It Was the Best of Times...

So, Katie's Sweet Sixteen was last weekend.  Here is the highlight reel:

Katie & Allison - we all had "katie's sweet sixteen" shirts with monograms

White birthday shirts for the grown-ups - Forest is a good sport, but he drew the line at lilac sleeveless

The crew in the car (Lauren, Grace & Allison from L to R in the backseat). On our way to play golf!

A turtle on the greens!

A break to let some others "play through"

They made it through FIVE HOLES, but then the car arrived to take them to the hotel

We arrived at the Four Seasons at the Lumiere Place Casino

Forest and I decorated the suite...

Custom root beers & cream sodas

...while the girls were chillin' at the pool

The girls went back to the room to get ready for dinner.  This took THREE AND A HALF HOURS, no lie. 

While we were waiting, Forest and I enjoyed some drinks & appetizers on the patio at Cielo

Finally, the girls were ready!

We had dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory

The whole restaurant sang Happy Birthday!

At 12:47 am on June 6th we had cake to mark Katie's EXACT birthday

Sunday morning they got in one final bask in the sun

Overall it was a great success :) Katie has decided she wants all future parties to be at the Four Seasons.  We shall see...

On Sunday we had a family birthday dinner:

Katie & Grammy

Katie & Mommy

Forest & Me

Happy Sweet Sixteen Katie!!!

Then Monday she got her Drivers License!

Times are changing - that's for sure!

Other updates:

• In additional baby making news, the FET is in full swing. A myriad of IM injections are entering my gluteus maxima each night.  We are scheduled to transfer 1 to 3 blasts on Tuesday at 1 pm CST! Wish us luck!!!
• In unrelated, but adorable news, I connected with an old friend from high school on Facebook and she is having a giveaway on her adorable blog.  Check out these AWESOME little hats (that turn into purses!) and register to win one on Emily's blog! Good luck!

A Wee Update to the "About Me" Paragraph

The "About Me" paragraph now reads that I am the mother of an awesome 15 year old daughter, Katie.  Today is my sweetie baby's birthday (Woop!).  She is now old enough to get her driver's permit (YIKES!).

Katie is a super great child, and it makes me happy that I can say that about a teenager! I never had a good relationship with my mom; my sister and niece (now 21) have been going at it since she turned about 13. So I am very, very pleased and feel very, very blessed that Katie and I are tight.  In honor of Miss Katie, I thought I would show off her cuteness. 

I've posted this one before. It was taken 15 years ago tomorrow:

Coming Home - June 7, 1994

Arguably the BEST Katie-Mommy pic evah:

Katie (age 3 years, 1 day) & Mommy at Disney World - 1997

Another one from the same trip:

Sean (nephew, age 7), Katie (age 3) and Lauren (niece, age 9)

To see how time flies in the blink of an eye, here is a relatively recent one of the three of them:

Katie (age 14), Sean (age 19), and Lauren (age 21) - Christmas 2008

This was my 21st birthday. We were out for a WILD night at TGI Friday's (or maybe it wasn't so wild, actually!):

Katie (age 3), Mommy & a friend - 1997

I love this next picture because she was so little! She doesn't wear her hair in pigtails anymore and she doesn't hug me like this when walking through museums:

Katie (age 8) and Mommy at the Museum of Science and Industry - 2003

Just 4 years ago she still looked mostly like a little girly:

Katie (age 11) and Mommy - 2005

One, that's right ONE year later, she looked like this: 

Katie and her friend, Grace (age 12) 

Can you imagine having legs like that at TWELVE!?!?! Maybe you all did, but I didn't. Weird.

And here is a present-day montage she made honoring her new great love, Mr. Spock (in case you're not a nerd, LL&P stands for Live Long and Prosper):

Clockwise from top, left: New Spock, Grace, Old Spock, and Katie

I never thought Katie would be this old before I had another baby.  And that's thinking positively.  Alternatively, I never thought my baby-having days would be over at 17.  Life is awfully unpredictable, huh? No matter what life hands me, one thing will always be true: I am wonderfully blessed and happy to be Katie's mom.

Happy Birthday, Katie! Live Long and Prosper!

E2 = A Crazy Number, You Wouldn't Believe It If I Typed It

So, my E2 today is 3,514. That's a lot of estradiol. It must be because of my THIRTY-FOUR measurable follicles! I have 16 on the right ovary and 18 on the left. I can stim like NOBODY'S BUSINESS!

After the follie scan this morning, Katie, Forest and I went to breakfast and then to Best Buy so Katie could pick out a camera for Christmas. Incidentally, she picked this one:

That's where I got the call to tell me about my estradiol level. Said call also contained the news that we will be doing the Ovidrel at 10:30 tonight and the egg retreival on Monday morning at 10:30 am. So, I will need to tell my new boss at work that I am taking Monday off (they switched my group to a new boss a week and a half ago, which is actually a very good thing, but I hadn't planned on telling him about my reproductive plans so soon!).

Then we went to get me some comfy pants (since my jeans were barely fitting over my giant ovaries) at Target and then to see the new James Bond movie, which we all loved. Now we are home and I am sharing my follicle excitement with you guys.

So that was my day - I am supposed to take it easy tomorrow (which means I'll probably keep wearing these comfy pants) and call them if I start vomiting or if I gain 5 pounds in 24 hours. So I'll be on the lookout for those symptoms!

35 Follicles? Pish Tosh

I had an ultrasound and bloodwork this morning. E2 is at 1890 and I have A.LOT.OF.FOLLICLES. I have 12 measurable on my right ovary with the largest being 15 mm and 10 more less than 10 mm. I have 15 measurable on my left ovary (largest also 15 mm) and 5 more less than 10 mm. For a grand total of 42 follicles, 27 of which are possible candidates. Wow-za.

I drop my Follistim dose to 100 units (Lupron still at 10) and go tomorrow for another ultrasound and more bloodwork. So, things are moving right along!

An update on Katie's art class injury. Apparently the culprit was not a "linoleum knife" but a "linoleum cutter", such as this:

Not quite as scary (thank goodness - I was seriously questioning the wisdom of her art teacher).

I hope everyone's Thanksgiving was fabulous! Ours was good, despite a bit of drama over a Grandfather Clock we got my parents for their 50th Anniversary/Christmas. It's a long and not that interesting story (if you're not a Carter).

Stay tuned for more reports from Follicle Central!

E2 = 891!

So, as the title of this post suggests, my estradiol level this morning was 891! That seems like quite a jump in two days, so I am really excited. I drop my Follistim dose to 125 units tonight and tomorrow then I get a follicle scan and more bloodwork Friday morning. In other news, Katie had a run-in with a "linoleum knife" in art class at school yesterday and had to get 3 stitches in her thumb! I didn't know what one looked like, so I googled it and this is what I found: Holy crap! So she missed a performance of her dance team last night because she couldn't grip her pom pon with no opposable thumb! Poor baby!!! Well, that's it for me, I think. We get out of work at 2 pm today for the Holiday, so I better get a wee bit of work done before I go. Ciao!