Something New, Something Blue, Something Old, Something Borrowed

Let's see if my fingers can keep up with how fast my brain is going right now...

Sunday, I woke up at 2:30am drove down to Jacksonville, waited about 10 minutes for my 15 minute appointment and was back on the road to Charleston and home by noon. What a morning!  As I sat in the lobby with all of the other women waiting on an early Sunday morning to get blood work and have our follicles measured I wondered about their “stories”.  In the 10 minutes I waited in the lobby I pondered over about 10 different women...some with their moms (obviously pretty young), some with their “men”, and some all by their lonesome just like me!  I never realized how difficult it is to get pregnant! So many people are being affected by infertility and it’s not just the stereotypical “older women” who waited “too long” to try to have babies.  As I sat in the lobby I felt connected to them, I wanted to just start talking to each of them as if they were old friends.  One girl spoke to the receptionist briefly asking whether it would be okay to give herself her shot before her appointment, and than preceded into the restroom, dropped her pants, and was back out in the lobby within minutes.  SO BRAVE.  I’m just getting used to someone giving me the shots, and last night even faced my shot without icing it first (we all have different levels of bravery). 

Something new—there is a new doctor in town (not really)!  JCH was late getting home last night and my friend-AP-was over to pick me up to go make dinner for our “new parent” friends and I needed my shot before I left.  AP is a ROCKSTAR—she just stepped up and gave me the shot (like a pro)!!!  I’m still a little amazed that she faced that task with such bravery and ease!  I definitely surround myself with amazing women! Speaking of amazing women in my life—I got slightly emotional this morning as I looked over birthday cards from ALL OF THE WOMEN in my life—you ladies know who you are and make me feel like such a lucky girl to have you!

Something blue—yep my stomach is still pretty bruised from the first couple of shots!  The good news is that JCH is a pro now too and I’m not even bruising anymore (sorry no polka-dot picture to share).  My stomach is getting pretty hard from all of the injections—not sure if that is normal (I’ll have to ask at my next appointment) but when I bend over I feel like I literally have a “spare tire” around my waist.   GROSS.

Something old—this trip down to Jacksonville.  Sorry to gripe but 8 hours of driving 3 times a week (yep that’s how many times I’ll be driving there this week) is getting old FAST.  I need a car charger for my iPhone, some new Pandora radio station suggestions, and a lot more itunes downloads!  I’m driving down tonight straight from work, staying in a hotel, going to an early appointment and driving back and straight back to work Wednesday afternoon (I have very few sick days to spare).

Something borrowed—do you have a few hours in your day to spare?  Maybe a few hours of sick time at work? I know, could you spare a few brain cells?  Brain cells are apparently a "hot commodity" in our house lately (not always--but lately) .  We have been storing all of my hormones in the refrigerator because when they were shipped they were in a cooler with ice packs.  Come to find out (on Sunday) it’s actually not necessary to store them in the refrigerator and you are actually supposed to keep them at room temperature.  Neither of us even thought twice about refrigerating them.  The good news is that the fridge won’t cause any harm to the hormones.  The bad news, I know some of you are second guessing our ability to be parents.  LOL (yeah at least we’re good at laughing AT ourselves).  The miscellaneous related news--I think the hormone concoction was hurting worse when it was cold because since taking them out of the fridge they have been more mild.

So anyway, I’m driving down tonight for my LAST follicle monitoring and blood work appointment tomorrow morning.  They are predicting we will be back this Friday/Saturday or Saturday/Sunday for egg and sperm retrieval (yes a couple days earlier than predicted) and than next week will be “transfer” AKA “implantation”.  They typically do the transfer either 3 days or 5 days from egg retrieval…sooo possible dates are:  November 1st- November 4^th! I’m slightly stressed out about November 2^nd because I’ve got a HUGE ongoing project at work and we have a BIG meeting that morning that I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT MISS!!!!  Keep your fingers crossed for me!  



BABY COLLAGE at Florida Institute for Reproductive Medicine (F.I.R.M.)--this covers an entire wall--8,000 babies and counting!