2 wks.. count down!

2 wks away!! I received my protocol the other day. I start taking another pill Sunday for 6 days and will stop taking my BCP pills on the 26th. The Dr. wants to make sure that I start my cycle : ) double the plan.
They are expecting that I will start taking Gonal F injections (150 units) July 1st and I will add prednisone that same day. Lord, please be with Russ. I will be so frumpy and headaches will be coming. Prednisone is to shut my immune system down, sounds scary, but with my auto immune disease, you do what you have to. We fly out on July 5th. The flights still look good and are wide open, so we are still planning on flying stand-by. Hoping they will put us in First Class, would that not be awesome. 9 ½ hour flight with more leg room and the cooler I will have to take to keep my meds cold.

I’ve found great deals on several of my medications:
Prednisone – 1 pill a day for 30 days is $2.97 per month
Estrogen – 3 pills a day for 30 days is $10.00 per month. I start taking right after the egg retrieval
Lovenox – 1 injection daily for 30 days is $31.00 per month. I start taking that after the egg retrieval. (for my auto immune disease)
The killer… is my progesterone pills. The cheapest I can find is $150.00 per month. That’s in Czech. Here it would be over $297.00 per month. Insurance doesn’t cover progesterone medication for “infertility” Not sure why.. doesn’t make sense, but whatever.

Man... I will start looking like a human pin cushion. Haa-Haa, but well worth it.
I will do the Gonal F injections for 6 days, then the 7th day (July 7) I will go in for my first ultrasound. The doctor will make sure I am responding to the dosage and will decide if I need to increase or decrease the dosage. He will tell me when to come back in from there. The Dr. said “estimated” egg retrieval will be July 13. 6 days to grow in the dish after fertilization and that will also include the testing (PGD: pre-implantation genetic disorder) July 18th for egg transfer. I’m hoping that I will produce a good amount of eggs and everything will be okay. Once they are done testing, I will have 2 eggs implanted and the rest will be frozen for later use. :)

So, we have to decide on what sight seeing trips we want to do. We will be in Brno, which is a 3 hour train ride to Prague. $30 each way for the both of us and Mag, My IVF coordinator will arrange for a taxi to take us to and from the train station. I would love to tour the castles and museums. The Charles Bridge is another great destination.
We want to go to Austria too, that’s a 2.5 hour train ride. It’s such a beautiful place to go site seeing.
The days that we are in Brno, we plan on going to the zoo, castle’s, water parks, shopping malls, trying out all the neat cuisines, movies (yes, the most recent movies.. and they are in English)
Russ and I will also do our first ever couples massage. Mag will provide us with a discount coupon, so we will defiantly take advantage.

The day we arrive - our coordinator for 2wks will either be Mag’s mom or Mag’s friend and we will have a personal driver to take us around. Their job is to take us to all the appointments, show us places to eat and visit, and will take us to our apartment where we check in, etc… That evening we will have an authentic Czech dinner planned for the patience that day.

So much to do and plan for, but this will be an exciting trip with lots of memories and hopefully the best memory every… a Baby... or... Two :)

More to come….