1st appointment to kick off 2018 with GOOD NEWS!

First of all, I want to thank all of you for reading our blog! I have received so many uplifting messages and can honestly say that I can feel your love, support and prayers with us on this exciting journey.

Being vulnerable and opening up about my story definitely took a lot of courage. I have been asked what happens if I share this all with you and at the end, it doesn’t work…. Well, then that is our story!

January is going to be a very tough month for me mentally. It is full of doctors’ appointments, medications, and needles. If you know me, needles are a huge fear of mine so I’ve been trying to mentally prepare for the day when I need to start giving myself 4 needles a day for up to 14 days.

But first, let me catch you up to speed where I’m at right now. I’ve been taking CoQ10 and DHEA (Dehydroepiandrosterone - I dare you to try to pronounce that!) pills 3 times a day for almost 3 months. This is to improve my response to ovarian stimulation and egg quality and to help with diminished ovarian reserve. I haven’t noticed too many side effects from those. I had 5 weeks of blood work done starting mid November to see where I am in my ‘cycle’ and started on birth control and aspirin on December 22. This may sound a bit contracting to you that I’m taking birth control but it is part of the ‘Flare’ protocol that I’m doing to really stimulate and prepare my ovaries. Since starting the birth control, I have been a bit more lethargic. Heidi has also been on medications (we always joke because she sniffs her medication) and has successfully finished her mock cycle in preparation. She is now in a stable menopause state (yes, again sounds a bit contradictory you might think), waiting for me to be ‘ready’. But I’ll let her share all the details in her post next post!

Today was my first appointment to kick off 2018 after the holidays! I hardly slept last night… and no, Everett wasn’t the cause! My mind was just racing - I was feeling excited for everything that is happening this month, overwhelmed my Heidi’s selflessness and the fact she is doing this out of the goodness of her heart, blessed by all your messages over the past few days, anxious for the day I need to start the needles, and dreaming of our future.

So this morning after Everett woke up, we made our way to the Regional Fertility Clinic at 7:30am for blood work and an ultrasound. There was some good news and some not so good news. The not so good news is that we still can’t find one of my silly ovaries – it’s still hiding somewhere. But the GOOD NEWS is that they don’t really care because apparently my other ovary has a whole lot of follicles! This was a big shock because my last ultrasound in June didn’t show many at all. So they are reducing my medication by half! No, that doesn’t mean fewer needles unfortunately - I still have to take 4 needles a day. I had a tutorial of how to use all the different needles and it is freaking me out a bit… but I keep telling myself that I’ve been through worse and I can do this. January 14, I start taking Suprefact .1mls needles at 8am and 8pm. On January 16 I add in Gonal F 225IU and Luveris 75IU needles in the afternoon. These injections help increase the number of growing follicles to make mature eggs. Then I go in again on January 19 and 22 for more blood work and ultrasounds to see how things are going.

Stay tuned until then!

Here is Everett eating Puffs on the ultrasound table. He didn't make a peep!