IUI complete

Ok IUI is complete. RE said the "sample" was great and that everything looked good.
I wished I would have gotten another ultrasound or something but didn't- just the IUI.

I need to start Prog. and Estrace tomorrow.

Don't know about follow up- I think I will need a prog test in about a week, but my RE wasn't there, it was the on-call Dr. I will call on Wednesday to find out what the next step is.

Jason and I are going to the hockey game tonight to ring in the New Year. Should be alot of fun. The city of Dallas is putting on a big party at Victory Park, which is where the Stars play, complete with fireworks and everything. Driving home scares me a bit- but I am the designated driver so it should be fine.

Happy New Year!! Hopefully 2008 will bring a BABY!

We've TRIGGERED!!!

So I went for a follie check yesterday. It was good!!

Lefty had 19.5mm, 18mm and 15mm
Righty had 17mm, 17mm, 15mm and 14mm
Lining was 9.3

RE said he would have liked to see a follicle at 20 BUT since I had so many that were pretty close if we did the stims one more night he would have to cancel. Each follie 17 or bigger has the chance of maturing with the trigger shot.

We did the trigger shot last night at around 8pm
I go in tomorrow morning (New Year's Eve) for the IUI.

I am so excited! Maybe I have a chance this cycle! Supposedly you have a better chance post-lap and this is my first cycle post lap.
Also I have 4 nice follies that could mature- So the fimbria will have more than one chance to pick one up.

My old friend, "HOPE", is here. Jason thinks this is our lucky cycle. He says there have been signs pointing to that-I hope he is right!

Tomorrow begins the "two week wait"-- UGH!!!

CD 13 ultrasound

Woo-Hoo, they have grown!!!

Lefty has 16.5mm, 15mm & 11mm
Right has 14mm,13mm, 12mm and 11.5mm
Lining is 7.7 (needs to be 8)

So two more nights of shots, another ultrasound on the 29- then probably trigger that night and do IUI on the 31st! So a New Year's baby is possible

Wow- this has been a rollercoaster- I can't imagine how it feels to be doing IVF and all of the money to be coming out of your pocket.
There is no way we could be doing this!!!

I am very pleased with the results at this point! Hopefully this will be the one and only time we have to do this!!!

CD 10 ultrasound

I had this ultrasound on Christmas Eve. It was kind of a bummer-- I had quite a few follies but none over 8mm. I had 4 on righty around 8mm and then a bunch of smaller ones. Can't remember the exact measurements of lefty but I think close to the same as righty. My lining was also a bit thin-- I think 6mm- but the ultrasound tech said that is normal considering how small the follies are. As the follies grow, the lining should grow as well.

It is still early but I looked at my last monitored cycle with Clomid and at this point they were 18mm, 16mm and some smaller ones. So I am a bit discouraged.

I suppose is a good thing there aren't a ton of big ones which would run the risk of having to cancel or convert to IVF, since the chance of multiples would be higher.
BUT I was expecting to see at least one or two big ones considering I have been doing the injections.

The Dr. bumped up my dose of the injections to 150 units for 3 nights.
I go back tomorrow to see if they have grown--

Grow follies Grow!!

Divine Intervention?

I believe in Divine Intervention. My Mom calls them "little God things". You know things that happen that seem to be much more than coincidence. I believe that my IF insurance coverage is just that... a little God thing.

Let me explain...
My company switched insurance in October. I researched all of the options and of course none of them covered IF- or so I thought. I called the HMO option once more to inquire about surgery for my DH. I thought to ask about IF one more time. Lo and behold, the person said this plan does have coverage-6 IUI cycles and 6 IVF he thought. But I would need to call the IF line and find out for sure. Of course at this point they were closed for the day.

I called back the next day and they wouldn't be able to tell me specifics until I actually got my group number but yes it did look like I had the "comprehensive IF coverage" which covers 6 IUI cycles.

So I wait and wait to get the group number- finally get it and they tell me it does cover the 6 IUI cycles, but not IVF. Fine-great, that is way more than most women get so I am happy--no, ECSTATIC!

A few weeks later, something inside made me want to dig a little deeper-just to make sure. I printed out the plan description from the insurance website and it had an IVF rider attached that had certain criteria to meet and upon meeting the criteria IVF was covered. The only criteria I might meet was endometriosis. Didn't know for sure if I had it or not but had a lap scheduled to find out. So I call the insurance company to ask about it and they have no idea what I am talking about or where I got the rider. I told them I had printed it out from THEIR website...

They researched it for a MONTH- managers reviewed it, account rep reviewed it and finally the legal team reviewed it. A month later they finally called and told me even though it was a mistake and not supposed to be part of my plan that they would honor it since it was their mistake--OMG!! I don't know how many cycles it covers, probably one, but that is so much more than most women get. I am very grateful.

Obviously someone was looking out for me to guide me to the website and make the inquiries that I did. I have since looked at the website and the whole plan description has been taken off. They are covering up their mistake and don't want to have to make any more "exceptions" as they are doing for me.

Divine Intervention?? I think so. My Mom said that some little angel is up there and is ready to come down to us- and that it guided me to find this wonderful IF coverage.

So we begin...

AF came on Saturday. Went in today for 3 day bloodwork...

FSH--8.8 Anything under 10 is good.
Estridol--15 Anything under 50 is good.

We have decided to do the injectibles with the Letrozole. We have the money to do it now, so why not...

Injections start tomorrow night. YIKES. I am excited but so nervous. Not nervous about the shots, but nervous about it not working...

Tonight I am drinking some wine- hopefully I won't be able to drink for 10 months so I need one last hurrah!!!

We have a plan

Met with RE today- Here is the plan-- I am so excited...
Start Letrozole this month. Today or tomorrow is likely CD1 so will start meds early part of next week. Do a monitored cycle with trigger shot and IUI.
Do one more of the same if that doesn't work.
Then in Feb move to IVF.
We decided to not do the injectibles this cycle (or next) because although insurance covers the IVF procedure. It does not cover the injectibles... whatever.
So the injectibles were going to be $1000 for IUI cycle or $3000 for IVF cycle.
Financially it make sense to go the cheaper route with the IUI cycle in hopes that it will work and then if not we have saved up money for the IVF.

I am excited! It is just like I said in the previous post-- I now have a new sense of HOPE. I feel like I am on cycle 1 again

Christmas party BS.

So DH works for an oil and gas company. He started with this company last year in October. December rolls around and he is at the office one day and discovers that everyone in the office is invited to the Christmas party dinner except him. I think that is pretty shitty, but we chalk it up to him being new and not really part of the crew yet.

He quits this company in June and goes to (what we thought) would be a better deal for us. Turns out not to be a better deal so he eats crow and goes back to his old company to ask for his job back. They agree.

He has been back since October. He is doing a great job and evenheard 3 of the head guys talking about what a great job he is doing. So we think great- things are good and we don't need to worry about cuts in January.

He goes to work today and finds out that the party is tonight- and once again he is not invited. To make things worse some guys that are newly hired and don't know what is going on as far as work goes have been invited but he and two other guys aren't.

Shitty if you ask me!!! To me it should be all or none- I can't believe that grown MEN would behave this way. I understand that he did quit and come back, so maybe they are still pissed about that- but then why didn't he get invited last year when he was a new hire? New hires got invited this year...

New hope

I am just sitting here thinking back when we first started TTC. The first time and the second time. I was so full of hope, thinking I would be pregnant in no time.
"I will be one of the ones that gets pg right away" I thought- Boy was I wrong.
It took 15 cycles of trying for Garrett- That is a long time. We did not have insurance at that time so no testing or anything was done. We scheduled a trip to Mexico and two weeks later I found out I was pregnant.

We decided to start trying again in Dec. 2005. Once again I thought- "oh I have gotten pregnant before so it should be easy this time"- WRONG. Here we are two years later. At least this time I have some answers to why I can't get pg and a plan to get pg.

That leads me to where I am now- again I am thinking "oh I am going to start treatment soon, hopefully this month or January, so I will get pg right away"
I know from past experiences I shouldn't think this way, but it is so hard not to. Especially when trying something new. I feel as hopeful as I did way back in June 2002 when I quit taking the pill for the first time.

Tonight I take my last pill. I was on the pill for the lap and even though I could stop taking it at any point after the surgery, I decided to finish out the pack so Friday (when I have my post-op appt) will hopefully be CD 1 or 2 and maybe we can get started with treatment right away.

Here's to hope...

Results of Lap

Well I had the lap done on Friday. I was pretty nervous going into it but DH and my Mom were there to support me. The nurse that prepped me was hilarious. She and I shared the same birthday. The anesthesiologist was great too. Once he put the "margarita" in my IV on the way to the OR I don't remember a thing. I woke up in the recovery room thinking I was Christmas shopping. Waking up was the strangest sensation!! My Mom and DH were able to come in pretty soon after I woke up- I was able to eat, drink and pee and was on my way home.

Now to what the lap revealed...
I do have endo- DH said that the Dr. said it was a pretty good case of it even though I don't have the usual symptoms. Dr was able to remove it.
There were some stringy things attached to various parts, he removed that as well
One ovary had a cyst and he removed that. He said this ovary is small and looks older than I am-- great.
The other ovary was attached to my pelvis due to the endo-so he fixed that.
What he seemed most concerned about was the finger-like things that are supposed to grab the egg from the ovary were damaged by the endo. They are supposed to be long and wispy, mine are short and stubby.
I have an appt next week to discuss options but Dr. told DH and Mom that he thinks we should generate alot of eggs to give the "fingers" more opportunity to pick one up. So I guess that means injectibles. Insurance will pay for IUI so I am sure we will do that as well.

After 2-3 months of that move on to IVF (if insurance covers---more on that later)
I guess if insurance doesn't cover it that will be the end of our journey.

Now about the insurance- they have "told" me on the phone all along that the DO NOT cover IVF. But I printed the benefits off the internet and there was a rider attached to the plan that covered IVF if the couple met certain criteria--- one being endometriosis. Seems pretty cut and dry to me right? Well they have been "researching" it for 3 weeks now. First they had to speak with the supervisor, then to the acct rep., now they are speaking with the legal dept. I guess I really threw them through the loop when I actually read the book and didn't just rely on what they "told" me. I am sure the legal dept is trying to figure a way out- hopefully they won't. I am going to call tomorrow and try to (nicely) demand an answer. I mean if they will cover IVF screw the IUI's--let's move straight to that!

Anyway I am recovering nicely from the surgery-- the gas is finally gone, hopefully the bloating will follow soon. The incisions are only slightly tender. Mentally I am both relieved and sad. On one hand at least I know what is causing the problems and I realize that in order for insurance to cover IVF I need this diagnosis. On the other hand I am sad-- what if this prevents me from having another baby. I mean I am VERY thankful for Garrett, but I don't feel my family is complete...

Lap on Friday-pre op tomorrow

Well the big day has come-- the lap is on for Friday. I have to go in tomorrow morning for pre-op stuff. I am excited to get it over with-- Nervous though...
I have never had surgery.
Hopefully he will find some endo bc if so I am pretty sure insurance will cover IVF-woo hoo!
More tomorrow!