Progressing Slowly

Well, it turns out that what my local RE's office saw at my baseline ultrasound was a small cyst, and not a follicle, on my right ovary. Fortunately, the cyst had shrunk by my first ultrasound at CCRM and it hasn't seemed to negatively impact my cycle. Last cycle Dr. Surrey called my follicles "a pack of turtles". My turtle follicles got off to an even slower start this cycle (my Estrogen after three days of stims was only 60 compared to 86 last cycle), which had me very distressed earlier this week. Fortunately, things have started progressing since they bumped up my Follistim and my Estrogen is now at 780. I have one follicle at 1.6cm and eight or so bunched between 1.0cm and 1.2cm along with a few smaller ones. Unlike last cycle, my Estrogen has at least doubled every 48 hours, which I've been told is an encouraging sign. Last cycle Dr. Surrey wasn't happy with my Estrogen rise midway through the cycle so he increased my Menopur dosage & decreased my Follistim dosage. Since I've read online that some doctors feel that Menopur can negatively impact egg quality, I'm relieved that we haven't had to increase my Menopur this cycle. I just hope that less Menopur and all of the supplements I've taken since June will somehow equal the golden embryo I've been searching for. I think I'm looking at a Friday retrieval. Anyone know which doctor does retrievals on Fridays?

On the Plan C front, on Thursday I met with one of the donor egg nurses. She said they did a lot of recruiting for donors at the first part of the college semester so there should be a good number of donors available very soon. I felt very comforted after meeting with the DE nurse. I'm so grateful that I have the option to do DE if this hail mary cycle doesn't work out. On Tuesday I'm meeting with the therapist that I met with at my ODWU. Since I'm using DS, I've already done a lot of research on how best to tell my future child about how he/she was created so, in that sense, moving onto DE is easier for me. In my head, I've planned out a book I'm going to write for my child to explain how he/she was created so, if DE is my future, I'll have to revise the story plan a little bit. This morning I filled out the form listing my physical preferences for my egg donor. Once CCRM has this form, a picture of me in my twenties, and a $2,500 deposit, I'll have access to the donor database. Since the deposit is refundable, I plan on moving forward with finding a donor as soon as possible since there will be a good number of donors made available very soon.

Cassie (Try Try Again blog) has always raved about 3 Margaritas so my mom & I went there for dinner the other night. It was hands down the best Mexican food I've had outside of the state of Texas. I usually don't even bother eating Mexican when I'm not at home because the salsa always tastes like picante sauce to me, but 3 Margarita's salsa had a nice kick to it. A few days ago we went to Blackhawk and I won some money at the casino, which was nice until I remembered that I'd have to do communicables, which wiped out my winnings & then some. We've also done quite a bit of clothes shopping and I found some really nice things for work. Today we went to Boulder, which is such a cool city. One of the ladies in my single moms group is trying to relocate to Boulder and now I can definitely see why. Tomorrow we're going to take a tour of the Coors brewery and I have tickets for the Mint on Thursday.

My mom's surgery to remove the tumor in her leg is set for November 22nd, which is the Monday before Thanksgiving. We'll all be very relieved when that's behind her.

T.