In-vitro update 3-28-09

Hi prayer warriors! Wow, we are so overwhelmed and humbled by this prayer vigil! Thank you sweet Andi for coordinating this and thank you everyone for your prayers!!! We are SO SO SO grateful! Here's a quick update:

- We gave the trigger shot last night at 9:15pm and we will have the Egg Retrieval tomorrow (Sunday) at 9am. They will do IV sedation so I will be out but Brad will get to watch everything on this big screen - so cool!
- As of yesterday, I had ~ 71 total follicles =0 Not all of these will contain eggs (maybe ~ half or possibly a little less?); but our doctor will be trying to remove them all b/c each follicle is estrogen-producing and my estradiol levels have been way too high. As we put in the last update, there is still the hyperstimulation risk going on. Dr. Hansard did not have us take any Follistim Thursday night in effort to plateau the estradiol levels that were already over 4,000. Good call- the bloodwork Friday showed that my levels had decreased slightly which was a HUGE answer to prayer! (the nurse that called us yesterday said that if they would have continued climbing I could have had the whole cycle cancelled). As of now, we are all set for surgery in the morning and are trying to stay nourished, rested, and hydrated, and drink gatorade and eat salty things (the nurse told us to eat salt and things like gatorade, chicken broth, V8 to help absorb the fluid that could be leaking with the hyperstimulation).
- We will update ya'll when we can after the surgery.
- We're still scheduled to take the progesterone injections, hatching meds, etc. and do the transfer Friday... but if the hyperstimulation is enough of an issue, we will probably have to freeze the embryos and recover.
- We have limited the number of eggs to be exposed (something the doctors are normally not real crazy about), in effort to limit the number of embryos created, to in turn limit the risk of excess embryos (excess as in more than you would use at some point in time, so you would have to donate them)... I won't go all into this but it was one of our biggest issues with in-vitro, a personal conviction for Brad and I, and we do feel very good about it. Please pray that the Lord would create just exactly the number of healthy viable embryos that He wills and that He would honor our earnest attempt to be diligent in this.
- We really do appreciate your prayers for the surgery tomorrow, for no hyperstimulation, for my body and overall health, for the doctors/nurses, for Brad, for the follicles, and for God's protection and guidance in doing the transfer or not... Thank you! We love you all!