I'm a Believer

I guess old wives' tales sometimes have some merit!  Or I freaked out way too early.  My doctor's totally going to be rolling his eyes at me and thinking I'm a hypochondriac, but whatever.  It's all scary and overwhelming, so I'll own my emotional breakdown on Thursday!

Today I went in for my second monitoring appointment, CD 11.  My follicle on my left ovary has grown from 18 mm to 19.5 mm, the one on my left doesn't seem to have grown from 12 mm (unless that's the 9 mm one and the 12 mm one is hiding somewhere?).  Anyway, now it seems we have two follicles in play - the 19. mm on the left and the 12 mm on the right.  Obviously the dominant follicle is the best bet.

Oh, and drumroll please...

My lining is an 8.4 mm!!!!!  The ultrasound technician was like, "Whoa, what did the doctor give you?  This is a huge improvement!"

Nope, doctor didn't give me anything.  I'm sure he's very happy with his decision, too, and he should be - it was the right one.  I was justifiably worried, but the doctor was right - my body would thicken my lining on its own, and thankfully it ended up working out just fine.

I try not to believe too strongly in old wives' tales, preferring Western medicine (and some Eastern medicine) with solid studies behind it.  But in this case, I tried everything - I did my own femoral and uterine massage, I kept warm packs on my lower abdomen, I drank pomegranate juice and green juice full of wheat grass and spirulina, I did stretching and took walks.  I even made sure to orgasm a few times to increase bloodflow to the area.

Something worked!  I'll choose to believe my old wives' tales helped, but at least they didn't hurt!

So I got the call from the nurse about my bloodwork on my drive home (after a very lovely coffee with a fellow patient at my clinic, and hopefully new friend!)  The doctor wants me to do one more shot of 50 iu of Follistim tonight (check!) and then trigger at 4am on Monday morning (ick... that will be a painful alarm, but thankfully I don't get worked up about shots and will likely just keep it on my bedside table, roll over to stab myself, and roll right back over and go right back to sleep).  My husband has to be at the clinic for 2:30pm on Tuesday, and I'll be there at 3:30pm for the IUI.

And on this crazy emotional rollercoaster, I'm now all excited and optimistic again.  We've got a real chance at this!

And if this month works, it looks like I'll be due December 16th, one day after my own birthday!  That would be a truly fabulous birthday present.  I'm trying to keep expectations in check, though.  There's a good chance that even if this is the right treatment for us that it will take a few cycles to work.

I'm doing good today.  I'll just take this a day at a time!