FET Commence

Our day began with an early morning trip to Shady Grove in Frederick for baseline testing. I had the usual blood work and ultrasound to ensure that everything was looking good for the start of our frozen cycle.

Our nurse called around 3:00 to let us know that everything looked great and we were officially given the go-ahead to begin the injection phase.  A frozen cycle is much different than a fresh cycle.  Yes, there are still injections.  However, these injections are given in your butt muscle.  Yep.. you have to divide your bum into 4 quadrants and the injection is given in one of the top quadrants - alternating every time.  I will only have one monitoring appointment (given everything goes as planned) to check the thickness of my uterine lining (rather than the daily monitoring appointments with a fresh cycle).  The only other appointment will be the actual transfer - which is slated for the middle of August.

Tonight I began the first injection - Del Estrogen.  I inject .2mL every third night from now until our beta test, and possibly even longer.  

These are the supplies we needed for one injection.  Gauze pad for the bleeding (which I did quite a bit), alcohol pad for obvious reasons, the meds, syringe, needle to draw up the solution, and the needle to actually inject.  Luckily, our freaking awesome nurse decided I did not need the gigantic needles for injections, so she gave me a bag full of 1 inch needles rather than the 1.5 inch.  Check out the difference!

 That my not look like much to you, but to my bum it is a lot!

 These are just a couple of other shots from the night.  Don't mind our cool Superman cup in the background :) haha

As far as the injection - I was VERY nervous for this.  I have had a shot of antibiotics in that muscle and have seen my sister get numerous pain medicine injections there as well.  None felt or looked pleasant.  Of course they tell you to just relax the leg on the side you are injecting.  Easy, right?  HA.  I did tense up, but it was not near as bad as I had expected.  No pain with the needle or solution.  I did bleed a little when the needle was withdrawn, but as far as pain - NONE!  My muscle is a little "tight" or sore, but nothing near what the antibiotic did in the past.  So, as of now.. night one is in the books!  Looking forward to number two three days from now.  It is one step closer to holding a baby in our arms someday!

Weekend Recap

Here is a short re-cap of our weekend.. mostly in pictures!

We traveled to my parents Saturday morning and from there we ventures to Knoebel's Amusement Park!  (Look it up if you have never heard of it!)  This place kicks some serious a$$!

Abby (my sister) with her favorite thing!

Andy (my brother) sucking down some dip-n-dots after his first roller coaster ride!

Katie and her unicorn, Snap-Dragon Velvet Nostrils

We then met my parents for dinner when they got back from their trip out west.  Sunday was spent just hanging around the house with family.

My twin.. aka my Mom

These boys are inseparable

My parent's labs, Lucy and Charley Brown

These two cannot get enough of each other!  They are only six weeks apart.

Saturday was a great mail day.. Thank you, Stacy!

And finally, Sunday was my last BC pill before our ultrasound and next round of shots!  Couldn't be more ready!

Happy Monday, Everyone!

Beautiful Day for Fed-Ex

Let me just start this post by telling you that I am currently sitting on my kick-ass patio watching the dogs frolic in the yard.. and it is 70 degrees.  Yes.  July 24th and it is 70 degrees.  And my windows are open, curtains blowing in the breeze!  I know this is a just mother nature teasing me with little bits and pieces of my favorite season.

Thanks, Tony!  It rocks!

Now.. if only the yard were finished.  One can only dream!

I.Like.LOVE.Fall.  Don't get me wrong.  I like summer, too.  I love being able to spend time with my husband, our dogs, and our families and friends, as well as travel.  But weather wise, fall is by far my favorite.  I love sitting at Friday night football games in my jeans and hoody, sipping hot chocolate, hanging out with our favorite people around the campfire, hunting season, and pumpkins.  And corn stalks.  And Halloween candy.  Oh, and back to school.  Not to mention, it is the season leading up to my favorite time of year.. the holidays!  Ahh, can you tell I am excited?  I have been a Fall-pinning Pinterest whore for almost two weeks now!

Anyway, now to the main reason for my post.  Fed-Ex stopped by our house today!  Why is this so exciting you ask?  Because they dropped off my next round of injections!  *Insert cartwheels and pom poms here.. and maybe a toe-touch or two.  Disclaimer - I was never a cheerleader*

The box was drastically smaller than the box that housed my fresh cycle meds.  But none the less, this guy was filled with joyful things!  Never EVER in my life would I have ever dreamt I would be excited to receive long syringes (that will eventually make their way into my bum muscle) and hormones in the mail.  Ahh, the life of an infertile!  But today, I was excited!

That Sharps container sure will spruce up my countertops!

All joking aside, this is huge.  This means we are one step closer to our next transfer and that we are well into our frozen cycle.  My feelings and emotions are so much different this time around.  I feel more at peace with everything.  I know this cycle will go however God wants it to go and that I will have no control.  I am much more relaxed and my anxiety levels are drastically lower.  Now, ask me how I feel during the 2ww that will follow this transfer, and my relaxation and anxiety levels may will be very different.  But, as of now, I am ready.  Very ready.  I am.. excited!

I am still not sure how we are going to handle the results of this cycle.  Last time we told all.  We were very open with our family, close friends, IF community, and blog followers.  I'd like to do things similar this time, but not exactly the same.  However, given the outcome of our last cycle, we will decide what is right for us at the time.  We are pretty open about infertility struggles and cycles, but have not made it "Facebook official" yet.  I haven't found it to be the right time.  There are still some people that I am just not ready to have that discussion with.  I know I will, in time.  With most anyway.  An IG friend posted this the other day, and I found it to be absolutely PERFECT.

"From the outside looking in, you can never understand it.  

From the inside out looking out, you can never explain it."

So, so true.  To my IF sisters.. keep fighting the fight.  You are all rockstars in my mind!  To those of you lucky enough (and I use the term "lucky" loosely.. I am thankful for this path we have had to travel because it has not only taught us so many things about ourselves and others, but brought us even closer to each other, has allowed me to connect with so many awesome new friends, and has made us appreciate each and every little thing we do have.) to not travel this path, we ask for your prayers, a sense of understanding, and no judgment on us or our individual situations.  Prayer can do powerful things and we appreciate each and every one we get. 

Happy Hump Day!  Keep on Keeping On!  (That one is for you, Andy!)  Time to go in the house and get these two lazies back out in the yard!

Yes, Rooney is chilling in his crate!

Flashback

It's time to get off of my Negative Nancy horse and move on to more happy things!  This post is going to be a bit of a flashback and will include a ton of pictures.  Probably way more pictures than you want to see, and way more information than you care to read!  

Last year at this time we were packing our bags and heading off to our honeymoon.  Yes, we went over a month after our actual wedding date, but there was a reason for that.  We had a few events we needed to be at throughout the week after our wedding and the ship we were cruising on only sailed once a month.  Originally, we could not decide if we wanted to go on a cruise or travel to Italy.  We decided to combine the two and go on a Mediterranean cruise.  We had a hard time deciding what cruise line and ship to choose, but ended up going with Carnival (I had been on one of their ships before) because it was the best bang for our buck and it was a brand new ship.  By brand new, I mean that we were literally the second sailing for the ship.  How awesome!

Our plan for the trip:  Travel to Barcelona, Spain a day early so we could check out the city and relax after the international flight.  Board the ship (Carnival Breeze) on day 2 and sail to all of the planned ports.  Return to Barcelona and make the long flight home.  Oh, if only things always went as planned!  You may get bored with this story, but it is too funny to us (and some of our family!) not to share!

Day 1:  Travel to BWI (Baltimore) to make the flight to Philadelphia and then connect to Barcelona. Yes.  Our first flight was from Baltimore to Philadelphia.  Had we known this, we would have opted out of the first flight to begin with.  Oh.. if only we had known.  We got to Baltimore two hours before our flight.. which was pointless.  There were storms in the area that day.  Our flight time came and went and still no plan sitting on the tarmac.  Ugh.  The staff informed everyone that was to connect to an international flight that they were going to miss their flight.  You have got to be kidding, right?  WTF.  (Keep in mind here that I can get fired up pretty darn easily!)  I call our travel agent.  She calls the airline. Sure enough, we are going to miss our flight.  She will find us something else.  In the meantime, the plane finally shows up.  We board (while the staff in Baltimore just tells us to go to Philly and they will direct us from there.. HA) and make the flight.  Twenty minutes from take off to touch down.  That pilot was not messing around.  Sure enough, as we touched down, our connecting flight took off.  Super.  

Back on the phone with our travel agent.  She says go to the international terminal and go to customer support.  If you have ever flown in or out of Philly, you know there are five terminals.  And you need a shuttle to get from one to the other.  We flew in to F, and we needed to be in A.  Of course.  On to the shuttle we go.  We get to customer service (while I am still on the phone with our travel agent) and they tell us they have nowhere for us go to.  Our agent says she got us on another flight (to Frankfurt!  Again.. WTF?) that was currently boarding.  We just needed the customer service lady to get our luggage pulled and put on the correct flight.  Her response, I can't do that.  You will not have your luggage by the time you board your cruise ship.  Now I am hot.  This woman was not cooperative and did not understand my request.  Ohhh.. so mad.  She also says we are not on the flight my agent says we are.  Ok, I am done with this lady.  Off to the gate our agent just told us to go to.  Yes!  We are on this flight.. but we need to print our boarding passes.  Ugh.  We print them.  Great!  Matt is in row 4, I am row 24.  Super.  A nine hour flight 20 rows apart.. on our honeymoon.  At least our agent has informed us that she personally called baggage and ensured our luggage was on this flight.  How great is she?

We board the plane and prepare for the long overnight flight.  Luckily, (for us) two people missed the flight (that might I add, was held specifically for us) so we were able to move seats and sit together.  Nine hours later we land in Frankfurt.  We now have two hours to claim our bags, get through customs, and then board a German flight.  Luftansa.  All in Germany.  Matt speaks no German.  I can count and give you the days of the week.  We get through customs (this was by far the cleanest and most organized airport I have EVER been in!) and find a super nice customer service rep who got us our tickets, checked our bags, and sent us on our way.  An hour later, we are in the air eating some nasty German snack from the airline.  Seriously.. Matt even said it was nasty.

Finally!  23 hours later, we land in Barcelona!  Thank goodness we planned that extra day in between!  We got to our hotel, took a half hour power nap, and headed out to explore the city.  What we saw was beautiful!

This is how excited we were about having to change flights.

Familia Sagrada.  Look it up.  So amazingly beautiful!

By this time, exhaustion had set in, and we knew we had another long day when we woke up.  We woke up Saturday morning (Day 1), got some breakfast, and then took the shuttle to the port.  We were able to check in and board the ship pretty much immediately.  But not before we bought some wine to take with us!  We did some exploring and the ship was pretty awesome.

Day 2: Monaco.  Holy beautiful.  This place is only about 3 square miles, but it is breathtaking.  We were told that if you wanted to purchase a 500 sq ft apartment here, you would only need a measly 1.5 million dollars.  Pocket change!  We even saw the prince while we were exploring!  Monaco is known for the Monte Carlo and their casino and yachts and famous, wealthy people that drive some kick ass cars.  The casino has a dress code and charges just to get in.  

The casino.

We all have one of these in our garage, right?

Day 3: Florence and Pisa.  Our days were literally jam packed.  The first half of our day was spent in Florence.  I really wanted to do the Jersey Shore tour (yes, I love trashy reality tv) but time did not allow!  We did get to see some beautiful sights, thought!

It was good luck to rub this guy's nose.

Our afternoon was spent in Pisa.  Yep, that tower really does lean.  A whole lot!  You can walk inside of it, but only 30 people at a time so it doesn't fall over.  Seriously!

Day 4: Rome.  Matt had been to Rome before, so we did our own walking tour.  We literally busted our butts and saw every single thing we wanted to see!  It was amazing!

Spanish Steps

Trevi Fountain 

Pantheon 

St. Peters Basilica

Day 5: Naples, Capri, and Amalfi.  Ok, this was by far my most favorite place.  We docked in Naples, then took a boat to Capri.  This place was so peaceful.  I could live here!  We had a delicious lunch here and then took another boat along the Amalfi Coast into the town of Amalfi.  We were able to explore here for an hour or so, and then we took a bus up one of those roads you see on tv.  Zig Zagging back and forth, higher and higher.  

Capri

I could not get enough of this water!

Amalfi Coast

Day 6:  Finally!  A relaxing day at sea.. spend lounging by the pool!

Day 7: Dubrovnik, Croatia.  The water here was by far the prettiest I have ever seen.  We spent the morning at a pebble beach, and then toured the old city in the afternoon.  The city it still surrounded by a stone wall that was used to protect them during their Civil War.

Day 8:  Another day at sea capped off with a beautiful sunset.

Day 9: Venice - Murano, Burano, and Torcello.  We decided to avoid the main island of Venice and go see some of the smaller, quaint places.  Matt had been to the main island before and said I would enjoy these much more.  We started the morning in Burano, where they are known for making lace.  This place was silent and colorful!  Then we traveled to Torcello where we got to see a wedding (only 20 people live on this island!) and eat another delicious Italian lunch!  We then went to Murano where they are known for making glass.  We got to watch a factory worker make a few things, and then of course were sent into the gift shop where the cheapest thing was almost $2000.  We ended the day with a boat ride past Venice to see some of the famous sites, including Elton John's house!

Elton John's house..

Each color represents a family name!

It was literally 130 degrees in this place!

Day 10:  Sea day.. which consisted of many naps and dips in the pool!  We were getting pretty exhausted at this point with 11 hour back to back tours!

Day 11:  Messina, Sicily.  Hmm.. we did not do any excursions here.  We were going to do Mt. Etna, but they said we did not have a good chance of seeing it because of the fog.  Instead, we decided to venture on our own.  We referred to this place as the ghetto of Italy. It was pretty dirty, but had pretty good shopping district.

Day 12:  We ended with one final day at sea.  One last day of relaxation!

Day 13:  We got off the boat and traveled to the airport.  Our luggage arrived an hour after us.. which left no time for breakfast.  Grr.  Our flight from Barcelona to Philly was nice and event-less.  Once we landed in Philly, we had to claim our bags, go through customs, and then take the lovely shuttle from terminal A back to terminal F.  Then re-check our bags and board our flight.  All within 40 minutes.  After a few sprints we made it to our gate as they were boarding.  Yes!  And then we sat on the tarmac for over an hour while they cleaned up a fuel spill.  Ugh.. we had NO luck with our travel days on this trip!

We finally arrived back in Baltimore and made the hour drive home!  Home really is where the heart is!  Our trip was absolutely amazing and I would do it over and over again, but it was also nice to be home!

I know this was a LOOOOOONG post filled with more pictures than you ever wanted to see, (and probably more information than you ever wanted to hear) but this was a trip that we truly enjoyed and love to look back on, especially this week!

As for our cycle updates, nothing much right now.  I am on week 2 of 3 of the BC pills.  My baseline ultrasound is in less than two weeks, and then the fun begins!

We are now off to my parents for the day to spend time with family at my Grandma's public Estate Sale.  So bittersweet.  Happy Hump Day everyone!