Afternoon My Ladies! Love reading all the updates!
Cheri ~ How many days left?
We went to the IVF education appointment yesterday and it was enlightening, realistic and scarey at the same time. Mike was very impressed that we met the whole team that will be working with us and my favorite part was getting the schedule

I love a plan you know

We are going to keep our reservation to go to Disney at the end of May which was a relief. The RN and Mike thought it was important to have one last "horaah" before we got into this serious business. It seems like it takes longer then I thought it would but I guess it is working along a normal time line so here it is:
BCPs until May 31st
Base Line Ultrasound June 1
Start Gonal-F June 4th for 8-13 days (2 shots a day, AM / PM)
Start Ganireliz Acetate injections (We will be told when to do this)
Ovidrel (Will be told)
Egg Retrieval Anytime between June 13th and June 18th
Progesterone starts the day of the egg retreival and goes on until RE tells me to stop
Embryo Transfer between June 16th and June 21
Pregnancy Blood Test 14 days from Retreival Day (Useless to take a HPT since the Progesterone masks the true findings and it would be terrible to think you were preg if you are not, been there done that!)
They also said that it would be 2 days out of work, Retreval day and insemination day. Believe it or not the being ooo on insemination day is mostly psychological. No matter how much we know in our minds that the reason we didn't get pregnant after insemination wasn't because we went back to work or food shopping we have a tendency to blame ourselves so the caution you not to chance it
They warned that the Gonal-F shots are the "crazy"

shots and told Mike that if we had an argument over something silly just to remember everthing is hightened during this time and the best course of action is to not argue the point but nod, agree and suck it up. It will be over after the retreival for the most part. I was honest and said that I had a short wick sometimes but that my bark is worse then my bite

Funny thing was that when I was on the Clomid some days I was really calm and my awareness of my actions was hightened so I was actually overly nice because I was afraid of being a crazy B***h!
The psychologist was very realistic on time lines and expectations as well. She said that the "first" IVF process is always the hardest and is also the one that most often doesn't work. With the second and third ones they have higher success rates becasue they know more about your body so they are better able to change drug doses ect. Pretty much makes sence when you think about it.
I checked with insurance this am and my drugs are covered so that is good. I just need to let the RN know when to process them. I am going to do that either next week or the week after so I have cash in the bank to cover as it's still ALOT of money.
We're good to go for this trip but looks like we may have to reschedule our March cruise (body pretzeled and stuff) cause either I would be pregnant and in the last tri mester or baby would be to new born. Oh well Easter in 2012 is April 8th so maybe we can do it then or when Meg gets out of school in 2011. Again, this is God willing assuming this is even an issue
Sorry so long but good to see it typed out all the same. I'm going to make our reservations for dinner at Emerils at teh "Dark Side" during our trip. I'm still weighing the reality of doing the dining plan and if it really is a benefit to us.
Thanks ladies!
xo
E