Wow

Just got the call. We are triggering tonight. I quizzed the nurse so much, she finally had to have a doctor call me back. She said that 3 different doctors looked at my case and 2 said to trigger tonight while 1 said to wait until tomorrow. Of course, the one who said to wait is my doctor who I love who is out of town - he sent his input via Crackberry. Sooo - the doctor I saw this morning is the one who called me back and she served as the tie-breaker between the other 2 doctors. She said she was concerned that at the pace my follicles have been growing, if we wait, we risk losing all of them (they'll be "overmature" and won't fertilize). I guess I need to trust the experts at this point! (Lord knows, they've done this more times than I have.)

She wants me to go ahead and do the Follistim and Menopur again tonight to give them a last minute boost, in addition to the trigger. They give you a specific time for the trigger depending on when your egg retrieval (ER) is scheduled, so my time is 12:15 AM tonight. I can't decide whether to set my alarm or just stay up. Either way, I'll be half asleep while giving myself a shot!

The ER will be on Saturday, 9/8 at 12:15 PM. (Sorry, Ash - guess we have to cancel our long-awaited pedicure appointment! Oh, and you'll have to find an alternate location for the Nebraska-Wake viewing.) We'll need to get there by 10:45 AM, and I can't have anything to eat after 5:15 AM, and nothing to drink after 8:15 AM. Michael noted that I should be in a fabulous mood by 1 PM with nothing in my system. I think I'll be getting up early (used to it by now!) just so there's something in me - even if it's only clear liquids...

For those of you who want a little IVF primer - the ER is done under general anesthesia through an IV. Once I am under, they use an ultrasound to guide a needle through my vaginal wall into my ovaries to aspirate the follicles and (hopefully!) suck an egg out of each. We're hoping for 6 good ones! Then, they combine Michael's sperm with my eggs in spearate petri dishes and monitor them closely. They will call us the following day to give us the fertilization report - how many of my eggs fertilized and how they're doing so far. I believe they call us every day after that to give us a progress report. Depending on how the embryos are progressing, they will decide to put 1 or 2 back in me on either Tuesday, 9/11 (Happy Birthday, La!), or Thursday, 9/13. I'm hoping for 9/13 since it will mean the embryos are in better shape (even though it means I'll miss our Monthly Girls' Dinner).

I think that is all I know for now. Head is still spinning. Deep breaths.