IVF: making progress

August and September are going to be a busy baby making months! We will start our first (and only, God willing) IVF cycle in September. I just got off the phone with our ART coordinator and we went over so many details my head is spinning. There are so many needles! That is all I can think about, ha ha. Here is the break down of what will happenish:

August 2 - Consent signing appointment with our RE (Reproductive Endocrinologist)

August 10ish - Start menstrual cycle (if by some miracle I am not preggo)

August 17 - 2 hour ART class to go over how to give the prescribed shots. I don't need anyone to tell me how to cower in the corner while my husband comes at me with a syringe. We will receive our IVF calendar at that time too.

August 30ish - Begin Lupron injections.

Rough cost of meds $100-120.

I will not be doing birth control pills since they are a major cause of migraines for me. 

14 days later - First monitoring appointment via ultrasound possible blood work. Begin Follistim injections and Menopur. A wonderful friend of mine who now has a beautiful baby boy donated all her unused Follistim and pen saving us thousands of dollars.

Rough cost of meds $700

Sept 13-18 - somewhere on those days EGG RETRIEVAL!!

Sept 16-21 - TRANSFER and I will be PUPO (pregnant until proven otherwise)!! Start Progesterone injections. 

Rough cost of meds $140

Sept 30 - HCG blood test to confirm pregnancy

And if it doesn't work we do it all over again.

 

 

Read more...

IVF: this is taking forever

Waiting, waiting, waiting. . .it seems that is all I do now a days. Our RE doesn't do any IVF cycles in the month of July so we have been put on hold until August for anything IVF related. Great timing on our part to finally make the decision to do IVF, right? 

We paid our deposit a week ago and I finally talked to the IVF nurse just now. We have our consent signing scheduled for August 2nd, just a little over a week away. Then we have a 2-3 hour appointment to go over our calendar, medications, etc before going any farther. I just want to start this monster now, dang it! Is that so much to ask?

"Good things come to those who wait" I will just repeat this phrase over and over again until August 2nd.

Read more...

Cha Ching!

Did you hear that? 

That was the sound of our IVF deposit being made. . .

Read more...

Photography 101

I took my new camera out for a spin this week. These are all SOOC shots (straight out of camera). I haven't put the camera on Auto yet, these were all taken in either AV mode (aperture priority) or TV mode (shutter priority). I also checked out a book at the library called "150 lessons to better your photography skills". I will be starting on those this week.

So, what do you think of my first go round with the new camera?

This is our Golden Retriever, Ocean

This is our little rascal, Chinese Crested, Devlin (he needs a haircut)

This is a bushel of flowers from our Crepe Myrtle tree

Playing with depth of field

Back side of a hibiscus flower

I really wish I had a Macro lens right about now

Read more...

We are approved!

We got approved for the Attain IVF program. 2 fresh IVF cycles and 2 FET cycles!! Looks like we will be starting our first IVF cycle in the coming weeks. . .

Does anyone have $20,000 lying around they need to get rid of?

Read more...

Buffy vs Edward: Twilight

I <3 Edward!! This is hilarious if you are a Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Twilight fan.

Read more...

Say cheeeese!

Monday we set off to Best Buy to purchase a new camera and thank goodness we did. We got an amazing deal on a Canon Rebel XS DSLR camera including a telephoto lens, camera bag and a 2 year oops warranty. I LOVE it! I am not quite ready to post any of my pictures yet, still learning the ins and outs of it, but I am only using manual settings. I have not turned it to Automatic yet.

I got some great shots of our Golden Retriever, Ocean. She is so good, she sat still for me looking directly at the camera for about 15 minutes. Devlin, not so much, every time I would snap the shutter he would flinch so all his pictures were coming out blurry. 

*if anyone has photography experience send me your tips.

Hopefully I can get some pictures posted by this weekend.

Read more...

A baby shower

The shower went off without a hitch. It didn't rain until everyone was leaving, that was my biggest worry since we were grilling out. Here are the pictures from the shower. I really enjoyed planning it. Maybe one day I will be an event planner. The Momma wanted a 4th of July theme since it fell on July 3rd. Strange them for a baby shower but at least I didn't have to deal with cutesy baby stuff for a whole month.

I got through the whole day without any stupid "just relax" comments too. :)

The proud parents, it was a coed shower

The baker did a wonderful job on the cake. It was a white cake and the top layer she did red marble and the bottom layer was blue marble cake. It looked awesome when we cut into it.

I made the pinwheels in the vase

The party favors were little bags with candy inside

I made the tissue paper flowers and hung them up with fishing line.

They were super cheap and easy to make. They turned out great.

Playing the good ole' string game. (by the way she is 7 months pregnant)

My favorite game was making the boys chug beer out of a baby bottle. Whoever finished first won.

Read more...