Ready to Rock out this Cycle

Over the next few days our cycle is going to be taking off! My bags are packed for my slumber party tonight at my sister's house, and my car is gassed up for her to drive down to Cincinnati for her appointment with our fertility doctor in the morning. I get the pleasure of spending the morning tomorrow with my niece who has so graciously offered her bed for me to sleep in tonight! Tomorrow's appointment is nothing spectacular or interesting, just some repeat blood work and physical that is required of egg donors within a few days of starting injections.

But what this means is....Injections start this weekend:) I start taking Lupron on Saturday and my sister starts her Lupron on Sunday! I explained what Lupron does during my first IVF cycle, but as a refresher or for those who have recently started reading my blog-Lupron is used to essentially "shut down" the ovaries. For me, because we aren't using my eggs and are only using my uterus-we need my ovaries to really shut down. We need them to be quiet and to stop ovulating. For my sister who is donating her eggs to us, we just need her ovaries to retain all the eggs she has so we can eventually stimulate her ovaries to produces many large follicles that we can retrieve some eggs from in a few weeks. Lurpon is the one injection that we will both be on the remainder of our cycle.

This is a scary process for my sister who has never had to give herself injections before. Her first injection is actually during her double shift as a dispatcher on Sunday so I will be going there to train her on how to draw out the medication from the vial into the needle and how to inject herself. Knowing that every day around the same time we will both be giving ourselves Lupron injections with the hope of creating a beautiful baby that me and my husband can love on and raise for years to come....that gives me chills and tears! What a way to bond with my sister.

In other news, I will also be starting my Intralipid Infusions on Monday:) At 8:30am Monday morning I will be hooked up to an IV on the comfort of my own couch watching t.v. as I get infused with the medication over a 2-3 hour period. We are doing the Intralipids at the recommendation of Dr. Braverman, a reproductive immunologist in New York, who believes that my body is partly to blame for our recurrent losses. The Intralipids will treat any autoimmune problem that I am having so, if my body is attacking itself or the babies that I have been pregnant with, it should no longer do that. The great news is that the infusions, which are $500 a pop and will be done every 2 weeks, will only cost us $27 after insurance which we never thought would cover them! Why didn't we think about doing this sooner?!?!?!

The only resolution that we got on the billing issues with our fertility clinic is that we can try to submit my sister's screening blood work and ultrasound on our own to the insurance after the cycle is completely over. Whatev. It's worth a shot so we will be doing that to see if we can get any of our money refunded by the insurance company.

So lots of great things will be happening soon and I'm sure I will write on the experience of them all as they come.