Hopeful

Hello blogworld!  It's been a busy past couple days, so let me recap by the day.

Friday:  Went for monitoring, bright and early.   DH took the day off to spend some time with me, and to use a vacation day he would lose if he didn't use.  On ultrasound, we saw that my follicles are still chugging along, although that right side is still lagging behind.  The great news is that there are more follicles, 7 on the left, 5 on the right.  My lining was a 7, which is right where they want to see it for day 7 of stims.  All in all a pretty great appt.  I learned Saturday that my E2 level was in the 400s.  kinda low, but I have a lot of little follies so it lines up.
  After Monitoring, DH & I jumped back in my trusty jeep and high tailed it 1.5 hours north to Vernon Hills to go for our followup ultrasound w Dr. KK.  We made it there about 15 min before my appt time, which was perfect because it was time for my shots.  We can now add the bathroom there to my list of weird places Ive shot up.  When I came out, the ultrasound tech was waiting for me.  We got down to business and the ultrasound was pretty quick.  She remeasured a few of my follies and the lining, and was a touch more generous in sizing than my REs nurse.  We repeated the doppler to check the flow and seemed happy with what she saw.  When she was done, I put my pants back on and we waited for the nurse practitioner.
  Margaret (the NP) came to meet with us and review all our results.  (why am I saying we & our?  lets face it, it's my results.  No one touched DH lol)  We started with the ultrasound.  If you remember, on the initial ultrasound, I had restricted blood flow to my uterus and left ovary with no blood flow to zone 3 (the implantation layer).  Well, guess what folks!  I have bloodflow in normal range now and adequate bloodflow in zone 3!!!  I could have cried!  Those bruises from the lovenox are totally worth it!  Next we talked about labs.  My thyroid is now 0.78.  That's crazy!  They want to check it next week, so hopefully my RE can just add it on to one of the monitoring appts.  My NK cells and cytokines are still elevated.  She suggested we try IVIG, but we are unsure if insurance will cover it.  They will work to see if insurance will cover it.  If they will, I'll do that too.  If not, it's 2-3 thousand dollars not counting the time for the infusion.  So I don't think we'll pursue it.  In the meantime, they doubled my prednisone dose, saying that was a good other option.  It'd be different if she told me that IVIG is necessary, then we'd do it & figure it out later.  She just said it'd be a good tool to use, but the increased prednisone will be helpful too.  We reviewed what medications I'm on, she gave me instructions on how to manage the lovenox around the ER and told me to increase it to 2 times a day after the transfer.  Oh joy, even once I'm done with stims, I'll still be on 3 shots a day.  She also advised me to do 1ml of PIO after retrieval in addition to the crinone.  Overall, great appts.  DH & I spent the rest of the day floating around in his parents pool, since the live about 15 minutes away from Dr. KKs office. 

Saturday:  Early morning monitoring again.  The ultrasound revealed my 7 follies on the left, with the largest one being 14 mm.  The big surprise was that that right side now has 11 follies, ranging from 6-9 mm.  The nurse feels that we'll be looking at a friday retrieval.  We want at least 3 follies around 20 mm before we trigger, so there's still time for that right side.  If I can get some on the right to about 14-16 mm by the time we trigger, they'll probably be good for ER.  After that, I went to the local Revolve meeting.  It felt so good to go especially since I missed the previous 2 for work.  From there I made a mad dash for acupuncture.  I ended up being late thanks to bad traffic.  I hate being late, they they werent upset.  My session was so relaxing!  After that, I dashed back home to assemble a fruit tart to take to my brother's house.  He was BBQing for my mom's birthday. 
  Lately, the family get togethers have caused some anxiety, with my sister in law being 26 weeks pregnant and my mom being less than supportive of our struggles.  It was okay for the most part.  Sometimes it's hard to swallow the excitement between the 3 of them.  They opted to tell mom the baby's name yesterday, since she bought their furniture and they had set up the nursery.  I'm genuinely very happy for them, but honestly, it was kind of difficult to go in the nursery.  I tried to crack a few jokes about putting up a huge canvas photo of me in there, but there was a part of me that just ached. 

  Today is dedicated to relaxing, cleaning up the house and preparing for the week ahead.  My mom is coming over tomorrow after I get home from monitoring to talk strategy for the baby shower.  She has no idea we're doing this IVF cycle.  I figure that if we hammer out some details and I can give her some tasks to accomplish, maybe that'll buy me some time to get past the ER without having to talk to her.  I know that sounds bad, but trust me, I think it's the best thing for me at this point.  I love her to death, but she doesn't offer the support I need.
  After all the appts the past couple days, I've finally begun to feel hopeful and excited.  We have all these improvements and great outcomes.  I really feel like we have an amazing chance of success.  Also, it might just be strange coincidence but it seems like everytime i get in the car to go to an IF related appt, there are positive songs on the radio.  Songs I usually use to pump me up, or get me in the right mindset.  I think it's a sign.  Wanna know what's been playing?  Check out the lyrics and tell me it's not a sign lol.
Try-Pink
Don't you worry child-Sweedish house Mafia
Lose yourself-eminem (ok, I know that one it weird, but I used to use this one to pump myself before a performance/audition when I was a vocal major)
Stay-Rihanna

there are a bunch of country songs too, but I can't think of their names right now.  I blame the meds.  I think they're making me dumb.  Pretty soon my entries will be 2 sentences long.  Symptom wise, as of last night, I have fairly constant bloating, an occasional cramp.  Hot flashes, irritable, tired, increased CM (my E2 must be climbing!) and a low grade headache.  I say Bring it!