Pure Craziness

I'm such a bad blogger and friend, but I promise it's because of a good reason! Here's what's been going on these past few days.

IVF Update: So things are progressing really smoothly. Yesterday I had another U/S follicle check up and drumroll please .... I have 20 follicles ranging from 9-14mm on my Right ovary and about 10 follicles the same size on my Left. Kind of weird about my Left being half as responsive, but I read somewhere that sometimes you can have a dominant ovary. Every time I ever ovulated w/o meds it was usually on my R, I know this b/c I would always get O pains. So based on these results, looks like I could be hyperstimming yet again. Sweet! However, the best news is that my Acupuncture treatments seem to be helping with all the fluid retention. I was really huge and felt horrible on Monday, but by Wednesday after I had a treatment, most of my bloating was gone. Now mind you it's several days later and I'm feeling huge again, but it's a different kind of huge, mostly my abdomen is tighter and big, not so much bloated like it got last time. It hurts to really move around too much, so I'm trying not to walk around if I can help it. We are going back yet again on Sunday morning for another check up. If things look good and enough of the follicles are the right size, I will go ahead and trigger and my ER would be Tuesday. If my RE thinks I need another day of Stims, so some of the follies that are smaller can catch up, I would trigger Monday and ER would be Wednesday. I have no idea what the plans are for the actual Transfer, even as far as how many we might do this time. I will probably ask tomorrow and see what my RE says. I'm just praying that out of all the follicles there is ONE egg that becomes a strong healthy embryo that can be transferred and will live to become our child. I'm trying not to think about what happened last time and compare this cycle to it, but I can't help it. I'm trying my best to stay positive and tell myself that by adding Acupuncture and more vitamins to my regimen, that maybe things will be different.

Hypothyroid Test Results: Because I've been concerned that maybe my thyroid levels played a role in all the negative results we got last time, I had my levels rechecked. My TSH and T4 were perfect, but my T3 was on the "Low Normal" side of the normal range of values. My Endocrinologist was not happy with this and decided to double one of my thryoid meds. However, I asked her if this value could have played a role in any of the results from last time and she said she couldn't be sure. She did reassure me that since I've already started the new dose of my meds, that within a month or so my levels should be rising, evidently it's pretty fast-acting. This makes me feel better, but since I already started the stimming and lupron about 5 days before I started the double dose of meds, could my eggs already be affected by my low T3? I don't know and I don't think we'll know anything until we do the ER and get the Fert Report. Please just pray that I caught this early enough to maybe make a difference.

PhD and Graduation: So most of you know I'm in grad school getting my PhD in Neuroscience. Well a week ago, my professor told our lab that he was not offered tenure and was going to be losing his job in June 2011. So what effect does this have on me you might ask? It changes everything!!! I will be meeting with my committee on October 22 to present and defend my proposal and to discuss with them whether they think I have completed enough work to warrant allowing me to graduate in May 2011 with my professor. If they believe I need to do more work or that it would be in my best interest to join another lab for at least another year, then that means I will graduate when I already thought I would, in another 2 years. The program that I am in normally takes 5 years, I would be cutting it down to 4. So basically my work load has been tripled and I will be basically living in the lab for the next year. It would be a blessing if I could go ahead and graduate early. If you've paid attention to the timing of my IVF, if I get a BFP and it sticks, my due date will be June 2011. I truly believe this is God's way of preparing us for something huge. If I do graduate early then I will either try and find a post-doc position at FSU and stay here for another year or two, so we can sell our house and try and save some money up. (Post-docs receive 2X as much money as I do, and I wouldn't have to worry about paying student fees every semester!). If this doesn't work out then I will have to find a post-doc position or an actual job somewhere else. This would mean I would probably move and rent a place, while Rob stayed here in town to try and sell our house. This isn't the ideal situation, but whatever happens will be what God meant for us to do. Everything is going to work out. No matter what, I WILL get my degree. Luckily the department heads of my program have reassured me that I won't be left out in the rain b/c of what happened to my prof. I will be taken care b/c I had nothing to do with what happened to my prof.

So as you can see ALOT has happened in the past two weeks. God is certainly working in our lives right now. I'm looking forward to see what happens. Will let you all know how things progress! Love to you all!