11/11/81 to 11/11/11

It was about 15 years ago that I realized my 30th birthday would fall on one of the coolest dates of the century. How do you celebrate a big birthday on an awesome day? Throw a big bash ran out of desire to plan a huge party years ago; escape to the Caribbean with my husband vacation was moved to the end of November and then canceled; spend the day hanging out with my husband, talk on the phone with my family, go out to dinner with our great friends - winner!

I started off my 30s by waking up to an alarm so I could stick myself in the stomach for the 45th time and then get to our second monitoring appointment. It went fine. I guess I was holding out hope for a miracle of lots of follicles, but I'm still just chugging along with 11. I guess 11 really is my lucky number. She measured four in my right ovary and seven in my left, most between 8mm and 10mm. Dr. NFB repeated that I am responding a little slowly. We mentioned that we are disappointed with that and she said she'd much rather have it be a bit slow than too fast. Also, she said my follicle count is right in the normal range.

It's looking like my retrieval will be next Friday, one day later than originally planned. They did a blood draw to check estradiol levels and will call this afternoon with the results. Dr. NFB said she will probably up my stim dosages. As soon as the nurse calls with the next steps, I need to call the specialty pharmacy and get more drugs shipped asap (and a new sharps container, more alcohol pads, and more syringes).

Chris and I grabbed Starbucks afterward and are enjoying a relaxing day at home. This evening we are heading out to dinner with our dear friends and then back here for dessert so I can get the stim injections done on-time. No alcoholic or caffeinated beverages during stims, so I'll cheers to a great 30 years with something hydrating. :-)

P.S. As I stuck my keys in the ignition this morning, I realized I've been driver for half of my life today. Crazy!

Update 3:00pm: the nurse called and said my E2 levels were great at 710. I'm not really sure how to interpret that, so I'm going with what the nurse said - they are great! Based on that, Dr. NFB decided to leave my doses the same. I called the specialty pharmacy and they are shipping out more drugs overnight. I told Chris I thought it was awesome that they do overnight Saturday delivery in a cooler and he reminded me that even though we don't pay out of pocket for it, it probably goes against my insurance maximum. Oh...well, fingers crossed it doesn't matter.