Jan 19th & 20th - "I-R-Turtle"

Hey friendly faces... thanks for stopping by once again to curiously check out my progress on the surreal journey to maybe-baby-land.  

I'm in the hotel room.  It's a friendly little hotel room.  Clean, plenty of space, in a quiet area with a comfy bed and charming (okay teeny) little kitchen area that I've been somewhat successfully cooking in.  The people running the place are very friendly and patient with me checking in and checking out to try and spend time with my sis.  I'll be heading over to see her on the Island first thing again Friday morning.

So Monday morning I went in for a pretty routine bloodwork test and found out my E2 (estrodiol) was a nice 560.  The rest of the day was pretty boring and I mainly rested in between bouts of exploring the city, which really was trying to find my way to do a simple errand and lead to a three hour drive trying to get back.  Tuesday was pretty much more of the same, although I must say I am getting better at becoming un-lost.

This morning (20th) I went in for my second ultrasound to find out how many follicles we were growing.  I was nervous!  The doctor was extremely happy with my results...
Rt. Ovary - 4 follicles between 7.3 and 12 mm and 'more than ten'  smaller follicles
Lft.  Ovary - 4 follicles between 8.9 and 10.9 mm and 'more than ten' smaller follicles
Lining - 6.7 mm

That means we have 8 dominant follicles and more than twenty following up!  The doctor said it was 'excellent' progress and is keeping me on the same dose of meds, adding one more to the cocktail to prevent me from early ovulation.

Retrieval of the eggs is still scheduled for early next week, Tuesday or Wednesday, which is just PERFECT as David arrives on Monday. 

I came back to the room and called David, who was astonished at hearing I was growing 30 eggs.  You're not my wife, he said, you're a turtle.  Will you dig a hole in the sand and lay the eggs?  Do we need to keep you away from the beach?  LOL  I love that he still makes me giggle through all this.

 I am starting to feel the physical effects of the follicles.  A woman's ovaries are about the size of small plums.  Now I have at least four follicles measuring around 1cm on each ovary, along with 10+ smaller (I'm guessing .5mm or so) follicles.  So it's like having 15 large peas on a small plum.  Do you just love, love, love my food references?  Okay.. veggies and fruit are not usually good combinations, lets go with 15 small blueberries on a small plum.  Really, stop grinning and imagine that.  Now imagine those 15 small blueberries being 15 large blueberries.  A follicle is considered mature when it's 1.8cm big.   So what we're dealing with is a seriously pimpled, swollen, tender ovary times two.  Somehow bringing all my favorite snug jeans seems like a really stupid idea now.  Me thinks I will browse the malls for some more forgiving lower half clothing choices.

Update ***  Seems my E2 was not rising as quickly as he expected.  So I got my Bravelle dose upped to 225 IU and another ultrasound and blood draw tomorrow morning.  I'm kind of excited to see how the follies are doing, but a little nervous about the issue of low E2.  It's super early so hopefully we can bring things in line soon.