Needles, Needles and More Needles!

I wish I could tell you we had a Christmas tree up and the needles were falling off. Thankfully that's not the case - in more ways than one! I love Christmas, but I am just not ready for the cold weather to get here. Besides, we still have Halloween and Thanksgiving to get through!
     The needles I am talking about are the kind I have to inject in myself. Fun, fun you might say! Well, I am no fan of pain or needles but I have come accustomed to them over the past six months. The IVF cycle is a bit different than the rest of the treatments we tried. I still have to do injections, but about 3x as many! I had been taking a medication for the past week or so, but it was just one injection a day. After today's blood work and testing, I have been given the ok to start follicle stimulation!! You're probably thinking, what in the world is that? It's where I give myself injections of more medications that allow follicles (those things that turn into eggs) to grow and develop. With IVF the doctors are trying to produce as many follicles at a mature size as possible. This should not be a problem for me as I react well to the medications.
     Now with IVF the injections get to be a lot more. Starting tomorrow I will be giving myself 3 types of injectable drugs (into my stomach) everyday until the retrieval day. That means 3 needles a day! Not looking forward to it but at the same time I am!! This means we are one step closer to (hopefully!) getting pregnant!!
     As you were reading that, you were also probably wondering what retrieval day means as well. Well, once my follicles have been stimulated to a certain size, Adam has to give me a one-time shot of a drug (into my "love handle" muscle with a 1.5" needle! Yikes!) that will make the follicles turn to eggs. Once that happens, I go in for out-patient surgery (about 36 hours after the big shot) where they put me to sleep and retrieve the eggs from my ovaries and mix with Adam's sperm. They'll work their magic and when the embryos are ready, they will transfer two of them into my uterus. This transfer will take place about 2-5 days after the retrieval day. Then I wait for about two weeks to see if it all worked.
    Lots and lots of drugs, money, timing, patience, hope and faith is involved with this whole process! We are praying that it works the first time and that we don't have to waste even more money to get pregnant until we are ready for more children. We are hoping that by Thanksgiving we will have something to be extremely thankful for! Of course, if it works it'll be very hard to not tell people right away! I will refrain from posting on Facebook, but if you are a follower of my blog, you may just find out sooner than the Facebook world. I can't promise anything though.
     Until then, I will remain stress-free (knock on wood) and enjoy life with my husband, puppy, family and friends! :o)