The One with the Lazy Ovaries

Hi, my name is Jessica and I have lazy ovaries.  

(Here's your part)...

::Hi, Jessica::

Yesterday was my second monitoring appointment on day 6 of stims.  I went in for blood work and an ultrasound.  My date with the vampire was first and she asked if I wanted her to use the left arm since the right was already bruised.  Well maybe if you guys hadn't bruised me in the first place it wouldn't be an issue.  But I was nice and told her there's usually more luck in the right, so stab away she did.  Didn't hurt too much at that point and I headed down the hall for my ultrasound.  

As I stripped off my underwear, all I could think was, "Please let them be growing.  Please let something be happening with these ovaries."  Vag cam made an appearance, got lubed and condomed up, and the black and white blurry images appeared on the screen.  The tech was super sweet and told me my lining looked decent, but that it had some thickening to do.  She spotted 4 follicles on the left and 5 follicles on the right, but all of them were not measurable.  Damn it, this can't be good, I thought. Got myself cleaned up and the tech told me to expect a phone call that afternoon with my plan.

I interrupt this lazy ovary story with a quick recap of my trip to Almost-in-New-York-and-Vermont-at-the-same-time, Massachusetts on Tuesday.  I mentioned that I would be administering meds on the trip and I can now say that I have stabbed myself at...

...wait for it...

...McDonalds.  In the bathroom.  

I must say, McDonalds in random MA town, your bathroom was quite lovely.

I laughed at the absurdity of the situation most of the time I was prepping and giving myself the shot.  Only with infertility does this shit happen.  I had to laugh or I may have cried.

But, I digress.  Back to the stupid lazy ovaries.

My nurse called as I was pulling into the driveway yesterday afternoon after a morning at school (balls hot and so depressing yet again).  She told me that my meds were going to stay the same and that I just appeared to be a slow responder, but that I was responding.  She gave me the same info about the number of follies that the tech had told me about in the morning.  She also told me the lining of my uterus was at 6mm.  They want to see it to be at least 7mm.  I asked about my E2 level.  On Monday, it was 49 and yesterday it was at 90.  Still too low, but at least it had increased with the change in Follistim.  They like to see the E2 over 100 and closer to 150 at this point.  Again, lazy ovaries, lazy estrogen, lazy me!

I asked the nurse about our retrieval date.  At this point, I knew we'd be pushed back but I wanted to know if she had any idea when it would be now.  She told me they would know a lot more after my next appointment, but that she didn't expect the retrieval to happen before next Thursday the 16th.  That date actually works better because of Hubs' work schedule, but it's just one more delay.  I asked the nurse if I should be concerned at this point and she was very reassuring.  She told me I'm just a slow responder and that there are follicles there.  They are just being lazy and need a little more encouragement to get going.  She did make me feel better, but there is still a huge part of me that is petrified we will get canceled.  I honestly don't know if I can handle that.  This has been such a long journey and if we can't even get to the retrieval and transfer, I am going to feel like such a failure.  But, I trust Dr. Bow Tie and I know he knows what he's doing, so I put my ovaries and my future baby in his hands.  Now we wait.

My next appointment for blood work and an ultrasound is Saturday.  Hopefully, there will be some nice growth by then.  I started talking to them yesterday.  "Please little follies, grow nice and big so one of you can hold the special egg that will be our baby.  I need you to do your part and I promise to do mine."  Yeah, I'm probably going crazy, but I'll try anything at this point.

Oh, remember that vampire from the beginning of this post?  Well she nicked a vein when she stabbed me and I developed this awesome addition to the war wounds.

The blood from the vein pooled in my forearm.  Hurts like crazy.

My right arm looks like I've been in a battle.

Needless to say, we will be using my left arm on Saturday.

I'm home today waiting for a refill of the Follistim to be delivered.  I needed to get more once my dose got increased.  I'll be continuing to read Bloom: Finding Beauty in the Unexpected by Kelle Hampton while I wait for UPS.  She writes an amazing blog that I have been following for a while.  I have wanted to read this book since it came out this winter, but I hadn't gotten around to it.  When I saw it in the library yesterday, I was super happy to bring it home and start it.  I made it about 3 sentences in before the tears came.  I know the story through her blog, but her hopes and fears about motherhood and the unexpected diagnosis of her daughter with Down syndrome tugs at my heart right now.  These damn hormone meds don't help my stability either!

Think follie growth and smaller bruises for me, please.

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.

The One with the Mother of All Bruises

As I write this, I have been "stimming" for two days.  That means I have started my stimulation medication to make my ovaries produce somewhere close to seventy bajillion eggs so that they can get sucked out of me and go frolic with Hubs' sperm.

On Friday morning, I cut my Lupron does in half down to 5 iu.  The leprechauns have happily departed and my head feels back to normal.  I did my first Follistim injection on Friday night.  Follistim is a different setup than the Lupron.  It involves a cartridge full of medicine that gets put inside a "pen" and injected through an attached needle.  Little more complicated to administer.  It also has to be refrigerated which can cause the medicine to hurt more going in if you don't follow the directions and let it get to room temperature first.  What idiot wouldn't follow the directions though?!  ::hangs head in shame::

Follistim comes in this super stylish case.  I may accessorize my next outfit with it.

Pen with the medicine cartridge underneath and the needles at the bottom.  Looks innocent enough, right?  I mean how much hurt can something that looks like a Bic pen cause?

Close-up of the pen without the cap.  And more importantly, without the needle.

So the needle gets attached and the medicine gets "dialed" up.  That means I use the yellow turny dial on the top to dial up to 175 iu of the medicine.  And then I stab inject myself.

I didn't exactly follow the whole let it get to room temp direction and it definitely hurt going in.  And it also hurt after it went it.  And it also caused quite a bit of blood when the needle came out.  And it also brought about the nastiest bruise yet.

I give you...the mother of all bruises.

I also had my first traveling with meds experience yesterday.  My cousin and her boyfriend were having a party in Connecticut and Hubs and I took the two hour drive to go see them.  Because I have to administer the Follistim at the same time every night, it had to come with us.  I packed the Follistim purse in a cooler with ice packs, along with my baby sharps container and the dip I was bringing to the party. 

Hello, thanks for having us.  Here is the dip I made.  Oh don't mind the needles.  It's all part of the roller coaster.

(Side note:  This dip was amaze-balls.  Highly recommend you make it and then maybe just eat it with a spoon.  Like now.)

This time, I set a reminder on my phone so I took the medicine out about fifteen minutes before I was ready to shoot myself up.  This helped a lot with the pain.  Snuck off to the bathroom with my cooler of drugs and needles and put my ove's to work.

I go in tomorrow morning for my first monitoring blood work appointment.  Fingers crossed that everything looks good.

I leave you with a picture of Hubs in his new shirt.

Pretty much sums it up right there.

Enjoy your Sunday!

The One with the Baseline

I had my baseline appointment this morning.  This appointment is to check my ovaries to make sure they are sufficiently "sleeping" and to have something to compare the rest of my appointments to in the future.  I had blood work and an ultrasound.  The blood work went surprisingly well considering my teeny tiny nonexistent veins.  The techs at my center are awesome and she got a vein on the first stick.  The blood test was to check my e2 (estrogen) levels and also make sure I'm not already pregnant (would I be doing the stabby needle thing if I was?!).

Only a small mark from the needle and I'm crossing my finger that there won't be a bruise.

The ultrasound involved the tech sticking the vag cam in my va-jay-jay and checking my ovaries for their size and to look for any cysts.

The vag cam.  Come on, you know you're jealous I had a date with this guy this morning.

When the ultrasound was over, the tech said everything looked the way it should and I should expect a phone call this afternoon.

My phone rang around 1:30 this afternoon and the nurse said the blood work and ultrasound were perfect.  She went through the next steps with me.  Tomorrow morning, I cut the dose of Lupron in half (thank you sweet Jesus!) and continue taking 5 iu for the remainder of the cycle.  Tomorrow night, I add in 175 iu of Follistim.  This is the stimulation medication that will help my ovaries to produce lots of eggs.  I go back to the doctor's office on Monday for blood work to check my hormone levels.  Hopefully everything will look fabulous and I'll be able to continue the protocol.

Updated calendar with the new meds and appointments.

I'm nervous, excited, and hoping that the leprechauns (The Leprechauns with Spikey Shoes) are gone for good.  I'll post again after the addition of the Follistim.  Crossing my fingers that my ove's start doing lots of egg producing!