For my next trick ladies and gentlemen, I will fail - completely and utterly - to bleed. Or I should say rather, I HAVE failed. For the first time ever (excepting the nine weeks I spent harboring the blighted ovum). When the lovely nurse declared my mock cycle a triple-striped success and gave me the go-ahead to peel off the patches and stop with the shots, she told me I should expect to bleed within a week, two at most, and if I didn't bleed after two weeks to call in for further instruction.
Instruction, in this case, meant "Go to the lab and get lots of blood drawn. Immediately." Two hours later, I had my blood drawn while fully hydrated for the first time in my memory (read: after 8:00 am). Turns out that was a mistake, and my choice of a black sweater that morning was not. Yes, I had been hoping for a bleed. But not from a vein.
Another two hours (HOW did they get those results so fast, I ask you?!) and the nurse called to tell me that I am not pregnant and will not be bleeding without further assistance. Here's hoping seven days of Prov.era will get things going.
This is uncharted territory for me. Somehow, I feel more helpless now than I remember feeling in the whole of the last three and a half years. I can't even bleed right anymore. I can't feel like this is a good sign.
Friday, July 13, 2012
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Blast From the Past
And not in a good way. Y'all remember Dr. Hate? The RE who schooled me for being distressed because I only had one follicle and wonky E2 levels on my last official IUI before getting pointed to IVF... and then dismissed my concerns with "It only takes one."
I saw her today while I was out picking up lunch. GUT PUNCH. She landed a big fancy new job and her office is very near mine.
It took every ounce of restraint I possess not to slap her right there at the cash register. I'm sure she didn't even recognize me, but just seeing her made me go all hot and ugly words started bubbling up in my throat. It made me wonder if she has any idea how much loathing there is for her in the world (because I know for a fact that I'm not the only patient she talked to like that).
Yeah, I know... holding onto that anger is not healthy and I really need to let it go, but DAMN.
I saw her today while I was out picking up lunch. GUT PUNCH. She landed a big fancy new job and her office is very near mine.
It took every ounce of restraint I possess not to slap her right there at the cash register. I'm sure she didn't even recognize me, but just seeing her made me go all hot and ugly words started bubbling up in my throat. It made me wonder if she has any idea how much loathing there is for her in the world (because I know for a fact that I'm not the only patient she talked to like that).
Yeah, I know... holding onto that anger is not healthy and I really need to let it go, but DAMN.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Ticked Off and Triple Stripe
One more to-do ticked off the list. The mock cycle is complete, right on schedule.
If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen me mention that my E2 blood work earlier this week came back way too low. The ginormous estrogen patches weren't having enough impact, so they added little blue estrogen tablets to my protocol (not to be taken orally) which had the unusual side effect of blue cervical mucus. Good times here in SlackieLand!
The emotional roller coaster evened out quite a bit with the decrease in the lu.pron dose and the addition of the estrogen, though the headaches continued undiminished. I was doing OK until Thursday when I had to increase the number of patches to four and ran out of unused belly real estate. These things are ridiculous! They are perfectly round and about three inches in diameter. As a result, I had to place them higher on my abdomen than I liked and BOY was that a miserable sensation! Every move I made caused the patches to pull and pucker and it was driving me batshit. There was an awful lot of pouting on the couch last night.
This morning was the Big Reveal - my appointment at the RE to check my lining and see how I responded to the mock protocol. When the nurse walked in and asked how things were going, I kind of exploded about the patches. Oops. I felt like she was humoring me a bit, but when I pulled up my shirt and showed her just how big these patches are... she agreed that they were ridiculous and suggested I request a smaller brand when I refill (which, you bet your boots I sure will).
The good news was that I managed to grow a lovely triple stripe lining just under 10mm, even with my earlier sub-par E2 levels. So the mock cycle was declared a success and the nurse let me pull off all my icky patches right then and there. YAY!!! In other way-to-start-the-weekend news, Prof's emergency swim team got an even better report than the crew he dropped off last year when we tried IVF for the first time with my eggs. Smiles all around!
So - the Plan is that I call the nurse coordinator when I start bleeding next week (uh.. didn't I just do that LAST week?) and she will present us with one or two donor profiles to review. I'll go back on BCP and stay on them until our donor starts stims. When the time comes for our real DEIVF cycle, I will start the estrogen patches and the little blue tablets at the same time. Otherwise, they are happy with my plan.
NOTE ABOUT PATCH ADHESIVE: There has been much commentary between here and Twitter regarding the removal of the patch adhesive. The ones I have are less sticky I guess, since after two days most of them started to release on their own even though they were meant to stay on four days. The silver lining is that my Purp.ose facial cleanser got all the sticky bits off with no scrubbing or struggle at all.
If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen me mention that my E2 blood work earlier this week came back way too low. The ginormous estrogen patches weren't having enough impact, so they added little blue estrogen tablets to my protocol (not to be taken orally) which had the unusual side effect of blue cervical mucus. Good times here in SlackieLand!
The emotional roller coaster evened out quite a bit with the decrease in the lu.pron dose and the addition of the estrogen, though the headaches continued undiminished. I was doing OK until Thursday when I had to increase the number of patches to four and ran out of unused belly real estate. These things are ridiculous! They are perfectly round and about three inches in diameter. As a result, I had to place them higher on my abdomen than I liked and BOY was that a miserable sensation! Every move I made caused the patches to pull and pucker and it was driving me batshit. There was an awful lot of pouting on the couch last night.
This morning was the Big Reveal - my appointment at the RE to check my lining and see how I responded to the mock protocol. When the nurse walked in and asked how things were going, I kind of exploded about the patches. Oops. I felt like she was humoring me a bit, but when I pulled up my shirt and showed her just how big these patches are... she agreed that they were ridiculous and suggested I request a smaller brand when I refill (which, you bet your boots I sure will).
The good news was that I managed to grow a lovely triple stripe lining just under 10mm, even with my earlier sub-par E2 levels. So the mock cycle was declared a success and the nurse let me pull off all my icky patches right then and there. YAY!!! In other way-to-start-the-weekend news, Prof's emergency swim team got an even better report than the crew he dropped off last year when we tried IVF for the first time with my eggs. Smiles all around!
So - the Plan is that I call the nurse coordinator when I start bleeding next week (uh.. didn't I just do that LAST week?) and she will present us with one or two donor profiles to review. I'll go back on BCP and stay on them until our donor starts stims. When the time comes for our real DEIVF cycle, I will start the estrogen patches and the little blue tablets at the same time. Otherwise, they are happy with my plan.
NOTE ABOUT PATCH ADHESIVE: There has been much commentary between here and Twitter regarding the removal of the patch adhesive. The ones I have are less sticky I guess, since after two days most of them started to release on their own even though they were meant to stay on four days. The silver lining is that my Purp.ose facial cleanser got all the sticky bits off with no scrubbing or struggle at all.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Mocking Me
Wow. Real life does occasionally just take right over, and that's not always a bad thing.
I suppose I started my mock cycle with BCP at the end of May. We met with the DEIVF nurse coordinator last week to get the rest of the mock cycle calendar. I added Lup.ron and baby aspirin to my regimen last weekend. Did YOU know the baby aspirin is NOT shelved with the actual baby medicines at the pharmacy? I didn't. Estrogen patches start next week and the calendar for those is crazy complex - it's a good thing they wrote it all down for me...
Prof has to drop off the emergency swim team next week and I have a uterine lining check at the end of June. If my lining looks nice and cushy, I stop the meds and have a period. If not, we tweak the doses until they see that triple-stripe Holy Grail. THEN I stop the meds and have a period.
That done, I will restart BCP and we will be presented our donor profile to approve. The DEIVF nurse coordinator says the donor will likely want to start stims with her August period, so we will be moving forward directly.
As updates go, that all seems so cut and dried... just the facts. The rest of the story is that Lup.ron SUCKS. Obviously, I knew it would though I've never taken it before. The shots themselves are nothing really. Tinier needle than any I've encountered thus far. I've read enough accounts of others' experiences with it, but oddly enough I haven't had the symptoms I was expecting (headaches, hot flashes). Instead, I'm getting super bloated, exhaustion AND insomnia and some pretty intense depressive incidents. I cry at the slightest passing breeze - seriously, every little thing brings tears to my eyes. So yeah... not a fan.
I just turned down the opportunity to attend a professional conference mid-July because I'm afraid of being away from home and being forced to socialize. I'm also contemplating skipping out on a destination wedding in August for the same reasons. I know this isn't necessarily healthy. At the same time, I just want to cocoon myself for the duration.
I suppose I started my mock cycle with BCP at the end of May. We met with the DEIVF nurse coordinator last week to get the rest of the mock cycle calendar. I added Lup.ron and baby aspirin to my regimen last weekend. Did YOU know the baby aspirin is NOT shelved with the actual baby medicines at the pharmacy? I didn't. Estrogen patches start next week and the calendar for those is crazy complex - it's a good thing they wrote it all down for me...
Prof has to drop off the emergency swim team next week and I have a uterine lining check at the end of June. If my lining looks nice and cushy, I stop the meds and have a period. If not, we tweak the doses until they see that triple-stripe Holy Grail. THEN I stop the meds and have a period.
That done, I will restart BCP and we will be presented our donor profile to approve. The DEIVF nurse coordinator says the donor will likely want to start stims with her August period, so we will be moving forward directly.
As updates go, that all seems so cut and dried... just the facts. The rest of the story is that Lup.ron SUCKS. Obviously, I knew it would though I've never taken it before. The shots themselves are nothing really. Tinier needle than any I've encountered thus far. I've read enough accounts of others' experiences with it, but oddly enough I haven't had the symptoms I was expecting (headaches, hot flashes). Instead, I'm getting super bloated, exhaustion AND insomnia and some pretty intense depressive incidents. I cry at the slightest passing breeze - seriously, every little thing brings tears to my eyes. So yeah... not a fan.
I just turned down the opportunity to attend a professional conference mid-July because I'm afraid of being away from home and being forced to socialize. I'm also contemplating skipping out on a destination wedding in August for the same reasons. I know this isn't necessarily healthy. At the same time, I just want to cocoon myself for the duration.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Survey Says...
We had to complete a psychological evaluation before being approved to match with an egg donor. Apparently, the ethics committee thinks that's only fair since the donor has to pass one in order to be approved to donate. As frustrating as it is to submit to evaluation in order to be approved to even try (you adopting parents know what I'm talking about and then some), I was also a little glad to get a glimpse of how our donor would be evaluated, though I know there are different sets of questions for each of us.
The appointment was scheduled for two hours, but it ended up being more like two and a half. We decided that the first "test" must have been the bad directions we were given to locate the office. We arrived at the correct reception area only to be greeted by a sign telling us to alert the desk downstairs where we checked in that the office was un-staffed and they should let someone know we were waiting. This is in spite of the fact that our instructions specifically said to pass by the downstairs desk without stopping and proceed directly upstairs. The girl at the desk downstairs was equally confused and didn't seem to know our evaluator at all, nor were we on her list of check-ins for the day.
We did eventually get checked in and our evaluator called us to come back to the testing room. The first part of the appointment involved filling in about 350 scantron bubbles. The idea is to rate each statement either False, Slightly True, Mostly True or Very True. We did get to stay together and we had a good giggle over the questions, identifying control questions and speculating about some of the issues the test was designed to highlight. If they had cameras in that room to video us, it must have been entertaining! We each took turns doing hushed impressions of our hidden evaluator. At one point, my Hidden Evaluator noted, "Subject is a terrible snob."
After we finished filling in the bubble test, the evaluator came back in the room and asked us questions about our personal backgrounds and family histories. When she said we seemed quite well adjusted, Prof high-fived me and said, "Alright babe, we fooled her!"
She also told us a little about the process the donors go through, as she is the evaluator for them as well. She described them as falling into two basic categories. One group is young health/medical professionals who do not want children of their own, have an understanding of what infertility patients are suffering and see their own eggs as "going to waste". They tell her they aren't using their eggs, and someone who wants/needs them might as well benefit. The second group is young mothers who are so happy and grateful for their own children that they want to give someone else that same gift. Either way, the financial compensation offered by our clinic is low enough that the money is not a significant motivator for any of the potential donors.
The results took longer than than they told us (three weeks instead of one), but we finally heard back last week. We are officially cleared to move forward. One more box checked off!
The appointment was scheduled for two hours, but it ended up being more like two and a half. We decided that the first "test" must have been the bad directions we were given to locate the office. We arrived at the correct reception area only to be greeted by a sign telling us to alert the desk downstairs where we checked in that the office was un-staffed and they should let someone know we were waiting. This is in spite of the fact that our instructions specifically said to pass by the downstairs desk without stopping and proceed directly upstairs. The girl at the desk downstairs was equally confused and didn't seem to know our evaluator at all, nor were we on her list of check-ins for the day.
We did eventually get checked in and our evaluator called us to come back to the testing room. The first part of the appointment involved filling in about 350 scantron bubbles. The idea is to rate each statement either False, Slightly True, Mostly True or Very True. We did get to stay together and we had a good giggle over the questions, identifying control questions and speculating about some of the issues the test was designed to highlight. If they had cameras in that room to video us, it must have been entertaining! We each took turns doing hushed impressions of our hidden evaluator. At one point, my Hidden Evaluator noted, "Subject is a terrible snob."
After we finished filling in the bubble test, the evaluator came back in the room and asked us questions about our personal backgrounds and family histories. When she said we seemed quite well adjusted, Prof high-fived me and said, "Alright babe, we fooled her!"
She also told us a little about the process the donors go through, as she is the evaluator for them as well. She described them as falling into two basic categories. One group is young health/medical professionals who do not want children of their own, have an understanding of what infertility patients are suffering and see their own eggs as "going to waste". They tell her they aren't using their eggs, and someone who wants/needs them might as well benefit. The second group is young mothers who are so happy and grateful for their own children that they want to give someone else that same gift. Either way, the financial compensation offered by our clinic is low enough that the money is not a significant motivator for any of the potential donors.
The results took longer than than they told us (three weeks instead of one), but we finally heard back last week. We are officially cleared to move forward. One more box checked off!
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