Feeling like I'm going to the doctor's too much this week...

I woke up and said to Richard "I can't wait until tomorrow when I can sleep in and not go to the doctor" - how sad is that??

Went to the doctor today, got there and was first in the door at 8:03...my appointment was for 8:15, they got me back early, took my blood (left a bruise but whatever), but the doctor's assistant didn't come back until about 8:30 and the doctor himself came in around 8:35/8:40...8 follicles on my right, 3 on my left - still aiming for 20 total at the end. Because of blood work we are uping my follistim to 175 for the next 3 days and we'll see how that goes. And if you're wondering what kind of mood I'm in today that would be me in the top left corner ;) HA!

Richard got OT tomorrow, so I'll just be hanging out and hopefully catching up on my sleep! I'm very tired/exhausted...it's still hard to focus on things and I'm pretty grumpy today. That pretty much sums it up! Here's a collage picture of the nurse that took my blood, the person studying to be a doctor who does my ultrasounds and a picture of the cyst with the follicles in the ovary - it's not as cool of a picture as on Wednesday but I do what I can with getting them to print it off!

Email about July 27th Drs Appt

Yesterday was such a crazy/busy day that I just sent a quick email out to my family/friends telling them how the doctor's appointment went -
Hi All,

Went to the doctor this morning & had a good appointment (everyone loves my outfit which means I should've been wearing my teal shirt with the huge flowers on it more!) :) I currently have 9 follicles on my right side, 4 on my left (which means the ovary that has a cyst in it still has part of it's lining that is producing follicles - yay!) - I met with Dr. Lindheim today and he's my new favorite doctor - he was so thorough and helpful and answered all my questions! I see him again on Friday since Dr. Thomas is out of the office. We're aiming for 20 follicles this time (theoretically, if they get 20 eggs, only a certain percentage will become embryos) so that seems like a good number!Dr. Lindheim said the follicles look much better than last time because they're all maturing at the same rate & are about the same size (for comparison, last time there were big ones, small ones...all over the board). They're doing a great job of controlling my numbers so that I can produce more eggs this time...he thinks they'll keep me on all the same medication levels so that's a good sign. I feel ok, not great, but ok...just pretty tired and really tired of going to the doctor's office.
Hope everyone has a good day!
Ashley

I completely forgot to do my shots last night - you would think to yourself "How do you forget? You have to do them every day!" - well, what happened was, I worked until about 6, went out to work with a friend at work, came home and pretty much passed out on the couch, woke up and went into bed and went to sleep...very soundly & quickly! I woke up around 2:45 AM thinking "Oh no - I forgot to give myself shots!" so I went ahead and gave them (they tell me to do it as soon as I realize I forgot!) so hopefully it's not too bad.

Today I just feel tired - even after getting over 8 hours of sleep, my body is just exhausted...Susan at work reminds me that I'm asking a lot of my body right now so I better just take it easy! Easier said than done!

I'm hopeful about the process, but realize it could go either way so I'm just "here" about it - not happy or sad, just here.

Monday - To-Do

Take antibiotic
Eat yogurt with breakfast
Go to doctor's appointment to get my blood drawn to make sure my levels are ok - try not to pass out because the woman stuck me in both arms & made me feel very queezy
Take excedrine because head is pounding (Judy my IVF nurse told me it's probably because of low estrogen)
Wait for doctor to call back telling me how much follistim to give myself tonight & if my levels look ok / schedule next appointment for this week
Work
Follistim shot
Lupron shot
C&C 31 meeting
Prenatal / allergy meds

That's all for today...I'm exhausted already & keep having crazy dreams!

Follistim + Lupron + Antibiotic

Go to IHOP for brunch with friends!

Take antibiotic
Eat yogurt because I'm on an antibiotic
Give myself 5 units of Lupron
Give myself 150 units of Follistim
Take prenatal vitamin
Take generic Claritin so I can breathe in this Northern KY weather ;)

Just another day in the life of Ashley :)

For those of you that wondered what I have on the agenda today!

Follistim

So - here is what follistim looks like :) This is the medication that stimulates my ovaries and allows them to produce more than the typical 1 egg per cycle. The right ovary looks great, the left ovary might not do much because of the cyst. With a "go" from the doctor today, I'll do 150 units for 3 days in a row, then go back in on Monday morning for blood work and testing to make sure the levels are ok - they will adjust if needed for the Monday night cycle.

Someone gave me all of this medication - I can not tell you how happy that made me (seeing as though these are thousands of $$ out of pocket for me....) a friend just gave them to me & they don't expire until next year - so sweet!

One 600 tube of medication

I had Richard help me hold the follistim pen to show you what it looks like - this is it with no medication in it

Now the medicine tube is in it

And the needle goes on top...did I ever think  I would think it's cute that we're both holding my shots in the same picture? No...I'm looking forward to maybe holding our child in our arms together instead of this stupid pen.

Here's the set-up for this one....

Both Richard & I have to be on an antibiotic (even though we aren't sick) so we don't have any germies in us...how nice!

We start at turning that dial to 150 and I stick the shot in my stomach, and then push it until it's back to 0. I stood today and said "I don't want to do it" and Richard just looked at me and I did it and he said "Good job" How fun...I could think of 500 things that sound like more fun that that!

See - tiny needle, I actually think it's skinnier than my Lupron (that I went down to 5 instead of 10 units today) but that's still 2 shots / day until my retrieval. 

Stay tuned for more exciting news in the world of IVF (or maybe I should've just said information) - scratch the fun part, no part of this is fun to be honest. It's ok some days, it's horrible others - every day though is just another step in a long process to get to one answer - yes or no to the question "did it work?" With the answer being "No" 3 times in a row - I'm just ready to get this show on the road.

July 22 - baseline ultrasound & bloodwork

Guess what? The cyst is back! Yep that was my reaction too. wtf?

Had a 9:30 appointment - doctor probably walked in around 10:15 (how do you run so late at 9:30 in the morning I'll never know) - especially when 1 person came into the office after us that had MISSED her appointment that morning...not sure how that works but oh well.

The looked at my uterus, lining, right ovary (10 pre-follicles or whatever they're called) - so far...so good! Then they moved over to the left ovary and bam! "There's your little friend" Dr. Thomas said...I was less than pleased that we had to re-measure that. He said he'd let me move forward with the cyst if my estrogen levels came back below 50 from the lab so they would call me later.

Went out to "Grand Central Station" in the middle of this hallway that has what feels like a million people walking through it and took blood work - I don't like to look when they take blood, and it seemed to take forever today...just wasn't in the mood.

As we walked out I told Richard I'm so over this entire process but maybe the cyst just wants to hang out with my baby when it gets in there this time...it's really the only thing I can do at this point to keep from crying & keep a smile on my face because it's one of those days where I'd like to just cry, scream at everyone in that doctor's office especially for being late on a day that I really didn't want to be there and throw all the medicine at them and use a few choice cuss words that would essentially boil down to screw you and your stupid IVF procedure. I understand it's my choice, and that's why I can't do anything I mentioned in the previous email - maybe it's my body's way of dealing with the fact that I don't want to do this again...even though it's going to suck beyond words if I can't have my own child - at least I can get part of my life back and not have to keep going back to the same doctor's office and waiting and hoping for something that's not going to happen.



That's about all I've got for today - pretty cruddy day, but on the bright side - they did call to say I can start my follistim and antibiotic (both me & Richard) and continue my lupron tonight so here we go...here goes nothing. I'll share sometime soon (maybe tomorrow what all that stuff looks like so you can see the difference in the needles (not much) etc.

Thanks to everyone for the support & love they've shown - it's amazing & what keeps me going, and I mean that...I couldn't do it without everyone being so supportive and only wanting the best for Richard & me.

brief update from ashley

had a great time at my 31 convention but between the car ride / sitting most of the day - my back is killing me, especially on the left side so I'm going to the chiropractor today / to get a half hour massage

the lupron I'm taking for IVF is not going as well as in past rounds - I'm exhausted most of the day, have a dry mouth and just feel queezy most of the time - it was so bad last night I slept from 6:15-8:15 and THEN ate dinner to go back to sleep after that

I go back to the doctor on Friday to do a baseline ultrasound & check before we start the stim drugs...if I feel like this with just lurpon, I'm a bit nervous how I will feel with stim drugs in me too

happy thoughts this week for me - it's been a rough week and a half for this body of mine

Thirty-One National Conference & New Fall 2011 Catalog!

This past Wednesday (July 13th, 2011) through Saturday (July 16th, 2011) I went to the Thirty-One National Conference in Columbus, Ohio. More than 8000 consultants packed the streets of Columbus to get motivated about their business & learn how to take it to the next level! My roommate was my very dear friend (and "31 bff") Kelli McCann - she is so sweet & I am truly lucky to have met her & become such good friends through 31. We push each other, encourage each other and keep each other on our toes! We had a great weekend & we are both more excited than ever to get going with the fall catalog! There are so many new patterns and purses in this catalog that we can't wait - here is a link to the new catalog:

http://fall2011.thirtyonegifts.com/page1.html

Here's my 31 website:

http://www.mythirtyone.com/ashleymcfarland31/

Kelli & I with all of our ribbons (please notice that Kelli is trying to hide her "OHIO" tag!)

What's behind those boxes? The new fall product that we can't see yet!

Yes Kelli, I want to take the picture right now! :) Love this girl!

My sales for the year - I'm so grateful for all the support for my very FIRST year of my business!

YAY huge beach ball!!

I feel very lucky to have Tiff as my director & all the support of my friends/family for my business - I'm looking forward to the next year and our 2012 conference in Atlanta, Georgia August 1st - 4th.

Day 2: Another day, another shot

Another day - another 10 units of Lupron - people ask me if it makes me feel different and so far I don't notice anything - but honestly it could make me more tired & I would never know :)

Tonight was Kelly's 31 party & we had a good time - I got in the pool afterwards & hung out with her friends/family - they're so sweet! I've entered the party & now I'm just waiting for her to get a few more orders (hopefully!) :)

Until tomorrow...

Day 1: Lupron Starts Today

I'm going to call this Day 1 of IVF #4 for the McFarlands. It's a very sunny & hot day here in Florence, KY - the sun is shining & the humidity is through the roof...as someone that sufffers from seasonal allergies - the air is less than ideal! It's July 10th (the day after Richard's birthday) and I'm hoping only good things come from this cycle.

Today starts "Lupron" and in very simple terms - it's tricking my body into stopping the natural production of estrogen and allows my body to create more so more follicles can grow during stimulation. There are articles & articles online about what it does / side effects etc. but I won't bore you with the details of all that.

Here is my set-up for Lupron - the bottle has the actual drug in it, the needle which goes into me and alcohol swamps to clean the top of the Lupron bottle every time and to clean the area where I'm going to stick.

Here is the needle - to be honest, Lupron is the easiest drug through the IVF process to give myself - I usually do all of them myself now because I can :) and I only have to give myself 10 units per day. I do this for 23 days so it is a lot of sticks but at least the needle is small and I'm able to do it myself. I just pull the bottom down & push back up to get all the air out and then put it in the bottle/pull down until it's below 10, then back up to 10 and then it's ready!

Here's the bottle and I can travel easily with it because it's so small and I know what I'm doing at this point now! Sometimes I bruise because I hit something and that does hurt a bit more than normal but the bruise isn't big at all with these. Typically I give it to myself around 8pm each night because I know I'll be home and can keep myself on a schedule - it's quick & easy and I usually just want to get it over with. I can give these shots anywhere - my leg, my arm, my stomach so I choose my leg because it's the least painful and I can cover it up with pants/shorts/capris etc. The follistim (the next round of shots) go in my stomach as do the Lovenox (which are my least favorite/bruise really bad) so I tend to give my stomach as much of a break as I can!

The whole process seems to take forever and fly by all at once - it'll be interesting to see how this one goes since we've gone through 1 fresh / 2 frozen cycles already and this is only our 2nd fresh cycle - hopefully it goes well & we have good results.

That is all for now - if you have any questions along the way - feel free to ask me, email me or leave a comment on the blog & I'd be happy to answer anything - there are no limits! I've probably been asked the question before so I'm happy to answer anything!