March 30 Day Photo Challenge: Day 1 -Up

I've decided to try a daily photo challenge for the month of March. I am hoping I can keep this up so that I can, at some point, make a scrapbook of these pictures.

Today's picture assignment was "Up". I have been working in my dining room this week. The basement just seems so depressing now that the snow has finally fallen and stuck around. When I look "Up" from my computer, I see this picture.

The picture is called Grace and was first photographed by Eric Enstrom in 1918 in Bovey, MN. I grew up admiring this picture. Seeing it in almost every home of my relatives. I affectionately called this painting and it's female counterpart "Grandma and Grandpa Moses". Not sure why!

This photograph was originally black and white. Later on, Enstrom's daughter added color by painting the photograph in oil paints. She passed away this week. Her passing allowed me the opportunity to read more about this painting.

I took this photo using the Instagram app on my iPhone.

Drug Protocol

I was so relieved yesterday when I talked to my nurse. I was really worried that my drug protocol would be different than last time. I responded so well to the protocol last week as far as side effects are concerned. I was worried I would be placed on different drugs and I would start having the horrible side effects I had heard about (weight gain, hot flashes, etc.).

I will be on the SAME drugs (thank you LORD!). The first drug (lupron) will be in a smaller dose in hopes that we don't supress my ovaries as much. This is to increase the number of eggs. This is a good thing because I did not get that many eggs last time for the amount of stimulation medications I was on. I will take this two times/day.

When I start the stimulation meds (2 drugs), I will take those two times/day rather than 1 time/day like the last cycle. The dosage is similar.

After the transfer (pray we make it this far!), I will be on the same drugs as before but adding a patch. The patch will just help my body maintain the pregnancy. Sounds like a good deal to me!

April IVF

Leave it to the cost concious couple to decide to move up their IVF cycle date because of almost expired medications and costly bloodwork!

I called my nurse this morning to talk about the drug protocol and a few other questions I had. During that time, I found out that David would have to take his HIV/Hepititus tests again. Federal (?) law requires that you have this bloodwork done once/year. It is quite costly ($300 plus with insurance) to do this. David was NOT looking forward to doing this again and shelling out the funds!

Then I discovered that 8 viles of one of medications was going to expire in April. I thought no big deal but my cost conscious hubby thought differently.

One of the reasons for delaying the IVF for May/June was my school work and the Fargo Marathon races (I'm doing the 5k and David the 1/2 marathon). David thought it was pretty silly to revolve our IVF cycle around the marathon dates! Good point, honey!

We are scheduled to start the process on Tuesday, February 28th with birth control. I will have my baseline ultrasound on March 23rd and start the medications on March 24th. We are tentatively scheduled for a retrieval date sometime in the week of April 2nd-6th.

We are excited. I'm a little nervous. I'm the most nervous about the spinal. I just didn't enjoy being paralyzed for six plus hours.

Scheduling "conflicts"

Part of my exhaustion with our IVF process is determining WHEN we should schedule the cycle. David is going to be running the Fargo 1/2 Marathon the middle of May. I have my graduation on June 9th and my last day of school is June 11th.

We were hoping for May to avoid any possibility of this "large amounts of snow" we were "promised" for this winter. Yeah, we see how much that has worked out!

We were worried that we might be stranded in Fargo during a snow storm when we should be in Sioux Falls. IVF cycles are very time sensitive.

I don't want to be on drugs when I "run" the Fargo Marathon 5k. I would prefer not to be on the stimulation drugs during the graduation ceremony. We have to work around Memorial day holidays and vacations. David said that we could have a graduation party at a hotel in the cities (am I 5? I want a pool party! LOL). The stimulation drugs also pretty much prevent us from leaving the Fargo-Moorhead area because we have to be able to do ultradounds whenever the doctor tells us we need to.

I guess we have waited this long. What is another month?

Graduation Date!

I am scheduled to graduated on June 9th in Minneapolis! Wahoo! I cannot wait!

Exhausted!

Every time I think about our upcoming IVF process I become exhausted! I am worried because I'll be on a different drug protocol than I was on before. Two additional drugs were added - one is a patch and the other is a shot but I'm not sure how often I'll have to take them. When we went through the process last time, my nurse had mentioned that the Fargo office was "spoiling" me because I only had to take my shots once/day and that they make their patients split up the medication doses to twice/day. I am assuming that we will have to start doing the shots twice/day. This exhausts me! I had no side effects on the previous protocol...so I'm nervous that I'll have not flashes, more pain, and even more cysts (I had one last round which was the cause of most of my small amount of pain).

I am exhausted every time I think about being paralyzed from the waist down for 6 plus hours (result of the spinal).

I need to have strength to make my "demands".

• Demand 1: We will not be paying the pre-payment amount because I don't want to have to deal with trying to figure out where my money went again.
• Demand 2: I want the same anesthesiologist as I had last time. Patients with TCS MUST have a care team that understand TCS and our difficult airway issues. It's a life/death type situation. Thankfully this is on my chart now as the people in Fargo kind of dismissed my claims of difficult intubation.

Yeah, I'm exhausted....

David's Italy Post: Day Eight

Day 8:

All packed up and making our final trip to Rome ... we had to get a hotel here in order to catch our flight and avoid sleeping in the airport... the other down side of staying so far away from civilization. :-(

I had mentioned this a couple times throughout the trip, but I was surprised how few VW Beetles we had seen this trip, even though they're made in Germany (practically right next door). We had seen lots of Fiats, VW Golfs, Smart Cars, Mini Coopers, and other assorted micro-cars, but only 1 Beetle in town. So on the train ride this morning, Carmen points and smacks me in the arm twice (rather hard), THEN says "a yellow one and a green one" with the biggest grin on her face. Of all the luck...