Cocktail time! Mixing stims

First thing, here is a handy-dandy video of me mixing my stims like a mad scientist. I had gotten some questions here, via email and on message boards about mixing meds and whether you can do them all in one syringe, etc. I figured it might be easiest to show how I do it, so as to not have to do three shots every night -- which was done at the guidance on my clinic - I didn't make it up! Please excuse the many instances of "Um" in the video and the fact that I seemed to place the shot right next to a roll of toilet paper. Martin Scorsese, I ain't. Also, please don't feel obligated to watch the 7 minute video if it doesn't apply to you, I won't be offended! While I know it might be thrilling to some, watching me mix gonal-f with six vials of menopur and a shot of ganirelix is not exactly as good as an episode of Mad Men (speaking of Mad Men, has anyone seen this season's finale? Best. finale. ever!)

In other news, thank you all so much for your pep talk from my "Blah" post yesterday. The holidays are tough on us IF gals, and I think that's why I got a little sad sack-ish. NoodleGuy and I decorated the house for Christmas on Sunday and I got really sad at one point that I should be 5.5 months pregnant by Christmas and instead I'm back to praying that I can get more than one follie for IVF. My own personal Groundhog Day hell. Then to top it off, today is the anniversary of our first pregnancy's D&E. Somehow anniversaries aren't quite so fun in the IF world, huh? Nobody brings cupcakes to class to celebrate a year after Dilation and Curettage, though they really should. Cupcakes would be a nice distraction.

Anyway, I feel better today for 3 reasons:

1) I spoke with my nurse later in the day yesterday, after I posted. She actually started the call with "Good news!" which made me question her that she was actually calling the right person. It turns out that my RE was happy with what he was seeing. While my E2 is still lowish at 98.5, besides that one 12mm follie they did throw me a bone and tell me that there were 5-10 smaller follies with "potential to develop". Now, I'm not getting excited about this, I know my body by now and I know I won't even get close to that large a number of eggs. If I can go into ER with 3-4 nice, juicy follies, I'll be thrilled. I've been let down by my ovaries (or should I say, ovary, since Leftie refuses to play) so many times that I refuse to get excited about anything until any eggs have been forcibly extracted and out of the smothering confines of my body. However, I'm just happy that they're seeing any sort of activity more than 2-3 follies since they've never had reason to suspect that I even had more than 3 or 4 antral follies with which to work.

2) NoodleGuy is such a dreamboat. He has decided that it's his job to make sure I'm relaxed and as stress-free during this cycle as possible. He has pointed out, and he's right, that during our surprise natural pregnancy over the summer, we got pregnant during a phase of heightened...erm...NoodleGirl...ahm..."attention" during sexytime, if you know what I mean. Wink, wink. So for the next week, I am commanded to: a) receive a full body massage from him, b) receive some "lady parts" attention from him, c) receive a 2nd body massage with oils - all this, EVERY night!! Man, I need to pretend to be infertile for the rest of my life!! I even heard him puttering around upstairs after work today and called up asking him what he was doing and he said "Ummm....nothing!". Which is code for him being up to something but I figured I'd let him have his surprise. I didn't mean to peek, but I noticed when I ran to grab something upstairs, that he had placed candles all over the room, so tonight I'm going to get the special treatment AND mood lighting! Is he the cutest or what?

3) You gals + some message board buddies talked some sense into me about trying to analyze anything about a cycle after only 4 days of stims. I know it's way too early to be able to predict anything, but with IF I always seem to be ready to be in glass-half-empty mode, which is so hard to tolerate because being brought up by two pessimistic parents (whose motto was a whiny "Just my luck" about everything), I rebelled and am usually extremely glass-half-full. With IF it's like I try to convince myself that bad news won't hurt as much if I claimed to expect it. Yea, me, good luck with that.

So, I'm just continuing to stim, trying to stay mellow, receive attention from NoodleGuy and biding my time until Friday's ultrasound, which will be Day 8 (after 7 nights of stims) and should be alot more telling.