Roadblock down!

Wow, what a ride this has been!  A few short days after we received the bad news that we could not proceed until the cyst was gone and the estrogen level was down, we started to see the light again.  I finally started the long-anticipated period this past Sunday.  When I gave my doctor the news, she wanted me to come in for another ultrasound and more lab work.  On Tuesday, the ultrasound showed that the cyst was gone and that everything looked good.  Great news!  Then, we just had to wait a few hours to get the lab work results back, hoping to see a drop in estrogen.   Later that afternoon I got a call from our nurse informing me that my estrogen did, in fact, drop.  For this process, the estrogen level needs to be below 90.  My first draw was around 150, much too high.  (The cyst was most likely contributing to that level.)  The more recent draw was 30.  So, with the cyst gone and the estrogen level down, we got the green light to proceed!

That night, on Tuesday, we started the injections.  That first night was a slow, shaky start.  It took quite a while to go through everything and figure out what was what.  We had to mix the right amount of medication and use the correct size needles for mixing and administering.  Andrew gave his first shot!  Three of them to be exact.  And he did a wonderful job.

In this phase of the stimulation, my three injections are Follistim, Menopur, and Saizen (growth hormone).  (These are just stock photos; I haven't taken my own pictures yet, but it's basically all the same).


I also take two Clomid tablets.  As we progress through the stimulation phase, the injections and tablets will change.


The roadblock could have been a lot bigger.  Instead, it was just a three day push-back.  We are estimating that the egg retrieval will occur around 4/9 or 4/10.  We won't know for sure until the day before or the day of, because everything depends on how I respond to the stimulation medications.  This means that we are hoping to see many many follicles on both ovaries by these dates :)