Almost there... (the weekend, that is)

Ok, I'm tired of talking about boys and how much they suck. Plus, I don't want to sound too much like a man-hater, because I do really, really like them... that just seems to be what my problem is.

So.. I have to take a moment to brag just a little bit. I had my first test tonight in Biostatistics I, and I made 108! Yay! Ok, enough.

I'm also excited today because I got my mother's wedding rings back from being sized... they survived Hurricane Katrina! This was her original wedding set (she has since gotten new rings to wear). They're not big or anything, but just very special, and we actually found them in the house after Katrina. It is really absolutely amazing that we found them. Mama had wanted me to have them, and now I do, so I had them sized to fit my finger and I'm going to wear them all the time! (I will wear them on my right hand, but in order to take a halfway decent pic, I had to put them on the left had to hold the camera with my right.)

Other news... I am going to soon be an egg (oocyte) donor. This means I'm going to basically go through a cycle of IVF (in vitro fertilization), but after my egg retrieval, I'm done. My eggs will be put with another woman's husband's sperm and then she will get the embryos back in her own uterus to hopefully get pregnant. It is completely anonymous.. I know nothing about the recipient couple, and all they know about me is physical traits, etc. This will be a couple who has been trying to get pregnant for a long time and has been unsuccessful using every other option. She may have no ovaries, have ovaries that don't produce eggs, have eggs that are genetically abnormal, or have some other reason that she has been unable to get pregnant with her own eggs. But regardless of their reason to need to use donor eggs, they desparately want a child, and I want to help them. I will start what is called "down regulation" on October 7, which requires giving myself a shot of Lupron once a day to suppress my ovaries. Then on October 21, I'll start taking shots of Follistim and Repronex (follicle-stimulating drugs), and over the next week and a half they (the Dr.) will monitor my blood levels of estradiol and do ultrasounds to follow the stimulation of my ovaries. Then, when they say my follicles are ready (to produce mature eggs), I will have the egg retrieval. It's just a basic outpatient procedure, where the doctor uses a needle guided by an ultrasound probe to aspirate the fluid out of all of my follicles. The lab takes the fluid and finds the eggs, and later puts them with the sperm. 3-5 days later, the recipient gets her embryos transferred into her uterus, and hopefully will get pregnant! That's basically IVF in a nutshell (which is what I do at work everyday, by the way). Sorry for the education!... hope y'all didn't mind. If you want to know more though, or have questions, ask me! :)

And guess what... TOMORROW IS FRIDAY!!! Hallelujah woohoo! A weekend off! :D

And.. let's not forget to buckle up! ;)