Medication(s) administered and dosage(s). Gonal-F 300 iu & Menopur 150 iu.  Chris really is great at this injection thing.  I prepared the Gonal-F whilst Chris prepared the menopur.  We both read the instructions to remind us how to mix everything up, but like riding a bike, it was easy this time around.  Chris was a little bit nervous, but he needn’t have been, he did a great job.  I even looked down at the needle as he was injecting it – I am still not good at watching the needle break the skin though :-s.  The menopur did burn a bit as it went in, but it wasn’t quite as bad as I remember it to be.

Medical procedures undertaken. Nil.

What are my symptoms? Period started right on cue yesterday morning!  Hot flashes and a bit of dizziness a couple of hours after my 2 first injections of this cycle.

How do I feel today?  A little bit annoyed that my plans to have a more relaxing stim period and 2WW are falling to pieces. Some short turn around-high impact work may fall on my plate next week.  I would have to forgo some of my steadfast principles for quality work and accept that in this case a 40% solution can only be delivered in the time lines given.  I have stuck to my guns though to some extent – where I was going to be taking the whole week off work, I am now only taking Monday and Friday off.  Tuesday and Thursday I will be working from home, Wednesday I’ll be in the office.  As we talked about this potential work, I started to feel sick to my stomach.  I started thinking back to last time around when I was trying to get my project finished and how stressed I was feeling about balancing the IVF process and work.  I let down my quality levels then – no one noticed (of course I noticed), in fact I got lots of praise for that piece of work.  Last week when a senior boss praised this work in front of the whole division I sat there quietly proud, but felt a bit sad that I had accomplished that with little help during a shitty time of IVF, followed by the whole ectopic pregnancy thing and ultimately miscarriage.  My boss has been great by not dumping everything on me right now, he quite easily could have done, but he didn’t so I appreciate that, but I can’t quite help  thinking about how IVF is holding me back from doing my absolute best.  I don’t think my colleagues around me think like that (fortunately they are all smart, intelligent people who know me), it is just myself I am fighting with these thoughts.

All that being said, I’ll talk about something positive.  We decided to go out for dinner at our local restaurant to celebrate surviving and nailing those first two injections.  Chris deserved his beer!  As we were finishing our meal the power went out in some of the building.  There was a storm that evening so it must have knocked the power out.  I said don’t worry, we are on a different power grid to our neighbours over the road (the block our restaurant was on) and last time their power went out, ours stayed on.  As we walked back, we realised that our grid was out and our neighbours’ over the road was on! Typical.  Fortunately we are well prepared for such events (for hurricanes and other storms etc), and carried on with the power of candles 🙂  It was a little bit romantic…I snuggled up in bed preparing for the power to be out all night and the temperature to dip.

But then came the hot flashes!  I needn’t have worried about keeping warm, it seemed the drugs were doing a great job of that for me!!

Any results?  Estradiol <20 (as it should be, the same as IVF 1).  Progesterone <.2 (as it should be, the same as IVF 1). FSH 3.21 miU/ml (IVF 1 was 9.29, in 2014 it was 6.8) LH 0.771 miU/ml (IVF 1 was 3.48, in 2014 it was 4.9).  My LH level came up as red in my results…this means it was out of the ‘normal’ range, it is very low.  But not by much.  So I looked into it.  Although lower FSH is good, low LH is not good…apparently calculating the FSH-LH ratio and knowing the LH levels are good predictors of IVF outcome.  Let’s just say that I read several scientific reports, plugged in my numbers and the stats aren’t good.  But, the good news is that I don’t care! Why?  Because women with this kind of level and ratio still got pregnant.  And I am going to be one of those women in 4 weeks time 🙂 In your face science!!! **

What’s next? The same injections Sat, Sun, then monitoring appointment on Monday morning.

Weight. Work stress = nom nom nom bads.  But I did do the mixed martial arts P90x3 routine and pushed myself hard, so I don’t feel so bad.

Waist.  NSTR

Boobs. NSTR

Hours of Sunshine 🙂 Still NONE.  Let’s see if the sun comes out this weekend!

Fun Activity to keep Dani from going insane. IT’S FRIIIIIIIIDAYYYYYYY!!  I need say no more.  Surprise date night.

*Notes.  I take First Response Reproductive Health multi vitamin gummies (pre-natal) and CoQ10 200mg gummies daily.  NSTR = Nothing Significant To Report.

** Reserve right to have science egg in my face later