Third Time's a Charm!

IVF: Round 3 has officially started!
I ordered all of the meds yesterday. Ouch! Spending thousands of dollars is always really painful. Let's just hope it works this time.
I've set my alarm to go off at 9:25 each night. Not that I'd ever forget but it's nice to have the reminder. It takes about 20-30 minutes total because I have to mix the meds, switch out the needles and/or syringes, suck the meds up into the syringe, make sure there aren't air bubbles in it, and then inject. And, I'm doing this with 3 different meds. 3 times! I'm not complaining though. The first round of IVF required 4 injections a day... adding in a 5th one towards the end. So, I'll take 3! It seems to be the lucky number this time around, anyways.

Protocol:
8/10-14:   Continue Prenatals, Vitamin D, and CoQ10
                 300 IU Gonal-F (1 injection)
                 2 vials of Menopur mixed with 1 mL. of saline (1 injection)
                 50 units of Omnitropin Growth Hormone (1 injection)
                .5 mg of Dexamethasone (oral tablet)

8/15:        Ultrasound and Blood Work
                The nurse will call to update my medications protocol and will tell me when to
                add in the Cetrotide injections (which prevent early ovulation).

8/17:        Ultrasound and Blood Work
                 The nurse will call again to update my protocol. We may get a good idea of the
                 time frame for egg retrieval at this point.

Daily Injections

What's Going On in My Brain:
- What if the cysts get confused for dominant follicles? There's no way we can afford to cancel another cycle. We've spent over $10,000 on medications (out-of-pocket). I'm hoping my doctor will be at each ultrasound since she is familiar with my ovaries and knows that there are two cysts.

- This all seems to be moving really fast! Which totally doesn't make sense. We've been doing infertility treatments since January. That's 8 months people!!! This is the third time around. I've been filling my body with hormones for a month waiting for this day. Now it's here! How in the world could it possibly seem to be moving quickly? It seems unreal. I could be going in for an egg retrieval in a week!

- I'm nervous and anxious. This is it. This is our last chance of making a baby with our own parts (my own part, technically. His are pretty awesome). If this fails, we move on to donor eggs. This is my last chance at having a biological child. I'm trying not to think about it. I've been a realist in the past and it helped deal with the failures. Failed IVF: cried once and survived. Cancelled IVF: Cried A LOT and then got through it. For some odd reason, I'm being hopeful this round. I'm cautiously optimistic and it's driving me crazy. My odds are so low because of my diagnosis. Our own personal statistics should be reason enough for me not to be hopeful... but I am. You should hear the dialog going on in my head all day. I'm talking myself down one minute then pumping myself up the next. It's exhausting. Once I get going on these meds, it'll get even worse. Maybe I'm optimistic because this is the final chance. Maybe I'm optimistic because I'd like to think positive for a change. Maybe I'm optimistic because another (final) failure will hurt more than I think it will. Who knows?!?

All I know right now is that I'm okay. I'm moving forward. We are one day closer to the end of this IVF journey. Another day  closer to living our lives as normal people again. 

I realize this is gross. But, I had to document the blood!
I've done this twice before and never had any bleeding.
 Imagine my surprise when I looked down yesterday and saw this.
Why did I bleed this time?
Guess I might actually use band-aids this time around.