Egg Follicles, Egg Follicles, where art thou Egg Follicles????

Well, a lot has happened this week. I think I should start spending the night up at UAB's Kirklin Clinic I'm up there so much lately! I went to my IVF appointment on Tuesday (1/18/11) & had an intervaginal ultrasound to check out my egg follicle progression. When the Dr's said, "Wow! You're in the lead!" I knew that was a good sign. :) They said my follicles looked great & I was ahead of the other ladies that day with how large mine had gotten in my 4 days of meds. I like a good competition so this made me happy! ;) I had 18 follicles in all. That means 18 eggs are progressing. All of these will not be retrieved. They have to progress to 2 centimeters in order to be taken out & put in the petry dish with Ryan's fishies. I left Dr. Bates office for Southern Pharmaceutical where I get all my IVF drugs. Due to the high cost of IVF drugs they don't prescribe more than necessary. I was running out of my Menopur & Follistim for egg production so I went to pick up more...with a quick stop to Starbucks along the way ;)

After that appointment I went to my 1st accupuncture session of this IVF cycle! I see Dr. Martha Ivey with Alabama Oriental Medical Arts - Specializing in Infertility. I chose to do this w/ the last IVF cycle b/c I figured we should go "ALL IN." Since I was successful & got Colt out of that cycle we're going "ALL IN" this go around too! The idea behind accupuncture & infertility is that the needles help increase blood flow. Increased blood flow can't hurt anything & so it helps the egg follicle production & is supposed to help produce better eggs. All I can say is it's 30 minutes in a dark, quiet room, no phones or computers so it's some great stress relief! I chose to close my eyes & use this time to pray. Sometimes I might sleep but this visit I had a lot on my heart. I had 10 pins stuck in me: one in the top of each foot, my right ear, right hand, left wrist & the remaining 5 in my stomach. (The pictures you see below are actually from my 2009 accupuncture session. This session still looked the same so no need for new pics)

Today, (1/20/11) I went back to Dr. Bates office for another ultrasound & to draw blood to check my estrogen level. My follicles were doing great. Because I was the first appointment this morning I don't know if mine were "in the lead" :) I have about 13 egg follicles that have really progressed from Tuesday to today. Those will most likely be the ones to be retrieved. The others can continue to grow but probably won't grow to 2 centimeters by my egg retrieval day. Starting yesterday I began to hurt in my lower abdomen which is to be expected. I'm starting to feel bloated & when Colton plopped up & down on my lap I squealed with pain! I remember all this from last time but I didn't have a 1yr climbing on me last go around! :) I have to make another trip to Southern Pharmaceutical today for my last round of egg production drugs! Because I have progressed so well my eggs will be ready to retrieve most likely on MONDAY 1/24/11 instead of Tuesday! BUT I have to go to my 3rd IVF appointment this week ON SATURDAY to do all this again & see where we stand. (Auburn i'm sorry I will most likely not be able to attend the BCS National Championship celebration as planned) :(

Because I think pictures make things real (& are more fun to look at than words) have a looksey at the current state of my abdomen. This is after my 4 shots this morning. Tonight I'll add 3 to that list.

*Mason Hinote...(my lil' nephew) that Cars sticker is for you buddy* :)