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Aw, that's wonderful that your close friend is up from DC. Have fun!!! Enjoy that "non-alc" drink too. You can have fun creating new "mocktails" during the next 9 + mos. And thanks for the Omega info. I'll check the website out. That's facsinating that 1 supplement can make such an important difference in babies intelligence. I'll study up & then start taking more omega. Talk to you tomorrow! I'll be off work then for Christmas break, but I'll check in a couple of times. When do you leave for Toronto?

Leaving on Sunday for Toronto. I'm really looking forward to it. I love Canada, there's so much space, unlike Paris where everything is cramped. I was just thinking that if I have twins, life is going to be quite difficult since Paris is not adapted to a woman with two babies. You can barely fit one baby carriage in a
Parisian elevator, forget about a double one! Even coming through the main door of a building with two babies can be a bit of a squeeze. There I go jumping the gun again. Anyway, we have to move next year as our lease comes up right about the time I should be due. We really need a bigger place, I can't wait. The apartment we live in was my DP's from before we were together and isn't really suited to an additional person with a million handbags and shoes. LOL. Are you staying in Cincinnati for the holidays? Are both your families in the same city? I wish we had some family in Paris. That's the disadvantage of being career expatriates. Never any family nearby when you need them. Listen, I'll try and post while I'm on holiday but I'm not sure I can. However, I'll check in once more before I leave. Do you know when you might start your next cycle?

Have a fun, safe holiday in Toronto! Enjoy those open spaces. Jumping the gun, I do that too. Well if you do end up pg with twins, maybe it'll give you some leverage with your DP to discuss speeding up your plans of moving to Canada. Or is he under contract in France for a specific period of time now? I guess since Paris is such an old, historic place it's not twin friendly b/c really twins were fairly rare until the advent of fertility drugs made them more common place. Maybe? I'm sure you'd figure out plenty of ways to adapt to transporting twins though, if need be. I hope you can post during your trip, I'm excited to hear your 3rd beta results. When do you get back to Paris? I'm hoping my period comes in the next 2 weeks, I've thought I was close to Oing this week, though I haven't used OPKs or anything like that. Then once my period starts I'll begin BCPs for like 21 days, then add the Lupron & hopefully I'll be on the stim drugs by early Feb. give/take. We'll see. My cycle may be off kilter a little bit though, and I may be off by a couple of weeks. But my DH's b-day is in late Feb & I'd love to have our beta around his b-day. We had our beta on cycle 1 on our anniversary. BFN unfortunately though. So did you tell your friend the good news? If so I'll bet she was thrilled for you. Did she say something about your not drinking? What date did the IVF calculator give you as your due date?

For once, you must be looking forward to your period. Do all doctors prescribe Lupron in the US? I've always taken Puregon injectibles so I don't know anything about Lupron, is it targeted to PCOS? Wow, it seems like they do things a lot different in the U.S. I had a shot of something called Decapeptyl (LHRH hormone) as soon as I started my period, this served to control my period. The RE advised me not to have sex until day 21 or 22 which is when I started the Puregon shots to start the stimming process. I didn't take anything between the intial shot of Decapeptyl and Puregon. And of course, I didn't have any PIO shots, only quite a hefty dose of prog pills each night. n fact. I have to keep taking the same dosage until the end of my third month at least. I did tell my girlfriend and she was very happy for us. She's 22 weeks pregnant herself and so is my other really close girlfriend who lives in Chile. Its great because both of them are older than me, gives me hope that all will be fine. I wish though that at leats one of them lived closer, that's the bummer with expat life. You move to a new country and make friends only to have them move away because their time is up. Then you make more new friends and then you move away! I envy you your lifestyle, I would so love to just stay in one place and have my friends about me for years and years. Oh well! I find that I'm waking up quite early these days. I'm a sleeper, especially when I'm not working but these last few days, I have been feeling quite perky, despite that one day of feeling exhaustion. Oh, according to the calculator, my due date is August 28 when everything in France is closed and all the doctors, nurses, everybody! has gone on holiday. Did you know this, Europe more or less shuts down in summer? Let me know if you want me to look into the drugs you will need. Also, someone else on another thread said that they had a package deal for acupuncture so we know that it possible. The most important sessions are the one right before E/R and the one right after E/T (between 1 hour and 2 days). If you find that its going to be too expensive to go for regular sessions, try to just spring for these two sessions.

Mega, I know that its not easy for you to get access to the computer while you're hubby's home. Its a little bit the same situation here. I just wanted to drop you a quick line to wish you all the best for the meeting with your doctor on the 28th. Enjoy the holidays. Hugs, KB

Hey KB, good to hear from you. How's the arrangements going for your Toronto Beta? Did you find a place yet? That's Thurs. right? Thank you for the well wishes for my Thurs. appt. I'm looking forward to it. And you're right, for once I can't wait for my period either, bring out the Welcome Mat! Lupron is used in a lot of US protocols you're right. It's not strictly for PCOS women, but I do think most PCOS women respond fairly well to Lupron, it's just an ovarian suppressor like your Decapeptyl I imagine. I'll be on BCPs for like 17 days or so, then start Lupron and when my Lupron period starts (very light) I go in for a baseline u/s & if my e2 is good I'll begin stimming. I did the same thing when pg, waking up early unable to fall back to sleep. May very well be one of the many pg s/e. Isn't that interesting your 2 close friends are also pg. It's tough living so far away from them. 3 of my closest friends all live far away from me too, but still a lot closer than Peru or DC is from where you are. I did move away few times when I was younger but circumstances drove me back up this way. Which turned out well because I got together with my close friend's older brother, who is now my DH. Life is funny that way I guess. Good idea on the 2 accup. appts. I'll definitely do those 2 at the very very least. That's right, I forgot about the whole European summer shut down thing, but the one cool thing about that is their very liberal vacation time. Almost all US companies are very stingy with vacation time. But that's pretty inconvenient though the vacation time cutting into your due date. What if the baby decided to come in early Sept. would that be better? Anyway, good to hear from you! Enjoy the rest of your holiday. Hope BETA #3 is very high. Take care!

Hope you're doing well & I hope you were able to get beta #3 done in Toronto. I hope it was nice, high, doubling ++. Have a safe, fun New Years Eve!!! When do you go back to Paris?

Hi Mega, A very happy 2007 to you too. I hope yours is full of joy and success and a baby too! Did you have a good new years celebration? I spent it with my DP and my family in Toronto. Managed to keep my mouth shut about being preggers, don't know how I did it! I just got back this morning and went for my blood test. My beta is up to 41200 on day 32 after retrieval. I also posted this on the other thread so you might have already read about it. Happy that all is going well so far. I have an appt with my doctor for an u/s on the 11th, next Thursday. I am anxious to see what we'll find in there. I feel very well, occassional cramping and a very vague sense of nausea at times, not enough to want to upchuck though. My brother's wife gave birth to a little girl this morning. I haven't spoken with them as yet, am waiting for a call back. They've named her 'Miel' which means honey in French. They must be so excited, this is their first baby. My mom's spending a month with them to help out. I plan to tell them about my pregnancy soon as I think that they should know. Oops, have to go, I think its my brother calling me back. Speak to you later!

Wow!!! 41,200, what a HIGH, wonderful beta result. Good luck this Thurs. with the u/s, how exciting. It'll be interesting to see if there are indeed twins in there! And congrats on your new neice, how nice that the babies will be so close in age. Miel, that's a beautiful name. Is your brother in France too then? Glad you had a nice visit to Canada. I had a nice holiday too, low key. We spent New Year's Eve with friends, the day with family. I'm hoping to have AF this week, looking forward to starting the BCPs. Glad you're feeling pretty good overall & the nausea hasn't been that bad for you. What week of pg are you on now? Going on 7 weeks now I imagine (with those 2 "bonus weeks"). Wow!

I'm at 7 weeks now. I'm looking forward to being able to tell everyone because I'm having a really hard time trying not to look pregnant. My belly is hard, round and pretty obvious. I don't want to wear any of the maternity wear I bought in Canada because as soon as soeone sees an elastic waistband, the cat will be out of the bag. My regular trousers are so snug that I get really uncomfortable once I've eaten. I'm going to try wearing my regular jeans but using one of those big baby safety pins looped through the button hole to keep it fastened, let's see if that works. I also probably have to go for an interview at some point for this great job that I really want and stand a good chance of getting. I'm just hoping that they hold the interview while I can still hide my belly otherwise I probably won't get the job. Since its work on a 2-year project, I'm sure they won't want to hire me if it looks like I'm going to take off for 6 months maternity leave at some point. Heavens! You work part-time, don't you? That's great! I wish that I could do the same. What do you do (if you don't mind me asking)?

Wow, good luck with the interview (whenever it is), sounds like a fantastic opportunity. Maybe buy a dress slightly larger than you usually wear with perhaps a blazer? That might hide the belly a bit for the interview (assuming it'll be in the next couple of weeks) & buy you a little time. My job started out being a full time M-F thing but then the company started offering this work reduction schedule & there was a rumor that summer 2006 they'd go to mandatory Friday shut down & you'd only get 80% of your current full time pay but if you did it volunteerly you'd get 88%. Well I did it volunteerly & needless to say the mandatory Friday shut down never happened. But now I love schedule, M-Th and it works so well when I'm doing IVF. So I don't plan on going back full time, not anytime soon. I work for a business to business software developer, doing lead generation for our manufacturing solution product line. Inside sales type of thing. A good company to work for, very understanding about my ferility issues, etc. And it has flex hours, which is great. So what would this job entail? Good luck.

Hi Mega - I think we have a very similar cycle. This is my 1st IVF cycle. Started BCP tonight and taking lupron on Jan 25th. Hopefully AF starts the week after and then all the fun begins. I have never been sooo nervous about anything. I was hoping that Christmas would have produced a miracle but not the case. I have had it all done in 2006 and hope 2007 is our year. I don't know too much about IVF but starting to research and a nervous wreck with all the drugs and complications, etc. I just hope it works. Are the PIO really bad. That is what I am really scared of. I asked for supp but they said the PIO is much stronger. What day have you done your egg retrieccal and ET? I am trying to plan some time off from work but it all depends when AF comes. I can't tell my boss as I don't trust him so this is going to be hard with work. Did you need time off for either ER or ET? Good luck this cycle.

Welcome DCL, if you've read this whole thread you probably know that I got pregnant on my first attempt at IVF and I took (and am still taking) progesterone pills. But maybe your RE feels like you need PIOs because of your particular situation. I guess I had unexplained infertility where everything seems fine with me and my DP but we weren't getting pregnant, perhaps because we're both older. You don't need to take any time off for ET (although a few hours rest on your back certainly can't hurt) but it would be good to take a day off to rest after ER as you might encounter some discomfort post-retrieval. Mega, you sound really happy in your job, that's great. Not a lot of people can claim to be happy doing what they do. The job I'm looking at is working on the new Aid for Trade programme at the int'l organisation that I work for. Aid for Trade is when a developed country provides a developing country with financial and policy aid in return for a lowering of their barriers to trade (and foreign investment). This job would include taking care of relations with other int'l orgs, investment promotion agencies and of course, developing country governments. Thanks for the suggestion, I might just go out and get a new dress and blazer if my bump is very obvious when (and if) it comes to interview time.

Hi DCL! I also responded to your post on the IVFers thread. My RE says he recommends the prog shot because it's asorbed into the body better. Yes, it hurts but the benefits do outweigh the discomfort, since you must have prog to support pg. Most REs recommend at least a little "bed rest" after the ET, so plan on taking at least 1 if not 2 days off for that. I got lucky my 2nd time around & my ET fell on a Friday so I got the rest of the weekend to bum around, make my DH take care of me. And I agree with KB about taking the entire day off for ER, b/c with the anethesia you'll be loopy afterwards. I basically went home, had a light meal & slept almost the entire rest of the day. I'm sorry you don't have a supportive boss, that can make a big difference b/c it's a major time committment. You'll have a lot of dr's appts. leading up to the ER, they monitor you quite a bit. I was an uber responder (had 24 eggs total, 19 mature) so my last week of stimming I had dr's appts. every morning. Maybe if you tell your boss it's "women issues" he'll let it go at that & be agreeable with you anytime you need time off for appts?! I had my ER like 12 days after I started the Follistim, though it can vary quite a bit. I had a day 5 tx (blast tx). But I'm leaning towards a day 3 tx next cycle but the lab decides not me (depends on how the embies are doing, how many, how good of quality, etc). I'm glad we'll be on similar schedules this cycle. It's nice to have cycle buddies! KB--Wow, what a facsinating job. Good luck! Sounds fullfilling. And what a wonderful organization. My job isn't a carreer, or anything, but it's good for now. And I think things will be changing for the better this year, so I've got renewed optimism at least. You're welcome! Happy shopping. In Paris there are no shortages of places to shop, at least. Is Printemps department store still in business? I went there when I went to Paris with my mom at age 12, so aeons ago! Good old 80s fashion! Scary...

Hi girls, I guess you've probably read the Jan/Feb thread where I just posted. I have twins in there! I'm in big time shock. Even though I kind've felt like there was more than one in there I didn't want to think too much about it or develop an opinion one way or the other until I knew for sure. But we saw two bean-shaped thingys (one above the other) and two heartbeats. I swear you could tell that they were two little fetuses in there! The doctor said that the next 15 days are critical as the uterus could decide to spit one out, just like that, for no reason at all. He wants to do another u/s on 31 Jan and says that if there are still two in there, we can relax. He also said that I no longer need to take the prog pills since my body's hormones will be enough from now on. I'm glad about this since I thought I had to continue with them for another month and a half. They give me terrible indigestion. I know though that I have absolutely no right to complain since you girls take the shots and are so brave about them! What else? I have to have a number of blood tests for toxoplasmosis etc. but all in all it looks good. Wierdly enough, I haven't felt any morning sickness even though I heard that with twins you usually encounter double the morning sickness. Maybe its still to come. Wow, my life is going to be so different 8 months from now. Enough yammering from me, how are you? And how are you feeling? And where the hell is AF? Yes, Printemps is still very much around. I do go shopping there once in a while. Alll the best and I wish for you everything that has happened to me in the last month and a half. Oh, you asked where my brother lives, he lives in the U.K. in a town called Milton Keynes. Their baby has a spot of jaundice so mommy and baby have gone back into hospital. Hugs, KB