So, where was I?

Sorry for my silence. I've been away at a conference this week. It went *fine* for those of you wondering -- 

I fall back so easily into my insecurities.  I know enough to know how much I don't know. So, it is hard to feel expert even if sometimes I am by comparison. The presentation I dreaded for two weeks went by in a flash, I was fine, I sounded normal and even competent. Heck, I even moved around (whose voice is that? what is she saying? oh! it's me! shit!). Then it was over and I was packing up and heading home.

A few nights of shitty sleep before and during the trip, a few days of full time low grade stress,the crazy spikey stress of the presentation, then home last night/this morning at nearly 2am. I am totally beat and so happy to be home.

And oh yes, the IVF thing.

So, where was I? 

I took my last birth control pill on monday night. I've been crampy all day, but no period yet. Not even spotting unless I use my imagination. My day "2" pre stim scan is scheduled optimistically for tomorrow morning up north...and my coordinator said to come in if my period starts at any point today or tonight. Well, obviously I hope it does for a bazillion reasons. Not the least of which is that snow is due for sunday and the next day  they would have me in for a scan would be monday- so it would be great to be able to do this tomorrow.

Hey, a novel thing for me-- the ultrasound tech on tomorrow is a guy! Dennis. As if somehow this is not quite awkward enough.

My medications came today from Ascend. They're in Maine, but they ship nationally folks-- and the customer service is just simply amazingly great.  $781 for 5 Ganirelix, 3 Menopur and 2 Novarel and all associated paraphernalia  (those IM needles look HORRIBLE- why the heck are they so thick? so they don't break in my incredibly muscular butt cheek?)

Why two Novarel? Because this time I want a back up plan. Assuming we get so far, if my hCG levels are not high enough the day after the trigger shot, I wanted to be able to try a rescue shot, a repeat. The empty follicles last time really shook me, and many hours on Dr. Google came up with this: incredibly uncommon, it is slightly more common in folks who have had it before (yay me); that pre-retrieval attempt, if hCG levels are shown to be inadequate, a second trigger shot can be administered and the retrieval rescheduled for 35 hours after that; if in the retrieval, no eggs are retrieved from the follicles on one ovary, the procedure can be stopped, a second trigger shot administered, and the whole thing can be tried again in 35 hours...

so basically, with a slightly higher chance than other people of this happening, I wanted a safety net however unsubstantial or unsubstantiated- so now I have one even if it might turn out to be bullshit anyway.

I was catching up on blogs tonight, and while I am having quite a different kind of journey, I admit I kinda feel like Mo... not negative exactly, but not positive either. 

The incredible babymaking trifecta of last week still has me reeling - the adoption packet came. I will pick up my wonderful (thank you!) bag of donated medications when I go for my scan tomorrow. I passed along a crazy rambling breathless thank you to the generous soul offering to be an egg donor for us if we choose to go that route.

And me? well. I just want to do this thing. And really, I just want it to work.