CD14 Follow Up ultrasound #3

Still pitch black out when we left the house...


Really foggy out a good part of the drive.



Alarm goes off at 3:30am hop in the shower and get ready. While getting ready hubby went out and filled my car with gas and got himself some Tim Horton's. Left the house at 4:43am. 

Arrive at clinic at 6:44am and that's with a quick pee stop on the way and more Tim Horton's lol.
We did it... We're #1 in line finally!

Threw that door is the reception desk.. they only open at 7:45 yet by that time the waiting area is already 3/4 full so we have to get there real early like today.. 7:00am and #1!! Usually the elevator that brings us up to this floor is locked till 7:15 and women start lining up down there it's kinda funny to see.. but a nice nurse was going up and asked up if wanted to go up.. score! Beats waiting 15 more mins in front of a locked elevator! 

 Then we notice on the board what Dr is doing the ultrasounds today.. it's yet again Dr.M. WHY!!!!! I am really hoping this is my last follow up and that i get to trigger tonight. Now I'm sitting here all anxious. I told my husband that this time I don't care how awkward or hard it is to tell him to do his job... measure ALL my follicles or at least the top 3 in each ovary!!

 Nice and empty.. for a whole 5-10 minutes.. I really REALLY hope I don't have to see this waiting room again unless it's to confirm my pregnancy!! FINGERS CROSSED!!!

Haha... bored waiting so we play games on our new phones.

 

Here we go... follow up #3!!! Hopefully the last before the IUI!! 

Haha trying to look pretty with my white sheet :P 

This was the famous white board in change room #4 haha.. not quite as epic as the other day.

 The ultrasound room.. nothing too exciting.

It was Dr M. again today and I was gearing myself up to speak my mind with him and tell him to measure more then 1 fregan follicle in each ovary!!! My husband was laughing at me cause I was stressing out over it all morning. The minute I saw his name again on the board when you walk in and take a number my heart sunk and I was mad.. 3 times in a row c'mon.. usually I get a diff Dr every visit, in this case I think I would have rather that this time around.

So... the Dr came in and he was in a really jolly good mood haha. He is usually really cheery, full of smiles and jokes and today was no different BUT he actually measured my follicles and I didn't have to say a word! Fiouf! He was like let's have a look, he measured my lining then went over to the right ovary and said: "Woah! Tell me again that you guys want kids" and starts laughing.. I had MANY large follicles.. then he was like: "Okay, let's count them together" and went on measuring 3 of them. That made me feel so much better. He actually looked around a bit.. well this time he didn't really have a choice because they were all pretty large and to get a good measurement he had to try and get different angles. My hubby took another video with his phone and you can really see well just how much my follicles grew! He then went over to the left side, measured one and yanked out the probe. Wished he would have measured at least one more on that side but once again before I could say anything it was over. So.............. The Verdict is.... drum roll.....  

(This is the pic I posted on my instagram)

I was REALLY hoping that my follicles would be around 20 and that I would have 2-3 considering the amount of pain I have but instead I have a shit ton of medium ones and 2 contenders. (I desperately want twins more then anything) but more sure if the 15 will grown enough today and tomorrow to make the cut.. or even the 13 for that matter. C'mon follies GROW!!!

I was hoping not to need to anymore injections but here we are... after the Apt we drove to the pharmacy, picked up 3 more vials of Menopur, picked up the trigger shot as well as 2 boxes of Prometrium (progesterone capsules). Picked them all up at the same time to save us anymore trips to the Pharmacy. 

I know Dr said to keep same dosage so 187.5iu.. but I am not taking ANY chances that they don't grow big enough to fertilize. So once again I upped my dosage to 3 lines past the 1ml line. I don't think I ended up ever doing the recommended dosage after all. Heck if my biggest is still only a 16 then maybe I should have been at a higher dosage to start with! So here goes nothing. 

This is my "lucky" bracelet my mom bought me when she was down for a couple days in July. I call it lucky because it's 1st of all from the store called "Lucky Brand" haha, 2nd.. my mom bought it for me and 3rd it has elephants and I'm obsessed with elephants and it's just really pretty :P Been wearing it at every apt but the baseline and plan on wearing it for the IUI.





The Crafty Infertile Mrs.White

CD13 - relaxing day

Today we slept in till noon and it felt sooo good! That's what vacations are all about :)
We then relaxed and watched a bit of the food network then we went to the gym and I put my little brother threw a pretty great chest/shoulder/back/quads workout. He was a trooper.

Haha I look a little hard core here.. I usually wear much brighter funky clothes.. but this was the only gym outfit that was clean :P

Being back in the gym lifting heavy, working hard and sweating made me feel alot better. I did feel some tugging when I was doing bench press.. I lifted 95lbs and felt some tugging in my ovaries so stopped and had to adjust all my workouts to make sure I wasn't stretching my hip area. It was nice to be sore somewhere else then my ovaries that's for sure. I felt really good when we were done and glad that I decided to push threw in the gym.

When we got home, my brother and I brought the dogs to the off leash dog park for a good 45 mins while hubby stayed home and started cooking a BBQ supper for all of us. So when we got home we showered and eat really filling and healthy ground beef balls with corn on the cob, asparagus and peppers/onions. We don't eat our burgers in a bun, we break them up into pieces and eat them with the veggies.





We then played a board game called Carcassonne, really love that game!

Then a little blogging then bed time and we have to wake up soooo early again tomorrow for follow up ultrasound #3!!!! Keeping fingers crossed that the med increase did the job!

G'night!

The Crafty Infertile Mrs.White

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