The Dotson Family Adoption

It's been a very long week. This is the first chance I have had (and felt like) to leisurely sit at the computer. We had a little bit of a roller coaster ride this week...  Thursday I went back for blood work and the ultrasound. My blood work has continued to look good. We could definitely see my ovary on Thursday! We even saw the "remnant" ovary on my left side! The left ovary had one small follicle  (WHOA! IT WORKS!)  and the right ovary had 2 follicles. (follicles are what they look for to determine how many eggs you have). Typically they average 8 to 10 eggs a cycle. So this was the discouraging news. So we were pretty much ready to cancel this cycle and start over next month, until... my blood work came back and Dr. Dunaway really felt like my ovary had to have more happening than we could see. Being that the ovary is crammed between my kidney and liver, this didn't surprise him that we might not be seeing everything. So... we did one more night of injectio...

I had labs drawn this morning and an ultrasound. I will go ahead and tell you the results and then share my waiting room story. :) We knew that it was a possibility that they wouldn't be able to see my ovary. It's basically likes to hide between my kidney and liver. No one has ever been able to see it on ultrasound - but they have seen it through laparoscopy. The reason they thought they might see it is because the follicles should show up as they grow and the ovary gets bigger. Anyways.... they could not see the ovary. This was very discouraging because we had to wait all day for he lab results. This was a true test of handing it all over to God and know that we have absolutely no control over the results. My nurse called to let me know that my levels have increased from a baseline of 11 to 204 today. So this means that I am responding to the stimulation meds. It was enough of an increase that he did not increase my dosages. I'm very thankful for that because that mean...

Today was day 3 of Stim Meds. It went much smoother than day 1 and 2! It was good to have had plenty of practice with the Lupron for the past few weeks, to take some of the anxiety away. Here is a pic of my lovely collection of meds... Day 1 was just funny. The meds have to be given between 4 and 6 - so I worked all morning and then we ran errands to keep our minds off of the thought - otherwise we probably would have made ourselves sick reading blogs and watching videos. We got him just around 4:30 and pulled out the instruction video that the doctor office gave us - it was completely in spanish and 30 minutes long. Luckily earlier in the week I had seen another (fast) video in English on YouTube (from a clinic)... So we just used that and it has been simple to give. It just made us laugh. a lot. I had trouble with a stupid air bubble in the menopur, but once medicine started shooting out of the needle, I freaked out (1. this stuff is expensive and 2. it was almost 6) and just stuck ...

After last Fridays visit to the doc - and loading up on antibiotics to knock out an infection, I feel so much better. I think the infection was probably making me more more sick than the Lupron.  I will begin my stim injections (Follistim & Menopur) tomorrow. I will go in for labs & an ultrasound on Monday morning. From there we will know when the retrieval will be. *side story about going in Monday for labs: I'm a little nervous b/c the last time I did labs was the morning I was told my friend, Amanda, had been murdered . I was parking when I found out. So I was in a "zone"; trying not to cry and asking why... I walked down the hall and noticed a lot of women were sitting in the hallway, waiting. I walked past them and stood by my doc's locked door (they weren't open). When they opened the door, I stepped to the side to let the other women in. I walked in last, as I did this lady came running down the hall and proceeded to cut in front of me. I was ...

My IVF nurse called Monday to let me know that I needed to start my Lupron injection. So I had the joy of giving myself my very first injection. It wasn't bad at all. I didn't even feel the needle. I was so nervous, I watched multiple videos, read blogs and so did Kelly - as he is "the back up plan" - if for some reason I couldn't do it. Well... there we were standing in the kitchen with everything sterilized and ready. I grabbed the fat on my thigh and Kelly says, "Oh! My Dad and the boys are here" (they were bringing me banana pudding) so I said, "it's now or never" and I did it without flinching! I was so excited to have done that and it be no big deal... until about 20 minutes later when I began to vomit. So began a pretty long night. I already had a lot of pain from the surgery and then vomiting did not make it any more comfortable. I wasn't able to eat anything but crackers for dinner (not a bad thing for my diet!) The rest of ...

Well, I have decided to once again try to revive our blog. I'm not promising anything and I'm not going to come up with any cute "themes" to try to keep me motivated. My main goal is to update those who have an interest in what is happening in our life - especially those who aren't living in the same area. It's been really hard to keep everyone up to speed the past few months.  Disclaimer : This does include lots of medical info. I did try to dance around the details. There is nothing "gory" in here, but just wanted you to be warned. :) This past October I was told that if we wanted to have children, now is the time. According to my doctor, since I have Spina Bifida, my biological clock is ticking about 5 years ahead of my age. He also is thinking in terms of my being able to carry more than one pregnancy, so the sooner the better (or more children we can have). We believe that God is sovereign and able to do anything at anytime. With this news...

Ingredients: Crawfish Wontons Fresh Spinach Leaves (one leaf per wonton) Cream Cheese Mixture: (mix together in a bowl) 4 oz. Cream Cheese, softened 4 oz. Sour Cream 1 tsp. Soy sauce 1 tsp. Garlic Powder 1 tsp. Tony’s  1/4 c. chopped red onion 1 tsp. Parsley, chopped 1 tsp. Basil, chopped 1 tsp. Cilantro, chopped 1 tsp. Oregano, chopped Instructions: After mixing the cream cheese mixture together, lay out your first wonton.  Place one spinach leaf on the wonton.  Place a spoonful of the cream cheese mixture on top of the spinach leaf, then place 2 crawfish on top of that.  Pull the four corners of the wontons together. (Wet the wonton with a basting brush to help it stick). (you can also make these into egg rolls) Fry or steam however you like!  Dip in Soy or Teriyaki Sauce!  Enjoy!