Ibuprofen and my heating pad have been my friend, and Thermacare my savior at work! Thankful this should be over in the next couple days. Wednesday was day one of this cycle. I called Dr. C's office to let them know and they wrote me a prescription for Loestrin birth control bills. This bc is one strength unlike the popular tri packs like Ortho-tri-cyclen. I'm going to be on this continuously until they tell me otherwise. I will be skipping the placebo bills and just starting the next pack. This is all about timing and this will give Dr. C control over my cycle. I was supposed to start this as soon as my blood work was done. I did that today.
There were quite a few tests that needed to be run. The most important one was an Ovarian Assessment Report. This test is unique to one company, ReproSource. They are based out of the east coast so they get your blood via Fed-Ex. They ship you a pre-paid shipper and all of the testing supplies. According to there representative, you can either use your own lab or their contracted mobile lab. The mobile lab is an extra $50 fee. I figured I would just go to my own lab seeing I had to have more than just this test done.
I called Dr. C's office to ask them to send a lab order over and found out that ReproSource was a little misleading in their "use your own lab" instructions. Apparently everyone who has used their own lab has had to have the test redone. I ended up having to go to one specific lab at the hospital, Community North. They are familiar with this test and even handle shipping your sample off via Fed-Ex so that ReproSource gets it there within 24 hours for the lab work.
While I was there I also had a DHEA-S (for insulin resistance and androgen), Prolactin (this is the hormone responsible for breast milk), testosterone, hCG (the pregnancy hormone), and an infectious disease panel. The infectious disease panel is because they are going to be handling tissue samples when they take eggs for implantation. Tony also had to have this test because sperm does count as a type of tissue. They took a total of eight vials of blood from me, eight! But that's all I have to do for awhile.
They should get the results back for everything within a few weeks. The Ovarian Assessment takes at least two weeks. Everything else should be in by next week but Dr. C's office with only call me when all of the tests are in. This will tell us how much of what medication I will need to take and exactly which ones. We are one step closer to IVF!
My stomach has finally gotten used to the Metformin and has stopped rebelling. Of course now I have another reason to feel like crap, but I'll take cramps over nausea any day! To celebrate I made my Mom's famous Beef Stroganoff. It may only be famous within the family, but its a staple at my house.
Here's what you need:
Egg Noodles
Ground Beef (I use a container of Laura's Lean Ground Beef with 8% Fat)
One can of Low-Sodium Cream of Mushroom Soup
On 8 oz. container of Sour Cream (I normally use the light)
Salt (optional)
Paprika
Brown the beef in a skillet, salt to taste (this is optional but I salt lightly.) Turn burner to low then mix in the mushroom soup and wait until its bubbly. Stir in the container of sour cream. Let this warm but do not allow it to bubble or boil as the sour cream will thin out too much and you'll end up with a runny stroganoff. While its heating up liberally apply paprika and mix in. Serve over egg noodles with your choice of veggie.
You can also use rice or whole grain noodles, but egg noodles are my favorite. I have tried this with the 4 % fat ground beef and it ends up too dry. Ground turkey and chicken are passable but definitely not as good.
Browning the beef is the hardest thing about this. No, disregard that. Stopping yourself at one serving is the hardest thing! It makes great left-overs too!
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