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 the Whining

The title of this post is your official warning.  This will be a post filled with complaining.  Stop now if you don't want to listen to me bitch.

I went back for my 85th monitoring appointment this morning.  My veins are so mad at me that I'm pretty sure they are on strike.  My vag has been probed so many times with the cam that she is awfully pissed there hasn't been an offer of a dinner date.  Or even a movie.

The ultrasound was up first today.  There has been some small progress with the ove's.  There are now 3 measurable follies on the left and 4 measurable follies on the right.  She said there were multiple ones on the left that were less than 12mm and 6 on the right that were less than 12mm.  I have been chatting with them lately telling them to get their asses in gear.  The numbers of follies is great; it's the size that needs to improve.

Whoever said size didn't matter was lying.

Vein assault was next.  I had the joy of being stuck twice this morning.  The first vein she tried has officially said FU to the lovely phlebotomists at my center.  It is closed for business.  She found another one toward the top of my arm and did a little digging to get the butterfly needle deep enough to pierce it.  The digging was awesome I tell you.

  The proof is in the bandages.  Just another war wound to add to the list.

I am nannying this week and next.  The family I work for is fantastic and I am so lucky to be able to share with them what is happening.  They are so understanding and have been so flexible with me needing time off in the near future for the retrieval and transfer.  Look, that whole paragraph was positive and didn't include one whine!

To counter that Pollyanna paragraph, I'm going to tell you what is happening in the side effects department.  There is really only one new joy to add to the list, but it's a doozie.  

So, here goes.

I am extremely aware of my ovaries.  I don't just mean that I think about them way more than is normal for any sane person.  I mean I can feel them growing.  Starting last night, I have been having these strange feelings in my lower abdomen.  I described it to my mother tonight as such, "It feels like period cramps, combined with needing to poop, combined with eating too much and drinking a ton of beer.  It's a full feeling."  It's not painful, just uncomfortable.  I know it's going to get worse too.  Clearly none of this compares to the pain of childbirth, which I am paying thousands of dollars to experience some day, so I really shouldn't bitch and moan too much over here.  But I am.  And will most likely continue to.  You're over it.

I heard back from the nurse this afternoon while I was at Barnes and Noble with the kiddos.  My super nice nurse said to keep stabbing myself with the same meds and set me up with another monitoring appointment for Wednesday morning.  Which means retrieval will not be until Friday at the earliest.  I totally forgot to ask her what my E2 level was as I was trying to wrangle three kids under 7 away from the plethora of toys at Barnes and Noble (isn't this supposed to be a book store?!).  So, more waiting.  I really do appreciate the fact that I am doing this crazy stuff during the summer while I'm not teaching because I don't know how people with jobs do this.  This IVF shit is a full time job.

I leave you with the proof of my vein assault and funny image that pretty much sums up this awesome IVF journey.

Bruise #129.  My body hates me and the general public thinks I'm being domestically assaulted.

Stolen from here

Hubs promised me froyo after my Follistim shot.  I'm off to require him make good on that promise.

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 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.