Happy Birthday...

...to my most favorite Mom in all the world! Thank you for always being there for me... and supporting me...and loving me...and for being my bestest friend! I hope you had the most wonderful day! You're the best! I LOVE YOU!

Now onto the fertility news update...

Today at 3:30pm I had my "Take Two" ultrasound for the week. Dr. Hickey wanted to see my lining for himself. Today it ended up being at around a 7 or 8...in one spot it was as high as 8.9! Dr. Hickey said that last week there was a quick increase of estrogen (due to my inserted pill) and it made my lining fluff up. Then within this past week it kind of sunk down into itself and became more dense; causing it to be thinner. I am already on a pretty high dosage of estrogen and increasing it wouldn't do anything. He said that it could be that I, myself, don't get a very thick lining, so this already may be thick for me. We're not sure...only the biopsy would tell us for sure or not.

So, we are going to go ahead with the biopsy. It is scheduled for Thursday, April 23rd at 2:15pm right in my doctor's offices.

There are two possibilities with the outcome of the Endometrial Biopsy. The first is that they find through the biopsy that I am "in phase" meaning that my lining is able to support pregnancy. If we find that this is true, our next step would be to enter in our "Donor Cycle"! It means that we can move forward with our plans of Mackenzie donating her eggs to us. I would complete this whole med/ultrasound/blood work cycle again, but the end result would be the transfer of Mackie's eggs (not the biopsy). The other possibility that we may find out is that I am not in phase. If I'm not in phase, it will likely be due to the thinner lining, so they will do a D and C. A D and C is a procedure to scrape and collect the tissue (endometrium) from inside the uterus. They would do this to completely clean out my uterus. Then we would start the "Biopsy Cycle" all over once again in order to see if we can get to the thicker lining level of 11 or 12.

I'm sure you can tell which one I'm rooting for!

In order to prepare for my biopsy next week I had to begin ANOTHER Intramuscular Injection tonight. I no longer take the daily Lupron injection (the one in my stomach). But :) I continue with my Monday/Thursday injection of Delestrogen (the one in my butt) and I add a daily injection of Progesterone in Oil...it is also injected into my rear end... The IM injections need to be completed by Brian on their specific evenings at 6:15pm. As we're about to leave the dr.'s office he realized that he is going to be out of town this weekend for Brad's Bachelor Party. He is leaving on Thursday and isn't getting back until Monday! Well, what the heck do I do now???

My wonderful, wonderful, wonderful nurses came to the rescue! We found out that one of our nurses lives right near our house. She is going to COME OVER on Thursday, Friday and Monday night to give me my injection! Can you even believe it! How lucky am I?! But that still leaves me Saturday and Sunday. Another one of my nurses, Amy, offered to have me over to her house both Saturday and Sunday in order to give the shot to me - she couldn't come over because her son has prom... I can't believe she even considered it. So on Saturday on my way to the city for Megan's Bachelorette Party, I'm going to stop off in Elmhurst to get injected and then on Sunday I'll head up there again after my friend, Deana's baby shower. Seriously unbelievable! I am so taken back by their generosity. This is why I stayed with Dr. Hickey and his staff. This is why I didn't second guess everything...they are just so kind. They really do want the best for their patients.

Next week's outlook is this:
Wednesday, April 22 at 8:00am - Blood Work
Thursday, April 23 at 2:15pm - Endometrial Biopsy

Keep those prayers coming that everything works out for the positive! Thanks for reading!

Side note...
Brian asked our nurse, Amy, if she had any tips about how to make the IM shots less painful, I think it's killing him that I cry every time! Well...they worked! She said to take a cold pack and hold in on the area while Brian prepares the syringes, then when he is finished giving me the shot take a warm wash cloth and hold it on the area. Laying down this time made it much better too - I couldn't flex my muscle as easy.....it only took us how long to get it right? Thank goodness we did though - I'm not sure how much longer I was going to be able to take it!

Seriously???

I don't usually post twice in one day, but I felt that this post didn't seem to fit with my "Happy Easter" post. The Easter post was just far too cheery.

I had another appointment this morning at 7:45am for blood work and ultrasound. If you remember, I've been going weekly for about 5 weeks now in order for Dr. Hickey to make sure that my meds are doing what they are supposed to be doing. My ovaries should be shut down and my lining should be getting nice and thick. Each week has brought me the same thing...there hasn't been anything too too crazy (well...there was the new med).

Two weeks ago, my lining was at a 6, last week it had increased to a 9. Right on target and the nurses told me "one more week!" (until the biopsy) Optimally we want my lining to be at an 11. Today I went in and my lining was BACK AT A 6! Seriously??!! Where could it have gone?!

Brian doesn't come with me every week; usually the appointment is so fast that it doesn't make sense for both of us to be late to work. What is interesting is that for some reason God knew that I needed him there today.

I had the ultrasound tech, Kelly today, so I didn't get any information about what it means just yet. The nurse and the tech don't really say much, they wait for Dr. Hickey to look over my ultrasound pictures and blood work and then they call me with his findings. So, we left with questions....and I left with tears....again...

I know that it probably doesn't seem like something to cry about, I mean really, we don't even know anything yet. But, let me just tell you...it is something that just continues to bring me down. I felt that we had a good thing going...a 6...a 9...well, it had to be a 12 this week, right? I don't get it. Why doesn't my body just do what it is supposed to do? I have medication completely running my whole cycle and yet it is STILL not working. What the heck! I'm getting shot in my stomach every day and in my butt twice a week, and I'm inserting a pill every night before bed! What more can I do! This was only supposed to be a 7 week process and here I am going on week 9. I'm tired of the "one more week"..."next month"... when is "now" going to come?

My wonderful, amazing, understanding, caring, and loving husband just always knows what to say to me as I'm crying, crying, crying over another not so good appointment. He told me that this is okay, that this is when we want these things to happen, during our trial run. He reminded me that it is much better to have it happen now then when we are in the middle of our transfer with Mackenzie's eggs. That's when we want it to go smooth...it's okay that it doesn't right now.

He's right...this is why they do a trial run, so that all of this hoopla gets figured out and that way when we are in the middle of transfering Mackenzie's egg to me we know what to expect. Why couldn't I be more reasonable?

The doctor's office called me this afternoon and asked me to come back tomorrow. I have another ultrasound scheduled for 3:30 tomorrow afternoon. Hopefully I'll have some good news and this post (and my tears) will seem silly. Only God knows.

I have a quote-a-day teacher booklet and today's quote was so fitting - amazing how that happens sometimes!

"I know God will not give me anything I can't handle. I just wish that He didn't trust me so much." ~ Mother Teresa

Happy Easter!

Brian & I have now officially entered adulthood! We hosted Easter dinner for the first time yesterday. We had a total of seven guests: my parents, my sister, Kristen, Brian's parents, Brian's Uncle Doug, and Rich's (my father-in-law) cousin, Collin. Dinner was delicious (Thank you Mom and Barb for helping me out!). Everything was perfect! Here are some pictures of our day!

There's nothing like a delicious Mimosa while
you're beating up a Bleu Cheese Dip!

The Men...watching the Master's

The Women...chatting

me & my cupcakes

mom & Barb

me & my daddy-o

Here are Brian & I with each of our guests....
we missed Krissy - she left too early! :)

Mom, Dad, Brian & I

Brian & I with Uncle Doug

Brian & I with Collin

Brian & I with his parents

Later that evening when all of our guests had left and my kitchen was somewhat back to normal, Brian & I headed over to my Aunt Lynn and Uncle Rick's house to say hello. Grandma Mary and Grandpa Dick Dudek were in town.

Mom, Aunt Lynn, me & Grandma Mary

Grandpa Dick, Uncle Rick, Brian & Dad

We hope you all had a wonderful day with the ones you hold
near and dear to your heart!
With Love,
The Witko's

OUCH!

Picture taken this morning at the Dr.'s office!
(see I told you...camera with me at ALL times!)

Doctor appointment went as usual today, blood work was taken, ultrasound was done. Dr. Hickey did my ultrasound, which was nice, but also meant that I was late to school. (Thank goodness it was just School Improvement Planning and we didn't have students.) I like that Dr. Hickey turns the ultrasound monitor toward me so that I can watch what is going on. I'm becoming very good at reading the ultrasounds!

My lining was at about 9.2, which is a huge improvement from the 6 I had last week. I guess the new meds really did the trick! But, it's still not as thick as we want it. Ideally we want it to be at around 11-12. He said that 9 is okay, but we really hoping for the 11. We are going to wait one more week and hope that it gets nice and thick, but of course, not too thick! He says a 14 is too thick - I asked why - because when it is at 14, the embryo has a much harder time finding a nice cozy spot with both a gland and an artery in which to attach and you need it to find both in order to be successful. At 11-12 it is the best scenario for coziness - so keep saying those prayers!

We'll continue the Lupron stomach injection, the Delestrogen butt injection, and the Estrogen insertions for atleast one more week. Next week I'll go in and have my usual appointment and we'll set my biopsy appointment. Dr. Hickey said that we're going to go for it next week even if I'm still at a 9. So, I'll keep you posted.

I just got a voicemail from one of my nurses. She said that my labs came back good. My estradiol was at 1500 and my FSH was 0.2. Like I said, we're staying with the same meds, same dosage, and just keeping our fingers crossed that my lining continues to grow.

It has been awhile since I've talked about my injections and really it was because they were becoming nothing...you know...just another part of my day - 6:15pm every night. Well, last night was the worst yet. My stomach injection went just fine, as usual. Brian went to give me my Delestrogen shot and he actually poked me twice because the first poke hurt so bad I screamed out and started bawling. Then I was mad that he hadn't done it! I was freaking out once again over the anticipation of the shot hurting again. I don't know if this shot is just in my head, but it is hurting me more and more. I am beginning to HATE Mondays and Thursdays. Thank goodness it isn't the daily injection. Brian decided that this Thursday we're going to try to numb the area with an ice cube to see if it helps. Maybe I just need a few ML's...I don't know.

Weekend Fun!

Nothing new to report yet this week on the baby/donor front. I will post again tomorrow after my appointment to give the new update. Hopefully they'll have some sort of idea of when my biopsy will be. Tonight is just yet another round of injections...

I know that my purpose in writing this blog is to share our baby journey with all of our friends and family, but I will say that I have really enjoyed sharing our life with all of you as well. Plus, I have had requests from friends and family to get them on the blog! So, I'm just making my followers happy... :)

On Friday night, Brian & I met some friends out at Quigley's, a downtown Naperville bar. We have become close with some of my sister, Lizzie's friends and they invited us out - we surprised Liz, she didn't know we were coming!

One side of the table~
Eileen, Dan, Joanna, and Lizzie

Other side~
Brian, Evan, Ashleigh, me

Lizzie & Brian

Me & Eileen

Me & Liz

Our best friends, Brad & Megan, are getting married on May 16, 2009. Brian is the Best Man and I am the Best Girl, cool huh!? Just to clarify, I prefer the term "Best Girl" to Matron of Honor, I mean really, we all know I'm no Matron! On Saturday Megan had Bridal Shower #2, here are some pictures from it...

Some of the Bridesmaids with the Bride-to-be

Me, Laura Lucas, Megan, & Megan Fitzgerald

me & the soon to be Bride and Groom

The boys came to load up all of the gifts

I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to be able to live here in Chicago. Seriously, on my last day of SPRING break, APRIL 5th, we got snow - and lots of it. Here is our 'hoe all covered in snow...yuck!

Brian & his snowman he made on the Tahoe

So there you have it - the Witkowski Weekend Update! I hope you all have a great week! LOVE YOU ALL!

Mackenzie's Update...

Good news! Mackenzie's body is responding to her current dosage of Thyroid medication! Her levels came down and the 50mg is perfect for her. She will be on it the rest of her life like Lizzie and I, but 50mg is a small dosage, so we don't need to haul off to the Endrocrinologist at this time. Sue, our donor nurse, sounded excited on the phone as well, as she talked to Mack. She told Mackenzie that we're just waiting for me and my lining to thicken, so that we can do the biopsy. Mackenzie is going to call on her next day 1 - they aren't sure yet if they'll do a "day 3" appointment (ultrasound and blood work) or if they'll just start to keep an eye on her cycle. It all depends on the timing of my biopsy - that has to be done first before we move on with anything else. But, all in all, it was very good news. We were a little worried that Mackenzie's Thyroid would be as bad as mine - thank goodness it isn't.

My next appointment will be on Tuesday, April 7 at 8:00am for another round of blood work and ultrasound. Hopefully my lining is getting nice and thick!

Since I'm on Spring Break, Brian has been wanting me to get some painting done around the house. Just what I want to do on Spring Break, ha! Yesterday my mom and Mackie came over to help me tackle our downstairs foyer. We ended up having a blast together painting and laughing, and of course we took pictures! Here are a few:

Mackie and I...

Mackenzie "helping"

The best painter in the world, my momma!

Great form!

Just A Clarification...

I have gotten a few responses about my new med...and I feel the need to clarify...

NO!

It does not go in my butt!

I didn't want to have to say it, but you have made me. This new baby blue pill is inserted....vaginally...ugh...

I'm sorry I didn't want to have to use the word, but can you really expect me to not respond!? I just can't have that out there!

There I said my piece...Good Night!

This picture just seemed appropriate for this post...