“Kilometers are shorter than miles. Save gas, take your next trip in kilometers.”

Tomorrow, we leave for our last vacation before IVF starts....
We decided to make a visit to J's brother in Indiana to see our nephew, since baby S will be two in July and we haven't seen him since our wedding in May 2012!

This will be the longest road trip I have taken (the last one was 13 hours and that was torture!) and it will be Parker's first family road trip! We learned from our last trip that 13 hours in a car is not fun, so we have decided to break our trip to Indiana into two days of driving, therefore we will have time to stop with Parker and maybe enjoy some sights along the way!

Today, I did some trip prep work and tried to organize my packing. I am definitely over packing, but I like to be prepared for every situation and I get a little carried away! I have about a million toiletries to bring, plus my vitamins, multiple outfit choices (which I will never end up even wearing!) and of course Parker and J have their own luggage to bring! Luckily for me, Trixy is a simple gal and only needs to bring herself, but she wanted to make the trip, since come August, she will hopefully be a very busy ute for...I don't know....9 months or so???


This isn't even everything!

 



Along with organizing and packing today, I took Parker to get groomed so that he looked snazzy for his family visit! I am so glad J's brother is letting us bring him with us, since most of my side of the family would say "no way" to him even coming to a daytime get together. Our wonderful dog-sitter is going to be out of town the same time as us, but I just prefer having Parker with me anyway, especially for holidays!

"Sexy and I know it"---After grooming

 

I am so excited to be getting some time with our nephew (I may be a little biased, but he is pretty darn cute)! I am just a little worried that he will have the whole "stranger danger" thing and won't be nice to me though. I just want to get all the baby cuddles I can get and I am also kind of excited to see how he and Parker interact. Parker is wonderful with children and I know he will make a fantastic big "brother" someday, but it will be nice for a little sneak preview on what it would be like having a baby and Parker in the same house.

 

Anyway, I feel like I am rambling, but I will keep you all posted on how our trip goes!

 



Cycle Day 1: Moving forward with IVF

Trixy is feeling the CD1 pain!

 

CD1 came a few days earlier than I expected and normally, I wouldn't hope for my period, but I needed it to come early this week in order for the timing for my IVF to be on schedule. We are leaving for a road trip on Saturday and I needed to have my CD3 blood work done before we leave, so that when we get back from our trip, I will be all set to start my first round of injections.

If my period had started later, I may have had to wait until August for IVF, because our clinic does a complete shut down of their embryology lab a few times a year and August is one of those times. They do this so they can check the functions of all the machines to make sure they are in tip top shape to be handling people's precious embryo's and obviously could not have any embryo's growing in these machines while they do this.

 

Next step for IVF:

• This Tuesday, we have our "Go Visit" with our R.E. This is where we go over all of my medications, when I take what and we sign all of the consent forms for IVF! If everything with my blood work and baseline ultrasound goes well, I should be starting Lupron injections by mid-July. Lupron is a drug that will suppress my ovaries' natural production of follicles, so that they can give me stimulating medication after that, that will cause multiple mature follicles to grow at the same time. Multiple mature follicles, hopefully means multiple mature eggs!

I spent most of my Sunday moping on the couch with a giant headache, courtesy of AF, so Parker and I decided to beat the heat with a couple popsicles!

We did not share popsicles though!
 

 

 

 





Introduction: First Blog Post EVER!

Characters you will see in my blog:

 





Me:

 I am 27 years old and have been married a little over a year, to my best friend. The year before we got married, my mother was very ill and she passed away two weeks after my wedding, at 49 years old. This event changed my life and I could not have gone through it without my husband and my dog, Parker.

After my mom became ill, I decided I needed to take my own life into my control and stop living in limbo, waiting for something to happen. One of the big decisions for me, was being ready to try for a family. I have always been a "mother hen" as my mom would call me and even as a child, I tended to my dolls and pets as if they were my children. Being a mother is just part of who I feel I am meant to be and I am READY! We have been trying to get pregnant for almost 15 months at this point and I have gone through some fertility testing, which has left us with the plan of starting IVF meds in July and hopefully an egg retrieval and embryo transfer in August!

 

J (Husband):

Since it is my choice to have a blog, I won't talk too much about my husband, but he will be mentioned here and there.

 

Parker:

 

Parker is our 2 year old goldendoodle and the light of our lives. From the night Parker came home with us, he has snuggled his way into our hearts with his gentle, goofy and intuitive personality. He came into our lives, just before my mother had become ill and he was and still is, the boy that makes us smile every day. We consider him part of our family and while I know it is not the same as having a child, I consider myself his mom and I just want to make that clear for all the "furbaby" skeptics out there. You will be seeing a lot of Parker in my blog, so get used to it! :-)

 

 

Beatrix (Trixy):

 

 



This is my IVF buddy, Beatrix (Trixy), which means "blessed", because I am hoping we will be blessed with a baby soon! Trixy is a plush uterus and she will be with me on my IVF journey. She just arrived today, so we are still getting acquainted, but she may help with some of the blogging as well! :-)

 

Excuse the dust on the computer!