My Big Girl Panties

This week I'm somewhere between a 1950's housewife and a TRAINWRECK.  JCH is on a mandatory 64 hour work week (indefinitely) and I'm so busy at work that I'm stuck doing ALL of those "house manager" chores (pay bills online, check email, scan over the news, buy birthday presents, make holiday plans, etc.) once I get home rather than squeezing them into my 10-minute breaks at work.  PLUS I'm doing all of the cooking and cleaning at home, in order for JCH to get SOME R&R with the little bit of down time he has.  Between him working 12 hour days and two hours of breathing treatments each day, he doesn't get much "JCH TIME" lately.  1950's housewife...only I'm working 40 hours outside of the house too!

Anyway, back to "where do babies come from"...

I had my VERY FIRST “estradiol” labs (blood work) and follicle monitoring (ultrasound) Tuesday morning!  This was to determine my “BASELINE”.  They were measuring my follicles (hopeful eggs) and hormones levels (with my blood) to determine what the next steps are (dosage of hormones, timing of appointment, etc).  Ultrasound went perfectly and once again I was complimented on my beautiful uterus and healthy ovaries (remember this is my local OB-GYN doing the monitoring).  Patty (IVF Nurse Coordinator) called later to confirm that Dr. Winslow also thought that everything looked perfect.  Blood work on the other hand-went awful!  My arm was LiT-RuH-LEE murdered! The nurse apparently “missed or went right-thru my vein” (her words--she wasn't even sure what she was doing wrong).  She poked the needle in a little further and than pulls it out just a bit to see if she can get the blood to flow…no such luck!  By the time she decided she would need to try it again with a new needle I was sweating and looking around to find somewhere to puke.  She got a new (smaller) needle…and did the exact same thing!  Pretty rough, and I've got the bruised arm to prove it! Only 4-5 more times (with that nurse)...hopefully she'll do better on Friday!

Speaking of needles, Tuesday night was the first hormone injection and may I just say "EASY BREEZY"!  JCH was so calm and focused and I honestly didn't even feel the needle.  The ice cube numbing trick definitely worked and the needle was teeny tiny (I must have been wearing my "big girl panties"). The medicine (hormone concoction) felt a little uncomfortable for just a minute and today the injection site is slightly sore but nothing compared to my poor bruised arm.  We will be doing this hormone injection EVERY NIGHT at the same time for the next few days until I have another “estradiols” and “follicle monitoring” appointment on Friday.  Once the doctor gets the update on how my body is responding to the hormone injections I will get my next round of instructions.  My stomache (where I'm getting the injections) has two little bruises...I'll take a picture at the end of the week when I'm "polka-dot" all over.

A good friend of mine had a baby girl on Monday and last night I took a 30 minute time-out to run over and meet the little angel.  She stopped my heart and took my breathe away and I wanted to cry she was so beautiful.  Just a wonderful reminder of how worth it all of this will be!  FACT:  I would face that "not so talented" blood-taking nurse on a daily basis just to have the chance of my own little miracle.

I promise to get more sleep tonight so that my next post I will be sounding more like my old self again.  All in all...we are doing really good...are in good spirits...and are getting really excited!