Warning: This will be confusing, but you'll get the point.
As previously mentioned, my Follistim injection was increased after my last baseline. My Estradiol was 216, which is a little lower than they wanted. So, now I will take 200iu of Follistim as opposed to 150iu per day. Anyone going through IVF knows that the cardinal rule of the RE is you must be responsible for your own meds. It is an IVF no-no to run out of meds, so your ass better pay attention to what's left. Oh, and you'll need at least a high school education to calculate what you have used, what you may need, and how many refills are left. So, yesterday I realized that I should probably call my IVF nurse and tell her that she needs to call in a refill on the Follistim. Oh, I need to talk about IVF nurses one day too! But this story first. So, all I need is a little more Follistim. Here's how it goes down:
The IVF nurse needs to call my insurance. This is the fertility division and it has a separate name. So, I have BCBS HMO and Wynn takes care of fertility. I wait for Wynn to call and confirm. Well, today I still have no call and no call from Walgreens. Walgreens does the shipping and co-pays. So, this morning I call Walgreens. They said they don't have it and neither does Wynn. Okay, no problem. The IVF nurse is probably busy, I'll give her until 10am to call it in. Mind you, this was to be done yesterday. 10am, no call. I call the RE and leave a message for the IVF nurse.
One hour later, Wynn calls. No problem, they'll get the new Follistim refilled. They only want to give me four days worth though. They are obviously real conservative as this is like liquid gold to IF patients, but hello? I'll be calling again in a four days if my body is not ready for retrieval. Oh well, I figure I'll just take the four days. So she tells me to wait for Walgreens to call and confirm delivery. So, I wait and wait. No call. I call them. Walgreens tells me that the doctors office didn't fill something out right. Great! So, I call them. Now the IVF nurse realizes her mistake. Something about writing the wrong iu's (see math is very important!). Okay, now Walgreens calls me back to schedule a delivery that I won't be home for! Sweet! I ask her what I should do if I won't be home. She tells me I need to send it to someone else I know. So, now I let the injectable hormones take over. I tell her, "Um, what do you do if you have no one?" Yea, I have family I tell her. Geez, do I have to explain to her that we aren't telling family so they aren't let down? Or we don't want to answer 45,000 questions everyday? Anywho, now they will be shipped to FedEx and I will pick it up there. When Walgreen's and I hang up, Wynn calls to see if Walgreens called. The cherry on top was when the IVF Nurse called to see if Wynn called. So, from 8am to 5pm (and nine calls later), I earned mys
elf one cartridge of 900iu of Follistim. That shit better work!That reminds me, time to shoot-up.
I was actually getting worried that these injections were having no effect on me. I mean, I know I go to get the ute cam and they tell me how many follies I have, but seriously, I was feeling nothing! Enter today. . . I noticed some real up and down emotions coming along. I think Mr. Later Than Most could stick his tongue out at me and I would probably cry. Luckily, I've learned to count by 10's during movies, commercials, and other things that make me sad. Counting by 10's is not only great for my students, but also a great emotion distraction.
Now, these dreams have to be part of the side effects. Last night I had a dream that Mr. Later Than Most met a new girl, divorced me, and then never talked to me again. Boy was I pissed at him when I woke up. Also, I remember some random dream the other day about swimming in some big, dangerous water park. I mean seriously, a water park?
My favorite part of hormones is the hot flashes. They were much worse when I was on 10iu of Lupron. Now that I'm on 5, they don't come as often. Nothing like going through a fake change-of-life.
Last night I really did myself in. Right before my night stims I put an icepack on my stomach. It worked like a charm the night before. Well, I left it on too long (about 5 minutes) and literally burned my stomach. Let's put it this way. . . the top layer of skin was as hard as a rock. I actually thought a layer of ice pack was stuck to my skin. I think Mr. Later Than Most was really pissed at me. He thought I had frost burn. Funny as it sounds, I still have a huge, red icepack outline 24 hours later. So, not only did I not get to use my icepack today, but I had to put that damn needle through the burn. Oh, and my stomach looks like a dartboard. Good times! Today when I went to acupuncture, I was really wanting to hug all of those little needles he puts in. They are nothing compared to this nightly fun. You know, if I count it all, I've had 20 needles just today. . . of course that includes the acupuncture.
I gotta say, going through all of this is really manageable. I try as much as possible to stay as positive as I can. Each day, is another day. I'm very grateful for all of my IF friends who keep me going!
Fertility drugs are good for giving you extreme bloat. Luckily, I'm a recreational shopper and I'm prepared for this baby injection bump. I bought one of those maternity bands on Ebay a couple of weeks ago. I had read that some girls ordered them for IVF for when they were bloated from meds. Also, the RE outright told me that a 5lb weight gain is rather normal. So, here I am with a Follstim/Menopur baby bump and practically rigging maternity jeans with an empty ute.
In addition to a bloat bump, I've been analyzing every symptom to see if it's a side effect. This reminds me of my good 'ole two week wait times. I would think every feeling and twinge was a symptom of pregnancy. Now I'm analyzing symptoms for OHSS. So far, only the mini bloat seems to be a symptom.
Well, I'm 15 short minutes from tonight's stims. I have a bruise from last night's, so I'm hoping this one works a little better. I think I was too rough with the needle! I'm very excited for my next appointment on Thursday. They should have a clearer picture of when my retrieval will be. . . next week!
Estradiol: 216: A little low so I will switch from 150iu of Follstim to 200iu and continue with 2 vials Menopur
Lining: 6.3mm
Follies: 18
Well, on Friday we arrived in "Farmville" which is were we gather for Mr. Later Than Mosts family functions. I'm a city girl, so this place is really out there. I've been going for years so by now I'm used to it. Although, I must point out that they didn't have water the first 4 years I went there. Yes, an outhouse was in order. So DH and I smuggled all the meds down there without anyone knowing. I'm glad we didn't say anything to people, because this was a good weekend to forget about TTC as much as possible, well, until the needles came out. Before we left, I waited and waited for my RE's office to leave my message for me. Big offices give you a voicemail box. Then, you call into it on days you had BW and ultrasound. So, the call-in hours are from 2-4pm. Well, what time do you think my message was left? Try 3:55pm. Not that I was waiting. Anyway- I couldn't get all the meds packed for the weekend until the RE left my message on my amounts. So Mr. Later Than Most came home from work to a kitchen table full of meds. Talk about confusing! We were all, "Wait, this needle goes here and that cap goes here." And then there was some of, "So wait. This vial has 2ml so that's two days worth? No one! Wait, no two!" We sat there for like 10 minutes just staring at everything. Finally, we got it all packed and put the Follstim in a little cooler. When we got to bufu, I put the Follstim in the back of the fridge and the rest in my suitcase. We got there on Thursday night. Friday night comes around fast. So far we had hidden a Mr. and Mrs. dose of antibiotics and my prenatals and aspirin. I swear, I feel like a walking pharmacy. So at 8:00, we both sneak in the bathroom and lay everything for injections. The rest of the family was hanging outside around the fire, so this was easy to do. It took us about 10 minutes to get it all done. Our nurse taught us how to combine medications to make one less injection, so there is a lot of needle switching and powder diluting. Finally, we get it all done and Mr. Later Than Most is ready to inject me. You know, when we went to injects class I thought this was a great idea, having the husband shoot-up the wife. Um, no. That shit hurts more when he does it! LOL Not because he doesn't do it right, but because you are just sitting there waiting. I decided to do it myself. So, that nice 27 gauge needle stung. It's not easy to hold the one inch need in you and inject 3 ml of liquids in. When I pulled it out, I complained a lot. This worked well, because I got all kinds of props from MH. It made me feel better. :) So Saturday night we continued the smuggling. We snuck into the bathroom and this time, right when I was about to shoot myself, I started crying! OMG! I remembered how that bastard stung the night before. Luckily, Mr. Later Than Most was like, "Someday you can tell our kids what you had to go through to get them." That made me laugh and so it didn't hurt so bad. I had to leave the family festivities a day early because I have my Day 4 blood work and ultrasound on Monday. Tonight I got all of the meds and needles lined up in the bathroom. I had a great idea and put an icepack on my stomach while I mixed all of those meds. Let me just say, by the time I screwed the final needle on the plunger thingie, my stomach was too numb to feel the alcohol swab! I shoved that needle in no problem. It didn't help me push that liquid in any faster though. Oh well! As far as I can tell, I don't have any side effects 3 days in. I think I may be a little shorter tempered with Mr. Later Than Most, because I notice he keeps saying I'm grouchy. Tomorrow I'll have some levels to report!
Baseline results for Thursday, July 1st:
Estrogen level: 22
LH: 4.0
Progesterone: 1.2
Follies: 18 (yes!)
In short, all is normal!
This weekend is a family weekend for sure. We are driving four hours to hang out with Mr. Later Than Most's family. He'll have at least four family members staying where we are staying, and more family in and out. So of course, I'm starting to stim tomorrow. Our families don't have any info on our IVF or TTC, so we're kinda hiding everything. I really don't suggest that, but it's just the way we are doing things.
So today I emailed MH and asked him what he thought about telling his mom. I told him I would feel a little more comfortable if they knew, as we will be smuggling drugs into the house and fridge. Well, he didn't go for it. He said there would be no point in telling them if it "doesn't work." Hmmmmm, I'm rather sure if this was the other way around and he was stimming, he would probably understand better. That's what is hard about all of this IF stuff. Us girls have to do a lot more than the guys, therefore they are no as vested. I'm not saying MH is not vested, he is. He always asks me how the injections went and is ready to mix stims and shoot me up, however, it's still not the same as going through it yourself.
Needless to say, the weekend should be interesting. We travel to a rural area, so Internet, blogs, and my social networking sites are out of the picture. I'm praying that my hormone injections do not get the best of my mood this weekend.
On the IVF front, I went in for my baseline BW and ultrasound today. I gotta say, I've had internal ultrasounds 3 times and I'm just not a fan. It's a little uncomfortable! The bloodwork I don't mind. My RE's office is huge, so I have a voicemail box at the office. I am to call-in to my messages after 2pm and instructions will be left. They'll tell me how many units and when to start stimming (which should be tomorrow). Also, they'll tell me when to book my next appointment. In addition, on Day 1 of stims I'll add antibiotics and baby aspirin to the mix. If you are keeping track of the meds, that makes 5 pills a day and 2 injections. If MH can't get the injections mixed right, then three injections. Let's pray he knows what he's doing!
Happy 4th!
elf one cartridge of 900iu of Follistim. That shit better work!