told me the egg count. I was still curled up in a ball laying on the floor of the procedure room completely clothed. I asked how that was possible from the position and the obvious obstacle of my clothing, and she replied that while it was a difficult angle, she made it work.

However, the kicker to the whole story (as weird as it has already been) is the fact that she preformed my ER while wearing flannel pajamas. Pink flannel pajamas. Pink flannel pajamas with kittens and balls of yarn on them.

Welcome to my dreamland! I can't wait to see what I muster up while I'm under sedation. I'm just praying I don't talk in my sleep :)

I've Lost It....

I think I've officially lost it!

I had another crazy dream a few nights ago. This time we'd done a fresh IVF cycle, and had some embryos to freeze. Our RE asked if we would like to go into the lab and see the tubes that housed our little snowflakes. When we walked into the lab it looked more like the hospital nurseries that you see in movies, the kind where all of the babies spend a good chunk of time in the nursery. Each one of our frozen embryos was in a test tube and each test tube was swaddled in a tiny piece of cloth, just like a baby. One of the oddest sights of my life.

Wow. Maybe I need to start thinking about something else :)

Goodbye Modesty....

Over the last nearly three (wow, that was painful to type!) years I've had several dreams where we have kids, but I don't think I've ever had a dream that I was pregnant. Well, Thursday night that all changed.....

I dreamt I was 6 weeks pregnant and we were going in for our first ultrasound. Seems pretty normal, right? It was until we pulled up to Target for said ultrasound. Weird yes, but I figured there would be a room set up near the pharmacy for this type of thing. Wrong. We walked in and found my doctor standing near the front of the store with a medical table and ultrasound machine. Upon noticing us she said the usual "undress from the waist down and hop up on the table." The weird part is, I was TOTALLY fine with it. The pants came off and I jumped up on that table excited to see what was hiding out inside in my uterus... one or two babes?!?! It seems important to also share that the 'business end' of things was pointed directly at the doors..... welcome to Target!!!

As soon as she started the ultrasound I started to cry... I could see them.... twins!! Later in the dream we shared the news with my husband's parents. Before telling them that we were expecting we first asked them 10 questions ranging from why they didn't have any bobble heads in their living room to what their favorite mnemonic device was. Seriously, WEIRD! Their reactions to the big news were pretty fitting... lots of tears and very few words.. until they both threw themselves on top of us. I woke up SO thrilled to have finally had a dream that I was pregnant and cracking up at the events that had just transpired!

While I am known to have crazy dreams from time to time, they usually occur when I am on some sort of fertility medication, which is not the case right now. I am taking this little dream to mean one thing... babies are on the way! I am just going to look past the crazy parts and focus on the main event :)