CD12 On Vacation!! Banff & Lake Louise

Since my brother came down for a good part of August I booked some vacation time for this week to spend two weekends with him and the whole week. My IUI cycle ended up kinda happening riiiight around that time we had planned to go do all these great outings instead we ended up having to drive to Edmonton for the follow up's and since that's 4 hours round trip and really early in the morning we were pooped after and just ended up going home playing board games and relaxing. Since our 2nd follow up was yesterday, today we have the whole day to ourselves to go have fun, enjoy the outdoors, relax and feel on Vacation!! Soooo we decided to venture out to Banff National Park and to Lake Louise.

The following are the pictures I took with my LG G3 phone, we have soo many better ones with the professional camera, and I'm in alot more of them too since hubby was the one taking pics.. but these show alot of the activities too.. just not as pretty haha...

Here we go!!!
It was a gloomy foggy grey day but we made the best of it!

Quick pit stop on the way to Banff to take some Selfies with the mountains haha! This is my brother and yes we are blood related.. just different dad's.

I made my brother pose for many pictures haha and they all turned out really great! I have like 4 other ones like this taken in different angles and they all looks so neat! Wish I was photogenic :P

Here we are entering Banff National Park.. there's a fee to enter so we're lined up to pay. Def worth every penny!

There's a little story behind this one hahha.. we took like 10 pictures and we were making a bunch of different funny pictures and in most my brother who was sitting in the back poked his head with funny faces. This was the only one where I looked somewhat normal :P

Once in Banff, we parked the car and walk along the main strip riiiight to the "Fudgury" store. They make all sorts of mouth watering AMAZING chocolates, fudges, caramels and much much more. These two just couldn't wait to munch down on them. I made them stop eating for a sec and take this pic and my husband was eyeing his next bite hahaha that's just how amazing it is! I somehow managed to keep my portion till tomorrow. My stomach was upset and watching these two chow down so much sugar made me feel ill. They each eat like a bag full. They were on a sugar high and made this day trip hilarious. Sooo many pictures I am not posting but their hilarious and one of us always seemed to ruin the picture with some weird face.  

Then we decided to drive to Lake Louise witch is in the Banff National Park but about.. I think it was a 45 min drive, I forget I was too busy taking pics out my window and looking at the pics we had already taken and laughing. I so needed this vacation. Pics below was at a rest stop on the way to  Lake Louise, we figured why not stretch out legs and take more funny pics!

See what I mean... hahaha

Back in the car and still on our way.. this is our.. we're almost there faces hahaha

Bam!!! There it is... the beauty of Lake Louise!!! Check out that water, it's unreal!

I put my feet in and told hubby he should try too... Forgot to mention to him it was ICE COLD! ;) hahhaha.

We sat on these rocks for a bit and soaked it all in. It was a real foggy day but still beautiful.

baahahhaha we tried to take a "nice" pic.. didn't turn out so good. This pic made me realized I need a new haircut and hair dye ASAP! (haven't done anything to my hair since last Nov!!)

We just couldn't help it !

Finally a good one!!!

This was on the way back to the city of Banff.. a nice little pit stop. Real gloomy day but still cool.

Aww I love this man!

Can't forget the shot shot shot shot! It's injection time!!! Did this in the truck while we were driving. Prob not the safest but I got it done.

Sunset over the mountains leaving Banff.

We have much better pictures of the mountains and the size of them with the other camera.. I'll have to get hubby to load them on my laptop as I'm not sure where he put the camera memory card.

The Happy Crafty Infertile Mrs.White

Hand Made Sympathy Card

As promised in my yesterday's post.. here is the Sympathy Card I made for my neighbor who lost her 20 year old granddaughter to leukemia. This was my first time making a sympathy card as I usually hate making them since they underline a sad event but I wanted to do something special to show her we cared, that we were thinking about her and there if she needed anything. This card brought her to tear and made me so sad as well. Last thing I wanted was to remind her of her loss by giving this to her hence why I hate making these but I think she appreciated the gesture.

If your interested in knowing how I made this card step by step then head over to my craft blog at www.pumpkinspice-life.blogspot.com

The Crafty Infertile Mrs.White

CD11 FollowUp 2 & med increase

Here we go again!!!

Check out the sunrise!

We left home a little later then usual it was so hard getting up! Once we got to the clinic we were already 10th in line!! That means alot of waiting.

Dr M had a male assistant "shadowing" with him today.. i take it he will become a new Dr in the clinic.. most likely since mine retired. He seemed very nice and eager to learn, he walked in and grabbed my file and started reading.. It was a bit uncomfortable I have to admit.. to not have 1 male Dr but two in the room while your spread eagle. You'd think at this point we get used to it.. I just wanted to get the ultrasound over with.

**Warning.. there is a rant coming on..
The Dr finally measured my lining, it was at 8 and that's not bad at all :) Dr said it looked very good and it was on it's way. All was good until he BARELY measured my ovaries once again! *grunt and angry face* He only measures one follicle in each ovary and he seemed to have measured the first larger follicle he saw at first glance in each ovary. Witch in my case, usually the Dr's have to dig around the ovary and measure a couple to make sure they found the biggest because my ovaries are seriously FULL of follicles and sometimes it's hard to see all of them properly. They also usually like to measure more then one in each to see witch ones grew, if some shrunk and mainly to see if there is a progress. I'm not kidding when I say he did not look around at all, he just pointed the probe to the right measured first larger follicle he sees on the screen and did the same on the left and just yanked the probe out before I could ask any questions or ask to measure more. I was stunt and really annoyed. Any other Dr in the clinic would have taken more time to look around and taken down more information. *Grrrr!* We waited sooo long in the waiting room this morning for literally 2 seconds of an ultrasound! I totally felt cheated of my rights to a proper ultrasound and checkup.
*Rant over :)

The Verdict...

Ultrasound done by Dr.M (male)

Lining: 8 

Right ovary: 11 +++ (11 was the biggest ones but had a BUNCH of smaller contenders)

Left ovary: 11 +++

Injection dosage: INCREASE to 187.5iu Menopur (I cheated and did closer to 200iu, let's get the show on the road!)

Dr said to increased my Menopur dosage from 150iu that equals 2 vials of 75iu each to 187.5iu witch is 2 vials and a half. I asked the pharmacy how I was supposed to take only half of a vial and it turns out not to be complicated at all. First you start off by taking 2ml from your solution and inject all 2ml in 1 bottle of menopur but only retract 1ml (once it's fully diluted), then you proceed as usual with the two other bottles. I know my body and I knew that if my follicles weren't growing as fast as last IUI cycle I wanted to get the show on the road so I upped my dosage from 187.5iu to.. oh man I'm not sure what the measurements would be but instead of taking out only 1ml from the 2ml at the start I took out 1ml +3/4 (3 lines on the syringe pass the 1ml line). I feel confident that this hopefully will do the trick plus I hate to throw out half a bottle worth of meds that I paid for since the pharmacy does NOT recommend keeping the other half in the fridge in case of contamination and they can't guarantee it's quality or something along those lines once it's already been mixed.

Afterwards we went to the Pharmacy to pick up 2 more vials of meds since the new med increase. and since the Pharmacy suggested not keeping the other half of the vial we needed to buy an extra vial and we will now use 3 vials a day and discard the other half vial.

Personally I am upset that he increased my dosage without properly looking threw my ovaries.. for all he knows I could have a good size follicle hiding in there... I'm not kidding when I say he didn't look. My husband made a video with his cell phone of the screen and I'll try and upload it real soon so you guys can make your own opinions and help me out!

Afterwards we decided to go to the West Edmonton Mall and show my brother all the cool features of the mall like the roller coasters, the huge boat and seal show, the indoor staking rink and so on... we walked around sooo much my ovaries were really starting to ache so we decided to leave... But not before checking out the shooting range in the mall and shooting some guns!!!! 

I need some shooting practice hahaha although this was my very first time!







My little brother's first time shooting a gun and he looks pretty bad ass doing it haha!

We also shot with great big guns but I don't have a pic of it. And I have no idea what kind of guns they were.. I'd have to ask my husband but you can see it in the pic laying there in the pod beside him... that big gun was my favorite, I had so much more control. 

An other cool thing about today is I got a new Starbucks Coffee Mug! Yahoo! That little furry creature in the back is my cutie Nella, she's a pure bread shitzu.

When we got home they went to take a 2.5 hour nap while I stayed awake and created a really neat Sympathy Card for a neighbor who just lost her 20 year old granddaughter to leukemia. I drew a sketch as I was chatting with a friend on my phone and next thing I know I ended up creating something even better.. I will add a new post with the card so look out for it :) Def worth it haha.. there's sparkles, butterflies, ripped paper and much much more haha!


But now I am extremely tired since everyone else got some sleep but me... so it's bed time for me!

The Crafty Infertile Mrs.White

CD10 - Dinosaur museum & a Great Meal

Today I slept in till 12:30 then we all got up on our own time, got ready and spent a good part of the day walking around touring the Royal Tyrell Museum in Drumheller, Alberta. Hubby and I were really excited to show my little brother this museum because it's so sophisticated and grown up yet kid friendly and we took some pretty neat pictures so thought I would share some with you all.. a glimpse into my day.

playing hide and seek with the dinosaur hahaha

This is a pic my injection prep in my husbands truck, sitting in the parking lot at the museum before we left to go home. I was accidently ONE hour late taking my shot!! :O Ouuups! Totally hadn't seen the time fly by so gave myself the shot the minute I realized what time it was!!

Yes I have stretch marks, my skin is really not stretchy.. pregnancy might be interesting :S . I got them from my weight yo-yo'ing so much. I guess their just some things you get used to.. this injection really hurt for some reason and I bled. The sting went away after a good 10 mins. Not the most flattering pose haha.. I was trying to get the injection done as quick as I can and remembered that I wanted to document this moment haha.




We then drove to Red Deer to introduce my brother to the restaurant called "State & Maine". We had a good cheat meal and really enjoyed supper as we were all famished from a really long day of walking around a huge museum! Doesn't the food look amazing!!!!!!



How I'm feeling today.. pretty good but also very tired. All that walking around really woke up my ovaries and later at night they were achy, besides that I'm good to go :)

The Crafty Infertile Mrs.White

CD9 - pain & bruising cont.

I worked today 9-5, it felt like a really long day with alot of walking around. After work I came home, relaxed for about an hour then we all went to the gym (brother, hubby and I). At the gym, I put my brother threw my chest/triceps/shoulder workout hihihi. He was a trooper and it was nice to have a gym partner. He did really good for his first time in the gym and my workouts weren't easy either.

About 2 hours after the injections (witch happened to be while i was at the gym) my ovaries started to really hurt.. like a burning sensation around my ovaries and they felt like they were def growing. I got really worried and thought maybe I was pushing it too much in the gym but I purposely made sure to not do any workouts that included my lower body / abdominal area.

The pic below is what my bruised arm looks like today. (from yesterday's bloodwork) I sent a pic to my mother in law and she thinks the nurse must have gone threw my veine to make it bruise that much. Sorry about the crappy picture, it was hard to capture the true color of the bruise when taking the pic of my own arm.

The Crafty Infertile Mrs.White

Blog name change

Just a little post to say that I changed the name of my blog from "My Journey through Infertility" to "The Crafty Infertile's Journey through Infertility with Pcos". Thought the name change represented my Journey better and who I am as a woman. I will also try and post more of my crafty creations on here instead of only on my craft blog as a big part of my creations are around pregnancy, newborns and babies. So stay tuned for more of that.. especially that I create to escape and heal thought it would be fitting to show more of that sides to me.. not only the angry sad parts. Hope you like it!

The Crafty Infertile Mrs.White

CD8 FollowUp1 - bruising

The last 2 injections I've done, I've gotten a pretty good sized bruise. Besides that, the injections have been going good. I've done them all myself. (Gooo me!)

I wore this bracelet today. It's a bracelet I had bought online a little while ago from Ashley Bridget , I really love the anchor and stars! This bracelet is supposed to represent "Empathy" according to the website. Each bracelets have their own expression their pretty neat. I have another 3 bracelets hihi.. Check out their website, I think any TTC ladies would love them! They got super cute components and make great gifts :)  I love them so figured I'd share.








We got to enjoy the sunrise on our way to Edmonton. We left home at 5:00am.
It was pitch black when we left home though.

About 45 mins into the trip, it started to get really really foggy so we had to drive slower. 

It's bright, early and I'm tired but I'm here! Follow up #1 for IUI#4.

Here we go again!



























This is a picture of the white board they recently put up in each of the change rooms. They used to have random information papers taped up to the back of every door and people had started writing inspirational things all over the sheets.. I guess during my 6 months off, they finally invested in white boards for ttc women to support each other. I think it was a great idea and it def put a smile on my face before going into the ultrasound room. It also helped to be a little less stressed.






The picture below of the ultrasound machine was to show the new machine our clinic got! When the Dr came in, the machine was opened to a weird window and it took him a bit to figure out how to get it to the window he needed, said he hadn't used this machine before but that he would figure it out... Gulp.

The Verdict...

Ultrasound done by Dr.M (male)

Lining: he never measured! :( Just said it looked good

Right ovary: 0.94cm

Left ovary: 0.97cm

Injection dosage: Stay the same

**A little side note here to say that my ovaries had a BUNCH of follicles in them but that the Dr never measured any of them. He only measured the biggest he saw at first glace in each ovary and he looked at the lining but never measured it.. NO idea why. That did not make me very happy, the ultrasound lasted a whole 1.5 mins. I was too shocked and taken back to be able to say anything. I am also not used to having him do the ultrasounds since all the other Dr's measure many follicles to determine the average size of them and to see at next apt witch ones grew. Before I could even say anything he had already pulled out the probe and was writing in my file. My husband had the same reaction I had and all day I complained about how stupid that ultrasound went but figured it was only the 1st follow up that hopefully next one would be better. I was happy to know I at least had 2 good sized follicles. They were also all pretty round and nicely shaped already so I was very happy. 

If you have read my recent post about my Dr.C retiring during our 6 months off and not being notified about that... The Dr who did my ultrasound along with the nurse told us we needed to go to the front and get a new Dr associated to my file so that would be the Dr who revises my file. Once we got to the front they told us that we didn't need a Dr right away, only later down the line witch made no sense. I argued and said no Dr said now so please give me a new Dr now. I asked for a female and got a follow Up appointment with Dr.T for December 10th at 1:15. I told them I didn't need a apt I just needed a Dr associated to my files to make sure my file is looked after and revised but reception lady insisted on the fact that I needed a apt in order to get the new Dr. I swear it was alot of confusion for nothing and I'm just glad that in the end I have a piece of mind knowing my file IS looked after now. Not happy about how this process came about, really wish I was notified right away but what's done is done.

Also huuuge thing that went on today... if my husband overheard properly... the clinic has LOST... misplaced someones egg who was waiting in the waiting room I suppose for their IVF egg transfer. A certain Dr (not the one doing the ultrasounds today) seemed really stressed out and the nurses seemed to be busier then usual as in had alot of other paper work stuff they were dealing with... I really really hope he overheard wrong.. but man! I could not imagine being in their shoes. Hope that all got figured out in the end. Oufff!

These are the meds I brought home from the pharmacy today. I bought more then I needed for the 3 days but figured it would save me a trip to the pharmacy next time.

3 boxes of Menopur with 5 vials in each.
1 box of Q-caps (for the syringes)
1 box of syringes/needles/alcohol swabs.










I almost forgot to share that I got a huge bruise from my bloodwork today. No idea what happened, it didn't hurt more today then usual. Here's a pic...

This picture was taken shortly after we got home in the afternoon.

This picture was taken late at night before bed. It had been getting worst all day.

The Infertile Mrs.White