Tomorrow Is Another Day...

One Little, Two Little, Who Knows How Many Follicles

I have taken up residence at my local fertility clinic.

Early last week, I was going every other day for monitoring--a little prick for some blood work, maybe a little rooting around for the internal ultrasound, and back home.  Then toward the end of the week, things started moving a lot faster than anyone had expected.  My follicles (which are being stimulated by the Follistim to create and mature eggs) started growing at warp speed, and from Friday through today, I've been going in every morning for monitoring to ensure that I don't over stimulate and we can administer the HCG trigger (the drug that will signal the eggs to prepare for release) at the right time.

I am absolutely covered in stick marks, from my thighs to my abdomen to my arms, my lower stomach is slightly achy from my ridiculously overworked ovaries, I've been off and on nauseous for the last couple of days, and I am so tired that I've been falling asleep around 8:30 or 9 almost every night and sleeping 10-12 hours.  But the good news is that we are finally moving from making progress to actual action, and pending a confirmation call from my nurse this afternoon, Colby will administer my trigger shot tonight, and we'll go in for egg retrieval on Wednesday morning.  

From there, the embryo transfer will take place some time between Saturday and Monday depending on how the fertilized eggs develop.  If there are a bunch of eggs and they're looking great overall, the technicians will push them for as long as they can (through day five) to see which embryos are the absolute best quality.  If there aren't so many eggs and the quality is so-so, they'll transfer the ones that look the best on day three, and hope that in the comfy, cozy uterine lining they'll continue to develop properly.

Between the exhaustion, soreness, nausea, and hormones, I've been feeling extremely emotional and on the verge of full-on tears at almost all moments.  Talking to my mom yesterday and explaining the slight concerns the nurse had about the fact that my follicles are maturing at wildly different speeds, was the only time I've actually cried, but the rest of the time I mostly just want to curl up in bed and be alone to decompress and avoid any and all thinking.  

My main concern is that I'll have too many eggs that are overcooked or undercooked, and not very many at the right level of maturity.  Since my main issue is producing good quality eggs, I was really hoping that we'd have more at the right age to choose from.  But there's really no way to know for sure until they get in there and suck all those little guys out of the follicles.

Meanwhile, our house went on the market on Saturday, and we already had our first showing on Sunday.  The buyers expressed interest and may come back by for another viewing, but we're trying not to get our hopes up as we're still very early in the game.  But as for today, it's dreary and rainy, I have hours and hours of backlog on the DVR to catch up on, and a cup of hot tea calling my name.

I'll probably also try to fit in an inspiring egg pep talk at some point before we release them into the world later this week.  All I could think when I was watching the ultrasound monitor this morning was, oh my god, I might be looking at my future baby right now.  And yep.  There go the waterworks.

Family Fun, Track Marks and A Giveaway Winner!

Well, hello, blogland!  I've been trapped in a swirling vortex of travel, vacation, and drugs, but I return to you now on my first day alone since February 5th.  OH LORD DO I NEED SOME ALONE TIME.

I had a fantastic time in New York City with my mom and sister.  I was already completely exhausted before arrival, and as always, the city managed to wear me down to a tiny nub of myself before I made my escape back to the suburbs of the South.  I'll do a more detailed NYC post later, with a focus on the incredible theater experience I had.

I was thrilled to have my mom return home to Charleston and stay with me for a few days, then Colby's grandma arrived, followed by his parents.  So, for a few lovely days, we had a completely full house and finally managed to have all of our bedrooms filled at once.  We squeezed in some time for touristy things, but a big focus for the week was getting all of the big projects done so that the house will be ready for MLS photos and hitting the market this weekend.  Colby and his dad made some fantastic improvements, and all we have left is swiping some stain on the front steps, planting some flowers to up the curb appeal, and of course, my favorite part--cleaning the entire house.  Ugh.

And perhaps most excitingly, I started my Lupron injections on the 7th and after a stellar baseline ultrasound and estrogen check on the 20th, added two other drugs (low dose HCG and Follistim to stimulate the follicles to produce awesome eggs) to my rotation.  I inject the Lupron and HCG in the same syringe, so that's part of my morning routine, right between brushing my teeth and drinking my tea.  The Follistim is in this crazy pen contraption, and I inject that every afternoon as a prelude to happy hour.  

The Lupron injections weren't bad, but now that I'm adding in more stabs per day and injecting a larger amount of liquid, everything is starting to get a little more painful and a little bruisier.  I've been doing the injections on my thighs thinking that the skin is a little tougher and maybe less sensitive, but I'm starting to run out of spots without little pinhole bruises, so I may have to transfer to my abdomen or upper arms at some point.  Fortunately, my mom and Colby have made wonderful nurses, and so far no tears on my part, so things are okay.

FINALLY, drumroll please!  The winner of the Alice Bliss giveaway is Molly from A Foreign Land!!!!!  I'm so excited for you, Molly, and thanks for being patient with me.  I had big plans for getting back to blogging after my NYC trip and that obviously didn't really work out.  I'll email you about the shipping details.  And thank you so much to everyone else that entered!  I learned from this giveaway that jewelry is a much hotter commodity than books, but I hope you'll check out this book even if you didn't win.  It really is a great story!

Reading Themed Giveaway!!

I've been the absolute worst at blogging lately.  I haven't had much time to spend roaming these parts, but life has been a whirlwind.  I started my Lupron injections yesterday and will keep them up for the next couple of weeks before starting on the next round of drugs.  We've been whipping the house into shape and it's this close to being ready to hit the market.  I've been working a ton of hours and added a couple of new families to my collection.  And on top of that, my mom has been in town, and we're heading to NYC today to visit my little sis!

PHEW!!!!!

So, chances are good, I won't be around all that much more for the next week.  BUT.  To make it up for you, and try to win back your affection, I'm excited to be holding a giveaway for a wonderful book, Alice Bliss by Laura Harrington.
From the Amazon page:

When Alice Bliss learns that her father, Matt, is being deployed to Iraq, she's heartbroken. Alice idolizes her father, loves working beside him in their garden, accompanying him on the occasional roofing job, playing baseball. When he ships out, Alice is faced with finding a way to fill the emptiness he has left behind.

Matt will miss seeing his daughter blossom from a tomboy into a full-blown teenager. Alice will learn to drive, join the track team, go to her first dance, and fall in love, all while trying to be strong for her mother, Angie, and take care of her precocious little sister, Ellie. But the smell of Matt is starting to fade from his blue shirt that Alice wears everyday, and the phone calls are never long enough.

While this book certainly spoke to me as a military brat and now a military spouse, it's completely unnecessary to have spent time in a military family for this book to touch your heart.  Alice is a brilliantly realized character--a vulnerable, emotional, strong teenage girl, forced to navigate some of the hardest times of her life without the presence of her father.

You can read an excerpt of the book here.

Also included in my giveaway will be some goodies to help create the perfect afternoon curled up with your amazing new book.  Some of my favorite pumpkin spice chai tea, hot chocolate, nibbles and more!

There are five ways to enter:

1. Comment on this post.
2. Link to this giveaway on your blog.
3. Tweet about the giveaway with a link to this post.
4. Like my Facebook page.
5. Follow me on Twitter.

You'll receive an entry for each action, and if you already like my Facebook page or follow me on Twitter, just let me know and I'll count them as entries.  Make sure that you tell me each thing that you've done in the comment you leave here on the post.  International entries are welcome!

The giveaway will run until midnight PST on February 14th, and I'll do the drawing on February 15th using randomizer.org.

Good luck!!!

Mexican Drug Lord Starter Kit

Well.  This is rather daunting.
Shit just got real, y'all.

The One About Traveling

I swiped this little fill-in from Melissa who got it from Lauren.  It's probably too late for me to technically play along with the blog round-up, but I still couldn't resist this survey about one of my favorite passions... TRAVEL!!!
1) My favorite place I've ever traveled to is... Kauai, Hawaii.  This is incredibly difficult to answer, because I've been lucky enough to visit so many amazing places.  But I chose Kauai because it was paradise.  The food was delicious, the people were friendly, and the beaches were heavenly.  I've been to other places with much greater historical, architectural, or artistic import, but the one place that I dream of returning to most often is Kauai.  Paris is a very, very close second.

2) Russia ...is somewhere I'd love to go someday.  I'm having trouble getting Colby on board with this one, but I would absolutely love to visit St. Petersburg and Moscow.  Could someone please convince my husband that we will not be kidnapped by the Russian mob the minute we set foot across the border?
3) I pass the time on a plane (or bus or train or car ride) by... reading or sleeping.  I get motion sickness in cars and sometimes trains, so reading is relegated to audiobook territory in that instance.  But I'm fortunate that I'm one of the lucky few who can sleep reasonably well on an airplane--especially with my magical melatonin tablets.  As for car trips, I literally cannot keep my eyes open when I'm in the passenger seat.

4) My three must-haves when I travel are... guidebooks, comfortable shoes, and mascara (never leave home without it--don't want to go frightening the natives).
5) My favorite travel companion is... my super hubs, Colby.  He perfectly balances my need for precisely planned trips by encouraging a little spontaneity and he is the navigator who gets us where we need to go.  He once said that we are such a good team because I map out the big picture, and he's responsible for the nitty gritty of actual directions!  You should have seen me navigating Japan without him... it was not pretty!
6) The craziest thing that ever happened to me while traveling is... nearly capsizing on a cruise ship in the harbor of Alexandria, Egypt.  I've managed to collect a number of crazy travel stories: spending a night in a pub in Dublin when all the cheap hotels were full, accidentally running into Pope Benedict's motorcade in Rome, meeting a geisha at a ryokan in Kyoto, but I'd still say the Cruise of Doom takes the crazy cake.

7) The most exotic food I've tried while traveling is... escargot in Bayeux, France.  It's not terribly exotic, I suppose, but I'm not an especially adventurous eater and I'm typically resistant to any foodstuff that could be described as "slimy".  But, when in France...  And oh, it was delectable!!
8) If I could live anywhere else, I'd live in... Europe.  And in just a few more months, I WILL!!!

9) I've been to thirty-eight states in the U.S.

This was such a fun stroll down memory lane.  What is your favorite travel memory?  Where do you hope your next adventure will take you?