Tag Archives: pills

Countdown …

One innocent victim of my hormone-induced emotional outburst hours before the egg retrieval

So, just like a magwai, I can’t eat after midnight up until after the procedure Monday. It’s amazing how much you want something when someone says you can’t have it. I think the frustration is really just masked anxiety about whether everything will go as planned. I signed the waiver, but I’m still not worried about the more severe risks like excessive fluid buildup, stroke or death. I’m not sure about many things, but I’m most certain that God wouldn’t allow my last “meal” before meeting Him to be pineapple jelly crescent rolls, doxycycline and candied gummy pre-natal vitamins.

Speaking of God, I imagined laying out on the altar Hannah-style in church today after all because I just didn’t have the words to pray for what I want. We sang a song, “God is sovereign, holy and just and on His word we’ve got to trust. For the at the sound of His voice, the Earth became. When God speaks in your life, you won’t be the same.” Between the singing, ministering and worshiping, I felt my heart praying and the tears fell. It wasn’t a shining moment because I haven’t figured out how to cry and sing at the same time. Nevertheless, it was a moment that I felt like God and I were on the same page on this babies thing. It made worship at the next service that much easier. Even then, the tears kept flowing though. I’m sure it’s the estrogen.

According to the Mr., I’ve also been a little more aggressive in a way more characteristic of me PMS’ing. I never take it out on people — or at least not at people who can hear me — but it definitely comes out at the television, traffic, talking heads on TV. The victim on the way home from church was a squirrel pausing in the middle of the street. A squirrel! Yep, it’s got to be the drugs. And it’s expected to get way worse.

After the retrieval … (I should describe that. Using a transvaginal ultrasound to find the follicles, a doctor will guide a needle to where it’s supposed to go and extract fluid that should include an egg. If it does, the egg goes into an incubator. He or she will repeat that process until all the follicles are aspirated. The eggs will then pair with a fresh sample from the Mr., and then we wait.), I’ll start oral estrogen and, uh, non-oral progesterone. That’s supposed to not only make me sleepy but also edgy. Doesn’t that sound like fun for everybody?

I’ll keep taking the antibiotic to ward off any cooties from the procedure and wait again to hear about the number of eggs and the likely transfer date. In the meantime, at least immediately after the procedure, I’ll do nothing but feel the lovely haziness of good hospital drugs. As always, we’ll see what happens.

“Write this down and repeat it back to me.”

Monday is egg retrieval day, but hold the sparkling cider. I've had too many BFNs to get excited just yet.

“What? Huh? Wait. OK. Um, hold on. OK, I’m ready now. Go.”

That was the beginning of my conversation with the nurse today confirming that Monday will be my retrieval day, also known as the great Christmas Egg Hunt. I worried about the shots, and now I’m the subcutaneous injection queen. I worried about the drugs having no effect, and now I have 12 measurable follicles (right — 19, 17, 16, 14, 12, 12; left — 17, 15, 14, 13, 13 and 11). FYI, follicles grow 2 mm per day and are mature, meaning more likely to have mature eggs, around 18. The number of follicles does not necessarily correlate to viable eggs, and not all eggs retrieved will necessarily be fertilized. My awareness of the fact that there’s no guarantee that they’ll find enough quality eggs for fertilization basically gives me another reason to keep the sparkling cider on ice for now.

It’s not that I’m trying to be Debbie Downer; it’s just that at this point of trying to have children, I know all too well how it feels to get my hopes up and then let down with a BFN (big fat negative). After peeing on stick or two every month, you learn to take everything as it comes. I used to search for pregnancy T-shirts with funny sayings in anticipation of a positive test amid imaginary symptoms. I’d always feel dumb afterward for thinking too far ahead. Although by God, I’ve managed to accomplish many things and overcome situations that haunt people for life, my inability to get pregnant up to this point has always made me feel like something of a failure and occasionally like God wasn’t listening on this one. I kept praying but then encouraged other people to pray; though, I didn’t tell them about the struggle.

As for being a childless failure, cognitively, I know otherwise. Emotionally, though, it takes some convincing. Being happily married and struggling to have children feels like being the smart girl who isn’t considered pretty. You do a good job pretending it doesn’t matter, but then something happens as a reminder that you do. Some of my Facebook friends are fertile Myrtles; they’ve had two kids in the time I’ve been trying to have one. Stuff like that can get to you if you let it. I’ve tried not to let it, but I’m human. And maybe that was behind my annoyance with having to endure the entire in-vitro fertilization process to have the children I’ve been psychologically preparing for since 2005.

Now, here I am at the critical point — less than 36 hours from the egg retrieval but beyond the hard part — and I’m only thinking as far ahead as drug No. 6, a pre-emptive antibiotic that I’ll take orally starting in the morning.

Mindless update

I’d been concentrating so hard on that joyous news of follicles and a continued cycle that I nearly ignored the most profound display of unprofessionalism seen in my entire working career, and it was directed at me. There’s a lesson in everything, and perhaps mine was that life goes on despite all the interruptions of my infertility battles. So, in the midst of the ultrasound-blood work revolving door and phone gazing in hopes of a nurse’s call, I’m pretty sure I have to actually deal with a petty workplace problem before it becomes something else. I don’t have the patience for this, though, I’m not sure whether that’s a real reaction or whether it’s the drugs. They’re supposed to make me crazy at some point; I’m sure they’re already making me sleepy at odd times.

I’m currently on three medications, all administered via injection — Gonal F, Menopur and that evil Ganirelix acetate. The first two essentially create an ovarian Superman, and the latter is like the Kryptonite to keep the hero from winning and thereby ending the tale too soon. The idea is to develop follicles but to keep them, keep me from ovulating before doctors can go in and get the eggs. It’s for this reason that the Mr. and I have to keep our hands off of one another. Apparently, sex naturally triggers ovulation. How that for another counterintuitive fertility measure? Remember, this cycle started with me on birth control pills. So far, though, everything is working.

My estrogen level doubled from Tuesday to 1424. I do know that’s a positive sign, particularly now that, per a nurse’s message, I’m walking around with 10 measurable follicles. With Clomid, a drug given orally that I took for all three intrauterine inseminations, I only produced two follicles. Each time, they came from my right ovary. My left has been on vacation until recently. It’s now holding five at 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 mm. The right has the remainder at 11, 12, 13, 16 and 16.

At this rate, the retrieval could happen in a few days. I’ll find out more — including how I feel about everything — at my next appointment in a few hours.

P.S. It was actually almost an hour and a half ago. This just didn’t post when it should have. I’m still pondering everything while trying to focus on work. Here we go …

Apologies to Nancy Reagan

I followed Nancy Reagan's advice. Alas, my answer has changed.

Even though I was born before that, I’m a child of the ’80s who took the “Just Say No to Drugs” campaign very seriously. I wouldn’t even eat cough drops as candy. I made it through adolescence as a “clean teen,” and as an adult, I avoid pain medicine as much as possible.

Now, I’m awaiting a call from my drug dealer. The drugs are legal, depending on how you use them, but they’re drugs nonetheless — a whole lot of drugs. That’s one side of in-vitro fertilization I forgot to think about. I was prepared for the injections; I just didn’t realize I’d have my own pharmacy of tablets, powders, vials, inserts and syringes. In the next 30 days, I will have taken multiple doses of eight medications through multiple methods, rooter to tooter. That doesn’t include a prenatal vitamin and the hazily wonderful hospital drugs to come.

Like any fiend, I’m anxious to talk to my pusher to work out the drop and how much these high-end, high-copay pharmaceuticals will cost me.

So even as I struggle to wrap my mind around it all, Nancy will just have to understand.