Estrogen Rise Here We Come

During IVF they really mess with your hormone levels. First, they use Lupron to make your estrogen lower than normal during the supression stage (which I've been in for 10 days). My E2 was 8.7 on Wednesday and normally (pre-menopause) it would never be that low. As a comparison, mine was 22.9 at the start of my fresh cycle in 2007 and 8.8 at the start of my frozen cycle a few months later that year. After 10 days of stimming my E2 was 3,224 with the first ivf. So in the next 10 days or so my E2 is going to sky rocket. As a point of reference, in an unmedicated cycle when a woman ovulates one egg her estrogen usually reaches about 200 around ovulation time. So that helps you understand that 3,000 is REALLY high. The fsh shots I am starting tonight cause the follicles to grow (with eggs inside), and as they grow they produce more and more E2. So the 2 ways of knowing what's going on in terms of follicle development are ultrasounds (to measure their size) and bloodwork (to see how much E2 is rising).

Yesterday Nadia and I enjoyed a walk around our neighborhood. In the past she'd start fussing before I got very far from the house, but yesterday she lasted 25 minutes before she started fussing. I'd like to take a walk every day whenever the weather permits. I think the fact that we could hear birds and such made the walk more interesting for her. It was in the high 60's yesterday, and it's supposed to be in the 70's tomorrow. YAY! That is just perfect weather in my opinion! We also spent some time on the back porch enjoying the sunshine.

I share most of my food with her these days. Yesterday I tore her grilled cheese sandwich into little pieces and put them on her tray. She fed herself the sandwich. :-) She also enjoyed sharing the quiche with me the last couple of days that I made on Wednesday. She also has enjoyed eating the ziti I made on Tuesday. She's not crazy about yogurt lately, but she still loves cottage cheese. I usually mix her daily serving of veggies in cottage cheese.

Unfortunately she's waking up before 6am again. This week she has been waking up sometime between 5:15-5:40am. I've tried putting her to bed earlier (6:45) and later (7:45), but still she's waking up very early. Last night she got less than 10 hours of sleep. That means including her 2 naps she's getting about 12 hours of sleep total. I wish she could go back to sleeping 11 hours at night and not wake up before 6am. Hmmmmm