Today's appointment went well, after my doctor gave me a heart attack.  I had blood work this morning, then an ultrasound this afternoon, which was faster than normal.  After he was done he told me to meet him in his office when I was ready.  I sat down across from his desk as he tapped on his keyboard, shaking his head and I could tell he was going to tell me bad news.  I said in the room after he was done with the ultrasound "those follicles look huge!" which he agreed.  He started off the conversation in the office with "when you have follicles that large, it really increases the chance for multiple births, like twins, triplets.  I had a patient like you last month that had quadruplets, and you have to decide if you want to proceed."  My heart SANK!!  Then his assistant appeared in the hallway and got his attention and was telling him something (I couldn't see).  He said "but we're doing IVF.  We're doing IVF."  I could see the light come on and how embarrassed he was.  He had been seeing so many IUI patients all day, that he was thinking I was one of them, and I guess the size my follicles was not a good thing in that case.

Most people may look at this as not a lot of confidence in the doctor, but working in the medical field and knowing the volume of patients we see and all the detail that go into their care, I get it.  I've also had to rescue Dr. C a few times when he's been talking to a patient about their condition and I realize he's talking about the WRONG patient!  We're human, mistakes happen.  I just laughed and told Dr. R "you gave me a heart attack!!  Okay, let's start over!"

So my follicles are a good size and where they need to be and I'm ready, but my blood work show my estradiol level is a little low.  I think he said the estradiol level shows the majority of my eggs.  I asked if there was a risk of my follicles getting too large and he said there was; it's all a balancing act of deciding if to continue another day and risk the eggs in one follicle over maturing, yet gaining mature eggs from 3-4 other smaller follicles, which would be a good trade-off.  I trust his decision and am not going to question it or stress about it.

He wants another blood test so back to the lab I go tomorrow again, before 8am, then I have an appointment with him at noon (then work directly after until 8pm).  Assuming I'm totally ready tomorrow, my trigger shot will be tomorrow night and my retrieval will be Friday.

I can't believe it's so close!!!  It's been a long time coming and it's been an absolutely EXHAUSTING week on so many levels!  I'm so ready!  I'm also ready to maybe have a normal work day Thursday without any appointments.  Driving 130 miles every day this week is getting a bit tiring.

I'll update tomorrow, but it'll probably be just a quickie post.  Keep your chants going "mature eggs, MATURE (but not too much!)"

After a hellish day on Monday that had me in tears, a smile appeared once I got into Monterey (the pics don't do it justice, but the gorgeous view always hits me!)

 No pain, no gain!  The pics also don't give you the full view, but I'm more bruised and WAY more swollen than it appears here!

XOXO,
Chelle