Lucky No. 5

Hello friends on the interwebs -
Today is CD7 of baby-makin' attempt #5. It is also the last day of my Femara dosage, aka this month's drug of choice, aka the drug that is going to put a baby in this belly, come hell or high water! Here's some photos of the goods:

Yes, it says not to take this drug if you plan on becoming pregnant. No, this drug is not FDA approved as a fertility/infertility drug. It is conventionally used to treat breast cancer, actually. However, the drug has the (unintended) side effect of causing women to superovulate. Which is why we're using it. Don't worry, it's fine. I swear. But I appreciate your concern.


Also, these bad boys came in the mail today:

These are the syringes and the medicine we use to "trigger" the release of my eggs, hence the name: "trigger shot." The HORRIFYING needles attached to the syringes are only used to draw the medicine into the syringe. The itty-bitty guys above them (a half-inch long and super-thin) are the ones we use to inject me. It's really not so bad, but again, I appreciate your concern.

That's our cat, Frankie. She has nothing to do with this blog entry, but isn't she pretty? :)


D and I switched donors AGAIN. We were able to talk to a supervisor at the very expensive sperm bank we are currently using and she was willing to give us the (approximate) number of pregnancies for several different donors. It turns out that the donor we went with last month has only achieved 1-5 pregnancies. Granted, he's only been in the program a year, and maybe he's just not been that popular, but D and I really want to stack the deck in our favor at this point. Knowing he may only have gotten 1 woman pregnant in a year's time was a little worrisome... Luckily, one of the other gentlemen in our "All-Time Top 3" babydaddies has achieved 10-15 pregnancies - and he's only been on the market since November 2008! 10-15 pregnancies in two years sounded mighty good to us, so that's who we are going with for lucky try #5. We're hoping to receive some really *powerful* stuff this time around --> "super" sperm, even.

(Maybe D should wear this costume at the insemination?)

After some back and forth about the ethics of posting our donor's baby photo, I've decided: f*ck it, who cares? You can download it for free on the sperm bank's website, so it's not really a *secret* per se. Anywho, here he is, friends:

Cute, huh? The eyes are totally D. The hair doesn't have D's curl, but we'll keep our fingers crossed. According to the ladies at the bank, grown-up donor resembles Shia Lebeouf. I could live with that.

Emotionally, I feel really, really good about our odds this month. I am actually impatient to get in there and get inseminated already! This is unusual for me; I'm typically dreading it because I'm terrified of the disappointment of getting another BFN. Here's why I/we are feeling so dang good this month:

1. Super-donor's super-sperm.
2. The switch to Femara. The research I have been doing points to a number of women who, although they successfully ovulate on Clomid, will never get pregnant on the drug because of the side effects that make egg implantation difficult, if not impossible. Many of these women go on to get pregnant immediately once they stop taking Clomid or switch to Femara. 
3. We are still reaping the benefits of the HSG. For the 3 months following this procedure a woman's odds of getting pregnant are increased.
4. We would be testing on Xmas. How could we fail?!? Surely the universe is not that cruel.

So there you have it. Now I need to get some work done. 


♥ N