Dogs Dogs Dogs

Well, as you all now we are crazy about our dogs so when reviewing the site I noticed that our blog was incomplete without pictures of all our current children so hear we go. This is the most recent picture of all three of them together, other than the christmas card picture which you can't see them too good in. This is from this summer, I gave Draco a mini bday party as he is getting so old we are really not sure if he will see another.

Draco is the big old man, he is a purebred Japanese breed of Mastiff, called a Tosa Inu. He may look fierce but he is the biggest baby around! ON the left of Draco is Nala, she is a hound dog beagle mix - we think, that we rescued when she was about 1 year old and have had her about a year now, she still has some discipline problems and came to use with bad habits but when she is calm, rarity, she is the biggest sweatheart around. On the right of Draco is Sachi, she too was a rescue though when she was much younger, about 5-6 mo old, we have had her for about 2+ years. She is a boxer/pitbull mix and is sooo pretty and a really great dog after alot of work with her, she is Jared's baby!

Great Strides Cystic Fibrosis

Well all, now that my IVF process is winding down and I am entering the insanely tortoruos two week wait I am shifting my focus to the Great Strides walk, I figure it will keep me sane and give me something else to think about.

Last year for the first time we formed a team and it was great fun and we raised alot of money. We went out to breakfast ahead of time as a team, one of our team members won the large raffel prize, another took home 1/2 the silent auction, we were the most successful new team for the area, and we had a team mascot.

This year I have petitioned pfizer and they will be corporate sponsors of the walk which is very exciting! Having such a large corporate sponsor with bring with it many opportunities. We are now allowed to solicit donations from colleagues, set up table tents all across campus about our event, send out side wide emails, set up recruitment tables in the cafeterias, they are writing an article about me and sending it out pfizer wide which should get us some good press, and they are providing our t-shirts and donating 1,000 dollars right off the top!

To join our team or donate go to http://www.cff.org/Great_Strides/NicoleHorvath or contact me. We are all about raising awareness not just raising funds so to learn more about cystic fibrosis go to www.cff.org.

Egg Retrieval

Well, today we had our egg retrieval. We left for Grand Rapids about 5:15 am to ensure we got there around 7 even though Jared's appointment wasn't until 7:30 and mine 7:45, for those of you who know me as always being late it might seem a shock but this was too important to be late for!

They had me take valium an hour before hand so I was already walking/talking/thinking funny. Jared tells me that I just kept asking a lot of questions over and over in different ways—not all of which made sense, I didn’t realize I was doing that but when doc came in to give us the results he told Jared and said, you can tell her this later when she asks again, that is normal on these meds (valium, versed, phentanyl—sp?). For whatever reason at that point I looked at him in complete clarity and thought –‘why is he treating me like an idiot? He he.

We had 25 eggs retrieved and they couldn’t tell how many were immature as they all looked at least close to the size that they need to be to be mature. We should get an update tomorrow on how many fertilized and then Friday we will transfer 2 embryos-no triplets for us, but yes chance of twins ~ 15%.

Fishy Fishy

Well, continuing on our hobby of aquariums we added some new residents to our saltwater tank recently including: a new foxface fish, a blood shrimp, a cleaner shrimp, 10 crabs, a mushroom covered rock, and a small feather duster.

This week we bought a 9 gallon nano tank which Jared has been wanting for a long time to keep seahorses in. Seahorses are very beautiful but hard to keep creatures, they have to be kept in a separate tank. So, we are partaking on an all new journey and crazily we seem to do things in three's so we now have three fish tanks to go along with our three dogs, who knows maybe three kids are in our future after all.

IVF-March

March 13-baseline ultrasound (u/s) before stims, 2 cysts found from incomplete stimulation of ovaries when 2 eggs were already in process of development, these cysts were small and cycle was able to be continued, they will be removed with the other eggs at egg retrieval

March 15-Stims started, repronex 100 units & gonal-f 150 units, massive stimulation of ovaries

March 17-U/s & Bw reveal only 8 eggs and estrogen level of 34, a low response

March 17-Gonal-f continued dosage increased to 225 units, length time determined by response of ovaries monitored by ultrasound to see number of eggs and thickness of uterus lining and estradiol levels in blood which increase semi proportionally to number of maturing eggs.

March 20-U/s & B/w to check on progress Estrodial ~300, lots little eggs per bronson who is not used to doing these u/s, dosage remains the same. In bronson sun-tues due hemoptysis.

March 21-gonal-f increased to 300 units. March 22-Huge change in how I am feeling, fuller belly, tender/sore. March 23-Severe morning sickness! U/s & B/w estrodial levels rocket to 1034, my right ovary has 15 eggs sizes : 17.5 (probably cyst growing, still ok size though) 15 (other cyst) 14.25, 12.5, 4@10.5, 7<= 9.5 my left ovary has 11 eggs sizes: 13.5, 13, 11.5, 8<=9.5. Unfortunately, if the smaller ones don't catch up we will have to just go with the bigger ones.

March 25-Insomnia last night, no idea why, perhaps hormones. Stomach feeling very full and tender now, U/s & B/w estradiol doubled to 2068 and all follicels 12-16mm now, uterine lining is more than thick enough, very good report!

March 27-Egg Retrieval Day

March 29-Embryo Transfer

IVF-February

February 2-Meet with IVF coordinator to get details and dates for the plan

SA for Jared--I'll let you fill in the details

February 6-Blood work for both of us

February 14-HSG (hysterosalpingogram) fun for me to evaluate the fallopian tubes, both are open and look good.

February 16-Mock embryo transfer -'practice' putting eggs back, see layout of uterus

February 17-Meds arrive, wholly meds, lots and lots o' stuff

February 21-Injection training, preparation for all those injections!

February 25-Lupron started 20 units a night, supresses body's natural cycle, lupron taken throughout cycle to supress natural cycle so that it can be controlled as needed with the stimulatory medicine.

IVF-January

This is a blog for me to keep track of treatment details and if you are interested, to satisfy your curiosity about what it is that we are actually doing.

January 26- Initial consult to evaluate need/effectiveness and options for treatment

We decide to go for it, insurance covers it and it is our only chance. We have already looked into adoption if this doesn't pan out. Either way, we are starting a family.

Family Wanted

Well, while we love our dogs some of you may know that Jared and I have been wanting to add on to our family for some time now. In January we made a decision to pursue In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) to help us obtain that goal as we have been unsuccessful with other attempts. We had our initial consult in January and started the process in February, now in March, after weeks of nightly shots we are nearing the exciting time of our procedures. Detailed procedure steps are described in my post labeled IVF.