My first ER visit as an adult...

So the pain of eating and drinking became way too much today. I decided it was time to go to the hospital to try and find a remedy.  I had called my regular Doctor, but they had suggested that I go to the hospital to get quicker results. A few seconds after I swallow food or liquid, I get severe pain, I'd say 9 out of 10 on the pain scale. Today I actually refused to eat or drink anything. :(

We got to the hospital around 2:30 or so.  After a lot of redundant stuff - questions, blood pressure tests, etc, and 5 hours later, I finally get a prescription to help heal what we all think I have, which is probably an ulcer or inflammation of my esophagus caused by the Doxycycline  I only took for four days.  I stopped taking the meds Monday night and it's Friday night and I have the same constant pain. I'll probably have the pain for another week until it heals. I've been given a proton inhibitor (i think) to help it heal. I have to make a follow up appointment in a week, and if it's still bad, I believe they well scope my throat. I just hope I can manage to find the energy to eat and/or drink until then.

We talked to our fertility doctor today who prescribed this terrible antibiotic for us, and he says this kind of reaction is rare. I doubt that, since all my research on the net showed many many people with the same problems. I was also told that an allergic reaction to the Lupron was also extremely rare. How is it that I'm the special case? I'm afraid that all of this bad stuff is going to hinder me in some way. I really hope it doesn't. I'd hate for them to pull me from the shared risk program, because I become too much of a risk.

Tomorrow it will be a week on the Lupron, and we have an appointment for blood work and an ultrasound. We are getting closer—only 19-24 days left until our transfer!  Anyone know how close it gets to when they can narrow down the dates a little better?

I also had my first acupuncture appointment today. It went well. I really liked the lady I saw. I felt comfortable with her. The session lasted 2 hours and she now pretty much knows my whole life story. I find that strange, but if it helps, then I'm all for it. She's recommending two sessions a week until we get to transfer time. I hope it helps with some other ailments like my lower back pain, calm me, and work it's fertility magic on me. I do find it all strange, but am willing to try anything for this to work! I didn't feel any different during or after the session, nor do I now, but today was an unusual day, spending 5 hours at the hospital and all. I'm going to lay in bed now and do some deep breathing. I am hopeful.

Started taking meds...and have been cursed.

So far, not so good.

I started the Lurpon shots saturday morning, 20cc. It went o.k. at first, needle in, meds out. Shortly later though I start swelling up. First about the size of a mosquito bite, but then bigger, and then bigger. And it itched like crazy. The swelling lasted an hour and a half. We had gone Kayaking and when we got back I called the answering service and talked to the oncall nurse. She suggested I take Benedril 20 minutes or so before the next shot.

O.k., so now it's Sunday, I took the Benedril and then the shot, and everything was good. No swelling. This time however, I got soooo very sleepy. I ended up sleeping until 5pm. Not exactly the best way to spend part of a 3-day weekend. At this point I have also started taking 100mg of Doxycycline. At first I assumed it was like most antibiotics and are taken once a day. Well we did that for two days before I realized we were supposed to be taking two of these a day.

Monday, I take my Lupron shot, this time using Benedril cream around the injection site and I take my morning Doxy. The anti-cream worked just as well as the pill so that's good, but the Doxy made both me and my husband very nauseous (we took it on an empty stomach).  It's confusing because the paperwork from the pharmacist says take on an empty stomach and the paperwork from the doctor says take with food.  Lesson learned I suppose. Eventually it wore off and we were able to enjoy the second half of our day.  I took the second Doxy an hour or so before bed.  I ended up sleeping terribly. I started getting very weird chest pains. At first I was dreaming someone was squeezing my heart, it felt so uncomfortable. It was and actually still is coming in waves. Almost every time I swallow, especially with food, I feel pain down my chest.

I just want to be asleep now. I'm no longer taking the Doxy and I hope very soon, this pain goes away.

I took my last BC pill yesterday and now have 5 more days of the Lupron. I get to look forward to a lovely painful period this week, hopefully my last one for a while. I sure hope this cycle works on the first try or my body builds up a tolerance to all these drugs. My boobs are still super sore from the prescreening & BC pills.

I contacted an acupuncturist today. Kind of expensive and she can't see me for a while. The earliest would be Saturday or next Wednesday. It's $140 for the first consultation, then $80 each, if I buy two with the consult, I will save $50. She says the follow up visits are 30 minutes. I'm not sure what I am going to do at this point. She's local. The other place I am looking into is actually associated with Shady Grove and may be more flexible timing wise with my transfer (they are in the same building). I would have to drive a ways to get there though for the other appointments. I will try to call them tomorrow to ask questions. I wasn't up for it today.

I'm going to take something to help me sleep. Goodnight.

Schedules been made

The tentative schedule is as follows:
Active Birth Control Pills through 5/25 (all four women will sync cycles)
Start Lupron shots on 5/23 (7 shots) I'm trying to get out of this part. It's to prevent ovulation, but I don't ovulate, so I think it's pretty stupid. I also have to give them in my belly, which they never showed us how to do. A call has been placed with the doctor. We'll see how long it takes for him to get back to us.
Blood work & ultrasound 5/30 & 6/9
Egg retrieval estimated on 6/16 * hubby needs to be available this day
Embryo transfer will be either 6/19 or 6/21

It's finally good to know what is going on and when. It really sucked no knowing how long all this stuff takes. Now the problem is my husband is scheduled for travel 6/22 to 6/25. If this tentative schedule is off by one day, he may miss the transfer. I told him I will be heartbroken if he's not there. Does anyone know, is he allowed in the room for transfer anyway? Or will he sit in the waiting area like he has been? I really hope if it comes down to it, that he can miss this very important trip. My fingers are crossed.

So around 50 days to go before the chance to get pregnant. I'll be counting down the days.

Stupid Teeth

Seems weird to be blogging about teeth, but I've read that it can relate negatively to pregnancies, so better to be safe... I for one, do not like the dentist.  Not really sure who does for that matter. Well, I haven't been in the last say 5 years. :(  That's what happens when you don't have health insurance and hate the dentist.  

I wish I took better care of my teeth! I've always hated brushing my teeth. I hate the taste of toothpaste & I have a terrible gag reflex, so I always end up gagging when I brush my teeth, which also means I never brush my teeth long enough.  

I had two problems this time for the dentist. I had a crown fall out a long long time ago and a filling fell out last week chewing on some candy...darn candy.  Well it turns out that filling fell out because of a cavity close to the nerves so I need another root canal and then another crown. (Yikes - this news brought me to tears this afternoon.)  And on top of all that, I have the beginning of periodontal disease! That mixed with my already decaying bones (post menopause)...doesn't bode well for my teeth.  I have an appointment for the Periodontist on Monday to see how bad and what needs to be done about that. I don't really want to do it, but having it makes me seven times more likely to have a baby that is born too early and too small. I can't take that chance with all that I'm putting in to have this baby.

Now I have just as many dentist appointments as I do fertility appointments. I will be happy when I get all caught up with my teeth.  I then hope to keep my appointments every 6 months and provide a good example for my little boy or girl when they come. 

Oh and my dentist had a story for me, which is kinda cool. I had to tell him about the donor eggs and that I had no control as to when I would get pregnant. So we could do all the dental work before I get pregnant. Well his sister needed some fertility treatments, I'm assuming with donor eggs, but she had two girls with the help of treatments and 9 months ago, at the age of 42, she and her husband got pregnant all on their own! That's pretty exciting. I hope that happens to us.  That would be so cool.

Our Match is Complete!

Got an email today that our match is complete. Three couples have selected our donor! We are moving forward. We are the second couple in the set. At first I was a little disappointed because I was hoping to move forward as a 1:2 match.  But looking at the positive...we are moving forward three weeks early.  I thought we would end up as the third couple, because the order is dictated by experience, but we didn't.  We still may get fewer eggs than we would like, but hopefully, we will be less likely to get bumped.  We'll be the 2nd couple to get bumped if not enough eggs are produced. 

My husband is pretty excited. I'm happy about that. He emailed his parents & brother and told them we were moving forward. He's cute. :) He had fun yesterday playing with our friends 2.5 year old little girl. He was super adorable with her. I can't wait til he's a daddy.

In a few days, we learn what the next steps are. I'm excited and scared all at the same time.

We did it ~ We picked an Egg Donor

We finally agreed on a woman to donate her egg to us. My husband and I both looked for different qualities.  

I wanted someone with similar talents as myself. I have strong math, athletic, and artistic strengths. So that was important to me. I also wanted someone with similar hair & eye color (even though I know that it's going to be very improbable that we will have a child with blond hair & blue eyes).  I was hoping for someone my height or taller or with family history of being tall.

My husbands main concern was he wanted someone on the thin side.  (I've been super skinny most of my life.) He also would have preferred if we got to see adult pictures.  He thought looks were pretty important and that their abilities were too subjective on the woman's part, which is a little true.

We let money be the final decision breaker, when given the choice of two women who would be great. We are taking a chance picking 1:3 woman. We will share the healthiest eggs with two other couples. We also let time be a decision too. If we picked a 1:2, we would have to wait for another couple to pick her, which could be a week, could be a couple months.  With the 1:3 program, two people have already picked her and if no one else picks her in the next 30 days, we move forward as 1:2 even though we are paying for a 1:3.  So that's good. We save $8,000. That's quite a lot of money.  The only drawback is, if we don't get enough eggs. (The minimum is 4).  Hopefully, the first one works great and we have 3 left over to try for our 2nd child.  If we end up with no eggs left over, that will be a bummer...as we would have to start all over again probably with a new donor. We are hopeful that it all works out because we would prefer our children to be from the same egg donor.

The genes our donor is passing down to our child:

5' 3" weighs 119 lb.  (a little on the short side...but decent weight)

Brown Eyes, Brown Hair (Dirty Blonde as a child), Fair skin

She's German, Irish, & Greek

She has strong artistic talent, high science & athletic ability, average math & music ability

Good teeth - didn't need braces

Her Mother & Grandmother have blue eyes & blonde hair...so their may be a slight chance...

Mother, Grandmother & Sister all relatively short - 5' 0", 5' 3",  5' 5", but thin

Very good family medical history - a little arthritis & eczema. Could have missing information because all the grandparents died from non-medical reasons and at young ages.

PLUS: She was a pretty cute kid, at least from the two photos of her as a toddler.

Now, we wait...at least 30 days...then another month or so to sync everyone's cycles...then another 42 days for the donor to produce lots and lots of eggs, then a couple of days for the eggs to grow to be big and strong, then transfer to wait two weeks to see if it works. Ack...that's a lot of waiting. So maybe in 4 months, I'll know if I'm pregnant...but oh how so many things can go wrong. Be positive. Boy, how that is hard.

Why can't I post comments on some blogs. :(

I've been to many blogs, which I wish to comment on, but it will not let me. They are always blogs that ask which profile to choose. I choose the google account, it loads the next page...then nothing, no comment, just back where I started. At first I was like, Oh well....but now, it's really bother me. Anyone else have this problem? What should I do?

I double check that I'm logged in. I also wanted to post a comment on my own blog, and it does the same thing. I must be doing something wrong. I even tried a second time to do it as anonymous. I am on a Mac, using Firefox.