I was surprised on how many new faces I saw at my clinic. When I say new I mean staff wise. I was seen by a Dr I have never seen in my life. He seemed fairly young. Could be that he is newly graduated or he is just new to that clinic or perhaps I just have never seen him. I haven't even heard of him so I am gonna go with my gut feeling of being new. My Dr is out on maternity leave so I am left in the hands of the other Drs. 

Ultrasound looked good. I have to admit it was a bit painful for some reason. He had a hard time seeing my left ovary and the searching wasn't pleasant. The small talk was a bit awkward and I was glad when he was gone. Afterwards I met up with my nurse to go over all the medication and how to inject myself all over again. Since my IVF consult was so long ago she wanted to make sure I was comfortable and educated on what I was doing. She started to make small talk to get a feel of where my stress levels where at. She asked about our family an if they were aware of what was going on. Answer to that is yes, both out families are completely aware we are going through this. J's family doesn't get involved in any form of way, no questions asked. My family in the other hand is very involved. My mother has been there since the first day we started seeking treatment. The rest ask but I decided to tell them that nothing is happening until November so I can get them off my back. My nurse agreed with this 100% and begged me to stay as stress free as possible. She also asked about J and what his thoughts were about this. I answered with honesty "He can't wait until all this is over with." Aren't we all?? I let a sigh of relieve when she mentioned that Dr. Brown was still calling all the shots in my treatment. She wants me to come in 3 days after stimming to see how my body is reacting. During my consult she did mention the fear of me getting OHSS because of my PCOS and my age. The nurse said I was considered early early monitoring because they usually don't monitor until after day 5. The earliest is 4 days after stimming so I am guessing Dr. Brown really wasn't kidding on keeping a close eye on me. I had to go to work so we cut our convo short and she gave me her cell number in case I had questions about mixing my meds or anything else that came up. 

For tonight:

Follitism 125 IU

Menopur 75 IU

J starts his Doxy (antibiotics) 

I have an appointment on Tuesday to check my progress. Hope I survive the shots tonight or until then. 

First day off of birth control and I feel great. Friday is almost here and I am a bit wee anxious. So today I got a wonderful phone call from a nurse at my clinic. I was unable to answer so I heard her voicemail.

"...I just wanted to run a couple things by you. Something new we are doing at RMA and thought you would be a perfect candidate for it."

When I heard this my mind began to run a million thoughts at once. What could it be? Me a perfect candidate? For? Anyhoo, I finally gave the nurse a call back and this is the info she relayed over to me. Celmatix & RMA are working together to do further research on infertility. Why was I chosen out of many women? My diagnosis of PCOS. Celmatix is a biotechnology company developing non-invasive genetic diagnosis for female infertility. This is 100% voluntary meaning I do not get compensated in any form of way. This research will not necessarily help me specifically but it will possibly help future patients dealing with infertility and are undergoing IVF treatment. What Celmatix is trying to accomplish new techniques that improve implantation and/or pregnancy rates. This research also may result in development of valuable methods for predicting IVF outcomes.

I am participating in this research with great pleasure. Even though it may not help me personally but I love the opportunity to be able to possibly help others. Everything will be completely anonymous besides my age, ethnicity, diagnosis, disease history, medical treatments, and response to treatments. I will be getting updates on the research overall. On friday when I go in for my baseline ultrasound I will be providing a blood sample which will be shipped out to Celmatix's lab and discuss this opportunity with the nurse to discuss this in further detail/ answer any questions I might have.

All in all I am excited to learn more.

They are finally here!! My meds of course. For some reason I thought I would hyperventilate when they arrived but I was just a bit overwhelmed seeing all those needles. I began to question if I was ready. Could I proceed with this? Forget the fact that I already paid for the meds. Or that I paid for surgery. Was I mentally ready to move forward with IVF? 

I expressed my concerns with J and his response was if your not ready then we don't have to move forward. Guess what?? I nearly lost my mind and began to mention all the reason I couldn't stop everything. As scared as I am the outcome is what allows me to move forward. I'm not getting a 100% guarantee that a baby will be the outcome BUT just the thought helps me move forward. 

Fear aside I am ready to get poked. No not really but I will try my best to hold the tears back. Good news is that J was able to get a schedule change so he will be with me incase I can't find the strength to stab myself. Eeek!

"What Now"

I've been ignoring this big lump in my throat

I shouldn't be crying, tears were for the weaker days

I'm stronger, now what, so I say

But something's missing

Whatever it is, it feels like

It's laughing at me through the glass of a two-sided mirror

Whatever it is, it's just laughing at me

And I just wanna scream

What now? I just can't figure it out

What now? I guess I'll just wait it out

What now? Whoa, what now?

Those lyrics explained how I feel right now. Lately I've been ok with pregnancy, newborn announcements but this one cut deep. I should be elated that they are having their second child after trying for three years and 5 years to have their first. In all honesty I am not. My cousin, who I am really close to, is devastated because he thinks the baby is not his. Why? She hasn't been the most faithful wife. They told everyone she was unfaithful with the same sex, after seeing him drink his sorrows and venting to J we realized it might be more than that. I wish I could slap her and give her a piece of my mind but it wouldn't open her eyes. 

She's the same person who has voiced her opinion about us forcing or going through great lengths to have a child. She's the type to say if ur meant to be a parent you will be. She doesn't believe in God or any sort of believe. If she was given two miracles being an alcoholic, why hasn't God blessed us? He knows we can provide better than she can. I was in such a peaceful place in my faith and life I can't allow this news to crumble me. All I can do is wish them the best and let him know we are here for him if he needs to let some emotion out. 

~For those who asked about my new pups name, I named her Diamond. Even though at times she doesn't look like a pit she is one. ~

Time seems to be slowing down now that I know my stim date. I created a tab for my IVF calendar if you all wanna take a peek. I can't wait to stop taking birth control and say adios to it. Come on October 8th!! I've been in contact with my nurse via email & phone. She's been a trooper with all the request I have been throwing her way. 

I asked her kindly if she can reach out to my insurance in regards to med coverage. When I called they gave me the most generic answer, "it all depends on the pharmacy and brand of meds u get." Ugh! She went through hoops to get all this resolved in a timely manner. I could hear the relieve in her voice when she was done and called me to inform me they will be reaching out to me to ship my meds out. Apparently my insurance wasn't so easy to deal with. They gave her so many numbers and misinformation that it became a bit frustrating. Her exact words were "I am so glad you did not have to deal with this." Poor thing. 

I still don't know if they will be covering meds full, partially, certain percentage. They will give me that information once they call me to confirm shipping. J and I are still praying that it's something we can afford after our unexpected out of pocket expense for surgery. 

Speaking of which: they owe me a refund. Everyone quoted a price before deductible was covered. Since my deductible was met with the facility pmt, everything else was either covered 100% or 80%. 

Anyhoo, I was pretty stoked to see we will have a bit more in our pockets for medication. Yay! Well I'm still in the waiting game. Trying to enjoy my caffeine before I have to say buh bye to it. I can't believe there's 3 months left and another year is over. How time flies!! 

Birth control. I've missed you so much I dreaded on the day you will make an appearance into my life again. Having that week off of birth control was heaven. Now I have been instructed to start them up again and my calendar is in the works. Crossing my fingers they only have me on these shenanigans for 2 weeks this time around. It's only day 2 and my stomach is already hating them. I finally got to see the lovely bill for my hysteroscopy and was impressed. Weird since my insurance didn't pay 100% of the cost since I had a deductible. My insurance got billed for the physician, facility, & anesthesia. I had paid the facility and physician fee on the day before my surgery like they had instructed me to. I was told anesthesia was going to bill me 2 weeks later. I paid a total of $1,564 for facility and physician so I was holding my breath on the anesthesia bill. As I was opening the claim I saw they covered 100% of the anesthesia cost. (Phew!) 

Good news is that my deductible is done with at this point. I reached out to my nurse today to see of they can call my insurance on med coverage bc when I call I have no idea on what meds I would be taking since I never received a calendar at my IVF consultation due to my unexpected surgery to remove my polyps. She said she will have some answers for me tomorrow and assured me they will go with the preferred pharmacy for my insurance to get the most coverage if I have any. In case I don't a dear friend offered her left over IVF meds if I were to use any that she used for her protocol. She's such a sweetheart. 

I'm starting to develop a bittersweet feeling. The fear of this all is accumulating  inside of my emotions, the fear of this not working. The fear that J's concentration levels continue to decrease. I don't know what I would do if they ever told me J's swimmers were...poof! The only major change is that he rides his motorcycle to work now. I need to research if that affects his swimmers. Well a little more waiting. 

To be continued....

I will leave u with a pic of my precious puppy that I got for my bday. 

I have to say getting and IV is the worst. Someone told me it was the worst part of the procedure and I laughed. I guess jokes on me. Right now I feel good, I am not experiencing pain at this point besides my hand that got stabbed for the iv. I'm sure once the pain medication leaves my system I would have to pop a pill. I honestly couldn't see much of a difference between the before n after pics. It was interesting I was just still out of it. He was pleased to say everything went well and I was ready to have babies. Lets just hope that is the case bc this surgery alone took a big chunk out of our savings intended for medication. 

I was instructed to stop my BCP this Sunday. Apparently being on them too long is not recommended. They actually had to change my BCP bc the others made me get a full flow for three or four days. These r still making me spot but its bare able. Now I play the waiting game to get the clearance to move fwd with IVF.