Hit Me Baby...One More Time

Today I made the long trek down to our new RE's office. I am totally out of my element with this protocol so the whole time I kept thinking that I needed to be 'quiet' and follicle free. So when the ultrasound showed several follicles on the first ovary I had an internal freak-out moment. But when he said things were looking good on that side I was confused and it must have showed. He reminded me that there is no suppression and they want to work with the body's natural process of starting follicular formation and that things were timing very well. So normal breathing patterns resumed and I was given the all clear to start my meds tonight.

My meds are different than what I originally thought. When I asked about the changes, he said that he thought more about our needs and decided that Follistim and Menopur might work better. So that's what I'm using. I have to say that the Gonal was easier since I didn't have to load anything, just put on a needle, turned the dial and pushed. The whole spinning plunger on the Follistim is a bit disconcerting but I'll get used to it.

I feel totally normal this cycle, no extreme fatigue, hotflashes, and drugged brain. It's wonderful. I can only hope that my body is preferring it as well and it leads to better quality embryos. I am continuing to do acupuncture this cycle as well and really enjoy my quiet times. To add to those quiet moments, I also downloaded the Circle and Bloom IVF relaxation and imagery mp3's. They are quiet nice and lead you through visualization of your body doing what it needs to do at peak performance. From what I read if you really let yourself get involved with the process the results are much better so I'm embracing my body mind connection imagery as much as possible. I've been trying to put them at the end of my fertility yoga sessions with lots of good hip openers. School is continuing to go very well and it might actually be proving to be a blessed distraction. I hope it makes the 2ww go by fast as well since I will be immersed in studying rather than guessing and second guessing myself.

I go in for a blood draw on Friday and will get the next set of instructions for my cycle. Here's to visualizing those follicles growing healthy eggs!

Shots and Signs

I have been having a horrible time with my Bravelle shots. I don't generally curse but I've labeled this my Bravelle-hell. It's not taking the shots - they don't hurt. It's mixing the shots! I have to mix saline vials to reconstitute the Bravelle, change out the needle and then stick myself. The kicker is that on weekends I still have to get up to take the shot like I would on a week day. Monday-Friday I am normally up by 5 am and out the door at 6:30-6:45. So my plan was to wake up at 6:30 on the weekend to take my shot and head back to bed. The problem is I'm still groggy and totally sleep-stupid. Saturday I didn't get all of the mixed Bravelle out of the vial and had to go back with a second needle and restick myself - ouch! So I thought I'd come up with a plan - mix my shot and preload my 5 units of Lupron for Sunday morning so that I would just get up and only have to stick myself. Even that didn't go well. I ended up some how pulling out the Lupron needle before injecting the meds and had to stick myself twice to get it in there all while bleeding from the first injection site. Then when I went to do the Bravelle I somehow loosened up the needle so that it wasn't on tight. When I went to inject the meds it started seeping out through the reservoir instead of through the needle and into my tummy. I had to keep the needle in my stomach while I tightened it back on to the body of the needle to be able to inject the remaining med. I think I lost a LOT on the floor. Hopefully tomorrow will be better because I will be taking these shots after having already been up for an hour and a half. Sigh.

It's totally all worth it but I now have SO much more respect for my dad and cousins who have type I diabetes. I don't know how they do it.

The cool thing was that Hammer and I were driving back from church this morning and I was thinking about the next few days and all I had to do for IVF and getting to my appointments etc. We were passing an SUV and on the bumper was a sticker that said, "Expect Miracles" I have NEVER seen that bumper sticker before ever - what are the odds of that?

Current Meds: Lupron 5 units, Bravelle 1 vial AM + 2 vials PM
Side Effects: burning and redness at injection site (Lupron only), moderate agitation, hot flashes, FATIGUE
Days Post Transfer: 0
# Eggs Transferred: 0
# Eggs Frozen: 0

Rubber Needles and Bandaids

So last night the hub had to give me my hcg injection. He did great the last time so I wasn't too worried. After the first IUI fiasco where I gave my self the injection and literally started spurting blood from my thigh, anything is better. Almost.

This time was a bit more...painful. When I went to draw in hcg into the needle, I noticed that it curved when I pushed it through rubber cap of the vial. It was a 1 1/2" needle so it was big but not that big. But when the hub tried to do the injection the needle kept bending and he couldn't get it to break the skin. I tried to be supportive and act like it didn't hurt otherwise he would have freaked out on me. If I didn't have a pillow to hid my face in, the gig would have been up. He made two more attempts and then cried out, "What did they give you rubber needles?!?" At that point I started laughing which then made it even more impossible for him to try and do the injection. Once the giggles past I told him to just shove it in me. It took five attempts before he could finally give me the injection. Needless (no pun intended) to say I was very sore. Instead of a regular band aid we used one of those large square ones to cover up my wounds. I didn't want to tell him that I could barely sit in my desk chair at work today. I'm afraid he'd never be able to give me another injection again. And if we have to do IVF we've got a LOT of injections. Maybe I'll request the 1" needles next time...

Just out of curiosity, did anyone else have a funny infertility treatment situation? Let me know! We have to laugh at something during all this stress or we'd loose our minds.