Beta #3

Even better news from today's third beta! Today's BETA came in at 1300 - that's a doubling time of 42 hours which is awesome! Also, my progesterone level went up to 14 - which means that the supplement is working! I can just stay on one dose a day and just for sanity's sake, I will go for one final beta and progesterone check on Friday. That way if for some reason the progesterone is shaky again, we can up to 2 doses per day. We couldn't be happier with these results.

The doctor said she will do an ultrasound at 8 weeks "or 7 weeks if you can't stand it." As much as we can't stand it, we will probably wait until 8 weeks only because that is our vacation week and it will be much easier to schedule an appointment that we can both be at. That will be the week of April 19th.

At this point, we have sent a note to the foster c.are agency to tell them that we are putting our application process on hold. At least we have finished all of the required training and we can entertain the idea in the future if we want/need to.

The happiest part of today is that I finally finished my School Law class - it was terribly boring and there was so much work to do for it! But, it's all over now!

Beta #2

Yesterday, I had Beta #2 and it rose to 400 - YIPEE!!! That was just awesome! On the not so awesome front, my progesterone dropped to 9. So, the doc put me on a supplement to see if that will increase it. I go back for another beta and progesterone check on Monday and if the progesterone is still low, I will up the dose to twice daily. Keep everything crossed that this does the trick! We were ecstatic with the beta though - we would have been happy with 200 and it was 400 - the doc was very happy with that too!

This weekend, we are just going to hang around the house and get our scrapbook pages and quilt blocks done for our clubs next weekend. I am looking forward to doing a whole lot of nothing!

Have a great weekend!

Beta #1

So, I found out the hard way that unless the Beta is ordered STAT, you don't get the results the same day. So, after haing blood work done at 7AM Tuesday morning, I got my results at 9:30 Wednesday. So, let me just say that I will be writing STAT in big huge letters on my lab slip when I go in on Friday for the second beta.

Without further adieu: Tuesday's Beta at 14dpo was 80. Progesterone level was 11.8. We are very happy with the beta, but nervous about the progesterone level. My doctor said that anything over 10 is fine, but I've read that it should be closer to 20. Of course as my mom says, "We know too much!" She is right, we need to stop reading into things and trust that everything will be fine.

That's the news from here, we finished up our foster parent training tonight. We plan to put that on hold for the time being, but we decided it would be a good idea to at least finish up the training.

I'd love to hear people's thoughts on the progesterone level.....

PRICELESS!!!

Cost of Blood work for this cycle: $2054.00

Cost of Ultrasounds for this cycle: $556.00

Cost of Foll.istim for this cycle: $1791.56

Cost of Ovi.drel for this cycle: $69.60

Cost of Sperm for this cycle: $315.00

Cost of IUI for this cycle: $203.00

Cost for 8 cycles of injectibles since 2006: $39,913.28

Cost of FINALLY seeing 2 lines on the HPT: PRICELESS!!!

Yes, we finally got our clear positive this morning. We are SO excited!! We are also so thankful that we had insurance to cover a large portion of these costs! Of course we are cautiously optimistic as we have our beta on Tuesday morning, we will feel better after that. We can't believe that we are going to be mommies!

11DPO

Still negative as of 6:30 this morning. However, again today, my temp is still UP! It rose 1/10 of a degree from yesterday. No sign of af as well, and the girls (my boobs) are absolutely KILLING me! Plus I have terrible heartburn that hasn't let up for a few days now.

We are out of tests, so off to Do.llar T.ree to get some more with a stop at W.al-Mar.t and Tar.get too! We're going to go drop the dogs off at my parents house so they can run and play today and then go out to breakfast.

We are quite optimistic and we're just waiting for a positive to come to us! We shall see!!!

Happy Saturday!

10 DPO

NEGATIVE!!

But - AF has not shown up yet, AND my temps are still up.

Soooo, what does that mean? - We are hoping that 10dpo is just too early for a test to show positive.

Technically I am not "late" until Tuesday as I have a 34 day cycle. However, I ALWAYS start my period 10 days after insemination - which is today.

We shall see.......

And we thought the TWW was agonizing - this is even worse!

Off we go to a scintillating Teacher's Workshop day....

Not Much

Nothing much to report here - just a few days left until I can start testing. Of course, I could list a million "symptoms" my body has, but we'll just leave that idea alone and wait to see what the real deal is!

Went to another training last night for foster parenting and have another tomorrow.

Really, things are kind of boring around here right now, but hopefully we'll have lots of excitement this weekend!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

AG-O-NIZ-ING!

That is how this TWW is going! I can't stand it any longer.... Today is 5dpo and it seems like it has been at least three times that long that we have been waiting. The good news is we are about halfway there until we can start testing. So it is all downhill from here I guess. Also, AF ALWAYS arrives 10 days past my inseminations. That is Friday, so, if she is not here by then, we can have a bit of hope! I did POAS this morning just to make sure the trigger is out of my system and it is. So, we know when we start testing on Friday, if it is a positive, it will be the real thing!

We have two more rounds of Foster Parent Training this week - Monday and Wednesday night. We have really been having a lot of discussions surrounding foster parenting and I think we are going to switch agencies. The main reason for this is that we want younger children - like under the age of five. The agency we are currently with does 10 and up only. So, we have some decisions to make with that, but we are going to see what happens with whether or not we are pregnant and then make some decisions.

I am going to add a little "cheat sheet" on the side bar for those of you who don't know what all of the acronyms are (POAS, TTC, etc) Check it out under our picture.

It is beautiful here today- going to be 50 degrees and the sun is shining. We'll go for a walk later and look at the two feet of snow still on the ground in the midst of this spring like weather!

Kids Make You Laugh!

This week has been a funny week with the kids at school. I just have to share some of the funny things they have said this week. Those of you who are teachers or who have young children will especially appreciate this!

Child #1 - Kindergarten Boy - we'll call him Joey

Joey: "Guess what, guess what?"

Me: "What?"

Joey: "I went up North, but I didn't see Santa, I only saw my Uncle."

Me: "Well, you have to go way, way, way up North to be able to see Santa."

Kindergartener #2: "Nooooooo, you can't see Santa now, he's sleeping."

Jeez - I should have known that!


Child #2 - Third Grader - we'll call him John

Scenario: I help out in the office of school at the end of the day answering phones, calling busses, or just plain dealing with the general craziness of the end of the day. John came in and told us he didn't know how he was getting home and his sister left without him. We try to call home, but of course he informs us that his mom turns the ringer off on the phone - and of course we couldn't get ahold of anyone, so we are looking at his emergency form to try to figure out who we might be able to call.

Me: "Is your grandmother's name Sally?"

John: "No, it's Grammie"

Reading Teacher to me: "DUH!"

Me: "Is there anyone else who lives near you that we can call and maybe they can go and get your mom?"

John: "Oh, yeah - you know that little kid Billy, the one with the black snowpants?"

Ummm, yeah - a school with almost four hundred kids - of course I know Billy with the black snow pants.

Child #3 - First Grade Boy - We'll call him Adam

During Science yesterday, we were doing a bunch of "exercises" to talk about your body using energy. I had them running and doing jumping jacks and then feeling their heart.

Adam: "WOW, after all that running, my heart is really BEEPing!"


Times like these are what really makes my job fun!

Thanks

This post is for our friends and family both virtual and in real life. We have had so many well wishes these past few days. Whether it has come from a comment on the blog, an email, a message on Fac.ebook, or in real life, it has meant the world to us. Those of you TTC know how agonizing the TWW is and even though we are only on Day 2 (is that all?!) we keep thinking about all of the people who are rooting for us this try.

Thanks! We really appreciate it!

Perfect!

That is how today went! I don't think anything could have gone better if we had wanted it to. We arrived at the doc's office at 11:20 so they could start thawing the sperm. We were called back at about 10 minutes to 12:00. When we went back I caught sight of one of the nurses with an oven mitt on her hand and for some reason I just thought it was the funniest thing that she was walking around carrying the sperm in her oven mitted hand. She said to us "I'm just warming up your kids!" That sent us into more laughter. Not sure why that caught us so funny, but it did.

The IUI was absolutely perfect. We had the doc that we just absolutely love do it. Funny thing is, she did our first one back when we started this journey three years ago. I said to MJ this morning, "Maybe we've come full circle and this really is our time to be pregnant." My body was perfectly ready - plenty of mucus (sorry if TMI) - cervix WIDE open. Normally, the doctors have trouble getting the catheter in through my cervix. They have to dilate me, reposition my cervix, something painful. Well, not today - the catheter went right in - no cramping, nothing! On the way out, the nurse who had the oven mitt asked us if we wanted to look at the kids under the microscope. Of course we said, "YES!" I have to say, they looked awesome!

The even better news was that if this cycle doesn't work, they won't throw us out the door. The Doc told us that we would have to take a mandatory 3 month break - lose some weight and up my Met.formin dosage. Well, I can handle that - at least there is hope. But, we are going to think positively that we won't have to go down that road at all because we will be pregnant.

Tomorrow night we start our first of five foster parent training sessions. It will be a long day as we will not be home until 9:30 tomorrow night. It's all for good though! We definitely aren't putting all of our eggs in one basket!

High Noon

As the receptionist at the office said today, my appointment for the IUI is at "high noon" tomorrow. We will arrive at the office between 11:15 and 11:30 because they will not start thawing the sperm until we get there "just in case anything happens."

MJ and I both took the entire day off tomorrow. We'll sleep in (if the dogs will let us), have a nice leisurely breakfast, and mosey our way to the appointment. This has to be our time - it just has to.......

Quick, quick update

Just wanted to get in a little update here. I went for bloodwork today Estrogen was 258, LH 10 and Progesterone 0.8. Doc says those numbers are on the rise and I trigger tonight. I will call and make an appointment for a Tuesday morning IUI. Please cross fingers, toes and anything else you can. We'll take all the positive thoughts you want to send our way!

Moving Right Along

I went to the doctor yesterday and things are progressing nicely. I had a 17mm follicle on the left and an 11mm on the right . My lining was 9mm which is great! My estrogen level was 126, so that needs to rise a bit. I go for bloodwork again tomorrow - UUGGHH early on a Sunday morning. We'll see what the levels say tomorrow and I may possibly trigger tomorrow night. I ordered the sperm and they will be here for Tuesday morning. I will have the IUI either Tues or Wed depending on the bloodwork results!

We start our next round of Foster Parent training on Wednesday night. It will be a bit crazy as we will have 5 training sessions in 2 1/2 weeks. As soon as we go to the session on Wednesday, we can call and start the homestudy process.

We had fun today on our First Saturday Clubs. We went to our scrapbooking club and then to get our new quilt square kits. We ran a bunch of errands as well and had lots of fun at A.C Moo.re buying scrapbooking stuff. To make things even better, the weather here was BEAUTIFUL today - 55 degrees! It is supposed to be warm tomorrow too - it is doing a great job melting the snow.

Please spring, come soon!

I Taught Them Well!

As a teacher, you often think about past students and wonder how they are doing. After all, they were "my kids" for a whole school year and you invest an awful lot of time in these kids. You hope that they all go on to live productive, well educated lives. Well, imagine my surprise when not one, but two of my former students were on the front page of the newspaper today.

The first one made the front page because he was involved in a "possibly gang related" fight at W.al-m.art. The best part of the whole story - when he pulled his gun out, he shot himself in the abdomen. So, lets review- kid goes to W.al-M.art with a bunch of friends to start a fight, pulls out an unregistered, concealed weapon, and shoots himself - UGGHH!

Student number two was arrested after the vehicle he was riding in is pulled over and the police find two loaded rifles, mar.ijuana, and other drug paraphernalia. Oh, and did I mention that these rifles were stolen?! Then there is the fact that this student also had a warrant out for his arrest as well.

In all seriousness though, there is a part of me that is sad for these boys. What a life to be living already at age 17. If they had only had a family who invested in them when they were young. I had both of these boys in fourth grade and it didn't surprise me one bit when I heard about this. I thoroughly enjoyed both of these boys and they both had great personalities. I hope that maybe they can find a way to still turn their lives around.

In my mind, reading about these boys is just another reason why foster parenting is such a good thing. Hopefully by offering a stable home to a troubled child, MJ and I can give them some of the love and nurturing they need in order to head down a more positive path in their life.

Fun Scrapbooking Adventure

We went to one of our favorite scrapbooking stores yesterday to make a really cute never ending card. This one was for St. Patrick's Day, but now that we know how to make them, we can adapt it for any holiday. Today we are going to make a couple for birthdays. It is just the coolest thing. I took a little video of it so that you can get the full effect of how it just keeps folding around and around into 4 different layouts. Here it is:


And here are the pics of each panel. I can't wait to make more of them.





We have another snow day today - we woke up to another 10 inches of snow and it is still falling. That is 37 inches in less than two weeks. That is THREE FEET of snow!!! Oh well, we got an extra day of vacation out of it!

In Like a Lion!

Well, March is certainly coming in like a lion! We are slated for another foot of snow tonight and tomorrow. I think I would rather have all of my hair pulled out one strand at a time than have more snow. That probably means a snow day as well, and we just had a week of vacation - we don't need another day off. I'm officially done with winter.

Speaking of winter, the Winter Carnival was a bust yesterday, so we just stayed home and hung out with Olivia. We played W.ii, colored, ate cookies, played on the computer, etc. It was a great day. Today we will return her to Mom and Mama.

We are also going to a scrapbooking class this afternoon to make a Never Ending Card - pictures to follow! I love going to these classes and learning new things.

On the TTC front, we are still plugging away - my estrogen level was still really low on Friday, so I am staying on the same dose of Foll.istim (75iu) and going back for bloodwork on Tuesday. My body always stays low at the beginning and then my levels seem to jump literally overnight. I will probably go back again on Friday and then we will monitor things much more closely after that. I would assume that the IUI will be next week sometime around the 11th or 12th.

Happy March!