Show And Tell

This week for show and tell I thought I'd show a couple of pics from my trip home. I've had a great time visiting with my chosen family and lots of fantastic food. My friend Jan is the best cook I know.

First pic is of a dinner guest we had. Yup, Obama came to Thanksgiving dinner. How cool is that.

Then here's a pic of the yard when it first started snowing. Ugg. It snowed most of the day and we had about an inch but then it started melting. Now it's mostly gone and it's just cold. I think I'm ready to go back to California

Anyone else who wants to play along with show and tell should head over to Mel's blog Stirrup-Queens and join in the fun. Ok and I'm sorry I can't seem to create a link here as I can't seem to move the cursor. I don't know what's wrong. The link is in my sidebar though!!

Packing And Mind Games

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. Mine was great and I've enjoyed my trip so far. Today I went up to my house to get some packing done and actually managed to accomplish quite a bit. I have most of my stuff packed at this point which is really nice. I still have part of my kitchen to pack but I should be able to get that finished up tomorrow.
Weather here is crappy. It snowed today which is annoying. Cold and annoying. Finally stopped about 7 pm and changed to rain so hopefully it won't get too bad.
Not much else going on. Trying really hard (and pretty much failing completely) to not analyze every single twinge I feel. I keep feeling twinges in my left lower abdomen but who knows, maybe it's just my ovary getting ready to blow up like a damn balloon. I also catch myself frequently poking my boobs. Yes I am totally aware that the level of soreness really isn't an indicator of whether this has worked or not but yet I am completely unable to stop poking them regardless. Strange dreams last night. All of which I know can totally be from the progesterone. Again. I know it does no good to analyze at this point but I can't seem to stop wondering over every little twinge. At least Wednesday is close.
So now I should go to bed and try to get some sleep. More packing tomorrow.

Quick Update

I made it home to Sp0kane today and all is well. Trying to just take it easy and visit and enjoy some relax time.
I looked yesterday for a wifi connection I could hijack to up date but there were none in my apartment complex that weren't secure. Anyways. They transferred 3 5 day blasts yesterday. All three were grade 3, two were expanding and I forget what he said the 3rd was but it was right below expanding. I was concentrating way to hard on not peeing. Really not a fun experience but it's done. I spent the afternoon and evening watching movies on my laptop. I'll probably post more later. Test day is 12/3. I'm hoping to hold off on hpts until at least then. Otherwise not much going on. Hope everyone has a fabulous thanksgiving!!!!

Tomorrow Is The Day

Here it is, late Monday evening. Tomorrow is transfer day. I am supposed to be there at 10am. I don't know if I will be able to update after my transfer or not. It will be dependant on whether I can find an internet connection to hijack or not. I am taking my cable modem and DVR box to the cable place tomorrow to have them turned off since I won't have a chance to do it later. I may be able to update on Wednesday when I get to Spokane.
I went to orientation for the new job today. Sort of long, repetitious but otherwise fine. Much of the stuff they go over is mandatory to go over it at any and every facility so it's not like it's new stuff. I have 2 more days of orientation next week also. Clinical staff orientation on Tuesday and computer orientation on Wednesday. Then Thursday I start working on my unit. On day shift. They plan to orient me on days so that I can learn their procedures, paperwork etc. This is typical for many units even though I will eventually be working night shift. The only thing is that I am so not a morning person and my day shift will start at 6 am. So hoping that doesn't last too long.
I've been pretty stressed out today. Partially about money. I have almost none. Something to do with the fact that I haven't worked since Nov 5th I'm sure. I should be getting a check soon for the rent on my house but then my first paycheck doesn't come until the 11th of December. Plus I'm also stressing a bit about my trip and my work schedule next week. I'm supposed to fly back into Sacrament0 at 3 pm next monday. I will come home and load up the last of my stuff, vacuum and any last minute clean up, grab the cats and leave. Realistically it will be 5 pm at least and likely 6 pm before I get out of here and then I drive 2.5 hours to Fresn0. Getting in that late I'm not even sure if I will be able to get into my house and I really need to be able to get into my house as I have to be at orientation at 8 am the next morning. I could stay in a hotel for the night but then what to do with the cats the next day. I doubt they would appreciate spending the day in the car. This whole thing is freaking me out. I looked into catching an earlier flight home and it will cost me about $200 to fly home early Monday morning instead of getting home later in the day. I'd get in about 10 am. I hate to spend that much money when I'm already so short and struggling as it is. But it would be a huge relief to get in that much earlier and not have to stress so much about getting to Fresno so late. So I'm trying to figure out what to do. Input or thoughts anyone??
Yes I know, I should keep stress to a minimum. Shit.

5 Day Transfer

So the embryologist called this morning. I'm being moved to a 5 day transfer which will happen on Tuesday. Yippee!!!!!!! As of this morning I had 1-9 cell embryo, 3-8 cell embryos, 1-4 cell embryo and 1-3 cell embryo. So I have 6 still moving along and 4 that sound pretty good to me. She is going to do assisted hatching today I think she said. Then Tuesday is my transfer!!!! Yay!!! Today I'm going to try to get some cleaning done and then this afternoon leave for Fresno. I'll empty all my stuff out of the car and stay the night down there so I don't have to get up at 2am to get to orientation on time.

Show And Tell

For show and tell this week I didn't know what I should bring to class. I haven't had much going on this week other than the IVF stuff which is big but much of it not really all that photo graphical. I am refraining from posting pics of all my lucky charms that I had on Thursday or my deformed bed and semi empty apartment. So here are just a few random pictures from my week.
This is Luna all curled up on my bed. It cracked me up how she had her tail curled around her face so I took a few photos. She didn't seem to care much. You can even see her couple of really long whiskers. The breed of cat that I have usually don't have long whiskers, just curly little short ones. They do occasionally get a long one here or there.
This pic is from Wednesday after I went to go pick up super spermies and had a cooler full of dry ice pellets. I of course had to drop one in the cats water to see what Sara would do. She was fascinated at first, then wanted nothing to do with the steaming cup. Don't worry, I changed her water after I snapped the pic.

Then here's a pic of Bleu and I on my ER day. I of course couldn't wear my contacts because of how I was supposed to be asleep and all. Haha. I guess I should have mentioned that I'm the one in the green.

So that's been my week. My apartment is mostly empty. My bed, the vacuum, litter boxes, some clothes and food is all that's left in it. This coming Wednesday I leave for Sp0kane for Thanksgiving and packing. Oh goody. Really not looking forward to the packing part.

If anyone else wants to play along with show and tell this week then head on over to Stirrup Queens and join in the fun.

Grateful

Thanks everyone for all your well wishes. I don't want anyone to think that I'm not grateful for the 5 good and 3 maybe embies I have. I really am truly grateful. I think it was just my initial reaction because for my 1st cycle I had 7 eggs retrieved and on day 1 I had 5 fertilized. It was pointed out to me though that of those 5 I don't know how many were 2pns or 1pns etc. I just knew there were 5. So when I heard 5 I started comparing and remembering that I only had 3 that were good at day 3 and it didn't work. I'm feeling better now. I'm back to being mostly calm and feeling pretty comfortable with all of this. It is a good fertilization report. I'm happy with it.
I haven't accomplished much today. I had to go to the store to get solution for my contacts etc and just getting out was nice but still I'm really not feeling that good. Movement is uncomfortable. My stomach feels heavy and I'm not just talking about the usual fat heaviness. It just feels heavy and movement is really uncomfortable. Speed bumps? Yeah, they're evil. And everywhere. Each one I went over felt like my ovaries and all the extra fluid I'm sure is still there was bouncing around. Hopefully this gets better soon. The results are that I've done a lot of sitting around and not doing much. Oh well. It's not like there is tons to do. Just basic cleaning of the apartment and packing up the last few things that I've been using this week. Monday I go to Fresn0 for orientation at the hospital. I'm planning on taking my TV down at that time. Tuesday I'll be back here and then home to Washington on Wednesday. Is it pathetic to say I'm going to be seriously bored on Tuesday without a TV or probably internet. And even more pathetic to admit that Tuesday is my favorite TV night and I'm bugged about the fact that I will miss NCIS and House. I know. I'm pathetic.

Fertilization Report

So I just got the call with the fertilization report. I have 8 that are still growing or working on growing. 4 were discarded. Of the 8 that are still there 5 are 2pns which is where they are supposed to be and are good fertilization's there are 2 1pns and 1 that didn't show it had fertilized yet. Back in the incubator they go and they will be checked again on Sunday and it will be decided at that time if I have a 3 day transfer or a 5 day transfer. I'm glad I've got 5 that are doing well. I'm trying and struggling a little bit with the whole wishing for more. I know that 5 is still good. I do. Of course I can't deny though that I had hoped for one of those stellar reports of like all of them fertilized and are doing wonderfully. But I do know that 5 is good. I do. I'll hang on to the hope that of those 5 at least 2 will make it to a great transfer. Now I have cleaning and a bunch of other things to do so maybe I can make mind think of something else other than worrying about my embies.

Home And Happy!!

Well, I'm home. ER is done. So are you ready for it??? I had 9 follies that they measured the other day. Doc today said that sometimes they don't get all the eggs.
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
Ready??
*
*
*
*
*
*
12 eggs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A nice even dozen!!! I am so freaking excited. This is better than I had even hoped for. I should get the fertilization report tomorrow sometime so now looking forward to that. I had all my lucky charms with me today and overall I'm ecstatic with the results so far. I will say though that they gave me a lot of medication for sedation and it didn't really work. At all. I was wide awake and remembered and felt pretty much all of it. Fun stuff. Bearable though and I survived so it's all good. Now I think I'll check in on blogs and maybe take a nap. I was too wound up to sleep much last night so I'm a bit tired right now.

Trigger Soon

Well I'll give myself my trigger shot in a couple of hours. My doctors office still has never heard anything about whether I can use the samples I currently have so I went ahead and had my paperwork for the new bank sent in and got registered. I'm driving to SF tomorrow to pick up the vials and will drop them off back at my doctors office. I have to be back at the doctors office at 8:30 Thursday morning for my retrieval. I suppose I still have time to do the whole panic freak out thing that I remember from last time but I so far feel way more calm about this. I remember last time the day I had my last scan and had to go pay my fees for ER and all that just having this "oh my god what am I doing" feeling. This time I'm calm. I'm doing what I need to do to get to where I want to be. The cycle for the most part so far has been pretty good (with the exception of the whole sperm donor issue) and I'm ready for this. I'm definitely ready for it to work. I'm ready to be a mom. And if it doesn't, I suppose I can deal with that too. Not that I'm not feeling really positive about this cycle, I just feel like I am prepared to deal with whatever happens. Lets hope I'm right.

11 Months

So, egg retrieval is Thursday. Which is exactly 11 months after my first egg retrieval. Wow, hard to believe that almost a year has passed. Scan this morning went fine. Follies are moving along as expected. I'm glad I'm not working this week as I'm really not super comfortable right now. The whole sperm issue is still unknown but I did have the doctors office print out the paperwork today for the new bank and I filled it all out and left it there for them to fax. I'm more at peace with the whole issue right now. I decided on a donor that I'm ok with. The timing still sucks but it will still all work out fine. And if I have to drive to SF tomorrow to pick up sperm then I can also stop and get a cupcake at that fantastic place I found last month.

Two

So I have the list of potential donors in case I have to switch narrowed down to 2. That's a big step since yesterday I had a list of like 20. Funny thing is that the new sperm bank was one I had looked at over the summer and had right away found a donor I liked really well. I didn't keep the scrap of paper that I wrote it down on though and I have no idea which one it was. I spent part of the day going through virtually every profile looking for that one donor. I think I did find him but he is sold out. It would have made it much easier if he had some left but oh well. Funny thing is that one of the donors I'm leaning towards seems very religious. As in working towards a degree in divinity. However I like that he is also very vocal about wanting to advocate for gay rights. The other donor is 6'9". Wow. Still thinking and deciding and trying not to worry about the logistics of how I go about getting set up with a new bank and getting my samples in 2 days. I would have to drive over to SF to get them but that wouldn't be too bad I suppose. And yes in my head I'm still hoping this will end up being a non issue and I will be able to use the samples I've already purchased and that are already there at the office.

Just Another Saturday

So I got most of my stuff moved yesterday. What a very long day it was too. Picked up a u*haul trailer at 8am, came home loaded most everything up and was on the road by 10:30, hoping to make it to Fresn0 by 2. That didn't happen. Freeway was backed up because of an accident so I pulled off for an hour, pottied and napped a bit then back in line to wait almost another hour to go 2 miles. Finally got to Fresn0 about 4pm. Unloaded and back driving to Sac. I came home and mostly collapsed.
My ovaries ache. I really don't remember that part from before but am guessing it was there. I'm trying to just take it easy. I have cleaning etc to do around my house but not to much more moving. Except for little things which can be the worst at moving but oh well.
I'm also trying to figure out when to start work. I had planned to do orientation on the 24th and the 2nd. If my ER is on Wed of this coming week and if I possibly end up with a 5dt that could interfere with orientation on the 24th and for the day on the 2nd I fly into Sac on the afternoon of the 1st and would have to come to my apartment, vacuum, pick up the cats and the last of stuff left here and then drive to Fresno, get access to house and sleep before going to work the next morning. Ultimately it would be easiest to wait and do orientation on the second Monday in December. That way I'm not coming in on Monday and having to rush out of my apartment and drive down to Fresno. However as far as money goes it would be better to start sooner. I guess I'll wait and see what happens with ER etc. Oh and I had a bit more drama to deal with today. Turns out I may not be able to use my sperm donor that has already been sent to the clinic as they bank doesn't have a license to ship to California. Yet they did? Also I've used them before with current and previous doc. I guess the new doc in the practice is making an issue out of the lack of license or whatever and so they are checking with the state on Monday to see if I can still use it. If not, I have to find a new donor. My Dr is going above and beyond to try to make this right and help me with this situation. I'm not upset with him although I am a bit annoyed with the other doctor. The sucky thing is that a lot of thought went into picking that one. I've spent a good part of the day today looking at donors and my mind is swimming with all the variables. I've looked at so many profiles I can't think clearly about any of them anymore. So I'll stop for now and go back tomorrow and look at my short list and hope that I get to be the exception and still use the current donor that I already have.

Hello Dildo Cam

Scan was today. It was all good. I'm a bit farther behind than what I expected to be but it's not a bad thing. I just figured I would be closer to being ready. I have 7-8 follies growing and they are a bit smaller. I will be stimming for 4 more days and have another scan on Monday. Most likely ER will be on Wednesday of next week. The interesting part of this is that I am already feeling bloated and crampy. More than I remember at this point last time. Maybe I should go back and look at my blog posts in January. I'm not horribly uncomfortable but I'm not really comfortable either. A little bit of feeling just blech and sort of a constant there headache. All of that ads up to a not very productive me. Tomorrow I'm picking up a uhaul trailer and taking most of my stuff down to Fresno. I sort of hate to move everything quite so soon but the flip side is that I also hate to leave it for next week and then feel awful next week and not be able to really do it. So, tomorrow I'm taking most everything. I'll leave my TV and the thing that sort of resembles a bed. My lap top and some books etc. Everything else hopefully should go. Then it's just waiting for next week.

Planning

Yup, planning again. I think sometimes this is my favorite past time. Or I guess I could say I'm working on the details. The details of getting my stuff down here from Washington. I am getting money from the new job for relocation which will be nice. I had sort of thought to move everything all in the spring. Then I found out that I have to provide the receipts for moving within 90 days. So, I have to move sooner. Right now I'm trying to work out the details of how I'm going about this and when etc but hopefully I will have everything moved soon. I had a few moments of freak out. I kept thinking "what if I should change my mind, want to leave, etc" and "shouldn't I just leave it all there?" I feel though like I need to commit to this. I need to make a decision and follow through with it. Not leave myself a back door out. Which isn't to say that at some point down the road I can't reassess and do things differently but for now I feel like I need to commit to this decision. And I want my stuff, especially my bed. So I'm working on a plan to get all my stuff moved. The sooner the better too. Especially for the bed. The other night I was sleeping and again was woke by the loud popping noise of my bed springing another hernia. Oh goody. It's right next to the last one but this is now taking up more of my use able sleeping space. Right now it's close to half of the bed is all bumpy and when I rolled over this morning the shift in air almost rolled me right out of bed. I'm a bit worried that in the next month or so it will do this again and if I'm sleeping in the spot that pops I may end up being popped out of bed like a piece of toast from a toaster. So getting my bed has become somewhat necessary. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks I'll have all the details fixed and then when I'm home for Thanksgiving I suppose I'll be doing some frantic packing.

Long Day

Today's trip to Fresn0 was a fairly productive day. I took a load of stuff down and stuck it in storage. I went to the hospital and filled out all of the necessary paperwork etc for employment and peed in a cup and had my blood drawn. They had to draw titers for my MMR and Varicella and while I already have those titers somewhere I'm not totally sure where so they just drew the blood. No biggie. I also managed to look at a house while I was there, fill out the application etc. I also got the house!!! It's a nice house with a small back yard that should be great for Sadie. There is a patio in the back with a built in grill which is nice. The house has no carpet, only tile which believe it or not will be nice since kitty pee is much easier to clean up off tile floors than carpet. Not to mention all the pet hair issues.
So I have a job and a place to live. Not a moment to soon either. The drama here with work continues and I'm not really expecting it to improve much. Last week when all the crap started the hospital that I had the problem at had immediately (without contacting my recruiter etc) sent out notification to all the other hospitals saying not to use me. They did later rescind that notice however the damage was sort of done and now the hospital that I typically got most of my hours at is refusing to use me. There is only one hospital right now that is still happy to use me and it's the smallest of the three. I'm sort of thinking I may not get many hours there or at all here in Sacramento. So tomorrow I need to call various creditors and tell them I have no idea how I can pay them this month. Oh goody. So, I'm more than happy that I do have a new job to go to and will be starting soon.
Right now outside of the money stress I am feeling better about things. I feel like things are falling into place really well which makes me feel better about my decision.
I also am starting to feel my ovaries. I had to wear jeans all day today since I didn't want to show up at the hospital in sweats. They got to the point of being so uncomfortable on all my bruises that I undid them for the drive home. Glad I didn't get in an accident. Plus I've noticed today some sort of cramping or fullness in the ovary region. Also a little nausea. Headache too but I think that might be more related to my contacts than anything else. They aren't working very well lately. My scan is on Thursday, hopefully all looks good and hopefully I will know when my ER should be at that point.

Where I Forget To Slow Down And Think

I have this really bad tendency to not make myself slow down and think all the steps through. Which ends up causing me problems. Which ends up being annoying to say the least. I was available to work all weekend. I didn't work though. As usual. I didn't even get a phone call this weekend saying I had been cancelled. Annoying but I had things to do and I'm seriously tired of this job. So I packed. I gathered boxes and packing materials. I actually gathered way to many boxes I think but oh well. I spent yesterday packing and while it may not necessarily look like it, I do have most everything packed. I don't really have quite as much as it feels like I do at least here in California. At home is a totally different story. Anyways, back to the not thinking things all the way out. I need to go down to Fresn0 to fill out all the necessary paperwork, pee in a cup etc. Had I actually stopped and thought about all of this I would have come to the conclusion that I likely wouldn't be able to just walk in and do this. No, I would have realized I would need an appointment. However since I hadn't worked all weekend and I was getting packed and found a possible house to rent online I decided that it would be a good plan to go to Fresn0 today. I called my recruiter and had him cancel my shift for tonight, I loaded up my car with a bunch of the boxes I had packed up, showered and actually put make up on. Then called the hospital only to be told that the soonest they could get me in is tomorrow. And I am annoyed with myself because if I had stopped to think about it, I would have realized this before I did all the above stuff. Now I have a car load of stuff and I hate to leave it in my car overnight but I hate even more to haul it all back up the stairs so that tomorrow I can haul it all back down. So, in my car it will stay. Also tomorrow I will have to try to rush back from Fresn0 just in case I end up having to work. Especially since I really need to end up working. I just hate it when I do this and end up feeling so stupid. It's just my head gets ahead of myself with planning etc and I don't stop to think about all the steps. Hopefully this will still all work out tomorrow.

Show And Tell

Sorry, sorry. Running late to class today. Busy day so far with box collecting and packing etc. Plus trying to decide what to bring for show and tell. I thought about maybe taking a pic of all the bruises all over my stomach from my shots but I would want to ruin anyones breakfast, lunch and/or dinner with the accompanying ghost white rolls of chub. Then I thought that maybe I'd show my packing efforts but that just gives me a headache looking at all the boxes and trying to find my way around the house. So instead, we're back to pets. Today I present to you the amazing, heat seeking cat!!! This is my girlie Sara. She has decided that the most important thing in her life is to find the warmest place in the house. The other day that place was on top of the stove since I had the oven on. I just cracked up at her sitting there just soaking up the heat. The older she gets the more she seems to do this heat seeking thing and the more she reminds me of my old cat I had for almost 15 years. Airiel was similar in the heat seeking thing and could usually be found buried in blankets. You could not come into my house and just sit on a random blanket because it usually had a cat inside. I wish I had some pics of Airiel to post but I think they are all at home. So for now, just Sara.


For anyone else who wants to play along head on over to Mel's and join the fun.

The Roller Coaster Of My Life

So my life has been crazy the last 30 hours or so. Crazy stressful and the fact that my emotions are completely all over the place didn't help. Yesterday I got up and had an e-mail from work that I needed to call my recruiter about work. I called and was told that the hospital I had worked at the night before was saying that I had missed things and that I was being fired and was not to come back. It wasn't clear whether it was for that particular unit, that hospital or all 3 hospitals I've been working at lately. For someone who has never before been fired from a job this was pretty traumatic. It felt very strange too since the things they were stating I didn't do while yes likely should have been done, were not necessarily critical things. I went to bed last night feeling like I had possibly put my nursing license in jeopardy and wondering where or when I would work again. It was terrifying. This morning after talking to my boss it seemed a bit better. My boss seemed to also thing that the things that were missed were fairly minor, no harm came to the patient and after listening to my side of the story was off to call the manager to figure out what sort of way the issue could be worked out. It did end up getting worked out. Apparently the nurse manager would like me to not come back to the unit until I've had a chance to get more experience. She said at a later date I would be welcomed back and picking up shifts at the other hospitals or in other departments would be fine. I of course have NO desire to ever go back to that particular unit. None. Then I got news that it won't be necessary. I got the job I interviewed for last week in Fresno. Which a couple of days ago I had decided that maybe I didn't want to accept it if I got it since it is less money than traveling but this weeks incident has shown me yet again that maybe it's time to do a staff position. What happened yesterday would not have happened had I been a staff nurse. I may have been counselled etc but not the drama like happened. Also as a staff nurse I will actually be oriented to my department. Granted I did receive some orientation to the unit I was working on as a traveler doing med surg but as an agency nurse I really didn't. Factor that in with the fact that I was working in an area where I didn't have a lot of experience and it was a less than ideal situation. A situation that I don't want to repeat. So, this afternoon I accepted the job in Fresno. I'll be working in a short stay surgery area, on night shift. I'm looking forward to doing something new and having a chance to fit in somewhere on a more permanent basis. Maybe some day I'll try traveling again or maybe I won't. I think it's been a great experience but I'm ready for some more roots. Now I suppose I have to start packing again. I also need to decide eventually (I'm really not worrying about it yet too much) how and when I'm going to get my stuff from home and my dog. How to go about renting out my house since it obviously isn't going to sell anytime soon. Lots to do. Right now though I just want to focus on the next few weeks, figuring out where I'm going to live next and my lucky cycle.

Yes!!

What a glorious day today seems like. So much possibility ahead it makes me smile to think of it. Last night I had to work. I didn't get to see the speech but I still knew it was going on. That was a fantastic feeling. I had never felt so strongly about an election before and to have it be such a spectacular one at that is quite the experience.
Funny thing was I was in a patients room at 8:05pm and they were announcing Obama's win and the husband of my patient was very irked that they would announce it so early since the polls on the west coast just closed 5 minutes ago. Poor guy, I'm guessing he was voting for McCain.
I am hugely disappointed that prop 8 here in California passed. That is such a let down to think that there are so many people who can't or won't see beyond themselves and what they see as their idea of a perfect little world.
The other big fun exciting thing today is that I started my stims!!! So I am on my way!!! Yay for a great Wednesday!!!!!

Infertility Made Me This Way

Superstitious that is. I never really was superstitious before. The number 13 never bothered me nor did black cats. Many of the little things like knocking on wood or whatever really were never considered to have much truth to them. Now I find myself paying more attention. Maybe I'm hedging my bets.
In the past for various insemination's I've purchased baby items etc to surround myself with during the insemination. Oops, maybe I was supposed to banish all baby related things from my abode. I have a charm bracelet that I wore constantly for several trys that has all baby related charms. Last year right as I was getting ready to start my first IVF I went to Disney*land at Christmas time and spent 2 days searching out ever single wishing well and pond so that I could toss my pennies (and quarters, nickles and dimes) in while wishing for a successful pregnancy. And yes I did feel a little bit let down that the happiest place on earth didn't work it's magic on me. Stupid maybe. I know. So even though I'm trying not to obsess about luck and superstition it's still there in the back of my mind. I've got all my lucky meds donated by other fantastic women. I've got my lucky socks now. I've got a fantastic doctor that I trust very much. Now I've got another very small bit of good luck. The other night someone brought Chinese to work. I took a fortune cookie and the fortune was stupid. I tossed it. Then as I was leaving work the next morning I noticed several other cookies sitting there. I grabbed one, stuck it in my bag and promptly forgot about it until last night when I was going in to work. So I cracked it open. My fortune said "You will soon be involved in many gatherings and parties." It just sounds good. So I'll hope this is a little more good luck for this cycle I'm so optimistic about. Or maybe I'm just crazy.

Show And Tell

So for my first IVF cycle I had tried to do the whole take a picture of all my meds, you know for the scrapbook and all and it just didn't work that well. It was a bit anticlimactic. Everything had fit in a medium sized box and the whole stack of it all never really looked that great. I don't think I even kept the pictures as it didn't look at all impressive. For this cycle though it definitely looks more impressive. Way more! Thanks to all the contributions I've received and all the extra needles etc my counter is FULL of stuff. So I piled it all up and took pictures of it all this week and these pictures are much more fun. So for my show and tell this week I thought I would share.
So this is a shot of all the meds, trying to get them all to fit into the frame. In the background is all the syringes and needles, sharps boxes etc. Also all of my other meds and my prenatal vitamins, extra folic acid, bcps etc.

Here's a pic of the syringes and needles. I had actually told the mail order pharmacy not to send me more syringes, alcohol or gauze, or another sharps box as I knew I could probably get them at work if I needed. Yeah, they didn't listen to me and now I've got tons. Oh and somewhere back there I have a huge baggie of the Q-cap things.

Here's another view of all the men0pur, some g0nal f that came in different packaging instead of the pens, my two hcg shot boxes (yes I have extra) and my Lupr0n and Viv*elle.

Here is a big stack of all my f0llistim and g0nal f, plus again the regular meds, lupr0n, viv*elle etc.

The stack of stims!! Oh and my fiber tabs.

These are the gauze sponges I received. These totally crack me up. Is the packaging on these total overkill or what?? The packaging for a simple 2x2 gauze is like 10 times bigger than the actual gauze. And apparently these will show up on x-ray because that's important. I got a big bag of like 30 of these.

And then there are these. They came yesterday via UPS but since crawling out of bed to answer the door was beyond me, I actually got them this morning. I think that these are maybe lucky socks?? I think I even know who sent them, the super sweet K. Updated to say yes it was the super sweet K who sent my fancy socks. What a fantastic surprise they were! Thanks so much!!

Now, let's head on over to Stirrup Queens and see what everyone else is showing today!!