Slow and Steady...

...Wins the race... right ya'll??

Let's hope so! 'Cause that seems to be exactly what my ovaries are doing this go-round... This is officially CD-9, and day 6 of stimming... As of today, I have 3 measurable follies on my left, and 1 on my right.

From my first IVF round back in April, on day 6 of stimms, I had 4 on the left, 3 on the right.

So I'm definitely starting off a bit slower. Which is good... I don't want my E2 to spike like it did last time. According to my RE, mine is right where is should be this round... I just want it to stay that way! (please,please!)

Nor do I want to experience the feeling of my ovaries housing 59 mature follies again. ....I'd like to aim for maybe half that amount this time...umm, God, are you listening? Think we can arrange that? (seeing as I have so much control over all this...)

In other news, I had my first acupuncture appointment on Wednesday. I called to set it up on Monday, and had thought we'd aim for Saturday for the initial consultation, but when they learned that I was already in the midst of an IVF round, they urged me to get in 'as soon as possible' to see them... so Wednesday was the first visit.

FYI--apparently, they prefer you start seeing them several months out from big treatments like IVF... ideally, they would have started treatments on me 3 months ago! Whoops. Who knew?

The acupunturist was so nice---very informative, very sharp, very kind. And she specializes in acupuncture for infertility--yay for me! We spent about an hour going over history & paperwork--what treatments I'd been through, what my reaction had been to the drugs, etc. Then it was on to the good stuff.

She had me undress from the waist down, and then lay down on my back on a table, replete with pillow for my neck and for under my knees, and then cover myself with a towel. She then proceeded to insert the needles all over my body-- I think there were 2 in my feet, 2 or 3 in my legs, 1 in each knee, several along my belly/lower abdomen, and then one in each ear. --That was definitely the strangest!

The needles were super-thin... as in, practically no thicker than a strand of hair! You could hardly even feel them--some I did feel at insertion, but others I didn't feel at all. And then once they were in, I couldn't feel anything. ...Just the oddest, tingly sensation around that area.

She then turned on a nice, soothing cd, rolled a little heat lamp over my exposed feet/lower legs, and told me to focus on my body...to focus on what was going on in my ovaries, and to pretend that I was floating out in the water at my favorite beach somewhere... She gave all the needles a few little flicks (feeling the vibrations from it was crazy-weird!), and left me to my daydreaming.

A half-hour later, and we were done. I felt relaxed, very peaceful.

She recommended I come in every 2-3 days 'til the retrieval, and also suggested that on the day of the ER, to come in once beforehand, and then again right afterwards.

Seems like a lot to me, and it's not the cheapest thing in the world, but then again... a) it felt REALLY good; b)I don't want to NOT do it and regret it later... so I think we'll keep it up 'til after the ER.

She surprised me by asking me to call her and give her updates -- she said that she would be tailoring the treatments according to my progress, and that there were special things she could do to try and increase or decrease (in the case of hyperstimming again) my follie's progress. Pretty cool stuff!

Also, I did find out from my RE today that the trigger shot from my last IVF round was fine...which means they're chalking up the failed ER to a "patient administration error" with the trigger shot. I can only say that I was afraid of that. It's disappointing, and makes me that much more nervous about something going wrong this round. I mean, seriously peeps---it's not like we have the money to just screw around on these attempts, and can pay for umpteen more! This is our last shot at a fresh round for 2010--and I'm just really hoping and praying that we'll, at the very least, get some good eggs out of this, and that they'll fertilize well.

That's all I ask, God.

(okay, okay... that's all I ask for today, God. Tomorrow might be different!)

But--- one good thing. I did get my RE to agree to mix my novarel trigger shot for us for next week, so we don't have to worry about screwing that part up. It's one of the few varieties that you can pre-mix and then store in the fridge 'til use, so we're doing that. Also, I have a nurse friend that I might just have to invite over to do the shot administration honors... We'll see!

For now, I'm feeling good. Hopefully. ...Cautiously optomistic...

Keep us in your prayers, ya'll!