The One with the Trigger

Yes, ladies and gentlemen (or all three people that read my blog), I triggered tonight at 7:30 pm.  Let me back you up to my appointment this morning.

I went in for my eleventy jillionth monitoring appointment this morning and had blood work and an ultrasound done.  Blood work was stabby and difficult as usual so I won't bore you with that.

Ultrasound went really well and the nurse was super nice this morning.  She got the vag cam all ready to go and did her thing.  She found 5 mature follies on the left and 5 mature follies on the right.  'Bout time lefty caught up!  Both of the lead follicles (which are the largest ones) are at almost 20mm.  The other four on each side are between 16 and 19mm.  She told me there are still multiple on each side that are smaller than 12mm, but they may mature a little more before the retrieval.  Vag cam nurse said there was a good chance I would trigger tonight but that Dr. Bow Tie may make me do one more day of stims.

I went about my business with the littles today and spent some time at school this morning getting my classroom ready.  We went out to lunch and as we were pulling out of the parking lot, my nurse called with my plan.  "You are going to trigger tonight" were the greatest words she could have said ("You are pregnant" will sound even better though!).

She gave me all of my instructions:
1. Do the Ovidrel trigger shot at 7:30pm tonight.  Ovidrel is an hCG shot that will cause my follicles to release the mature eggs for retrieval.
2. Stop all other meds.
3. Do not eat or drink after midnight the night before the retrieval.
4. Make sure Hubs is ready to put his guys to work on the morning of the retrieval.
5. Come in Friday morning at 7am for the retrieval.

I am so super excited that this was finally happening!

Fast forward to this evening and I was ready to go.

The magic shot that will make my follies spit out their eggs (it's probably much more technical than that!)

Yea! I'm super excited about my last needle for a good long while!

I made Hubs take a video of the shot and everything, but it won't upload.  I apologize that you won't get to see extreme stomach chub meet stabby needle.  I know you were really looking forward to it.  If I can figure it out, I'll upload it later.

I'm off to rest and relax because I know starting tomorrow I'm going to get pretty uncomfortable.  I'll update on how I'm feeling tomorrow.

The One with Yemen

My ovaries are still the laziest creatures on Earth.

I went in for my monitoring appointment this morning and while there have been some small changes, I am still considerably behind schedule.  Hubs came with me to the appointment and got a lesson in vag cam 101 while he was there.

Stabbing episode #486 was up first and when the phlebotomist saw my arm she gasped out loud.  Gee, thanks that makes me feel a ton better about how my arm is looking!  I asked her to look for a vein on the left arm since my right was so angry and she tried her hardest to find something over there.  With no luck, she asked about going over to the right.  Obviously, I didn't have a choice so I let her poke around over there for a bit.  She finally found one to the side of the monster bruise and did a little digging around before she got a vein.  In my next life, I am asking God for veins fit for a heroin addict.  I don't think it's an unreasonable request.

Hubs (who had to leave the room during the blood work because of his needle-phobia) and I went across the hall to take a look at my follies.  The tech was super nice and explained everything she was doing to Hubs as she went.  This time, she gave me a paper to record my follie size.  They only measure ones that are more than 12mm in size.  On the left, I didn't have any that were measurable at this point, but I had 7 that she could see.  This is up from the 4 on Wednesday.  On the right, she found 3 that were measurable.  One was at 16, one was at 14, and one was at 12.  Then there were 6 that weren't measurable yet.  A small improvement from Wednesday, but not the numbers I want to see on day 9 of stims.  She told me to try not to stress out about it and that I'd get a phone call later today with the update to my plan.

I am starting to get so frustrated and impatient here.  I allowed myself a small cry while Hubs put some gas in his monstrosity of a truck and had a few moments of woe is me.  This IF stuff sucks big fat balls.  Everything is so wait-and-see and there are days when I honestly feel like we are never going to get a take home baby.  It's so incredibly hard to stay positive when your body is fighting you every step of the way.  From the beginning, there has always been a part of me that wondered if there was something else wrong with me that was causing us not to get pregnant and that the doctors had missed.  Even with all the testing we went through, I still had this small voice in my head (she sounds like Janice from "Friends" btw) telling me, "Oh.  My.  God.  How do you know that something else isn't wrong?  Did they really check for everything?"  I usually tell Janice to get on a plane and go to 15 Yemen Road, Yemen (go watch this episode of "Friends" if you haven't seen it), but there are days when she and her annoying voice creep in.  Today is definitely one of those days.

This video can't be embedded on the blog, but it will take you to the YouTube clip and it's the best on I could find.

Several hours have gone by since I started this post and I heard back from the nurse.  All of my meds are going to stay the same and I am going back in on Monday for blood work and an ultrasound.  My E2 level was up to 393 which is good news (it was at 90 on Wednesday).  The nurse seems to think we are still on track for a Wednesday or Thursday retrieval.  The e2 level gave me a little more hope, but I am still having a Janice day.  As one of my friends told me it's better to freak out now before the little buggers are in there.  I'm going to embrace the "blah" day and know tomorrow will be a new and more positive day.

Hubs and I are going to watch a movie.  Maybe it takes place in Yemen...

The One with the Monitoring

I had my first monitoring appointment this morning.  It only involved blood work today, which was quick and almost painless.  Dr. Bow Tie was checking my estradiol (E2) level, which is a form of estrogen.  That level rises as my follicles grow and produce eggs.  The blood sucker guy took a while to get a vein, as I sat with the tourniquet tied around my arm on tightness level 300 on a scale of 1 to 10.  Eventually, he stuck me, got his vial and I was on my way.

If you look closely, you can see the remnants of the death grip the tourniquet had on my arm.

As if getting stabbed with a needle wasn't torture enough for me this morning, I decided to take a swing by school to do some work in my classroom.  I lasted about an hour and a half before I was sweating bullets and cursing the fact that I was even in there when I still have so much some time left in the summer.  I did manage to rearrange some furniture and unpack a few boxes of supplies that had been delivered.  I also got all my welcome letters to my students organized and those will go in the mail tomorrow.  I'm trying to will more days of summer.  Maybe if I wish hard enough for it I can make it happen.  

Fast forward a few hours, a lunch, and a nice afternoon spent reading outside later, and I got a phone call from the nurse at Dr. Bow Tie's office.  She told me that my E2 level wasn't as high as they'd like to see it at this point so my dose of Follistim was going to be increased.  I fully expected this to happen as Dr. Bow Tie said he was starting me on a low dose to see how I would respond.  So, she told me to keep the Lupron dose the same and to increase the Follistim to 225 iu starting tonight.  She set up a monitoring appointment for me on Wednesday to do an ultrasound and blood work.  Hopefully, the oves will be in full production by then and I'll be able to see some action on the screen.

I'm headed up to a conference in Some Town Super Far Away, Massachusetts tomorrow and will be gone all day.  More traveling with meds.  I'll keep you posted on how it goes shooting myself up with meds on the Mass Pike.