Good afternoon my awesome supporters and blog readers!  I hope you're all having a good day.  It is pretty dreary here, to be honest.  It has been raining all morning and the temperature keeps dropping. I'm looking out the window as I sit here at my kitchen table and there are currently pellets of ice dancing on my deck.  It's really quite mesmerizing!  Rain to sleet/hail to snow is apparently the plan for today.  We are expected to get 2-4 inches here in Northwest Arkansas, which is kind of a big deal here....not just a normal winter day like this Nebraska girl is used to.  This whole area will literally shut down.  All the schools are out and most businesses are closing early.  My hubby got home from work at 10:00 a.m. and there is a very good chance his office will be closed tomorrow.  Looks like there will be lots of puzzles and games and movies and cards in my future because that is what snow days are typically like it the Nichols house...and I love it!!  Maybe we will even get to do some sledding tomorrow, which we haven't done yet this year.  Come on SNOW!!  But after this front, I'm ready for spring!! Don't forget to set your clocks up an hour when you go to bed on Saturday night for daylight savings time! One less hour of sleep one night is totally worth an extra hour of daylight for several months, if you ask me!!  

So, last Thursday this big ole' box of drugs arrived on my doorstep!.  In those moments as I was unloading everything, it suddenly became very real!  Yep, this is happening. 

Since I am not allowed to drink any alcohol from now until we find out if I am pregnant, our wine rack is currently serving as my pharmacy!  Here is a picture of all of my drugs that I have either already taken, am currently taking or will take during this IVF cycle (minus the progesterone suppositories I will do after the transfer because those haven't come yet).  I told Corey he probably didn't predict that his wifey would turn into such a druggie one day & he agreed! ;)

Up to this point, I have been in what is known as the "ovarian suppression" phase of the IVF cycle. First, I took birth control pills for 3 weeks.  Seems really counter productive, doesn't it?  One of the reasons for taking them is to prepare the ovaries.  They decrease the chance of my body growing any new cysts before the stimulation meds are begun and also help to shrink or completely eliminate cysts that are already there.  Also, by taking the birth control pills before starting the stimulation meds, the follicles are more likely to grow at a similar rate.  This leads to a greater number of follicles being mature at the same time, and therefore increases the number of eggs that are retrieved.  The last advantage of being on the pills is that they let the doctor be in control of the cycle and time the events as needed.  My last birth control pill was on Sunday.  

The second part of ovarian suppression is Lupron injections. The job of Lupron is to basically shut down the pituitary gland, which is the gland responsible for producing the hormones (LH and FSH) that stimulate the ovaries to produce follicles/eggs. By shutting it down, it ensures that I will not ovulate on my own prematurely. If I did, we would have to start all over and that would not be good! My first injection of Lupron was last Thursday night and I will take it every day until the day before my egg retrieval.  You have to take it within the same 2 hour window every night and if you miss one dose, you literally have to start all over.  Yikes! Needless to say, Corey and I both have alarms of our phones to make sure it is not forgotten.  I wasn't looking forward to the shots, but I really didn't think it would be a big deal for me. After all.... I'm a nurse, I give shots all the time, needles don't bother me and getting shots has never been a big deal to me.  But let me tell you, giving them to yourself is a WHOLE NEW BALL GAME.  You guys should have seen me the first night.  I had it all drawn up and ready to go and I was laying on the couch ready to give it to myself in the stomach and I could not bring myself to do it.  When I finally tried, I did it so slow and soft that the needle didn't even go through my skin!  I could not bring myself to just jab it in there!  Corey had to give me a pep talk for a few solid minutes before I finally did it.  The next few days I did it myself and although it wasn't fun, I survived.  Then, the night before last, I panicked again and literally could not do it...so Corey has given them to me the past 2 nights.  It is SO much better when he does it!  I'm really surprised at myself.  I did not think it was going to be this big of a deal!  And if I think this is bad, in 3 days I'll be going from 1 shot a day to 3 shots a day for 10 DAYS.  Lord help me!  

This morning I had an appointment at my doctor's office here locally where I had my baseline ultrasound and bloodwork.  The goal of this appointment is to make sure my body has responded well to the birth control and Lupron and is suppressed/quiet.  I am very happy to say that it has!  The ultrasound showed that the large cyst on my right ovary that we were concerned about has completely disappeared and that there are NO cysts on either side.  This means we do not have to worry about delaying everything or having to make an extra trip to Little Rock to have the cyst drained.  YAY! Also, my uterine lining is thin, just like they want at this point.  Basically, my body has responded really well to the meds thus far and everything looks like they want it to, which means I can now safely move into the "ovarian stimulation" phase.   I also had a blood draw to see what my baseline level of estrogen is.  That way, my doctor can monitor me throughout the stimulation process by both ultrasound and estrogen levels to make sure my ovaries are not getting hyperstimulated a.k.a. too many eggs.  My estrogen level was slightly higher than they want, so I will be repeating that on Friday.  The nurse says this is very common and when you start your menstrual cycle it usually drops quickly.  Mine started today, so she said it probably just hadn't dropped before they drew my lab.  She said she expects it will be below 100 on Friday when we recheck it and we will start my stimulation meds Saturday as planned.   So, on Saturday I begin the 2 stimulation shots, Follistim and Menopur and will continue them and the Lupron shot for 10 days. I will be at the doctor's office every 2-3 days for lab and ultrasound so they can monitor me closely and adjust my dosages of drugs as needed. I feel like things are really rolling now!  

Since I also have to give up caffeine in the near future, I decided to treat myself to a latte to celebrate the good news of my appointment!  I think I deserve it. I mean they are taking away my coffee and wine and giving me shots.  These people are mean!!  Ha ha, just kidding... I know it is all for my good!  Alcohol apparently decreases the success of IVF as does caffeine.  It will be good for me to get used to not having them anyway since I am planning to be pregnant very soon :) So here I am sipping on my warm caramel latte on this cold day, writing this update. I keep thinking about how it is going to be so weird/crazy/neat to look back and read all of this one day, hopefully with a baby or babies in my arms.  Thank you for believing with me that God will give me the greatest desire of my heart, to be a Mommy!  Maybe this month is what all I've been through has been leading up to.  I'm ready to witness a thousand prayers being answered in an instant.  What an incredible feeling that will be. I'm trying to fight back the doubt, the fear and the "what if's" and rest in the fact that He is faithful and He is in control.  And even if my heart and hopes and dreams are shattered once again, He'll be there to pick up the pieces.  But let's hope that rather than having a broken heart this Easter, I will have a heart that is more full and complete than it has even been before. Celebrating the resurrection of my Savior and the new life within my womb all at once... I just cannot imagine anything better!