Whew! What a ride these past two weeks have been. I have so far endured and survived:
- 8 Acupuncture appointments
- 10 office visits with vials of blood work and internal ultrasounds
- 13 nights of follicle stimulating injections (Halloween I shot up in the parking lot at the Lakers game. True LA ghetto experience)
- 5 Cetrotide morning in-office injections
- 14 dexamethasone pills
- 1 HCG trigger shot
- 2 Doxycycline capsules
- Endless baby aspirin and prenatal vitamins
Yesterday I received my final shot of in-office Cetrotide (anti-ovulation drug), we are not friends. Every injection brings the joys of a big, red, itchy, deformed lump that is painful to the touch. After four days of injections, my stomach is now a beautiful piece of artwork ... splotches of green, yellow, and purple. How is that for a contemporary masterpiece? Sweatpants have become my best friend, don't judge.
Last night was the HCG trigger shot in preparation for Monday's egg retrieval. Let's chat about the HCG experience for a bit. I have been dreading this intramuscular shot for weeks.
First let me remind you what it is for:
The HCG trigger shot is administered in a very calculated timeframe for IVF. The purpose of this is to have the eggs detach from the follicle wall so that they are retrievable before ovulation. This of course makes me very nervous but they have reassured me that I will not ovulate before retrieval. Moving on...
Dr. A calls yesterday afternoon after reviewing my ultrasound and blood work with instructions to administer the HCG shot at Sunday morning at 1:15 am (or 2:15 am before turning the clocks back for the time change). In anticipation of the sheer torture to come, I had a difficult time sleeping and was paranoid we'd screw up with the time change. No timed shot, IVF comes to a quick halt. I was also very uneasy with having Brian sticking me in the ass.
Alarms are set, I mean all the alarms... bedside clock, my cell phone, and Brian's cell phone. Of course the time change didn't take effect until a bit later and we were rudely awakened an hour early. The horror! I couldn't drift back off to sleep and waited and waited and waited. Tick tock, the time has come. I reluctantly drag myself out of bed, double check my rear end to see that the sharpie maker "aim here" circles have not worn off, and shove an ice pack down my pants to ensure an overly numbed ass.
I talk myself through the steps with unsteady hands. Pop off the vial tops, swab, draw up 1cc of sterile water solution into syringe, inject into powdered vial of HCG, swirl until dissolved, draw reconstituted mixture into syringe. Ok, simple enough. Then I switch out the mixing needle with the injection needle.... Oh hell no! This needle was 1 1/2 inches long! Panic is here full force. Tap, tap, tap, air bubbles out - check. Push plunger up to remove remaining air - check. Remove ice pack and swab with alcohol pad - yea for no feeling!
I hand Brian syringe "oh shit" and lie down on bed. Instead of quickly going through this shot, Brian decides to take his time and commenting that there isn't enough light, there was. He starts walking around with the needle in air flipping on every single light. I am not happy with this and start yelling hurry up, I just wanted it to be over. Finally, Dr. Brian is satisfied. I bury my face into a pillow, and am laughing, whining, and yelling at the same time... "Go! Go! Hurry up and go, stick it in! You are killing me!" At this point I know our neighbor us up and wondering what sort of kinky stuff is going on.
Brian jabs me in my rear end hip area and I don't feel a damn thing. For what seems like an eternity, I repeatedly said into the pillow "Is there blood, no blood, are you checking for blood? Are you done? Is it out?" I have come to the conclusion that I have a great talent for needlessly freaking myself out. Drama anyone? All in all, it wasn't too bad. My rear end is sore, that is it. Brian admitted it was hard for him to do and that he was tripping out a bit. It really was a very large needle.
Tomorrow I go in for egg retrieval surgery at 12:15 pm. I was hoping for another ultrasound today, but my appointment was a review of my vitals for surgery, more paperwork, and the protocol from here on out. Yea more pills, more shots! As of Saturday I still only had four fantastic follicles, the other two never really caught up. Hopefully tomorrow's surgery will have a pleasant surprise.
So here we are. The end or rather a hopeful beginning is just around the corner.
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