Bet you wanna know don't ya!!?

We were all kept waiting a little longer than we were supposed to be but the results are in and......its good news. I'm pregnant!! Today we are going to be happy but we have one more hurdle to jump over before we know that everything is good. I had my blood drawn yesterday and this morning they were able to check the Beta HCG levels. The HCG level as of yesterday was 56%. Which is good. They wanted it over 50%. Now I have to go in tomorrow morning for another blood test so they can check my progesterone levels and check the Beta HCG levels again to make sure they have doubled in 48 hours. They want to make sure that the levels go up and not down. If they go down then I could miscarry. This information made me nervous at first because 56% is just barely over 50%. I was afraid that maybe it was higher before and now it was dropping. But then I googled it found this in an article I read:

"At least two (2) quantitative beta hCG blood tests are done (2-4 days apart). The reporting of “beta” pregnancy test results is best deferred until after the 2nd blood test results are in. This is because an initial low (<5iu/ml), successful IVF outcome will (in younger women) at best be 50-55%"

This is good information. It wasn't explained to me before that they always do 2 tests and that the first test would initially come out low (50-55%). Well, I'm 56% so I feel much better. I also came across this chart in my search:

NORMAL TWIN PREGNANCIES

Day after LH or HCG	Average mIU/ml	High mIU/ml	Low mIU/ml	#
14	68	313	56	7

Notice the low is 56! Oh boy!

So I go back to my doctors office tomorrow morning at 9 for my second blood test and we should know by that afternoon the results!

We are very happy and excited! After sitting on pins and needles for a little over a week, it looks like Nevaeh and Alex are going to have a cousin in 9 months!! Thanks for all the prayers and support!

The One with the Embryos

"Hello tiny embryos. I'm Pheobe Buffay. I'm hoping to be your uterus for the next 9 months. You should know we are doing this for Frank and Alice. Who you know, you've been there! You know they want you so much so when you guys get there really grab on! And I promise I will keep you safe and warm until your ready to have them take you home. Oh and the next time you see I'll be screaming but don't worry thats whats supposed to happen. Good luck!"

Thats right!! We did the transfer last Thursday at around 11ish! As you can see above, those are the embryos we transfered. I know before I said that we were only doing one but we made a last minute decision to do 2 instead. The one that looks like its from Russia had 7 cells which makes it a very good quality embryo and is most likely going to be the one that sticks, if both of them don't stick!

I don't have time to write about everything that went on while I was in MN but here are some highlights...

Got to the airport at 11 on Wednesday.

Flight was delayed by three hours.

Was going to eat sushi for dinner but Nate was afraid it would hurt the baby so ate lasagna instead.

Woke up Thursday morning.

Took a shower for the last time for the next 2 days.

Forgot to drink the water I supposed to drink before the appointment.

Took the Valium the doctors gave me 1 hour before the transfer.

Got a little high on the Valium the doctors gave me one hour before the transfer.

Saw roses on the ceiling and was singing "We're Off to See the Wizard" while waiting on the doctors.

Drank water out of the bathroom sink. Like an animal.

Nurse gave me two hospital gowns to put on for the transfer. And a hair net.

Did the transfer. Actually saw the embryos going through the catheter and placed on my uterus through the ultrasound. Pretty cool.

Took a 30 minute nap in the next room under a warming blanket.

Went home and changed in my pj's.

Layed down on the couch.

Watched tv. Slept. Watched Tv. Slept. For 2 days.

Finally took a shower on Saturday at 11!!

Worked on my invite list I'm having for my Scentsy party I'm having in November.

Went to Mall of America with Ang.

Went to H&M and got 2 new dresses!

Ate frozen yogurt.

Went out to dinner at a place called Doolittles.

Had the chicken and biscuits.

Gave Nate a little lesson on how to eat his food.

Woke up Sunday morning.

Drove around with Ang and Nate to find a place to eat breakfast.

Ended up going back to the MOA and ate crepes. Mine had bananas and carmel. Yummm.

Went to H&M again.

Bought a belt.

Off to the airport. Went back home to Nashville.

Cuddled with my little boy for an hour. He missed me:)

So there you are! We take the pregnancy test on Monday the 25th at my doctors office. It will be another blood test. They will fax the results to Dr. Campbell in MN same day. We should know the results by that afternoon! Pretty exciting! We are counting down the days! Meanwhile I am still taking the progesterone and estrace. Trying not to be too active but I do have a 1 year old and a five year old so you know how that is.

Wish us luck and keep us in your prayers!!

"Are you in there little fetus? In nine months will you come greet us? I....will... buy you some Adidas!!"~ Pheobe Buffay.

Think Pregnant Thoughts

So I'm about a half hour away from leaving for Minnesota. I just wanted to write a quick update before I go. Just think, this could be the last time I write to you as a non pregnant person!

I started taking the progesterone on Sunday. Its going pretty well. It only took me about 5 minutes and a few encouraging text messages from Angie to go through with it and it was just fine. Didn't hurt at all! It feels a little weird. It takes a while for the sesame oil in the progesterone to soak in. It kinda feels like I'm getting botox injections in my butt! Hey at least I'm well rounded and more defined!! It feels like the oil is sitting in a big bubble just under my skin like I'm sitting on a water ballon. It doesn't hurt. It just feels weird. I have to continue taking it for at least four weeks I think. Even after the pregnancy is confirmed I have to take it until they tell me to stop.

The transfer is scheduled for tomorrow, October 14th. They have embryos that are almost ready. Don't worry, they aren't going to put all four of those babies in! Just one. They will freeze the other 3 and save them in case the first one doesn't attach we can try again and again and again and again!

Ok, I'm off! Say a little prayer for us and wish us luck! Think pregnant thoughts!!

Nashville Fertility Center Take 2!

Well it took me longer to get to this than I entended so I'm trying to remember where I am.

I stopped taking the lupron shots last week so my first round of injections is over! Yay! Right now I'm only taking Estrace (estrogen) 3 times a day, plus a low dose of aspirin and some vitamins. I'm not very good at taking pills everyday and sometimes I forget to take a dose. When that happens I have to catch myself up and I end up getting really bad headaches but for the most part its fine.

Last Friday I had my last appointment with the Nashville Fertility Center. For the most part it was a much better experience than last time. When I got there I signed in and they said that I once again needed an order from Dr. Campbell to proceed with my appointment! You don't know how much that annoyed me!! Apparently they need an new order for every appointment. I don't think anyone was aware of that. No one in their office told any of us. We had enough trouble getting an order at the last appointment. She asked me for Dawns phone number so they could call and get the order. So I'm on my phone trying to google the number and I look down and theres my file right in front of the receptionist with Dawns phone number right on the front page. I pointed at it and said the phone number is right there dumb ass! Ok, I didn't say that but I wanted to! I sat in the waiting area for 45 minutes while they got my order. When they  got it the receptionist called me over and said that they received it and that they would call be back in a few minutes. Another 45 minutes goes by and people were coming and going. I went to ask the receptionist what was taking so long and she said that technically my appointment was at 8:30 and since I was "unprepared" and they had to take so much time getting my order I lost my appointment and they would have to squeeze me in whenever they had the chance! Ok I'm mad now! I feel like I have fire rushing to my head! My southern girl anger/attitude is about to burst!! But I just gave a lesson to the young women at my church about getting angry and controlling yourself before saying something you don't mean. Only I would have meant everything I wanted to say but it wouldn't have helped the situation. I just sat back down and I had to wait a little bit longer but it only gave me time to chill before I went back there so I guess that was ok.

The nurse finally calls me back and it was the same nurse I had last time. I was feeling pretty calm at this point and she was being very nice. She saw that I had been waiting a long time and she pushed me ahead of the other clients. She had to draw blood again and I asked her to be easy on me since I'm not good with needles and she was. I didn't feel a thing this time. And then she pushed me ahead of some other patients to use the ultrasound machine so I wouldn't have to wait any longer. I'm feeling a lot of love for her right now!!:)

The ultrasound tech comes in and she does her thing. She says that my lining is thicker than last time but not thick enough. I asked how thick it was and she said 7 1/2 but they like it to be 8. Whatever! Dawn called me a few hours later and said that my lining is beautiful! So to sum up... I have a picture perfect uterus and beautiful lining which means I'm at least beautiful on the inside. Haha!

So now I'm in limbo. We are waiting on Angie to grow some follicles, thats what holds the eggs. Haha! I'm learning so much! Meanwhile I just keep taking the Estrace three times a day. Angie has had appointments just about everyday this week to check on her egg holders and when theres enough she will have her retrieval and I will be flying up there for the transfer. So far she has 9 egg holders, I like that term better, and they think that her retrieval will be on Saturday and the transfer will be on Thursday. Angie has already talked about buying plane tickets for me to fly up there on Wednesday evening and flying back on Sunday. So the big event is coming up pretty quickly! Keep your fingers crossed and pray that everything is successful! I'm in the mood to rent Baby Mama.

Nashville Fertility Center- Eh!

Ok so this morning I went in for my first monitoring appointment. Lets just say it was an interesting morning. Before I start to explain my day I'm going to take you back 2 weeks ago when we were trying to set the appointments. So in order to make appointments they first needed an order from Reproductive Medicine in Minnesota and they needed me to fill out some new patient forms. Angie had spoken to Naomi from Nashville Fertility a couple times and I spoke to her once about the forms I needed to fill in online. She seemed very nice as did everyone else who I spoke to in that office did.

So at 10 this morning I arrived for my appointment. They at least had me down for an appointment but had no idea who I was, why I was there, and had me fill out the new patient forms all over again. They claimed they never got the order from Reproductive Medicine even though they wouldn't let us make the appointment without it. Weird. Needless to say that annoyed me (although that's really not hard to do anyway). I had to call Angie to get Dawns number so they could call her and get another order.  They also gave me a hospital bracelet which I thought was weird but Angie says that some clinics do that so they don't get clients mixed up!! Oh dear!

Once they got everything straightened out the nurse from hell called me back! She is every needle fearers nightmare! She was in a very big hurry it seemed like, even though there were only 2 people in the waiting room. Really wasn't that busy. I haven't seen any Vanderbilt nurses in that much of a hurry and trust me Vandy is much busier! I had to have blood work taken and she was in so much of a hurry that she didn't even pay attention to where she was sticking me and stuck me very hard. I wanted my mommy! I still can't really extend my arm very far without it hurting and it was a little blue this morning but its not that bad anymore. She asked me what Reproductive Medicines number was so they could fax the results and I didn't have it on me which seemed to annoy her and I asked her if they were going to be able to get the results in by 2 cause thats when Dawn needed them by. She said "Oh, thats not going to happen". Crap.

Next, the technician comes and tells me what room to go in. I go in there and get ready for the ultrasound and I can hear another patient and nurse arguing outside my door! Not good for other patients to hear!!

The tech comes back in and does her thing. I ask her about the test results getting to Dawn in time and she said "Look we do this all the time you don't need to tell us what to do". I'm a little caught off guard at this point and I said "I'm not telling you what to do. I'm asking you a question!" She handed me some forms and left the office. I few minutes later she opened the door (while I was trying to get dressed) and said they would have the results in  at afternoonish. And that was that. No goodbye, have a nice weekened, nothing.

So at this point I'm a little shocked and caught off guard to everybody's weird behavior. And I'm afraid that they really aren't going to get my test results in on time.

I'm checking out and I asked the receptionist if I could verify my next appointment. This is how our conversation goes....

Tiffany- Can I verify my next appointment?
Receptionist- Sure. Your next appointment is on October 1st.
Tiffany- That's a Friday right?
Receptionist- Hold on I have to go to another window.
Do do do dodo do do do. Do do do do DO dododododo.
Receptionist- Yes that is on a Friday.
Tiffany- And what time is it? I know its in the morning.
Receptionist- Uh, hold on I have to go to another window.
Do do do dodo do do do. Do do do do DO dododododo.
Receptionist- Its at 8:30am.
Tiffany- Do you have a reminder card I can put on my refigerator.
Receptionist- Nope.
Tiffany- Well alrighty.

I know, thats great huh?

But we have a happy ending. The results got in 20 minutes early!! And everything is just as it should be.

Tomorrow I lower my Lupron dosage to 5U. I start taking Estrace every morning. And I also have to start taking 81mg of asprin and 1000U of vitamin D.

We will see how my next appointment goes. Cross your fingers that I don't get crazy nurse again!!

Loopy Lupron... I've come to grips with it. You do too!!

So I started my first round of hormones this week!! I think it was last week when Dawn and I talked and we got my meds ordered over the phone and delivered the very next day. Dawn also sent me a calender that pretty much spells out for me what I'm supposed to take, when I'm supposed to take it and how much. So on Wednesday the 8th I started taking 20U of the Lupron injections.  I take that every morning till the 18th and then my dosage goes down to 5U.

The Lupron needle is very small. Its the same kind of needle they use for diabetics. But even though it is so small I was still so nervous the first day I had to give it to myself! I made my mom come over and keep the kids entertained while I tried to give it to myself cause I really didn't want to be interrupted. What could have taken less than a minute ended up taking more about 30 minutes! I pricked myself about 4 or 5 times trying to get it in but then chickened out at the last minute. I finally did it though! It didn't hurt at all and I was very proud of myself. I was so proud of myself that I went and bought myself a cute skirt at Target and club supreme at Jersey Mikes! Since then I haven't had any problems giving it to myself.

I have had a few side effects from it. I thought it was funny cause Dawn said that there would be no side effects but the psychiatrist  in Minnesotta said that it sometimes messes with people nerves which made me a little nervous since in the past I have already had anxiety problems. Since I've started taking it I have felt 2 side effects, fatigue and mood swings. Heres the interesting part. I have to take the Lupron at the same time every morning. By noon is when I start feeling fatigued and have to take a nap. Luckily Alex has been taking only one nap everyday that last for about 3-4 hours after lunch so when he goes down for his nap I turn on a movie for Nevaeh and I go take a nap myself. She is pretty good about letting me take naps.

About 4pm is when I start feeling a little moody. I'm either sad or really mad and it last for about 20 minutes. So stay clear of me between 4 and 4:30!

By 5 I get a burst of energy! I feel like I could pick up the house and throw it. Kinda like a female Hercules!! And then at 8:30 I'm having another mood swing. I feel better once I lay down and chill.

How about that for side effects?? I've been a little sensitive and cried at least once or twice a day. Jon has had to apologize for something silly everyday since I started this stuff. I have 6 more days taking 20U so I'm thinking when I go down to 5U I'll be back to normal! Hopefully! I make no promises. I do have 2 more hormones to get through that I haven't even started yet! So I've discovered that this will not only be an interesting journey for me but for everyone else around me too!

This is what we have to look forward to the next couple of weeks....

September 17th- I have an appointment with the Nashville Fertility Clinic. They are going to check to see if my endometrial layer is thick. Think thick!!
September 18th- Change Lupron dosage from 20U to 5U, start taking 2mg of Estrace every morning.
September 23rd- Start taking Estrace twice a day. Once in the morning and once at night.
September 27th- Start taking Estrace 3 times a day. Once in the morning, once at noon and once at night.
September 29th- Stop taking the Lupron.
October 1st- I have another appointment with the Nashville Fertility Clinic to check on my endometrial layer.

As of now our transfer date is October 15th. Angie will have her eggs retrieved 5 days before the transfer and that is when I start taking the progesterone injections. That date isn't certain yet but that is what it looks like so far.

Everything is moving right along. Before you know all the medications will be over and I could be pregnant with Angie's baby. That is so weird to say!!

'Who has to die for me to get her'

Its been about 3-4 weeks since I've updated this thing! What have we been doing you ask? Well, we have been preparing our legal contract. So far, out of everything else we've done, this process has taken the longest. Angie hired an adoption lawyer in Nashville for me. Her name is Lisa. Angie has her own in Minnesota, Suzanne. Suzanne drew up the paper work. Lisa and I went over it and changed what we needed to change. And then everyone went on vacation! Except me. I think it was about a week later when Angie and Nate signed the contract and sent it back to Lisa. But then Lisa went on a second vacation so Jon and I weren't able to sign the contract till about a week after that. Anyway, so as of Friday everything is signed and ready to go! I was also able to have a living will written up.  Here's who gets our prized possessions if Jon and I die....

House- Mom and Dad
Kids- Mom and Dad
Penny- Nic Williams. If Nic dies then Tonia Garner gets her. If Tonia dies well sorry Penny its the pound for you.
The donut that I left on the top of the refrigerator- Reilly Harris
My tie die blanket with all the giant holes- Kelly Hefner
My 20 year old New Kids on the Block sleeping bag- Christy Williams
The bowling pin I found on the side of the road in school- Sheila Kane
My rainbow stripped socks- Megan Oliver
My toy horses I played with as a kid- To be split between Erica Eisenmenger, Meghann Tracy, and Jordon Furnell
My Lynyrd Skynyrd tee-shirt- Nathan Furnell
Liz Sanford- Heres $20 go buy yourself something pretty.
The bunny in the backyard- Nichole Mckinny (To replace the one we lost that we won at the fair)  
                                              That is if Penny doesn't eat it first.

Well that's it! Those are the lucky ducks who get all my junk!! Congrats all!

So our next step is to have Suzanne send our IVF doctor a note saying that the paper work has been written and signed. Then Angie will have all the hormones ordered and the injections will begin! My favorite part. Stay tuned for that. It might get interesting:)