Well, this is new.
I'm at CD9 today (Day 8 of stims) and this morning's check revealed a 6, two 9s, and a 10. I'm guessing the 6 is the same 6 from last time, and that fucker isn't likely to grow. But the 9s were 7s on Friday, and the 10 was an 8.
I took a look back at some notes I had on previous cycles.
IVF #1: on CD9 I had five follies that measured 7, 11, 13, 14, 14. So, three tracking the same size and two lagging behind. When I triggered on CD12, I only had one follie left. I don't have any notes about what size it was but I think it was around 20.
IVF #2: Had my second check on CD8, which revealed four follies measuring 15, 12, 9, 7. For that cycle, I triggered on CD10 (so, two days later); only two follies remained (a 21 and a 19). The 19 was the one they got the egg from and it was immature, so they grew it in culture for a day before fertilizing with ICSI.
Other things I found out today:
My lining is at 5. I said, "That's thin, isn't it?" My favorite nurse practitioner (Fave NP) told me not to worry about it. She said my lining had the triple stripe and she felt confident that it would thicken in time. No one's ever mentioned me having a triple stripe before but I've never had a lining issue. Just a rotten egg issue.
My E2 was 71. I wish I didn't know that. It seems awfully low, even for a DOR gal like myself. When I expressed concern to the NP who called with my results (not the Fave NP but the one I think secretly hates me), she told me that I shouldn't count myself out yet. She said that since my follicles grew, I needed to stay the course until Thursday. If my follicles grow between now and then, she said, it's likely that my body will kick in and the E2 level will rise appropriately.
This cycle is clearly very different from the previous two and I don't know what to make of that. I'd been thinking that could be a good thing, since those cycles didn't yield tiny humans. But then I got my low E2 level, and now I'm wondering if I'll even make it to retrieval.
I don't feel sad, exactly. Remember, I went into this cycle thinking that if I ended up pregnant, it would be from the donor embryos. But, like, the AFC of 8 kind of fucked with my head. For a few days, I thought, "What if...?" Now, I'm back to thinking my eggs are shit and that my four donor embies are the Obi-Wan of this particular cycle (as in, my only hope).
Earlier today I told Fave NP that I wanted to try to grow my own embryos out to blast, even if that meant I had nothing to transfer. Ditto for the donor gametes. I did say that if Dr. Smiles disagreed, I'd defer to him, but really, I just want the greatest shot at success. She said she understood and made notes in my file.
What I don't understand is why I feel so completely hormonal. I mean, if my estradiol is that low, I shouldn't be crying at Beach Boys songs in the car. Right?
Another mystery of my broken body, I suppose.
Showing posts with label stims. Show all posts
Showing posts with label stims. Show all posts
Monday, November 17, 2014
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
med o'clock (and other fun times).
Yesterday, when it was time to do my first round of stim injections, I had a moment of complete and utter panic.
First of all, I was a little disorganized. The gimongous carton of fertility meds arrived on Saturday, when Mini-Hope, Mr. Hope's daughter from a previous relationship, was visiting for the weekend. We shoved the box into the bonus room, pausing only to remove the items that needed to be refrigerated.
Before I went in for my baseline appointment, I quickly combed through the contents of the carton, to make sure I had all of the meds I'd need. I realized I was short a vial of progesterone in oil (PIO), but otherwise, everything was there. Then I pawed through a plastic bin of leftover meds and various other supplies from our last IVF attempt in March, to see what was still usable. The only thing that had expired was a box of Crinone, which I'd purchased thrice over and used exactly zero times.
When I got the go-ahead to shoot up, I went into the bonus room to pull together what I needed for the "active" bin. I find the gimongous carton a little overwhelming, so what I do is put a manageable amount of the things I needed in a small bin that resides on my dining room table (can you tell we don't get a lot of company?). Suddenly, my mind went blank. Which needle was I supposed to use for the Menopur? Which one was for the Microdose Lupron? WHY COULDN'T I REMEMBER ANY OF THIS SHIT?
I tried to read the Menopur package insert but I was shaking a little and the tiny printed words weren't making any sense. So I Googled it, found the correct needle size, and grabbed a bag of them for the active bin. At some point, I remembered that the MDL used an insulin needle. I grabbed a couple of cartons of Menopur, some alcohol wipes, a box of Band Aids, and a Sharps container and headed back to the dining room.
My hands shook the entire time I prepared the Menopur. I'm on four vials in the AM and four in the PM. Here's a little background for those of you who've never prepped Menopur: You start by drawing up 1 cc of sterile water, then inject it into a vial of dry powder. You gently swirl until the powder's been dissolved. Then you suck up all of the serum and inject it into the next vial of dry powder. This is where those Q-Caps come in handy. I'm a disaster when it comes to sucking up meds with a super-long needle; the Q-Caps save my ass every single time.
Except, for about three minutes yesterday, I forgot how to use the fucking Q-Cap. And ended up having to read the tiny-print package insert anyway.
But before you can even begin to mix the Menopur, you have to run an alcohol wipe over the tops of all of the vials. And you should really take the MDL out of the fridge about 10-15 minutes before you inject it, because when it's too cold it burns and leaves small, pea-sized bruises on your stomach.
I almost forgot that part.
It took me nearly 25 minutes to remember what I was supposed to do and how I was supposed to do it. But I got there. Eventually.
The whole process moved much more quickly for the PM dosing. And even more quickly this morning. By tonight - Dose #4 - I was back to being an old pro. I got all of it done, top to bottom, in about 14 minutes flat.
Not bad, Agony. Not bad at all.
In other news:
As of this morning, I'm down 10.2 lbs. and can do 40 modified push-ups. And today, I left my lunch bag of snacks at the office when I headed to a half-day offsite meeting. The snacks provided at the conference center included fancy cupcakes, granola bars, and bags of Cheese-Its. I didn't eat a single one of anything, despite the fact that about four hours after I'd eaten my lunch, my stomach started rumbling audibly. I gulped water and pretended like I wasn't ready to gnaw on my own hand.
All in all, I'm pretty proud of myself these days.
Tomorrow, it's back to the offsite location for a full-day meeting. One that starts at 8:15 a.m., which is about 45 minutes before I usually report to work.
Did I mention it's going to be a long week?
First of all, I was a little disorganized. The gimongous carton of fertility meds arrived on Saturday, when Mini-Hope, Mr. Hope's daughter from a previous relationship, was visiting for the weekend. We shoved the box into the bonus room, pausing only to remove the items that needed to be refrigerated.
Before I went in for my baseline appointment, I quickly combed through the contents of the carton, to make sure I had all of the meds I'd need. I realized I was short a vial of progesterone in oil (PIO), but otherwise, everything was there. Then I pawed through a plastic bin of leftover meds and various other supplies from our last IVF attempt in March, to see what was still usable. The only thing that had expired was a box of Crinone, which I'd purchased thrice over and used exactly zero times.
When I got the go-ahead to shoot up, I went into the bonus room to pull together what I needed for the "active" bin. I find the gimongous carton a little overwhelming, so what I do is put a manageable amount of the things I needed in a small bin that resides on my dining room table (can you tell we don't get a lot of company?). Suddenly, my mind went blank. Which needle was I supposed to use for the Menopur? Which one was for the Microdose Lupron? WHY COULDN'T I REMEMBER ANY OF THIS SHIT?
I tried to read the Menopur package insert but I was shaking a little and the tiny printed words weren't making any sense. So I Googled it, found the correct needle size, and grabbed a bag of them for the active bin. At some point, I remembered that the MDL used an insulin needle. I grabbed a couple of cartons of Menopur, some alcohol wipes, a box of Band Aids, and a Sharps container and headed back to the dining room.
My hands shook the entire time I prepared the Menopur. I'm on four vials in the AM and four in the PM. Here's a little background for those of you who've never prepped Menopur: You start by drawing up 1 cc of sterile water, then inject it into a vial of dry powder. You gently swirl until the powder's been dissolved. Then you suck up all of the serum and inject it into the next vial of dry powder. This is where those Q-Caps come in handy. I'm a disaster when it comes to sucking up meds with a super-long needle; the Q-Caps save my ass every single time.
Except, for about three minutes yesterday, I forgot how to use the fucking Q-Cap. And ended up having to read the tiny-print package insert anyway.
But before you can even begin to mix the Menopur, you have to run an alcohol wipe over the tops of all of the vials. And you should really take the MDL out of the fridge about 10-15 minutes before you inject it, because when it's too cold it burns and leaves small, pea-sized bruises on your stomach.
I almost forgot that part.
It took me nearly 25 minutes to remember what I was supposed to do and how I was supposed to do it. But I got there. Eventually.
The whole process moved much more quickly for the PM dosing. And even more quickly this morning. By tonight - Dose #4 - I was back to being an old pro. I got all of it done, top to bottom, in about 14 minutes flat.
Not bad, Agony. Not bad at all.
In other news:
As of this morning, I'm down 10.2 lbs. and can do 40 modified push-ups. And today, I left my lunch bag of snacks at the office when I headed to a half-day offsite meeting. The snacks provided at the conference center included fancy cupcakes, granola bars, and bags of Cheese-Its. I didn't eat a single one of anything, despite the fact that about four hours after I'd eaten my lunch, my stomach started rumbling audibly. I gulped water and pretended like I wasn't ready to gnaw on my own hand.
All in all, I'm pretty proud of myself these days.
Tomorrow, it's back to the offsite location for a full-day meeting. One that starts at 8:15 a.m., which is about 45 minutes before I usually report to work.
Did I mention it's going to be a long week?
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