They're here!

Our IVF meds arrived today. Luckily I was prepared for this seeing similar photos in other blogs that I read.

This is what all was included:















and here's a picture of what it all looks like spread out on the couch.




That is a lot of needles!













And here we have the cute little logo for Schraft's Specialty Pharmacy. It's kind of funny to think that all these meds and needles replace the stork in bringing a baby. How appropriate.

Our Tradition

I'm not sure how or when this came about, but baby days are Mexican days for us. That is to say, on baby related days, we eat some sort of Mexican food. Over the past two years, Melissa has learned that she likes more than just tacos. She also loves tamales, tostadas, tostaguacs, and enchiladas. We've found our favorite area restaurant, El Toro; and I've learned to cook some Mexican of my own from Diana Kennedy's: The Essential Cuisines of Mexico.

Along the way, I purchased a Molcajete for making fresh guacamole. Having a tradition, like this, is one of the ways we cope. We've had a lot of Mexican food over the past two years. Tonight, we had enchiladas.



Once the basic components are prepared, this is a simple dish to assemble. We usually make the ranchera sauce and filling ahead of time. The filling, we like the best, is just a simple ground turkey that is seasoned like we would for tacos.

To assemble, fry one 5" corn tortilla quickly in oil, without letting it get crispy. Drain the tortilla, and then dip it in ranchera sauce. I actually put a spoonful of sauce on the one side and smear it around, then flip the tortilla over and repeat. Then spoon two tablespoons of filling on the tortilla, and roll it up. Place the enchilada in an oven-safe dish. Repeat as necessary to make enough enchiladas. Finally, spoon a little of the ranchera sauce on top of the enchiladas, and then sprinkle them with some mild cheddar cheese. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 10 minutes.

Taco Meat
1 lb ground turkey
2 tablespoons cumin
1 tablespoon ancho
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1 teaspoon dried cilantro
1 tablespoon dehydrated onion flakes
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1 cup water

Directions:
Brown ground turkey and drain. Add all ingredients, simmer over low heat to reduce moisture.

Salsa Ranchera
2 pounds fresh tomatoes
2 Serrano chiles
2 Garlic cloves
4 tablespoons Canola oil
1 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions:
Roast the tomatoes and chiles under the broiler for 5-10 minutes (turning once) until slightly charred. Puree the tomatoes and chiles along with the garlic and salt in a blender. In a fry pan, heat the oil, and then add the sauce and cook quickly for about 5-7 minutes until the sauce has reduced a bit.

We're on our way!

Well, I guess it's official. As of Sunday I have started on BCPs and my Z-pak antibiotic in preparation for IVF.

If there's one thing I've always been pretty lucky about, it is my 28-29 day non-medicated cycles. Even with the pressure of perfect timing, I managed to have a perfect 29 day cycle which put me right in line for the projected schedule we were given. Should my period have been even one day late, we would have had to put things off at least a week if not more due to scheduling at the clinic.

This is a quiet week, followed by two appointments next week. I'll have my SIS and trial transfer on Tuesday with our nurse consultation on Thursday. With the nurse consult comes our up-front payment. Eeeks! That's one check I'm not looking forward to writing out.

Last week on Monday I went in for the Karyotyping and Antinuclear Antibodies blood draw. I'm not sure if I should expect the results from these tests as early as next week. It's possible, but seems a little early. At this point, all we can do is wait, which is one thing I've gotten quite used to in all of this. Waiting.

Some of my friends who have also gone through IVF recommended that I make a color-coded calendar to keep track of everything. So far I've got appointments in red, and each medication has its own color. I like to be organized, and it seems like this will be the best way to keep track of everything. I don't think my little purse sized planner would be big enough for all of this stuff. Besides, it'll be nice to see it all at a glance and not have to flip through week by week to see where we are in the process.

The basic timeline of our cycle is BCPs for 3 1/2 weeks, starting Lupron on May 4th, and stimulation drugs on May 16th. Depending on how I respond to the meds, we are looking at an estimated egg retrieval date of May 26th. From start to finish it's about a 9-week process.

There probably won't be many updates between now and my first ultrasound after stims start. I feel like we are in a period of calm before the storm.

Sorry for the inconvenience....

Due to a certain spammer that has some how accessed my Blog, I had to add the word verification to my comments.

This was only the 2nd time this has happened, but it was on my last 2 consecutive posts. For some reason, I don't see it as a coincidence.

Thanks for understanding.

Back to the Phlebotomist

Boy, this sure was something I haven't been missing out on these last few months!

Today I had to drive 30 minutes into the clinic for like a 2 minute blood draw. (Can I say I already miss having the RE only 10-15 minutes away?) I guess I can't really complain because it was over so quickly. I was expecting it to be a lot worse, but it was only two vials of blood, and really not that bad. I've heard some girls say they had over 10 vials drawn for these tests! The girl who took my blood had the tourniquet so tight I thought my arm was gonna fall off! Maybe that's what made the draw go so well?

Anyways, we are doing an Antinuclear antibody and Karyotype testing. These are the two tests that the new doctor wanted to run as part of our RPL (recurrent pregnancy loss) testing.

I found this statistic today and was kind of surprised by the figure:
•70% of first trimester losses due to chromosomal abnormalities.

Back in 2003, I had a large number of autoimmune disease tests done and nothing came back as positive, so I'm hoping the Antinuclear antibody is negative this time around as well. I already did the Anticardiolipins antibody and Lupus back in December and those were negative. Hopefully we continue to eliminate more factors from the list.

One good thing, I think, they don't consider blood draws office visits, so that means no co-pay! Hopefully this just goes as some random medical expense and not actually infertility related so it ticks away at our funds.

Hope - at our doorstep

For awhile now our motto has been about "Having Hope" and "Never Give Up".

This morning the doorbell rang and a package was sitting on the doorstep. When we opened the package, this is what we found.

Thank you for such a special gift! (You know who you are.)

We have a plan!

Our meeting with the new doctor went really well yesterday. We were very impressed and had a great overall feeling for the new doctor and clinic in general. We'll be seeing Dr Campbell at The Center for Reproductive Medicine in Minneapolis.

I'm about half-way through my cycle and when AF arrives, I'll call the clinic for a prescription for BCPs. I told him I ovulated through the one I was on before so he's gonna make sure I get on a higher dose one this time as quiet ovaries are crucial to starting an IVF cycle.

I'll be taking BCPs for about 3 weeks and then moving on to the stimulation drugs. It's too soon to have an actual calendar or protocol, but it sounds like ER (egg retrieval) will be early to mid May.

We have a few things that we need to verify through insurance and both of us have to get some blood work done and then there's a little more to do on my end, but it's mostly just pre-IVF stuff. Mock transfer, SIS (Saline infused sonogram) and the blood work. We've already had a lot of the required tests and they already know what the swimmers are capable of so we don't have to re-do any of those tests.

Doctor recommended IVF with ICSI (which we already knew based on the borderline normal hamster test). With ICSI you pay one additional flat fee and they'll do all the mature eggs, so you have a better chance of optimal fertilization rates.

It feels so good to know that we're just a few weeks away from getting another cycle started. While it's been so nice to not have the stress for the last few weeks, I'm ready to move on!