Here We Go! Here Here Here We Go!

My title reminds me of the outplayed, overused and annoying Steelers superbowl song. A funny story, we went to Krugs (A fullout Pittsburgh Steelers bar in Frederick that my friend Erin's Aunt owns) to watch the Steelers/Chargers game. I of course walked in with Redskins gear on because I don't feel like I should have to hide who I bleed for... the fans inside thought differently. Some of them were nice, most of them were rude which I expected. Screm em. One guy laughed and said "What car are you getting into" as I was stepping in to my friend Laura's Lexus to leave. I ever so softly replied back, "The car I'm about to run your ass over in!" lol, well, I thought it was funny. Anyways, to the funny part about the song, Laura was singing the song and I had mentioned that I didn't even know that the Steelers had a song like that. She said, "Oh yeah we have a LOT of songs." Get this, get this- this is the hilarious thing- she asked, "Do the Redskins have a song?"


So I love you Laura and I hope you don't mind this shoutout to you, but holy jesus! Do the Redskins have a song? Ever heard of a little thing called Hail to the Redskins? I quickly laughed in her face and began to sing the wonderful harmony of the Washington Redskins fight song, Amanda chimed in, and then we proceeded to get even dirtier looks from the people in the bar. The best part is, I probably know more about the Steelers than half of those assholes in the bar cheering for them AND I was rooting for the Steelers because I HATE Philip Rivers, god what a dousche bag he is! Anyways, get a grip Steelers fans, I as a Redskins fan oppose no thret, the Skins aren't in your division, hell not even in your conference. Show some love, you know you want some burgandy and gold in your life! The state of PA is some poop (that means you too Eagles!) and thats why you moved out of there in the first place. Holla.

Okay, so moving on to why we are all here:) The appointment with Dr. Levy was not quite what I expected. I was expecting to leave the office super excited and charged...100% ready to go. However, my emotions just weren't there. I think fear set in, I just kept thinking, can I emotionally handle this again? Not so much the meds, and the daily dr. appts, but the part after all of that, the getting (or not getting) pregnant, the possiblility of another miscarriage? Kyle noticed right away that something was wrong, that I wasn't amped up after meeting with Dr. Levy... but I think I am just going to roll cautious this time. I'm not going to feed into the hype, overanalyze every ultrasound, I'm just going to do what I am supposed to do and hope for the best. Thats all anyone can do in my situation, as Dr. Levy said, there is no crystal ball that is going to tell us how many cycles we are going to need to do. My answer to that is, I bet you could afford a damn crystal ball with all the money you've made from my misfortune!

Anyways, to the point. Dr. Levy told me that he was very happy with a lot of things about my cycle, my estrogen numbers were good and they retrieved an excellent number of eggs. Of course, the downfall was that the follicles started to slow down in growth towards the end of my medicines, the embryos slowed down in growth around day 3 of fertilization and naturally, my miscarriage was rock bottom. He has decided that Lupron is not the way to go for me. Can I get a whoop whoop? He has now decided that I need to go on Ganirelix. It works like Lupron, but it is given at a different stage in the game. I'll go into more detail about that in a moment. So, besides the change of that, all other medications will stay the same. Oh except this coolness factor, they have decided to switch to a vaginal tablet 3x a day after the egg retrieval instead of that nasty progesterone oil shot that I had to take in the back every night. They gave me a choice as to what I wanted to do, Kyle was surprised I chose the vajay tablets. (I think he thinks that I will be less likely to have sex if I have that, little does he remember that after egg retrieval sex is out of the question!) And, one little last detail, the Dr. put Kyle on Conception RX IVF vitamins. Finally, Kyle has something to take too!

After meeting with Dr. Levy, we met with Nurse Mary. We went over the actual protocol in more detail. Even though I had my doubts with Mary, I do find myself a little more in the loop after meeting with her. She has a nice way of explaining things so that I actually understand them. Dr. Levy has the habit of writing things down for us, but in his own doctorly handwriting that makes no sense to anyone. I asked her what ganirelix actually does and what the difference is between that and Lupron. I kid you not, this is how it was explained.

"Think of ganirelix and lupron as a break. Let's say you are starting a car race, on Lupron it just keeps you at a stop until you start the medications, you go about 25 miles an hour and then boom, stop. Another 25 miles an hour and boom, stop. Lupron eases you to the finish line. With ganirelix, you are at the start and when that light its green, VROOOMMMMMM you are off! Fast as you can go, then when you get to turn 3 boom, stop. Ganirelix is designed to ease you to the finish line as well, you just get a head start over Lupron."

What is nice about this protocol is two things. First, its a faster protocol. Before I would have to wait for my period, start birth control pills for 21 days, wait for another period, go in for an evaluation and then begin the medicines. With this protocol, I wait for my period, start the pills for 21 days and the very next day I go in for monitoring, 3 days later I begin the medications....period or not. Secondly, with the ganirelix shots, I don't start taking those until around day 6 or 7 of the stimmed cycle, whereas with Lupron I started taking that about a week and a half before I started stimming. Basically, it just means less shots. We like that:)

Now on to my period, the pesky SOB still hasn't arrived and I can't start the birth control pills until it does. Dr. Levy asked that if we were ready, to come back in this morning to have blood work done to check my levels. If I had not ovulated yet, I could be put on a medicine called provera to start my period. If I had ovulated, my period should start in 7-14 days on my own. I was a little bummed to have to go back there this morning but like everything else, I dealt with it. When I met with Mary, she said you know, I bet there is someone downstairs right now that could take your blood so you wouldn't have to come in tomorrow morning. She checked, and she was right. Another point for Nurse Mary! The blood didn't get sent to the lab until this morning so I will not know until this afternoon what the verdict is. Just in case you didn't follow all of that, we are hoping that I did NOT ovulate so we can get this show on the road.

As we left Dr. Levy's office he said, "As always Shannon, good eating and exercise will help." YESSSSS OKAYYYYY Dr. Levy, I'm fat I get it- jesus I am working on it! lol

So there you have it folks. In 6-7 weeks we will have finished another cycle, and hopefully this is the one that we have been waiting for. Please keep the prayers going, they are not only appreciated, but I also believe that they do work!

Happy Friday everyone:)

*** Update*** I just received a call from the nurse, my estrogen levels look fine and so Dr. Levy has ordered that I start the provera immediately.