Off to London with a bestie

Some things just all fall into place. Yesterday I found out that I only had to work a half day and was excited that I would get to spend the afternoon with my lil man. One of my best friends who lives overseas had just gotten into town and we had plans for her to come back to Innisfil tonight for a ladies night....she's originally from London and when I told her that I would have to leave on Saturday morning at 4am she suggested we just take a lil roadtrip and stay with her parents.
So off we go in a couple hours--one of my besties, my lil man (who she has taken out for some morning shopping while I work---saving me the hour drive home to pick him up from daycare) and myself will make the trek down to London and have a relaxing night with good company...and the best best part of it is that her parents live FIVE minutes from our clinic..so no 4am wake up to drive 3 hours for blood and u/s---wooohooo!!

Ethan and Aunt Mandi last summer at the cottage :)

Cycle Day 8

So  just a quick update---made the morning trek to London for my 7:30am bloodwork as the nurse wants to start monitroing me on day 8 in case I have an early ovulation. Results show:
Estradiol is at 326 and LH 4.2.
Luckily I get a one day break and don't have to go back for Blood and u/s until saturday morning!! So far I've lucked out staying in Georgetown and making the drive from there in about an hour and a half...but it will probably be double that on Saturday--thank God its not a weekday with rush hour!! PHEW!!

Here we go again....

So about a week ago I started looking at the calendar and realized that at the end of this month a window of opportunity was going to open with me having some vacation time, the Canada day holiday and my AF all co-operating. When my clinic told me to call when I was on Day 1 (the day AF arrives) I thought what the heck I’ll call. Then they told me to come in for Day 3 bloodwork and u/s….again I thought..why not see what’s going on in there.
So on Sunday morning I woke up with the early birds and made the long trek to London. Thankfully our clinic has just moved and is now doing blood and u/s at Fertility Ontario, which just happens to be RIGHT off the highway. I arrived at 730am and was out by 8am—amazing! It was sooo much quicker than the process before. I had an attending who did my u/s and she noticed right away all the scar tissue around my right ovary (a result from my burst appendix). She was also surprised about how high up it sat—literally on top of my uterus and asked if I had issues during my egg retrieval.  (which besides being a terrible painful experience-- I didn’t!) It seems like its even higher than normal though and if I had to do a second retrieval may not be as easy as before. It got me thinking that this window of opportunity may be more a blessing in disguise.
We have 9 precious embryos to use first before considering a second IVF attempt—but I already know that if I have to do another fresh cycle—time is not my friend!!  So when she called back with my results….all indicating that I’m in perfect hormonal balance for a FET…DH and I decided to just go for it!

This time round we aren’t being as public about our attempt because let’s face it—we all know FET have lower success rates then Fresh Cycles…so we’ll take it one month at a time for now. So back to London this Thurs for more blood work and we’ll take it from there!!

Blood work results:

FSH-5

LH-4

Thyroid-2.69

Prolactin 17.91

Progesterone: normal

Estrogen 95

Good Luck to Khloe!

Khloe Kardashian joins the celebrity IVF club

Sara McGinnis

posted: 06/14/2012, 9:09 am

in: Celebrities

22 comments

Khloe Kardashian has reportedly begun IVF treatments, putting her in great company with many fellow celebrity IVF-ers. Word breaks this week that the Khloe & Lamar reality star, long known to be hoping for a pregnancy of her own, has begun the in vitro fertility process — and this time it’s actually believable.

While it was previously rumored Khloe Kardashian was pregnant with twins, the gossip thus far all seems to have proven to be nothing but rumors. What’s so different about the Khloe Kardashian IVF reports this time around? Well, multiple news outlets are reporting they’ve confirmed the treatments with inside sources, as well as the timing it just plain right.

“She’s finally doing this because she has the time now that she’s in L.A. full-time again,” an insider told Us Weekly Wednesday. Not only has the Kardashian sister, seen above with a very pregnant Kourtney Kardashian, and husband Lamar Odom settled back into Los Angeles after relocating to Dallas for his basketball career, but they’ve chosen to seek privacy by not renewing their Khloe & Lamar reality spin-off show.

TMZ also stated this week they’ve confirmed Khloe Kardashian’s IVF treatments have begun. They reported:

With Kim Kardashian by her side for moral support, Khloe gave up some blood so the docs could evaluate her hormone levels.  She’s waiting for the results, and will then get a stylized treatment program.

Still no word directly from the star who hopes to be pregnant very shortly, however Khloe Kardashian can take heart knowing she’s one of many celebrities who have turned to IVF for help conceiving.

Back at Work

I've officially been back at work for a month as of today ---and life is full of wonderful chaos. I work about an hour and a half from home so the commute is something I definitely don't love but sacrifice so we can live outside of the city with lots of space within a small knit community.
Obviously being back at work starts to get the baby brain working on when we should consider having Baby #2 (or #3--ivfers always have to think of that possibility!)
Since having Ethan I've always envied the moms I've met who have had back-to-back babies--14 or 18 months apart, meaning when they returned to work they already had precious cargo tucked warmly in their womb. When I complained about having to return to work I got a lot of "just get pregnant" "get on that second mat leave" "Don't wait!" ---but it just wasn't that simple.
First our fertility clinic is 3 hours away and while it requires me traveling multiple times for blood work and u/s I wouldn't trade our doctor for the world. We went for a consult to see what is required for a FET--and since I am still under 35 (for another year anyways) and had no complications with our first IVF protocol-DR recommended doing an unmedicated cycle. Cost wise this is good news--as meds can be $$$ but it is still over $700 for an FET and the biggest problem is me getting work off since I just got back.
The downside to an unmedicated is they have to monitor your cycle a lot closer with daily blood and u/s so they can implant at exact ovulation time...so I could NOT do any blood work from afar :(
Meaning I would have to do blood work on Day3 and then blood work and u/s on Day 10-14 followed by a transfer Day 15 or 16 (and of course doing it all without my work figuring that out =  vacation time.)
I even had a close friend "suggest" to me why don't I just try the old fashioned way since a lot of people get pregnant after IVF spontaneously. Hmmm why didn't I think of that!!!!....sorry for the sarcasm but DH and I aren't exactly being careful or concerned after all we've been through. On top of it all I don't think I can return to the crazy world of counting days, ovulation sticks and temperature taking...and since my issues are tubal it really is a 1 in a million chance that my tubes would function to pick up an egg.
So for now I just plug away at my job and get used to my daily routine of 5:30 a.m. wake ups,  teary eyed goodbyes with my lil guy at 630 a.m. and fantastic snuggles when I pick him up at 6 p.m.
Throughout the day I'm lucky enough to get some great photos of what he's up to from his daycare provider which always puts a smile on my face!

                                                             Eating breakfast..YUM!

When to tell your child about ivf...

I've never really thought about how i would tell my son he was conceived through IVF--I just know that one day I will tell him about our amazing journey that was filled with love to have him. I recently read a blog post from a dad who used this video to tell his 11 year old daughter how she came into the world. I thought I would share it for anyone out there who is currently going through the same thing.

http://www.indiegogo.com/oninfertileground