Thanks for the love and support, everyone. Unfortunately, even after all my sunshine-blowing yesterday, this morning for fun I peed on a stick. I've gotten such a charge out of seeing them instantly turn dark.
It didn't instantly turn dark. I went in for a beta. It was 60. It's over.
Special memo to those who have any chance of seeing me in real life any time soon:
I don't want to talk about it in person. Not at all, even a little. I don't even want a long extra-meaningful hug. And if you love me at all you will pretend that you haven't been reading this blog and have no idea of what has transpired over the past two and a half weeks. Yes, it's fucked up, but it's my coping mechanism, okay? Thank you very much.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
5wk6d
I'm glad to say that I am much much better -- I have been steadily improving since last Thursday, and this morning I was able to zip up a pair of pants that I own! Exciting stuff, although baggy tops will be my fashion choice for the forseeable future. The water-loss seems to have plateaued at a weight that is only about 5 pounds over my usual weight, but it seems to be a very puffy 5 lbs.
I went back to work on Monday, which was strange and frightening after a week of staring at Internet TV. People have been kind and seem to have realistic expectations of how long it will take me to catch up on the backed up stuff, so that's all good. I have been informed that the rumor mill here has determined that I have a bad back, a fairly natural conclusion given my stooped, awkward gait right before I left.
I love how odd my body feels. Small changes, mostly, but enough to remind me that something is Different. I'm peeing three times a night. My breasts are sore (although not nearly as painful as they were on birth control pills) and heavy. Instead of staying up until 12 or 1 fooling around on the interwebs, I am eagerly turning out the light at 10:30. I burp a lot. My head hurts in the afternoon. It's all pretty awesome, and I am not being sarcastic.
Ultrasound this Friday. I feel naughty and furtive every time I do something that presupposes that this pregnancy is viable, like google hospitals or calculate daycare (urp). It seems arrogant and designed to attract the attention of the bad spirits. But all the same, right now, this minute, I am pregnant and I am delighted and I am going to enjoy every strange second of it.
I've even made the incredibly uncharacteristic choice not to have yet another beta before the ultrasound. I could have another, but I'm not. This week I am letting things unfold. I bet I'll be a lunatic by Friday.
*burp*
I went back to work on Monday, which was strange and frightening after a week of staring at Internet TV. People have been kind and seem to have realistic expectations of how long it will take me to catch up on the backed up stuff, so that's all good. I have been informed that the rumor mill here has determined that I have a bad back, a fairly natural conclusion given my stooped, awkward gait right before I left.
I love how odd my body feels. Small changes, mostly, but enough to remind me that something is Different. I'm peeing three times a night. My breasts are sore (although not nearly as painful as they were on birth control pills) and heavy. Instead of staying up until 12 or 1 fooling around on the interwebs, I am eagerly turning out the light at 10:30. I burp a lot. My head hurts in the afternoon. It's all pretty awesome, and I am not being sarcastic.
Ultrasound this Friday. I feel naughty and furtive every time I do something that presupposes that this pregnancy is viable, like google hospitals or calculate daycare (urp). It seems arrogant and designed to attract the attention of the bad spirits. But all the same, right now, this minute, I am pregnant and I am delighted and I am going to enjoy every strange second of it.
I've even made the incredibly uncharacteristic choice not to have yet another beta before the ultrasound. I could have another, but I'm not. This week I am letting things unfold. I bet I'll be a lunatic by Friday.
*burp*
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Important Items of Business
Item #1: a praise-song for my sweetheart
My completely self-involved blog has paid insufficient attention to how really really great my beloved is, and it's time for me to remedy that.
For the past week-and-change, my darling has nursed me and catered to my cranky immobile self literally night and day (and when I say "literally", I mean literally). I'm tottering around the house now, but at the worst of it all I could do was ease my way to the bathroom and back -- and yet I was supposed to eat every single hour during the day and drink constantly. How did this happen? My darling running up and down the stairs dozens of times a day, bringing me iced Ensure and V8 and SmartWater, carting down armfuls of dirty glasses, making me endless scrambled eggs (mmm albumin!). I think I've put about a thousand miles on that girl since this started.
Oh, right, and if I don't eat every 2-3 hours throughout the night I wake up with hideous piercing stomach pains. So what does she do? She somehow magically (without setting an alarm) wakes up many times during the night to feed me and shove a straw between my sleepy lips. I barely remember it, but in the morning I remember that I didn't have stomach pains last night.
Other greatnesses of her:
A lot of women with OHSS do end up in the hospital, and I firmly believe that her care has kept me at home, kept the OHSS from getting worse, and kept me from being a total emotional wreck.
This one's for you, sweetie. Couldn't do any of this without you, wouldn't even be trying.
Item #2: Today's 96-hour beta came back at 1,111. Besides being a cool number, that is a doubling time of 42.5 hours. HELL YEAH THAT'S MORE LIKE IT. Something in me is relaxing a little, maybe even starting to believe.
Item #3: Today is 5wks 1 day. I have an ultrasound scheduled for next Friday, 6wks 2days. Can I just say: holy crap.
My completely self-involved blog has paid insufficient attention to how really really great my beloved is, and it's time for me to remedy that.
For the past week-and-change, my darling has nursed me and catered to my cranky immobile self literally night and day (and when I say "literally", I mean literally). I'm tottering around the house now, but at the worst of it all I could do was ease my way to the bathroom and back -- and yet I was supposed to eat every single hour during the day and drink constantly. How did this happen? My darling running up and down the stairs dozens of times a day, bringing me iced Ensure and V8 and SmartWater, carting down armfuls of dirty glasses, making me endless scrambled eggs (mmm albumin!). I think I've put about a thousand miles on that girl since this started.
Oh, right, and if I don't eat every 2-3 hours throughout the night I wake up with hideous piercing stomach pains. So what does she do? She somehow magically (without setting an alarm) wakes up many times during the night to feed me and shove a straw between my sleepy lips. I barely remember it, but in the morning I remember that I didn't have stomach pains last night.
Other greatnesses of her:
- She has a special gift for stuffing pillows around me in a way that suddenly magically makes me comfy when I would have sworn to you that there was NO WAY I could be comfy;
- She has been entirely gracious about my incredible bipolar mood this past week, calmly handing me V8s as I skyrocket between elation and despair;
- Since I've had to sleep sitting up I wanted a neck pillow -- you know, one of those airplane-style U-shaped ones -- and when we didn't know where to buy one, she went downstairs, whipped out her sewing machine and made me one. Yeah, she's crafty too.
A lot of women with OHSS do end up in the hospital, and I firmly believe that her care has kept me at home, kept the OHSS from getting worse, and kept me from being a total emotional wreck.
This one's for you, sweetie. Couldn't do any of this without you, wouldn't even be trying.
Item #2: Today's 96-hour beta came back at 1,111. Besides being a cool number, that is a doubling time of 42.5 hours. HELL YEAH THAT'S MORE LIKE IT. Something in me is relaxing a little, maybe even starting to believe.
Item #3: Today is 5wks 1 day. I have an ultrasound scheduled for next Friday, 6wks 2days. Can I just say: holy crap.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
18dpo/13dp5dt: the happiest misery ever
This morning's beta: 232, for a doubling time of 50.5 hours. GREAT FANTASTIC CLOSE ENOUGH I'LL TAKE IT!
My hematocrit (how thick and sludgy my blood is) is also greatly improved from Wednesday. This surprises me, because since Wednesday I have just continued to inflate -- I had to borrow clothes from a bodacious friend (thank you dear) because not a thing I own will go over my body, not even my loose t-shirts. And even the jeans I borrowed wouldn't fasten, I had to do the ol' "hair elastic round the button" trick in order to be decent enough to leave the house. I have the perfect pregnancy half-basketball stomach. But despite my startlingly distended abdomen, the OHSS is actually going well. OHSS really only gets scary when your blood gets too sludgy or you stop peeing -- my blood's improving and I am still peeing like a champ (pause for me to accept adulation for this achievement. Thank you, thank you very much.). I'm swilling SmartWater, V8 and Ensure and sloshing gently from the sofa to the bathroom and back again and yeah, that's pretty much my entire range right now.
Part of the cause of my unwieldiness might be my amazing impressive progesterone level -- 352 (normal range for first trimester: 10-47). Holy crap, no wonder I've had heartburn. Anyway, the P4 level could be contributing to poofing me up . RE has dropped my nightly progesterone shot to half of its previous volume. This is good news because a) it might help my various symptoms, and b) it'll hurt less.
Still can't move or eat or sleep too much, but I'm feeling very chipper indeed. I'm hard to convince, but that 50.5-hr doubling time is making me think you know what, I might just be pregnant.
My hematocrit (how thick and sludgy my blood is) is also greatly improved from Wednesday. This surprises me, because since Wednesday I have just continued to inflate -- I had to borrow clothes from a bodacious friend (thank you dear) because not a thing I own will go over my body, not even my loose t-shirts. And even the jeans I borrowed wouldn't fasten, I had to do the ol' "hair elastic round the button" trick in order to be decent enough to leave the house. I have the perfect pregnancy half-basketball stomach. But despite my startlingly distended abdomen, the OHSS is actually going well. OHSS really only gets scary when your blood gets too sludgy or you stop peeing -- my blood's improving and I am still peeing like a champ (pause for me to accept adulation for this achievement. Thank you, thank you very much.). I'm swilling SmartWater, V8 and Ensure and sloshing gently from the sofa to the bathroom and back again and yeah, that's pretty much my entire range right now.
Part of the cause of my unwieldiness might be my amazing impressive progesterone level -- 352 (normal range for first trimester: 10-47). Holy crap, no wonder I've had heartburn. Anyway, the P4 level could be contributing to poofing me up . RE has dropped my nightly progesterone shot to half of its previous volume. This is good news because a) it might help my various symptoms, and b) it'll hurt less.
Still can't move or eat or sleep too much, but I'm feeling very chipper indeed. I'm hard to convince, but that 50.5-hr doubling time is making me think you know what, I might just be pregnant.
Friday, April 18, 2008
The report at 16dpo/11dp5dt
Beta report: still didn't double, but did rise.
12dpo/7dp5dt: 45
14dp/9dp5dt: 74
16dpo/11dp5dt: 120
Doubling time is 69 hours. Still, as friend Rebecca usefully reminded me, less than 72 hours is within normal range. of course I was hoping it would be a robust and comforting 48 hours, but still within normal range, still within normal range, still within normal range, I'm going to keep saying that until I believe it. Oh hey, how did I get the beta, you might ask, when I wasn't scheduled for one until Sunday? My dear wife reminded me that I had the (undated) lab slip and that all I had to do was sashay in, hand over the lab slip, and get the blood drawn. What're they going to do, cram the blood back into my veins? Then I called the RE's office and explained to the nice girl that I needed another lab slip for Sunday because I used the one I had been given today. Oops. I think she thinks I'm a bit of a loon, but who cares? She got me another lab slip.
Cramping and spotting report: Uterine cramps are still low-level and steady, with the occasional one that really makes me wince. Spotting is also steady but extremely light. I'm not too worried about those, as both seem common enough. Some women cramp steadily through the first trimester, apparently.
OHSS report: don't ask. Fortunately, the stomach cramps have been radically reduced by switching to an entirely liquid diet and eating (sipping) small amounts every hour or two. Unfortunately, this includes the night time -- if I don't put something in there every few hours I wake up feeling like I've got hedgehogs moshing in my stomach. I have learned, however, that Ensure is surprisingly tasty.
Hospital staff report: Inappropriate Lab Administrative Assistant was on duty today, the one who cheerfully told me on Wednesday (when my stomach was smaller than it was today) that I look six months pregnant. I am not walking these days so much as I am scuttling, since I can't come anywhere near to standing up straight. So today I crab walk my way in to get my bloodwork and the dialogue proceeds thusly:
IALAA: What's wrong with you?
Me, dumbfounded: I have ten pounds of extra fluid in my abdominal cavity.
IALAA: Oh. Is that a good thing?
Me: No.
IALAA: Huh.
Now, she works at a blood lab in a hospital. Presumably the hospital is full of sick people who walk funny because they're, you know, sick, or hurt or something. Does she really ask all of them what's wrong? Because I think what she should do is take people's lab slips and show them into the blood draw rooms and tell them to have a nice day.
Freaky fact: by some reckoning, 16dpo/11dp5dt = 4 weeks 3 days pregnant. Can't think of it that way yet.
Career report: I told my boss yesterday that I definitely wouldn't be in until Monday, and I don't know what I'll do if I still can't walk/eat/etc by then. Go to work with my grossly distended abdomen and explain to every single person why I can't walk? Take even more sick time? I have plenty of accrued time, but of course it's never politically neutral to take it. I may just have to say fuck it to all that, though. I'm not sure I'll be able to sit at a desk come Monday.
I have thought a bit about being a lesbian going through fertility treatments as opposed to being part of a straight couple going through fertility treatments. The people I work with are great, but I'm just not sure that I could expect sympathy and support for doing something that is so very outside of their frame of reference. I can so clearly imagine the puzzled stares: if she wants kids so badly, then why did she become a lesbian?
Gratitude report: I'm grateful for all the lovely, lovely comments I've gotten on my blog. I'm unutterably grateful that right this second I am pregnant. I am grateful that my BFF has secured for me a Wii. Her offer came at a time when I was feeling particularly physically wretched and thus entitled to any amusement I desired. I really think I've been trying to get a Wii for just about as long as I've been trying to get pregnant, although not with as concerted an effort (I stubbornly refused to pay more than the base price of a non-bundled unit).
Final score: I'm scared and uncomfortable but I think I'm winning.
12dpo/7dp5dt: 45
14dp/9dp5dt: 74
16dpo/11dp5dt: 120
Doubling time is 69 hours. Still, as friend Rebecca usefully reminded me, less than 72 hours is within normal range. of course I was hoping it would be a robust and comforting 48 hours, but still within normal range, still within normal range, still within normal range, I'm going to keep saying that until I believe it. Oh hey, how did I get the beta, you might ask, when I wasn't scheduled for one until Sunday? My dear wife reminded me that I had the (undated) lab slip and that all I had to do was sashay in, hand over the lab slip, and get the blood drawn. What're they going to do, cram the blood back into my veins? Then I called the RE's office and explained to the nice girl that I needed another lab slip for Sunday because I used the one I had been given today. Oops. I think she thinks I'm a bit of a loon, but who cares? She got me another lab slip.
Cramping and spotting report: Uterine cramps are still low-level and steady, with the occasional one that really makes me wince. Spotting is also steady but extremely light. I'm not too worried about those, as both seem common enough. Some women cramp steadily through the first trimester, apparently.
OHSS report: don't ask. Fortunately, the stomach cramps have been radically reduced by switching to an entirely liquid diet and eating (sipping) small amounts every hour or two. Unfortunately, this includes the night time -- if I don't put something in there every few hours I wake up feeling like I've got hedgehogs moshing in my stomach. I have learned, however, that Ensure is surprisingly tasty.
Hospital staff report: Inappropriate Lab Administrative Assistant was on duty today, the one who cheerfully told me on Wednesday (when my stomach was smaller than it was today) that I look six months pregnant. I am not walking these days so much as I am scuttling, since I can't come anywhere near to standing up straight. So today I crab walk my way in to get my bloodwork and the dialogue proceeds thusly:
IALAA: What's wrong with you?
Me, dumbfounded: I have ten pounds of extra fluid in my abdominal cavity.
IALAA: Oh. Is that a good thing?
Me: No.
IALAA: Huh.
Now, she works at a blood lab in a hospital. Presumably the hospital is full of sick people who walk funny because they're, you know, sick, or hurt or something. Does she really ask all of them what's wrong? Because I think what she should do is take people's lab slips and show them into the blood draw rooms and tell them to have a nice day.
Freaky fact: by some reckoning, 16dpo/11dp5dt = 4 weeks 3 days pregnant. Can't think of it that way yet.
Career report: I told my boss yesterday that I definitely wouldn't be in until Monday, and I don't know what I'll do if I still can't walk/eat/etc by then. Go to work with my grossly distended abdomen and explain to every single person why I can't walk? Take even more sick time? I have plenty of accrued time, but of course it's never politically neutral to take it. I may just have to say fuck it to all that, though. I'm not sure I'll be able to sit at a desk come Monday.
I have thought a bit about being a lesbian going through fertility treatments as opposed to being part of a straight couple going through fertility treatments. The people I work with are great, but I'm just not sure that I could expect sympathy and support for doing something that is so very outside of their frame of reference. I can so clearly imagine the puzzled stares: if she wants kids so badly, then why did she become a lesbian?
Gratitude report: I'm grateful for all the lovely, lovely comments I've gotten on my blog. I'm unutterably grateful that right this second I am pregnant. I am grateful that my BFF has secured for me a Wii. Her offer came at a time when I was feeling particularly physically wretched and thus entitled to any amusement I desired. I really think I've been trying to get a Wii for just about as long as I've been trying to get pregnant, although not with as concerted an effort (I stubbornly refused to pay more than the base price of a non-bundled unit).
Final score: I'm scared and uncomfortable but I think I'm winning.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
still in the game
Monday's beta (12:30pm): 45
Wednesday's beta (8am): 74
Doubling time: 67 hours
not great, but not a disaster. i'm still in the game.
OHSS symptoms: completely miserable. Can't walk, eat, or breathe properly. My stomach looks like I'm six months pregnant. In fact, when I got my blood drawn today (for the second time today, third time this week) the technician thought I was six months pregnant.
Emergency doctor's appointment yielded: ovaries are the size of potatoes, are touching, are so big that they're pushed up into my intestines which are in turn pressing on my diaphragm. This is probably the source of my stomach cramps, nausea, and breathing problems.
in good news, the uterine cramps are still occasional but are low-key, and the spotting has slowed right down.
No new beta until Sunday. In a word, ARRGH. anyone know where I can get a black-market quantitative beta?
Wednesday's beta (8am): 74
Doubling time: 67 hours
not great, but not a disaster. i'm still in the game.
OHSS symptoms: completely miserable. Can't walk, eat, or breathe properly. My stomach looks like I'm six months pregnant. In fact, when I got my blood drawn today (for the second time today, third time this week) the technician thought I was six months pregnant.
Emergency doctor's appointment yielded: ovaries are the size of potatoes, are touching, are so big that they're pushed up into my intestines which are in turn pressing on my diaphragm. This is probably the source of my stomach cramps, nausea, and breathing problems.
in good news, the uterine cramps are still occasional but are low-key, and the spotting has slowed right down.
No new beta until Sunday. In a word, ARRGH. anyone know where I can get a black-market quantitative beta?
Monday, April 14, 2008
7dp5dt: watch me not freak out
cramps. spotting. three fainter peesticks tonight. more dilute urine maybe? maybe? please?
did get blood drawn for a beta today, so we'll see.
also, have myself an extremely uncomfortable case of OHSS. can't stand up straight, can't inhale deeply, can't bend over, can't walk quickly. it'll be worth it, unless it isn't.
big presentation tomorrow morning for a project we've been working on for months. my brain could not be less present -- and oh yeah, i'll be curled over the podium. that won't look weird.
gahhhhhhhh.
did get blood drawn for a beta today, so we'll see.
also, have myself an extremely uncomfortable case of OHSS. can't stand up straight, can't inhale deeply, can't bend over, can't walk quickly. it'll be worth it, unless it isn't.
big presentation tomorrow morning for a project we've been working on for months. my brain could not be less present -- and oh yeah, i'll be curled over the podium. that won't look weird.
gahhhhhhhh.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
6dp5dt: HOLY CRAP
HOLY CRAP.I don't seem able to say much else.
I've been randomly yelling "HOLY CRAP" ever since around 8pm last night.
See, I was feeling low. L-O-W. That morning's pee-stick had been stark white, and I was so very sick of staring at thin urine-soaked pieces of cardboard, willing them to say other than what they clearly said.
Just for fun (...) I decided to torture myself by doing one more before going to sleep. And HOLY CRAP. Within 6 minutes, a line, a respectable line, a line that I did not need a full-spectrum light to see.
Quavering, I yelled for my sweetheart. She dashed in, convinced that I was bleeding. I shoved the stick at her, and made her tell me about 10 times that I wasn't hallucinating.
Then I peed on three more (I buy them in bulk lots of 50, okay? shush.) As you can see, results were similar.
It just seemed so unreal. Eventually, after some hysterical typing with BFF, I went to sleep. I often wake up in the middle of the night, and when I wake up, I start thinking and thinking, usually dark thoughts, and I can't get back to sleep. Usually when this happens I pop on my headphones and listen to something soporific from librivox.org (I'm currently working on The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew). It lulls me right to sleep; I haven't had any bad insomnia since discovering this strategy.
Anyway, last night I woke up in the middle of the night, and I didn't put my headphones on. I just lay there, full of thoughts, light thoughts, joyful thoughts, hopeful thoughts.
This morning's first pee (supposedly the most concentrated) came out a good deal fainter than last night. I waited an hour and then tried again and it was a bit darker than last night. Dunno what that's about.
I know I'd be a fool to really celebrate this early. Chemical pregnancies are extremely common, especially with IVF. So, so early. Much too early.
But I've got something to celebrate. I've never seen a second line before, excluding the trigger shot. There's a chance here. There's a real chance. If it doesn't work out I'm going to cuss and try to move on gracefully. But right now, just for this minute, this second, I am pregnant.
And I am grateful beyond belief.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
5dp5dt: the color of fear
that would be red. none of it yet, but I wouldn't expect it this early. I have a solid 14-day luteal period even when I'm not shooting up progesterone.
I have been TTC since January of 2007. Those 15 months have included 6 home inseminations (1/07 - 7/07), 2 monitored doctor-deployed ICIs (8/07 - 9/07), one month skipped for sperm-analysis/KD's surgery (10/07), 2 IUIs with frozen sperm (11/07-12/07), one round skipped because we were in Vegas (1/08), and one round of IVF (2/08 - present). Doesn't quite add up to 15 because I have a long cycle and thus get my period <12 times/yr.
Not sure why I'm recounting it, except that it seems relevant to my title, fear. I'm scared. Not necessarily of getting a negative on this round of IVF, but of what it will do to me.
The past 15 months have not improved me. I have not because wiser, kinder, more compassionate. I think I was a much better person 15 months ago. I used to be at least somewhat social. Now I'm a hermit, and I don't want to be any other way. I don't want to talk about it in RL, so I sure don't want to tell any more than a few select people. That means the majority of my friends have no idea what's been consuming me for the past year plus. I know I've withdrawn, and I imagine most of them assume that I've dropped them for new (invisible) friends, and think that I can go to hell. And really, they're perfectly justified in thinking that. I've become completely self-centered. I've forgotten birthdays, ignored milestones. All I can think about is my ovaries. I can apologize, but I can't promise different behavior in the future. I have so little to offer right now.
I do want to be grateful for the things that 15mo of TTC haven't ruined. My dearest friendships have remained unaffected. I've met so many wonderful people inside the computer. My work life, strangely, has been great, my job's gotten much more interesting and engaging. My darling and I are closer than ever. TTC has never come between us -- well, not except the one month, our last home insem, when she squirted the sperm into me and some came oozing out and she stared at my crotch and unthinkingly said "ewwww". I burst into tears, but the fact is that we were both under a lot of stress at the time.
I'm just afraid of becoming (even more) soured by disappointment. Callous-er, bitter-er, jealous-er, more guarded, more isolated. I know none of this is inevitable, but I really don't seem to have the will to keep up a good attitude.
For me, a good attitude isn't This will work, rah, rah! It's if this doesn't work, I will be okay, and my personality won't be in shreds.
I have been TTC since January of 2007. Those 15 months have included 6 home inseminations (1/07 - 7/07), 2 monitored doctor-deployed ICIs (8/07 - 9/07), one month skipped for sperm-analysis/KD's surgery (10/07), 2 IUIs with frozen sperm (11/07-12/07), one round skipped because we were in Vegas (1/08), and one round of IVF (2/08 - present). Doesn't quite add up to 15 because I have a long cycle and thus get my period <12 times/yr.
Not sure why I'm recounting it, except that it seems relevant to my title, fear. I'm scared. Not necessarily of getting a negative on this round of IVF, but of what it will do to me.
The past 15 months have not improved me. I have not because wiser, kinder, more compassionate. I think I was a much better person 15 months ago. I used to be at least somewhat social. Now I'm a hermit, and I don't want to be any other way. I don't want to talk about it in RL, so I sure don't want to tell any more than a few select people. That means the majority of my friends have no idea what's been consuming me for the past year plus. I know I've withdrawn, and I imagine most of them assume that I've dropped them for new (invisible) friends, and think that I can go to hell. And really, they're perfectly justified in thinking that. I've become completely self-centered. I've forgotten birthdays, ignored milestones. All I can think about is my ovaries. I can apologize, but I can't promise different behavior in the future. I have so little to offer right now.
I do want to be grateful for the things that 15mo of TTC haven't ruined. My dearest friendships have remained unaffected. I've met so many wonderful people inside the computer. My work life, strangely, has been great, my job's gotten much more interesting and engaging. My darling and I are closer than ever. TTC has never come between us -- well, not except the one month, our last home insem, when she squirted the sperm into me and some came oozing out and she stared at my crotch and unthinkingly said "ewwww". I burst into tears, but the fact is that we were both under a lot of stress at the time.
I'm just afraid of becoming (even more) soured by disappointment. Callous-er, bitter-er, jealous-er, more guarded, more isolated. I know none of this is inevitable, but I really don't seem to have the will to keep up a good attitude.
For me, a good attitude isn't This will work, rah, rah! It's if this doesn't work, I will be okay, and my personality won't be in shreds.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
3dp5dt: pain in the ass
My ass, that is, and I'm talking about the progesterone here.
I must be a real wimp. See, I don't have the dread progesterone in oil, which everyone knows is incredibly painful. I have progesterone in ethyl oleate, nice and thin, which can be injected with a slender 25ga needle. Furthermore, I have my deft-handed darling to inject me, which she does skillfully and nearly painlessly. I do not have a single bruise on my alabaster bottom.
Nevertheless I feel like I've been kicked in the arse hard, once on each cheek. My work chair is thankfully pretty comfortable (a Herman Miller Aeron mesh -- I know, very dot com), but my car seat hurts, our dining room chair hurt, and most notably, toilet seats hurt. And there is just no way around that last one.
Maybe it's a real estate issue. I am far from being a skinny young thing; my BMI classifies me firmly as "overweight", although not obese. But, despite my general adipososity, my bottom is amazingly flat and small. There isn't that much to sink a 1.5" long needle into. Hurm.
Today is a sad day. I woke up feeling sad. Then I came to work and realized that I'd missed a meeting that had been rescheduled. I'd been informed, of course, but had failed to transfer that information to my calendar. Durrr indeed.
I dunno. I'm trying to keep loose, here, but right now I just feel... sad. I blame the progesterone.
Please use space below to whine and keep me company.
I must be a real wimp. See, I don't have the dread progesterone in oil, which everyone knows is incredibly painful. I have progesterone in ethyl oleate, nice and thin, which can be injected with a slender 25ga needle. Furthermore, I have my deft-handed darling to inject me, which she does skillfully and nearly painlessly. I do not have a single bruise on my alabaster bottom.
Nevertheless I feel like I've been kicked in the arse hard, once on each cheek. My work chair is thankfully pretty comfortable (a Herman Miller Aeron mesh -- I know, very dot com), but my car seat hurts, our dining room chair hurt, and most notably, toilet seats hurt. And there is just no way around that last one.
Maybe it's a real estate issue. I am far from being a skinny young thing; my BMI classifies me firmly as "overweight", although not obese. But, despite my general adipososity, my bottom is amazingly flat and small. There isn't that much to sink a 1.5" long needle into. Hurm.
Today is a sad day. I woke up feeling sad. Then I came to work and realized that I'd missed a meeting that had been rescheduled. I'd been informed, of course, but had failed to transfer that information to my calendar. Durrr indeed.
I dunno. I'm trying to keep loose, here, but right now I just feel... sad. I blame the progesterone.
Please use space below to whine and keep me company.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
2dp5dt
Wicked heartburn, which I got really excited about until I googled "progesterone heartburn". Since I get a giant syringe of the stuff shot into my bum every night, one might reasonably expect a few side effects. Durrrrrrrrrrr.
Happy Wednesday, anyway!
Happy Wednesday, anyway!
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
1dp5dt
Stuff that's going on:
- Cramps. I'm torn between thinking whoopee, that's implantation right there! and thinking man, I am going to start menstruating the second my progesterone goes down low enough, because my body is dying to expel some lining right now.
- None of yesterday's excess batch made it to freeze. 5 frozen is just fine, a very good outcome, but I'm just amazed at how the numbers winnow at every point in this process. 25 eggs > 21 mature eggs > 16 fertilized > 15 embryos > 6 blastocysts.
- I have officially "peed out" the trigger shot, which is to say that I am no longer getting positive tests on my pee sticks. We will now enter a brief, brief time period of no-stick-peeing before I start peeing in earnest.
- I already have plans for the next cycle if this doesn't work. I don't do positive thinking. I'm all about the defensive pessimism.
Monday, April 7, 2008
4AA
One 4AA partially-hatched blastocyst, hopefully burrowing into my endometrium right now and not into my underwear. Made it back to work in time for my 3pm meeting. I don't believe in that bed rest stuff.
Things I didn't like about today:
Things I did like about today:
Things I didn't like about today:
- No cute embryo pics like other people have posted on their blogs. Although I guess they all look the same -- I could just right-click one of someone else's. Here! Behold Junior:
- RE did not use ultrasound to guide the catheter for the transfer. One of the few clear results from studying IVFs is that clinical touch (no ultrasound) is inferior to ultrasound-guided transfers . I'm not happy about that at all, and it may be what prompts me to leave a doctor I otherwise like very much.
- The paperwork the RE brought out was all filled out for the transfer of two embryos, despite having mentioned in every single conversation on the topic -- including our initial IVF consult -- that we only want to transfer one. When we stuck to our guns he gave us the "this is your best chance" spiel, although he did add "whatever choice you make has to be right for you." Additionally, his presumption of two gave the embryologist a heart attack, since she had to toss #5 in the freezerator at the last minute to get it started in time.
- Never learned the embryologist's name, never talked directly to her about how the embryos were doing.
Things I did like about today:
- The fact that we have 5 embryos on ice, with more hopefully joining them tomorrow;
- The transfer room was very homey, not like a hospital, just a room with a fancy split-legged Laz-E-Boy;
- The transfer was painless and relatively swift;
- RE warmly shook our hands and wished us luck at the end;
- Lying in the twilit room afterwards, holding hands with my darling, stroking each other's faces, dreaming of all that could be;
- It's over, everything went well, it's over, it's over, it's over.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Right now I could be pregnant...
...even though all embryos are about a mile away, and no sperm has come near me in, well, quite some time.
See, because of the hilarious way in which pregnancy is ret conned, if I get pregnant, then I am pregnant right now. If I don't, I'm not. Pregnancy is usually measured by the first day of the last menstrual period, presumably because your typical member of the female public has no idea when she last ovulated, but might just recall the last time she saw blood coming out of her vagina. Ergo, if I get pregnant, then right now I am nearly three weeks pregnant.
I don't feel any different. I hope that's not a bad sign.
Luckily for y'all I go back to work tomorrow and will likely stop compulsively blogging. That's good because I think I've written about almost every subject except the hideous huge green bruises I have on both of my hands and my wrist. I don't think I mentioned how the worst part of the ER was the four attempts it took to start my IV. I have small thin hands with veins that apparently like to disintegrate the moment you stick a needle in them. Holy god that hurt. I had no idea starting an IV was that painful.
After three tries I was pale and sweating and the nurse called the anesthesiologist, who started it in my arm in about 5 seconds. Afterwards he looked at me and said, rather oddly, "it's nobody's fault, some people just have veins like that." I wasn't sure if he was telling me not to blame the nurse or not to blame myself, and it was odd because it hadn't really occurred to me to blame anyone. Just one of those things.
See, because of the hilarious way in which pregnancy is ret conned, if I get pregnant, then I am pregnant right now. If I don't, I'm not. Pregnancy is usually measured by the first day of the last menstrual period, presumably because your typical member of the female public has no idea when she last ovulated, but might just recall the last time she saw blood coming out of her vagina. Ergo, if I get pregnant, then right now I am nearly three weeks pregnant.
I don't feel any different. I hope that's not a bad sign.
Luckily for y'all I go back to work tomorrow and will likely stop compulsively blogging. That's good because I think I've written about almost every subject except the hideous huge green bruises I have on both of my hands and my wrist. I don't think I mentioned how the worst part of the ER was the four attempts it took to start my IV. I have small thin hands with veins that apparently like to disintegrate the moment you stick a needle in them. Holy god that hurt. I had no idea starting an IV was that painful.
After three tries I was pale and sweating and the nurse called the anesthesiologist, who started it in my arm in about 5 seconds. Afterwards he looked at me and said, rather oddly, "it's nobody's fault, some people just have veins like that." I wasn't sure if he was telling me not to blame the nurse or not to blame myself, and it was odd because it hadn't really occurred to me to blame anyone. Just one of those things.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Thinking more about effort and luck...
This thoughtful comment from the lovely & talented Lil Jimmi sparked off some additional ranting on the subject of luck and achievements:
Excellent point! I'm in no way saying that it was easy for those who conceived without medical intervention/had their desired unmedicated birth/breast fed/etc. My darling wandered by and looked over my shoulder and, as she is wont to do, dropped a pearl of wisdom:
Lucky doesn't mean you get it for nothing. Lucky means it is within your power to get it.
See, for every person who had to work really really hard for their unmedicated birth etc, there's at least one other person who worked just as hard and still didn't get it. And there might be someone else who worked harder, and still didn't get it.
So should you be proud of your hard work? Yes, of course, just as people should be proud of their hard work no matter the outcome (although they rarely are, unless the outcome is the desired one). But the fact that the ultimate outcome went your way, well, there's a good whack of luck in there, and I think it behooves all of us who have been lucky to be grateful for our luck. My particular rant was about people who are smug about situations that required a large helping of luck, and then think that they got what they got because they're clever, never crediting their luck. En passant they often throw out a few judgey statements that make some less-lucky people feel shitty about their medical interventions/failure to breast feed/etc.
In a broader way, the physical "luck" involved in the reproductive arena is somewhat like the "luck" of social advantage and the whole myth of meritocracy. It's another arena in which people constantly attribute to virtue something that required a whack of luck.
Example: I have a couple of degrees. I had to work hard for them, yeah. But there are plenty of people out there who've worked just as hard and because they didn't have some of my luck, they don't have those degrees. Can I be proud of the work I put into my degrees? Sure! But should I be smug about them, and assert that anyone can have these degrees if they just work as hard as I did? Should I turn up my nose at the degree-less, and make remarks about how I'm just not sure it's right for all those people to be running around out there without degrees? I can, but I should be slapped. My achievements are a blend of my work and my luck, my effort + unearned advantages, and all I can do is acknowledge both sides of the equation, and be grateful for the part I got for free.
In other news, cannot stop thinking about the 15 embryos in a dish, a dozen blocks from where I am sitting right now.
Maybe the reason I'm so engaged with this topic right now is because I am willing to trade not being praised if I get pregnant for not being blamed if I don't.
Two weeks from now it'll be over, one way or another. Two weeks from now I will be very grateful or very cranky.
Holy crap.
(please note that below is inspired by but not addressed to Li'l Jimmi, who I absolutely do not believe should be slapped in any way, ever)It's true that luck plays a huge part in how all this having a baby stuff turns out, but when it comes to trying to have a "natural" birth in a US hospital it's also a lot of work.
You've get a big fight ahead of you if you want to have a low-intervention birth. Here in Philly there is just one center city hospital that does L&D because it is not profitable. They don't want you to take up a room laboring naturally. They want you in and out. You have to go in with a plan and a team to fight for you.
So yeah I feel like we were the luckiest dykes on the planet being able to get the birth experience we wanted in a hospital, but it wasn't just luck it was work too.
BF too...there's probably 10% of people who have a blissfully easy time BF, but for the other people who are lucky enough to pull it off it's a Hella lot of work.
Excellent point! I'm in no way saying that it was easy for those who conceived without medical intervention/had their desired unmedicated birth/breast fed/etc. My darling wandered by and looked over my shoulder and, as she is wont to do, dropped a pearl of wisdom:
Lucky doesn't mean you get it for nothing. Lucky means it is within your power to get it.
See, for every person who had to work really really hard for their unmedicated birth etc, there's at least one other person who worked just as hard and still didn't get it. And there might be someone else who worked harder, and still didn't get it.
So should you be proud of your hard work? Yes, of course, just as people should be proud of their hard work no matter the outcome (although they rarely are, unless the outcome is the desired one). But the fact that the ultimate outcome went your way, well, there's a good whack of luck in there, and I think it behooves all of us who have been lucky to be grateful for our luck. My particular rant was about people who are smug about situations that required a large helping of luck, and then think that they got what they got because they're clever, never crediting their luck. En passant they often throw out a few judgey statements that make some less-lucky people feel shitty about their medical interventions/failure to breast feed/etc.
In a broader way, the physical "luck" involved in the reproductive arena is somewhat like the "luck" of social advantage and the whole myth of meritocracy. It's another arena in which people constantly attribute to virtue something that required a whack of luck.
Example: I have a couple of degrees. I had to work hard for them, yeah. But there are plenty of people out there who've worked just as hard and because they didn't have some of my luck, they don't have those degrees. Can I be proud of the work I put into my degrees? Sure! But should I be smug about them, and assert that anyone can have these degrees if they just work as hard as I did? Should I turn up my nose at the degree-less, and make remarks about how I'm just not sure it's right for all those people to be running around out there without degrees? I can, but I should be slapped. My achievements are a blend of my work and my luck, my effort + unearned advantages, and all I can do is acknowledge both sides of the equation, and be grateful for the part I got for free.
In other news, cannot stop thinking about the 15 embryos in a dish, a dozen blocks from where I am sitting right now.
Maybe the reason I'm so engaged with this topic right now is because I am willing to trade not being praised if I get pregnant for not being blamed if I don't.
Two weeks from now it'll be over, one way or another. Two weeks from now I will be very grateful or very cranky.
Holy crap.
Day 3 Report: Our Little Brood
Things're looking good! For the historical record, here's the current crop. The lab's grading scale runs from 1 (highest quality) to 4 (lowest quality).
9 cells, grade 1: 1
8 cells, grade 1: 4
6 cells, grade 1: 1
8 cells, grade 2: 4
7 cells, grade 2: 2
6 cells, grade 2: 1
4 cells, grade 3: 1
There's also one more unknown embryo, because I was writing fast and missed one -- we have a total of 15 at this stage, which seems to me to be a very good attrition rate given that we had 16 fertilize.
Confirmed transfer for 12:30pm Monday. Full steam ahead!
9 cells, grade 1: 1
8 cells, grade 1: 4
6 cells, grade 1: 1
8 cells, grade 2: 4
7 cells, grade 2: 2
6 cells, grade 2: 1
4 cells, grade 3: 1
There's also one more unknown embryo, because I was writing fast and missed one -- we have a total of 15 at this stage, which seems to me to be a very good attrition rate given that we had 16 fertilize.
Confirmed transfer for 12:30pm Monday. Full steam ahead!
Friday, April 4, 2008
Hey hey I saw two lines...
Peed on a stick this morning. It was to see if the trigger was out of my system, honest. It had nothing to do with any desire to see what a positive pregnancy test looks like. (Note to the curious: it looks just like a negative one, except there's another pink line where the blank white space usually is).
Feeling a million times better today. Some time yesterday afternoon I just suddenly felt that my body had its balance back -- my mouth was moist again, my abdomen less swollen, the searing shoulder pain was gone, and the sense of worry and wrongness just abated. Yippee! Three days off of work is not ideal, though -- and I still haven't mentioned the embryo transfer on Monday (I'm thinking perhaps I can just nip off during lunch, get knocked up?) If I do this again I think I'll have to take a vacation week off. I think the "minor surgery the details of which I don't want to talk about" excuse would sound fishy the second time.
Embryo report tomorrow. *gulp*
Feeling a million times better today. Some time yesterday afternoon I just suddenly felt that my body had its balance back -- my mouth was moist again, my abdomen less swollen, the searing shoulder pain was gone, and the sense of worry and wrongness just abated. Yippee! Three days off of work is not ideal, though -- and I still haven't mentioned the embryo transfer on Monday (I'm thinking perhaps I can just nip off during lunch, get knocked up?) If I do this again I think I'll have to take a vacation week off. I think the "minor surgery the details of which I don't want to talk about" excuse would sound fishy the second time.
Embryo report tomorrow. *gulp*
Thursday, April 3, 2008
A Memo to the Internets
...apparently I've recovered enough to rant. This is inspired by a cluster of interactions, recent and not so recent, which bugged the hell out of me.
Dear Internet,
Following please find a list of reproductive scenarios. If these scenarios happen to you, you shouldn't be smug about it -- you should be grateful for it. To wit:
If you conceived on your first or second try;
If you conceived at home without any medical intervention;
If you conceived with minimal medical intervention;
If you had an uncomplicated pregnancy;
If you gave birth at full term;
If you desired and had an unmedicated birth;
If you desired and had a vaginal birth;
If you desired to and were able to breast feed.
Don't be proud of these things. Be grateful. The fact that you wanted {whatever} and got what you wanted is not a marker of your of moral superiority. It's a marker of having been lucky. There are plenty of people who wanted exactly what you wanted and still ended up with IVF/ICSI preterm drugged-to-the-gills Caesarean births. (please note: I also don't think you should judge yourself superior to those who didn't want those things in the first place... but that's really a separate rant. Don't worry, I'll get around to it.)
The proper reaction to luck is not to explain to everyone exactly what you did to get to {desired state}, and what {those who have not enjoyed the desired state} are doing wrong. It is to be grateful, and also to shut the fuck up.
For the record, although I joked in my tags about being a good little layer, I didn't do a damn thing that other people haven't done, people who end up with few or no embryos. I've been lucky, that's all (lucky and slightly polycystic), and darn tootin' I am grateful, and praying that my luck holds. If it does it'll be because I was... lucky. No other reason.
Dear Internet,
Following please find a list of reproductive scenarios. If these scenarios happen to you, you shouldn't be smug about it -- you should be grateful for it. To wit:
If you conceived on your first or second try;
If you conceived at home without any medical intervention;
If you conceived with minimal medical intervention;
If you had an uncomplicated pregnancy;
If you gave birth at full term;
If you desired and had an unmedicated birth;
If you desired and had a vaginal birth;
If you desired to and were able to breast feed.
Don't be proud of these things. Be grateful. The fact that you wanted {whatever} and got what you wanted is not a marker of your of moral superiority. It's a marker of having been lucky. There are plenty of people who wanted exactly what you wanted and still ended up with IVF/ICSI preterm drugged-to-the-gills Caesarean births. (please note: I also don't think you should judge yourself superior to those who didn't want those things in the first place... but that's really a separate rant. Don't worry, I'll get around to it.)
The proper reaction to luck is not to explain to everyone exactly what you did to get to {desired state}, and what {those who have not enjoyed the desired state} are doing wrong. It is to be grateful, and also to shut the fuck up.
For the record, although I joked in my tags about being a good little layer, I didn't do a damn thing that other people haven't done, people who end up with few or no embryos. I've been lucky, that's all (lucky and slightly polycystic), and darn tootin' I am grateful, and praying that my luck holds. If it does it'll be because I was... lucky. No other reason.
What (Good Things) Happened Overnight
Final egg count: 25
Mature: 21 (!)
Fertilized with ICSI: 16 (76%)
Chances are excellent for a 5-day transfer, which is just what we want.
I slept sitting straight up all night and only woke a few times to shuffle to the bathroom. Pain is much better. I still don't feel like moving, but I am suffused with gratitude every time I take a deep breath and it doesn't hurt. Maybe I can finish watching Scrubs today.
Yesterday I was hardly there -- just sunk in misery and watching the minutes pass by. Now I'm looking outward again. And just for today I'm not googling about anything that could go wrong.
Mature: 21 (!)
Fertilized with ICSI: 16 (76%)
Chances are excellent for a 5-day transfer, which is just what we want.
I slept sitting straight up all night and only woke a few times to shuffle to the bathroom. Pain is much better. I still don't feel like moving, but I am suffused with gratitude every time I take a deep breath and it doesn't hurt. Maybe I can finish watching Scrubs today.
Yesterday I was hardly there -- just sunk in misery and watching the minutes pass by. Now I'm looking outward again. And just for today I'm not googling about anything that could go wrong.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
done!
At home!
Preliminary count = 21 eggs "so far"; they were still looking through the fluid when he gave us the report. Doubtless many of those won't be mature (at the last ultrasound he counted 15 likely-looking follicles), but it's a lovely (lucky?) number to be starting out with.
The anesthesia was a trip, I've never had it before. Man, that stuff works. One minute I was lying there under the huge light, legs strapped into leg-elevator things, thinking about alien abduction. The next second I was someplace else entirely. I couldn't believe it. The very first thing I mumbled -- no fooling -- was "Anesthesiology is a noble profession." The anesthesiologist looked startled and said "thank you". I was just floored that it was all over, just like that. Floored and grateful.
Then I noticed OW OW OW OW. I am not shy and I communicated OW OW OW, and was rewarded with an IV of some narcotic (Diludid?). Unfortunately, it only took the edge off, and it took another few minutes to figure out that a big part of the pain was that I desperately needed to pee. Sadly, we have no pictures of My First (and hopefully Last) Bedpan.
All hospital staff extremely nice. Nurses rock.
The bad part is that now I feel like utter shit -- I can barely hobble half-curled to the bathroom. My list of woes: breathing deeply hurts. Laughing hurts enough that I had to turn off Scrubs. Moving hurts. My shoulder is randomly cramped and hurts as much as my abdomen. Gas pains keep bubbling up. I'm just sort of skating from one moment to the next, convinced that I am moving in the right direction because time is passing, and nothing will fix this but time. Every half-hour is an achievement. Who the fuck are these maniacs who go jogging round the block after their egg retrievals? When the nice nurse dropped her voice and advised me no sex, I could only stare at her in disbelief.
The good: my beloved is taking wonderful care of me, hovering with SmartWater and homemade chicken soup and pillows. I have this neat microwavable heating pad that feels really great on the shoulder. And I know all this is temporary.
Right now, though, right at this moment, I can't imagine ever choosing to do this again. Though I know that if we did this whole process again we'd rack back on the stims, I wouldn't get as many eggs, and thus would not feel so shitty. I'm told that there's a direct relation between the number of eggs and how wrecked you feel afterwards.
Preliminary count = 21 eggs "so far"; they were still looking through the fluid when he gave us the report. Doubtless many of those won't be mature (at the last ultrasound he counted 15 likely-looking follicles), but it's a lovely (lucky?) number to be starting out with.
The anesthesia was a trip, I've never had it before. Man, that stuff works. One minute I was lying there under the huge light, legs strapped into leg-elevator things, thinking about alien abduction. The next second I was someplace else entirely. I couldn't believe it. The very first thing I mumbled -- no fooling -- was "Anesthesiology is a noble profession." The anesthesiologist looked startled and said "thank you". I was just floored that it was all over, just like that. Floored and grateful.
Then I noticed OW OW OW OW. I am not shy and I communicated OW OW OW, and was rewarded with an IV of some narcotic (Diludid?). Unfortunately, it only took the edge off, and it took another few minutes to figure out that a big part of the pain was that I desperately needed to pee. Sadly, we have no pictures of My First (and hopefully Last) Bedpan.
All hospital staff extremely nice. Nurses rock.
The bad part is that now I feel like utter shit -- I can barely hobble half-curled to the bathroom. My list of woes: breathing deeply hurts. Laughing hurts enough that I had to turn off Scrubs. Moving hurts. My shoulder is randomly cramped and hurts as much as my abdomen. Gas pains keep bubbling up. I'm just sort of skating from one moment to the next, convinced that I am moving in the right direction because time is passing, and nothing will fix this but time. Every half-hour is an achievement. Who the fuck are these maniacs who go jogging round the block after their egg retrievals? When the nice nurse dropped her voice and advised me no sex, I could only stare at her in disbelief.
The good: my beloved is taking wonderful care of me, hovering with SmartWater and homemade chicken soup and pillows. I have this neat microwavable heating pad that feels really great on the shoulder. And I know all this is temporary.
Right now, though, right at this moment, I can't imagine ever choosing to do this again. Though I know that if we did this whole process again we'd rack back on the stims, I wouldn't get as many eggs, and thus would not feel so shitty. I'm told that there's a direct relation between the number of eggs and how wrecked you feel afterwards.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Musings on the day before retrieval
Hey, you know what I think is really funny? This. For them as don't like following links, it's the abstract of a paper entitled "Low negative affect prior to treatment is associated with a decreased chance of live birth from a first IVF cycle". First time I saw it I misread it as perhaps you did: "Low affect prior to treatment" etc. That would mean that, basically, being mellow reduced your chances for success. This was a delicious enough possibility that I clicked on and realized it said "Low negative affect". That's right. Being insufficiently anxious and cranky can reduce your chances of conceiving via IVF!
Have consumed 1.5L of SmartWater today, planning on doing the same until OHSS danger has passed. I have to say it tastes like... water. Seriously. Except it costs $1.69 for 1.5L. How do I know there even are electrolytes in there? Would I know an electrolyte by sight? I would not. I will add "fear counterfeit electrolyte beverages" to my worry list, pursuant to previous paragraph. I am proud to say that I am truly doing everything I can to make this cycle work.
---
Replies
Shannon asks: What does triggering mean?
Well, Shannon, pull up a chair, I'm glad you asked! Triggering = a precisely timed injection of
hCG. hCG is what pregnancy tests measure, but in this case, it's used as a stand-in for LH, which is what ovulation predictor kits measure (I believe it's used instead of LH b/c LH has an unhelpfully short half-life, but don't quote me). LH and hCG are very similar, which is why OPKs are reasonably good pregnancy tests (although the reverse is not true -- see this helpful page for more details).
Anyway, the hCG injection performs the same function as does the LH surge in your body: it prompts the eggs' final maturation (what that involves I have no idea -- licking the envelope? tiny diplomas?) and also induces ovulation. This is why it needs to be so precisely timed, 36 hours before retrieval; if you do your shot too early you'll have already ovulated by the time they try to Hoover up the eggs. Do it too late and you'll get immature eggs.
I was paranoid enough about timing that I had time.gov up on the laptop screen. B stuck the needle in at 8:00pm, although it was 8:01 by the time she finished.
Also, thank you for the dockweed suggestion, but since I will be wearing a hospital gown for both the retrieval and transfer, no dice -- however, I could make a sort of dock seed tefillin to wear in between... hmm.
Dawn, my doctor is frustratingly non-committal. He has no problem with letting me have my own way about just about everything, and basically told me that unless my E2 was ridiculous (over 10,000) I could make the call. I had decided to trigger up to 6000, but I'm so glad that I didn't have to make that decision.
I am a tiny bit annoyed at him for forgetting that we are planning on doing a single embryo transfer. It's a decision I'm anguished enough about (more on this subject later) and I don't want to have to have that discussion more times than we have to. He even tried the old "the worst thing that can happen is twins." No, doctor, the worst thing that can happen is not twins. Garrr. Post on that subject later.
Thanks and love to everyone who has commented with their support!
Have consumed 1.5L of SmartWater today, planning on doing the same until OHSS danger has passed. I have to say it tastes like... water. Seriously. Except it costs $1.69 for 1.5L. How do I know there even are electrolytes in there? Would I know an electrolyte by sight? I would not. I will add "fear counterfeit electrolyte beverages" to my worry list, pursuant to previous paragraph. I am proud to say that I am truly doing everything I can to make this cycle work.
---
Replies
Shannon asks: What does triggering mean?
Well, Shannon, pull up a chair, I'm glad you asked! Triggering = a precisely timed injection of
hCG. hCG is what pregnancy tests measure, but in this case, it's used as a stand-in for LH, which is what ovulation predictor kits measure (I believe it's used instead of LH b/c LH has an unhelpfully short half-life, but don't quote me). LH and hCG are very similar, which is why OPKs are reasonably good pregnancy tests (although the reverse is not true -- see this helpful page for more details).Anyway, the hCG injection performs the same function as does the LH surge in your body: it prompts the eggs' final maturation (what that involves I have no idea -- licking the envelope? tiny diplomas?) and also induces ovulation. This is why it needs to be so precisely timed, 36 hours before retrieval; if you do your shot too early you'll have already ovulated by the time they try to Hoover up the eggs. Do it too late and you'll get immature eggs.
I was paranoid enough about timing that I had time.gov up on the laptop screen. B stuck the needle in at 8:00pm, although it was 8:01 by the time she finished.
Also, thank you for the dockweed suggestion, but since I will be wearing a hospital gown for both the retrieval and transfer, no dice -- however, I could make a sort of dock seed tefillin to wear in between... hmm.
Dawn, my doctor is frustratingly non-committal. He has no problem with letting me have my own way about just about everything, and basically told me that unless my E2 was ridiculous (over 10,000) I could make the call. I had decided to trigger up to 6000, but I'm so glad that I didn't have to make that decision.
I am a tiny bit annoyed at him for forgetting that we are planning on doing a single embryo transfer. It's a decision I'm anguished enough about (more on this subject later) and I don't want to have to have that discussion more times than we have to. He even tried the old "the worst thing that can happen is twins." No, doctor, the worst thing that can happen is not twins. Garrr. Post on that subject later.
Thanks and love to everyone who has commented with their support!
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