Fingers Crossed

How do I begin, when I've again been absent so long?  I suppose I can just jump right in, that seems to usually do the trick.  I know I haven't done well keeping people updated as we flew through this cycle.  It certainly wasn't intentional, but rather the result of being consistently and constantly exhausted.  Although some of it may be attributed to finishing up the school year, I think most of it can be attributed to the medication.  It's strange -- I've done this three times now, and each time I have had completely different experiences with medications and symptoms, even though the medications remained pretty constant.

As I think I mentioned previously, I started day 3 with Clomid.  I continued Clomid through day 7, adding in injected medications (Gonal-F and Menopur) on day 5.  I continued with those two injected medications on a daily basis until just recently when I added Ganirelix to the mix.  So, for the past four or five days (sorry I've lost count) I've been giving myself three injections per day in the stomach.  It sounds worse (and sometimes looks worse) than it is.  I promise. 

Tony accompanied me to the doctor every 48 hours for an ultrasound since this began.  Each time we would see more and more little follicles popping up on the screen.  Both of us went into this with a very guarded approach.  Tony is still holding back a little more than I am but, I tell ya, it is nearly impossible for me to see them growing to exactly where they "should" be and not be excited.  The difficult part is that getting the eggs hasn't really been our problem.  For us the tough stuff comes with fertilization.  I'm truly not sure what we (I) will do if none of these eggs fertilize.  At one of our recent appointments the reproductive endocrinologist counted 15 follicles.  Now, let me be clear, this doesn't necessarily mean that we'll get fifteen eggs.  It does mean that there is that possibility though.  If our past attempts have anything to add to this, it's that we won't get all fifteen, but we should get a majority of those.  This makes me even more excited and hopeful.  

Our sperm donor sample has arrived at the clinic and is waiting for our egg retrieval.  And...we have a date!  Part of the reason you're "blessed" with my entry tonight is that I have to stay up until 11:30 tonight in order to give myself my HCG trigger injection.  Tomorrow is my "medication holiday," and on Tuesday morning we will head to the clinic for the egg retrieval.  Once there, I will be partially sedated as the reproductive endocrinologist removes each egg from the follicles.  They will then have someone in the lab clean the eggs and we will get a call later that day to inform us how many mature eggs we have.  The fertilization takes place later that afternoon, and we usually receive results within the next day or two telling us how many embryos we have.  Ideally we'd like as many embryos as we can get.  At this point, neither Tony nor I care how this happens...we just want it to be so.  The number of embryos and their quality will determine whether we do a day 3 or a day 5 embryo transfer.  The way I understand it, best-case scenario would be lots of high quality embryos and a day 5 transfer.

Now, here's where you all come in.  I don't presume that all of you pray -- but if you do, please send your prayers our way.  If you don't pray, any positive thoughts, baby dust, ANY positive vibe you send our way will be greatly appreciated.  I really believe in the power of prayer and positive thought and though I've been doing my best to keep my chin up about this whole thing I am  not above asking for help!  

I promise, promise, promise to keep you updated in a more timely fashion than I have.  I'll definitely be updating Tuesday and then again as soon as we have any news.  Thanks in advance for those prayers and positive thoughts!