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 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.