Strong and Steady Growth

Today we received some wonderful, WONDERFUL news! Do I dare say that I am super hopeful that this is actually going to work for us?!?! This whole week, since Sunday evening, my sister has been taking injections to stimulate her ovaries so next week we can "suck out" her eggs and start making babies in those little petry dishes at the fertility clinic. She has been doing so great with the injections. It makes me so proud of her and it has completely relieved my anxiety about not being the one in control of how her ovaries stimulate. I've had to work on that alot...the control thing. It's no fun when you feel like you don't have any control of how something this important turns out. But I can definitely relax, and take a big deep breath, and let the happy tears roll today!

Things started off a little rocky earlier this week. My sister was supposed to get her estrodial (estrogen) level checked on Tuesday morning at a local lab. I sent her to Lab Corp in a nearby town and when she got there they told her they could not do same day results. That was a problem. Our doctor needed to know what her estrodial level was so he could dose her medication accordingly. The nice lady at Lab Corp called around different labs in the area and found one that could do same day results, but our fertility clinic felt that as late in the morning that it was, they would not get the results until the following day which would mess up the medication dosing.  They really upset my sister (could have been the hormones) when they told her she had to drive 2 hours the next morning to the clinic to get the blood work done since she was unable to get it done locally that day.  While I was hooked up to an IV getting my second Intralipid Infusion sitting on my couch watching my DVR'ed episode of The Voice, I had my sister calling me in tears and the clinic calling me in frustration.  I played referee and called a lab 30 minutes from where we live to see if they could draw my sister's blood the next morning and get the clinic the results they needed the same day so my sister didn't have to drive two hours one way just for a five minute lab draw.  Thank goodness they were able to do it and all got smoothed over with my sister and the clinic.  They just kept her on the same dose of medication one more night and waited for her results to come back on Wednesday to determine if any changes were going to be made. 

On Wednesday afternoon I got the email from our fertility clinic nurse stating my sister's estrodial was 268 and she would continue to stay on the same dose of medication.  She also informed me, based on blood work only, my sister seemed to be the best responding donor of the week! That made me feel super hopeful about her ultrasound that she was scheduled to have this morning:)  It helped me relax and made me feel like we were going to get some great news today. And great news is exactly what we got!!

Our doctor was very pleased with what he saw going on inside my sister's ovaries.  And I was very pleased to recieve the email stating that she has 12-15 follicles all growing strong and steady! They are all around 11-13 mm today which is right on target:)  Her estrodial today was 625 and the nurse said she is still the leading donor of the week! No change in her medication dosing since they seem to have her on the right dose to stimulate evenly and not cause her estrodial level to rise to fast (overstimulate).  Doctor is pretty confident that the egg retrieval will still be on Wednesday morning! I definitely cried happy tears on my way to work today. 

On Sunday I get to finally go with my sister to an ultrasound and get to see all our potential eggies for myself! I'm super excited and hope I get a picture I can take home to save so when we are explaining our child's birth story to him or her, we can show exactly where half of him or her started out...in my sister's ovaries! Only two more nights of stimulation injections, one trigger shot, and an egg retrieval until we officially have some growing babies!

As for my part of things, I continue to do weekly acupuncture which increases to twice next week (retrieval week) and the week after (transfer week).  I have gone from 1mg Estrace twice a day to 2mg Estrace twice a day to now 2mg Estrace three times a day and will find out on Wednesday after the retrieval at my own ultrasound how my uterine lining is looking (hopefully perfect!).  I am monitoring my fasting blood sugar twice a week because being on Prednisone can elevate blood sugar which we need to avoid so we can have a healthy pregnancy.  I have not had a drop of caffeine in almost two weeks...WHOO-HOO...super proud of myself! And I got my fasting insulin rechecked to make sure it has come down since being on Metformin, which it has....and also had my heparin level checked to see if I am on a therapeutic dose of Lovenox or if we need to increase my dose.  I did that test at the wrong time of day, so my level was low and I have to get it repeated on Monday. No biggie. 

Things are falling into place and I only pray that this lucky streak continues and God continues to Bless us with the child we've been working so hard to conceive and carry and bring into our lives.  I feel incredibly blessed already, to have such a wonderful sister walking this journey with us and trying her very best to help us achieve our goal of being parents.  I feel like this picture says it all....she's not just giving us eggs...she's give us a whole new hope.