Second Big Step

So, tomorrow morning, we will not be going to work. Jon and I will wake up early and head over to the reproductive clinic to do the egg retrieval. We have to be there at 8:30AM and the procedure will be at 9:00AM. They will give me some good stuff that will knock me out. Jon will give his sample and they will do the ICSI and let the embryos sit in a little petri dish for 3 to 5 will days. Depending on how things look, they transfer the embryos on either Sunday or Tuesday. I am just grateful that we have made it this far.

Let me just give a little overview of my appointment from yesterday. I went in for my blood draw and ultrasound. Dr. Heiner and I were both optimistic that this would be my last day of monitoring. He did the ultrasound and follicles at about 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19 millimeters. However, he didn't feel I would be ready for retrieval for Thursday. He told me we would need at least one more day of monitoring and give the follicles another day to grow and for my levels to go up. I was a little discouraged but set up my appointment for today, Wednesday. As I was starting my car, one of the nurses ran out to get me and told me that Dr. Heiner wanted to talk to me. I went back in and he informed me that on the report that printed out, there were two follicles he missed, one at 20 mm and the other at 22 mm. He said depending on my estrogen levels, he would do the egg retrieval on Thursday. I was really happy to hear this. He said he likes the levels to be over 2000 and that I should be right about there since my levels were jumping about 500 every day.

So, I sat down with a nurse who went over the HCG "trigger" shot. This helps the follicles in there final stage of maturing. This also meant I wouldn't have to do any other shots but this one. This shot has to be taken at an exact time which was 10:00PM last night. The shot has to administered 35 hours before retrieval and we did it right on time. Then today, I took a pregnancy test and the result we were looking for was positive. This will show that my body reacted to the HCG with a false positive. I did two of these test's because the positive was really faint. The nurse said as long as it was there and I could see it no matter how faint, it was positive.

Anyway, back to the appointment. When the nurse called me back with my levels, Tuesday night, she said they were 1856. But because two of my follicle's were so large, the doctor was concerned if we waited one more day, I could be in danger of ovarian hyperstimulation and they didn't want that to happen. So here we go.

I'm nervous and excited and after I got off with the phone with the nurse, I just started crying because I was so grateful that we had made it this far. We have had so many prayers answered through all of this. It's just another small victory.

I am so incredibly grateful and overwhelmed for all the prayers and faith from out family and friends. This journey has been amazing so far. And throughout all of this, I have been at peace, calm, and not had a moment where I just freaked out. Everytime I stressed about something, this little voice kept telling me, 'Not to worry. Everything will be o.kay.' I just have to keep believing that.