10 things I learned while stimming for IVF

I've been really trying to get my self in a calm state of mind (definitely easier said than done let me tell you) but it's meant a lot of thinking.  Through all that thinking, I've come up with this list of 10 things I've learned over the last month or so.  I thought I would share it with all of you who may either have an IVF coming or for myself as reminders should we (heaven forbid) have to do this again.

1. The amount an injection stings is directly correlated to the amount the injection site is going to bruise.  More Sting=More bruise
2. The farther from my belly button the injection is, the more it stings, therefor the more it bruises.  The top of my pubic line is all sorts of pretty colors right now :-(
3. Bring on the FAT clothes!!!! I haven't fit into my usual pants in a week.  Luckily I had a box of in between clothes that were set aside for when I got to big for regular clothes but hadn't bought maternity clothes yet.
4. If the bloat doesn't get you, the fatigue will.  Be prepared to not feel rested...ever
5. Combine bloating, fatigue, general sore belly and you get ZERO sex drive
6. Combine bloating, fatigue, general sore belly and no sex and you get cranky wife and frustrated husband
7. Always order extra syringes and needles, especially if your mail order pharmacy doesn't charge for them like mine.  1 needle and syringe cost me $12 at the local drugstore!!!!
8. Invest in a all cotton, no wire bra that is one cup size bigger than you usually wear.  You're going to want the extra support at night.
9. Take out stock in panty liners.  You'll be glad when you get to the 2www and the stock price skyrockets because you're buying so many :-)
10. Remember that your husband has to deal with you going through all this.  He may not be experiencing it directly, but he is experiencing through YOU.  He sees your pain, discomfort, frustrations, and happy moments.  As much as the crap you go through is tough for you, its even tougher for him because he can't fix it.  That inherent need that all men have to make it better cannot be satisfied, and that makes this process tough for him.

Fertilization Report

11 Total eggs retrieved
10 mature enough to inseminate
7 fertilized!!!

We will be doing the transfer on Tuesday.  EEEK!

Lab called

and woke me up from my nap (boo).  A's sample had low motility and low morphology so they went ahead and did ICSI on all the eggs, not just the 4 originally planned.  Me in my only half awake state forgot  to ask how many eggs total there were.  SHOOT!

Fertilization report will come tomorrow.  I didn't see Dr. RE after the retrieval, but A did and he seemed really optimistic, so fingers crossed!

Retreival done

We got at least 1o, maybe more.  I'm gonna go nap now.

Retreival on...

THURSDAY!!!

I don't have a ton of time, but I wanted to post an update.  Apparently my ovaries really like Follis.tim and Meno.pur.  I have 13 follicles that are ready to trigger and 2-3 more than will be by tomorrow.  EEEK!  Blood Levels are

E2: 1748!!!
Progesterone 1.1
LH 0.9

I'll post more tonight when I get home.

Saturday US and BW update and frustrations

I went this morning for another US and more blood work, and while I didn't have Mr. Fab tech I didn't have to deal with Ms. Crappy tech either.  I had the Saturday on call tech, and although she wasn't the most gentle I'm beginning to think that with the current state of my ovaries, ever Mr. Fab would make me uncomfortable.  She was pleasant and carried on good conversation with me.  Until she felt the need to tell me about her friend who decided that they were done with treatments and *poof* she got pregnant a month later when they weren't even really trying!  WOW how FANTASTIC for her.
Anyway, that was at 8 am this morning.  I got a promise from both the lab and the US tech that the results would be to the doctors office by 9.  They are an hour ahead of us so that meant the results would be at the office before they "closed" for the day.  The office closes at 10 on Saturdays and the phones roll to the answering service, but the nurses are there until noon.  A and I ran out to do some stuff around town after I mowed the lawn this morning, but I made sure one of us was near my phone the whole time. 2 o'clock game and went and still no phone call so I finally gave in and called the after hours line.  I left a message for them to call me back on the cell phone (the number I have told them time and time again to call me on) and still hadn't gotten a call at 3:15.  I finally called the house voice mail around 3:30 and sure enough the nurse had called that number.  GRRRR  We have a cell phone attached to our house number that we never turn on because the only people who usually call that number are telemarketers. 
SO because the nurse just left me a message, all I know is that things are progressing well and my E2 is up to 687. I don't know how many or the size of my follicles, I don't know my progesterone or LH, and I don't know my lining status.I do know that if things keep progressing the way they are, we will be triggering Monday night and retrieving Wednesday morning.  I have to got back for one more US and more blood draws on Monday morning. 

Ok Deep breaths...its not the end of the world that I don't have all the details I know...but the control freak in me really wants to have all the details and know all the information.  It really goes back to my main frustration with this office and being 3 hours away.  But I LOVE Dr. RE, so I'll deal with it.  Hopefully we won't have to do this again and all will be good.

So tired of being tired!

You know some of the medication side effects I expected...the bloating, the bruising, the mood swings...but this I didn't expect. I am so FRICKING TIRED!  I crashed on the couch about 9 pm last night, after sleeping for nearly 9 hours the night before, and I am sitting here in the last 15 minutes of work (shhh don't tell) desperately trying to stay awake long enough to get home and crash out on the couch again.  Its a really good thing its Friday and other than my US appointment at 8 tomorrow and church on Sunday, I don't have anything I HAVE to do all weekend.  (OK maybe a little work since I'll be out most of next week, but that's not on a time table)

Oh Yea, since I crashed last night, I never updated with my results!  Here you go:
Follicles (Right): 12, 11, 10, 10, 10, 9, 9 (7 total over 7mm)
Follicles (Left): 13, 12, 11, 8, 8, 8, 7 (also 7 over 7mm)
E2: 252
Progesterone: 0.8
LH 0.5
Lining: I forgot to ask!

So things are looking good.  If everything at or over 10 keeps going, we'll have 8 eggs to harvest!  Dr. RE really wants 10, so those 8's and 9's better pick it up.  I go back for another date with Mr. Wandy (and hopefully Mr. Fab Tech) on Saturday. If the research I've done is right, we're looking at retrieval probably Wednesday or Thursday which means transfer Monday or Tuesday (if we make 5 days).  I'm totally nervous right now!  Less than a week away!

Update - Appt with Mr. Wandy today

This is going to be a little random, so I apologize in advance.  I don't have too much going on...but things are going to start to get interesting.

I've leveled out emotionally mostly, but I bet A would say differently.  I've at least stopped randomly crying.  I'm still easily irritated, and I think its mainly because of the daily headache I have, and the bloating isn't helping, but truly those are the only two really side effects I've had.  I did feel like crap the first day of the FSH injections, but I'm sure that was just my body reacting to the meds...plus I forgot that I was only supposed to use HALF the saline to reconstitute the meno.pur OOPS!  I had this enormous lump on my belly ALL DAY and it was really uncomfortable. 

I've got this injection thing down to a routine now, although I still hesitate each time right before I stick myself.  I was doing great until my lu.pron on Sunday stung really bad and gave me an ENORMOUS bruise.  It was my first one (bruise I mean), and it just sucked!  So now I'm a little gun shy.

I feel so blessed to have been given an opportunity to help another couple struggling with IF.  Maddy was going to have to skip a cycle because finances were tight, and it just so happens that she is on one of the meds that I have extras of!   Now if I could just figure out all this stupid customs requirements, I can send this off to her in Canada!

*Family members and those who know A and I well may want to skip this one*  I feel really bad for A.  I've not really felt like ...um ...getting busy since the injections began.  Throw on top of it that I've been kinda bleeding since last Friday, and all loving has been nixed.  I know he's getting frustrated, and its not fair to him, but I'm just not feeling even helping him out. I'm such a bad wife!

I had my first monitoring US this morning.  I have to wait until this afternoon for the results.  As much as I just LOVE my appointments with Mr. Wandy they are made oh so much better by the crappy US tech at the hospital.  The women's center has 2 primary US techs, one guy and one woman, from here on know as Mr. Fab tech and Ms. Crappy tech.  Mr. Fab tech is AMAZING!  He's polite and ever so concerned about my modesty (because half of the medical professionals in out area haven't all ready been up my who-ha).  He always keeps me updated about whats on the screen that I can't see, even though he's not supposed to, and is just a general delight to spend an not so delightful procedure with.  Ms Crappy tech on the other hand is not so wonderful.  First off, she always hands me the wand OVER my belly instead of from under between my legs.  This means that I have to uncover to *ah-hem* insert Mr. Wandy, and inevitable she gets the blue goo on the sheet. So now I'm cold and I have blue goo on the sheet and me. GREAAAAT.  Now did I mention that Ms. Crappy tech is a very small woman?  Well she is, and that means that she makes grand large movements to compensate for it.  Including wide swings of Mr. Wandy back and forth looking for my swollen ovaries.  And she's none to gentle about it!!!  I just wanted to scream at her "They're not punching bags lady!"  Then she doesn't talk at all during the exam..NOT ONE WORD!  so I sit there uncomfortable in the silence with nothing to concentrate on but her jabbing at my uterus while she takes FOREVER!  oh yeah did I mention she's SLOW?  Mr. Fab tech take about 10 minutes to check and double check my ovaries and he's done.  Ms. Crappy tech?  I was in there for 20 minutes and she STILL wasn't done.  When she finally finished up, I managed to sneak a peek at the summary screen while she was printing the results.  It looked like a lot of follicles, at least 8 were listed, but I couldn't make out any of the sizes, and she of course was not telling me.

OK rant over.  Now that things are starting to get interesting, I will try really really hard to post more often.  A was getting on my case the other day that I wasn't posting and if I wanted people to read I actually had to post once in a while. Not that I'm so worried about having 300 followers or anything, but I do hate to neglect those I have.  I promise I'll be better.

One final thought, if you have a few extra prayers, please say them for Eileen.  She is 30 1/2 weeks pregnant with twins and has been having a really rough time.  From my guesses she's spent over half of her pregnancy in the hospital with one complication or another, and found out Monday she will be there until these babies are born.  The icing on the cake, she started having contractions yesterday!  She really wanted to make it to her scheduled C-section on August 31st, but her doctors really want he to make it to August at least.  I know that this community has amazing powers of prayer, and she could really use that right now.

Emotional Meltdown #1

I think it was inevitable...between starting the injections this weekend by myself, one of the fosters (dogs not kids) having 5 seizures over the course of 26 hours while A was still out of town, finally getting to the day of a major conference that I have been planning since March, a house that looks like a tornado came through it and house guests coming on Thursday, a major deadline that has to be met come hell or high water on Wednesday,   and then add to that the stress I've been feeling from a volunteer position at my church...I had a major meltdown tonight.  I'm still not 100% recovered...I start thinking about what happened tonight to trigger the waterworks and I think I'm going to start up again. 

Why is it so hard to choose between what is best for the greater whole and what is best for you?  I am really struggling about whether or not I should continue in my current volunteer position at my church.  A thinks that I should just quit...either that or he's just saying that so I will actually take some action.  The truth is I really haven't felt worshipful for weeks...maybe months.  Don't get me wrong, I have moments of worship, but its nights like tonight that I begin to question why I am really doing this.  Why do I put so much heart and effort in if no one else does.  I'm so frustrated because I know how things can be and (in my opinion) should be and what it will take to get there, and no one else seems to want to make it happen.

Or maybe its just the Lu.pron talking....they don't call it Loopy Lu.pron for nothing  *sigh*

And it begins

I'm exhausted, but I had to put up pictures of the pharmacy I received in the mail today...

And the bottom shelf of my fridge

That's what $6600 of Meds looks like.  I'm SO glad we have good insurance.  All of that cost us MUCH less that the $6600 cash price.

The Lu.pron started today.  And A is out of town so I get to do it all by myself.  Yea Fun.  Oh well bed time.

Pre Cycle Appointment

I haven't posted yet because there's not really much to report.  The pre-cycle appointment went off without much of a hitch.  Nothing unexpected, my cycle is right where I thought it would be (give or take a day), and I'm just generally anxious to get started.  One amazing thing I discovered in prep for this appointment was that I can get up to 10 300IU cartridges of Folll.istim and 30 vials of Meno.pur for one copay each!!!!  We are TOTALLY ordering extra this cycle and I will then either have it on hand if we need it again (hopefully NOT!) or I can donate it to the clinic and can help some other couple who don't have AMAZING medication coverage!  (Including a good friend who is starting an IUI cycle in about 2 weeks!!!)

I have also been blessed to find I have a cycle buddy, Kakunaa, who is actually starting Lup.ron on the SAME DAY I am. (Friday!  Holy crap that's 2 days from now!!!)  If you don't read her blog, I encourage you to go over and check her out.  She's also given me a blog award...but I'll have to write that post later tonight.

So that's the news for now.  I hope you all are having a great short week!