Finally!!!

So.....tonight we finally get this IVF cycle underway! I start with the Lupron today and take that through the 19th. That's when I get the baseline ultrasound to check my lining & make sure there are no cysts or anything. Then we will start the stims. I picked it all up from the pharmacy today and it's just not photogenic enough to show you. It was just a plain white bag. Maybe I'll take a picture of Forest injecting me. There! Neat, huh? Today I also met with a Maternal-Fetal Medicine specialist to talk about some concerns my RE has:

1. In April of 2004 and in March of 2006 I had brief, TIA-like episodes (aphasia/speech confusion). The first one was accompanied by a visual field disturbance and the second by a weird numbness on top of my head. They diagnosed "atypical migraine" (atypical because there's no headache).
2. During my infertility work-up at George's office they did genetic testing and found that I am a homozygous: (Science-y bit ahead) this means that I cannot make functional copies of the enzyme MethyleneTetraHydroFolate Reductase (although I prefer to think that MTHFR is an abbreviation for Mother F*cker) - this enzyme is needed to convert the unhelpful compound homocysteine into the amino acid methionine. Elevated homocysteine levels are associated with thrombosis (blood clots) and cardiovascular disease and also with restricted placental blood flow during pregnancy and repeated miscarriage (not good!). The treatment for elevated homocysteine levels is pretty simple: extra folic acid and B vitamins - which George's office already put me on. They also recommended daily Lovenox (heparin) injections from the point I ovulate until delivery.
3. I have a family history of early stroke - my mom's sister had her first stroke at age 26 while she was pregnant with my cousin (yikes!) - and my dad has had a couple of TIA's himself.

So, I had the consult with the MFM specialist (who, incidentally, is pretty cute - I mean, he's no George, but check him out: not bad, huh?) to talk about how I should be followed once I'm pregnant. It was an awesome visit and he agreed with me about everything (namely that my homocysteine levels should be checked before treating the MTHFR mutation, since there is another enzyme that can perform the same conversion as MTHFR, and that Lovenox is overkill). He wants to follow me as high risk once I get knocked up, so I will be having early and frequent ultrasounds to monitor fetal development, which I am very, very happy about. So now all I have to do is get pregnant (preaching to the choir, I know). Other than the procreation fun, life has been relatively boring: swamped (read: miserable) at work, trying to make better food choices (eating fewer carbs and fried stuff), fulfilling my civic duty (voting), driving my teenager and all her friends all over the city (daily). Not much to report.

Next step: baseline ultrasound on 11/19!