Stimulation Day 10

This is the needle I will be using in my backside starting tomorrow-ouch!


HCG solution to start me ovulating tomorrow


Ganerelix shot

A few things have happened in the last couple of days. And I feel like my insides are going to pop more than ever! The nurse practicioner told me she'd call me thurs. night to tell me how much follistim to take the next day and when to come in next. She didn't call so I had to bring my follistim pen to work with me Friday. I haven't told the staff at my work I'm trying so I had to be sneaky. I wrapped the pen up in paper towels next an orange and put it in two plastic sacks so it looked like my lunch. I quickly stuck it in the fridge hoping no one would notice (they sometimes like to explore what's in the fridge). My day was crazier than ever and I never had a break because I had patients side booked with a ton of work to be done. I started work at 7 and looked at my watch at 10:00 and just decided to get up and call the office. I made it look like I was going to the restroom. I had a message from the office, but it was about Tyler. So I hid in a corner and called them and an assistant told me to take the same amount and she'd see me tomorrow. I told her that we had an appointment on Sat. originally and that I was told to cancel it in case I was coming in Friday. She seemed surprised and told me to come in on Saturday. So I secretly grabbed the pen from the fridge and headed to the bathroom and quickly stabbed myself in the leg. You are supposed to wait a minute for the solution to warm and the alcohol to be gone, but I was in a hurry so that injection stung a bit. I am so glad I practiced on myself another day now :) Luckily no one noticed me in and out of the fridge. So Tyler coaches a boy who's mom works at the doctor's office and told her we weren't called back and she said she would make sure we were treated the best from now on and she would take care of us. (sorry so detailed, but just want all of this for when I print this experience :) )

On Sat. morning I had an ultrasound. My ovaries are the size of small grapefruits. The doctor didn't tell me how many follicles were on the left side (I think he didn't want to scare me), but he said it was a little over 20. The right side has a little more than last time. Unlike the worried Nurse practitioner, he makes everything feel like there is no problem. My follicles looked huge on the ultrasound! There are 24 large follicles now and the rest are small. the biggest was 19.7 mm. So he said we could wait, but it is a bigger risk of complications with so many follies. So he said we would do the retrieval on Monday instead of Tuesday. He then told me because he likes me so much, I get half the dose of HCG (which stimulates the ovaries to mature and ovulate with a huge LH surge). Tyler told me the doctor tries to humor me because he knows if he answers my questions seriously I will ask more. He teases me that I keep him on his feet every time I come in because I have so many questions.

I was worried about the nurse practitioner not calling me the other night, so I went on PubMed and read many papers on IVF and it made me feel a little better. However, no one talks about patients with around 40 follicles. Even though the amount makes me nervous, I am grateful I have many follicles to increase my chances of having lots of eggs .

I talked to the baseball mom who works at the doctors office and she told me that I probably will be in the hospital at the end of this week because of all of my follies (but maybe not :) ) When the needle pulls out fluid and the eggs in the follicles there is fluid left over that spills out and goes into my abdomen and if it's too much they call it ovarian hyper stimulation syndrome (OHSS). I think this happens like 5-6 days after retrieval. If it's too much, I'll be going into the hospital. So hopefully they will be able to get a lot of the fluid out of the follicles tomorrow :).

Good news today: no shots :)

Tomorrow: We will be there at 5:45 a.m. ready to go. I will get IV sedation and hopefully I will remember to tell the anesthesiologist about my last surgery. They gave me too much pain medication after the procedure and I continued to stop breathing every time I fell asleep for 3 hours in the hospital. I wasn't allowed to fall asleep until that night (which is very hard when taking narcotics!).

During church this young boy gave a talk and had a speech problem. I thought, he probably gets made fun of at school, but us adults don't care and I know he won't have the particular problem he has when he gets older. But it's probably a big deal to him right now. I'm sure that is how Heavenly Father sees all of us in our trials. He is omniscient. He wishes we could just be happy in our trials and knows they will pass (even if it's not in this life). I know it is so important to have faith and courage. When I get down, I just try to quote one of my favorite scriptures "Have not I commanded the? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest."-Joshua 1:9