Day 1

When you are taking fertility treatments your life becomes all about your cycle. Instead of referring to the day of the month, the 5th, I refer to it as day 1. Today is day 1 because I have started my period this morning. Any given day you could ask me the date and I would have no idea, I could however give you the day of my cycle in a heart beat!
Usually day 1 is filled with sadness and cramps, but for me today is exciting because we get to start another round of fertility medication ( I still have the cramps). This month we are taking Femara and Follistim. Femara is a pill you take for 5 days early in your cycle which help grow the follicles on your ovaries. Follistim is an injection given for 6 days in the second week of your cycle to help grow and mature the follicles even more. I will also be getting an HCG injection to trigger ovulation around day 13. This will be my fourth cycle using these medications, and my 7th IUI (intra-uterine insemination).
We are really excited and hoping that it works this time. It did work last time with this same dose and method, however we were unable to keep the pregnancy. So we know it can work which in the fertility world is huge news! My husband, Patrick, and I have been trying for 23 months now so we are really praying for a miracle!
So our typical day 1 includes making calls to the doctors office, and setting up our intense medicine cycle for the next month. Taking into account our schedule, the doctor's schedule, and the nurse's schedule this can take a while. Then we call Schraft's a specialty mail order pharmacy that deals exclusively with reproductive medication. We the drop a boat load of cash on medication that gets shipped right to our front door in a neat little cooler within about 24 hours. All together that's day 1. Nothing too exciting just slightly time consuming. But, on a funny note Schraft's is located in New Jersey and every time I call there I feel like I'm talking to a cast member from Jersey shore and that makes me laugh.
This is the first of many posts about our day to day, If you have any questions e-mail at cassierice@insightbb.com
CSR