In the 2ww, you need all the distractions you can get.

Today is my 35th birthday. Besides the fact that it is putting us into a new age bracket at the RE's office, it has been a wonderful way to keep my mind off of the time between transfer and my beta.

Yesterday we celebrated a month's worth of birthdays at our favorite Mexican restaurant. It wasn't exactly a baby related day, but it made me feel good anyways. And tonight we went out for an early dinner.

This wait hasn't been too bad, but it isn't over yet either! I still don't have any tests in the house and I'm not sure if I'll get any before my blood test. Guess we'll wait and see.

Aren't they just the cutest little things you ever did see!?

Their names are Blastocyst and Morula (top to bottom). I think Blasty has daddy's eyes and Mora has mommy's nose.

We got the news from the lab early on Saturday. Of our 16 retrieved eggs, 8 were mature and 6 fertilized with ICSI.

We have double what we had last time in both maturity and fertilization. This is such a relief.

The next phone call didn't come until Monday morning. All 6 of them are still growing. It even looks like we have a good chance of having 4 blastocysts. We only made it to the morula phase last time.

Our transfer is scheduled for later this morning. Our clinic requires strict bedrest for 48 hours, so I won't be posting any updates until at least Thursday. Maybe the Mr. will feel like popping on for a quick update when we get home.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us along the way. I'm sorry I haven't been good about updates during this cycle, but it has felt so much better for me to not have to report every little detail.

Wish us luck!

At the clinic makin' babies! That's right. Today is our 4th anniversary and we spent the morning retrieving my eggs. Something about this just feels so right. Our embryos are being conceived on our anniversary.

This cycle turned out to be so much better than the last. We had 16 eggs retrieved. Last time, we only got a total of 7.

Our clinic doesn't call until day 2, so we won't hear anything until Saturday. At that point we'll know how many were mature and how many fertilized.

Keeping with tradition, we got a little Mexican take-out for dinner. (Real anniversary dinner will be tomorrow.)


A Chili Relleno, Chalupa and an Enchilada for the Mr. and an Enchilada and a Tamal with rice for the Mrs.

I'm so proud of myself. I really thought I'd cave and come running to create a new post filled with updates after my appointments.

This MicroDoseLupron (MDL) protocol is so different. I was on stims for 5 1/2 days before they even saw me for blood work and an ultrasound. Things are going really well, just a little slower and more steady. I have a nice cluster of follicles on each side that are growing at about the same rate with no big lead follicle taking over.

So far I've been in twice and will return this weekend. I feel like we are just taking it day by day and that's okay.

After all these months of shots, I finally got my first fairly large bruise from one of the injections last night. This one also bled the most, which makes sense to the bruising. Taking four injections a day, I'm starting to feel like a human pin-cushion. At least the needles are tiny and don't really hurt. My stomach isn't tender to the touch, but it's getting harder to find new places to do the shots. Hopefully we're only looking at a few more days of this...then we can move on to the IM bum shots and give my belly a break. Oh the silly things we look forward to!

I've been tagged by Stacey.

I'm generally not a fan of chain type emails, and that sort of crosses over to blogland. I'll play along, but I'm going to opt out on tagging someone else. I see a lot of the blogs I follow have already been tagged recently anyways.

If you would like to play, here's what you need to do.

The Rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you
2. Post the rules to your blog
3. Write 6 random things about yourself
4. Tag 6 people at the end of your post and link to them
5. Let each person you have tagged know by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is posted.

6 random things about myself:

1. I broke my leg ice skating when I was 6yrs old in kindergarten. It isn't easy for a 6yr old to maneuver on crutches let alone in the dead of winter in Minnesota!
   
2. I haven't moved very far from the house I grew up in. I've only lived in 1 county, 4 different places in 2 different suburbs and have only had 2 zip codes.
   
3. I love sun & fun beach type of vacations.
   
4. We have relatives living in Germany and I hope to travel there to see them someday.
   
5. I collect lighthouses.
   
6. My eye for color is just crazy. Once I have an inspiration object, I can usually spot the perfect color match in seconds. Picking out paint colors with me is probably pretty hysterical!

Today when the mailman came, they left a package at the front door. I was expecting a delivery from UPS, so being it was so early and that it came USPS, I knew it was something different.

This is what was in the package:



It's an early anniversary/birthday/bed rest (in no particular order) care package.

• We have a bucket of Hope
• a Hershey bar
• some Lucky Charms cereal (Luck)
• Butterfly key holder (more Hope)
• a CD of relaxation music
• Chill TicTacs (Relax)
• a September birthstone Angel pin that says, "May this birthstone angel bring blessings from above."
• SweeTarts to share with my Sweetheart.

This gift came from the same loving, thoughtful people who sent us the Hope plate a while back.

Thank you so much for constantly thinking of us and keeping us in your prayers.

And I do not have an appointment today. What am I going to do with myself? haha!

After the mishap on Wednesday, I keep looking at my IVF handbook to make sure I'm doing things right. I have double, triple checked the dosage column and I look at the book again every night before bed to make sure there isn't an appointment the next day. (As if something is going to just show up.)

It's only the first week of September, but in Minnesota, it is starting to feel like Fall already. Especially in the morning. Yesterday was the first day I wore jeans with shoes and socks in a long time. I also bought myself some new slippers.

At this point, I guess it's fair to say I was able to reclaim my summer after our botched attempt at IVF #1 back in May. We didn't go anywhere, but I still think we made the most of it. Now that Fall is approaching, I'm ready to settle in and just relax.

By blowing off your first appointment. Yeah. I was supposed to go in for an ultrasound and blood work today. I thought for sure the appointment was scheduled for Friday. Oops.

Apparently this new protocol was too much for me to take in. Changing things up before we even got started. I'm going to blame it on terminology. I swear Stacie said to come in when stim starts. Oh right. Microdose Lupron is actually considered a stim. I didn't know that until today.

Good thing they called me and said you know you were supposed to be here. I figured better 2 hours late than 2 days late.

Getting to the clinic has been like dealing with mass chaos down in that part of town as it is for a few months now. Road construction, building a new ramp at the medical building, etc. Today, the temporary ramp entrance that we've been using is closed to contractors only. I head around the block not knowing if the regular entrance is going to be open. Yes, it was. "Push the button for a ticket". Crap! Do we have to pay to park now? I don't have any money. There's a guy standing out by the entrance, but he's on his phone. I hurry inside to get checked in. Figured I'd ask the receptionist what's going on with the ramp. She asked me for my ticket. It's in the car. Who brings their ramp ticket in? Today's the first day, so she gives me this access chip token thingy that you drop into a slot as you approach the arm at the exit of the ramp. Apparently they are somehow tracking ramp usage, and for now at least, you don't have to pay.

Getting home was just as much of an adventure. I get to the end of the road where you have to turn to get onto the highway. A motorcycle cop is blocking the turn lane. Crap! Now where am I supposed to go? Oh yes. The Republican National Convention is in St. Paul this week. Lovely. Maybe there was some entourage that I just missed? Navigating my way home wasn't that bad, but traffic was definitely unusually heavy for 2pm.

After all of this, I'm just glad I got it over with. The ultrasound was over before I even knew what hit me. Everything looks good, but it was too late in the day to even think about getting any blood work results back today.

I hope this is the only major SNAFU of this cycle. Good grief! I don't need to add any stress to all of this.