ChezPerky

I had resigned myself to cancelling this cycle, with the smallest glimmer of hope that maybe tomorrow wouldn’t be too late to trigger for a Tuesday retrieval to at least get the smallest of my growing eggs. In tears, I sat in my husband’s arms and said over and over again, “I’m so sorry.”

A whole cycle wasted.

Worse: I would have to call Ye Olde Fertility Clinic tomorrow and admit to my stupidity. They have signs EVERYWHERE asking if you have your trigger shot. Are you SURE you have your trigger shot? ABSOLUTELY sure? Check with your nurse if you need it, they admonish. Their paperwork reminds you constantly to ensure ahead of time that you HAVE YOUR TRIGGER SHOT because the doctor on call can’t guarantee that you’ll be able to find a pharmacy that has it in stock if you call them in a panic in the middle of the night. On Thursday the nurse who went over my trigger instructions asked if I had the trigger shot. “Oh yes,” I said. “I’m sure I do.”

“You might want to check,” she said.
“Oh, I’ll definitely check. I wouldn’t want to be THAT patient,” I said. “You know, the one who calls in the middle of the night in a panic because she doesn’t have it?”

Right. And I did have every intention of checking to see if I had it. Really. But, well, life got away from me.

We called all the 24 hour pharmacies around and, sure enough, no one had it in stock, so calling the doctor on call wasn’t going to help me anyway. So, as I said, I had resigned myself to having completely wasted an entire cycle.

But then – my brilliant, handsome, perfect, amazing, wondermous husband came downstairs and said to me as I wallowed in my misery: “Hey, dumb question… does M have hCG?”

“M’s out of town.”
“Right. So does M have any?”
“Probably, but she’s out of town and I don’t have a key to her house.”
“So… does anyone locally HAVE a key to her house?”

Duh.

Well, it was worth a shot, despite the late hour. The clock was ticking on how long I could push my luck anyway. Last time I got this far, I took my trigger shot half an hour late and my nurse said that was no problem at all. She even said an hour late was no problem at all. Any more than that and it starts to become a problem.

So at 11:38, I called M on her cell phone. She didn’t answer, but I left a message asking her to please call me if she got the message. And then, just for good measure, I tried calling her one more time, just in case she hadn’t heard it the first time. It still went to voice mail, but it turned out that calling her the second time was the thing that clued her in to the fact that the phone ringing was actually something she needed to check.

She called me back moments later.

She did, indeed, have hCG at her house. Her neighbor across the street has a key. She was willing to call her neighbor to see if she wouldn’t mind meeting me with the key. Miraculously, her neighbor was still awake and didn’t mind meeting me with the key.

M gave me instructions for how to deal with the alarm and how to find the medication, and I dashed off to her house (she’s only a couple blocks from me).

hCG in hand, I dashed home to take the trigger shot.

Tomorrow I will pick up MY hCG and return it to M. Along with some kind of super special treat. Because although there is really no repaying this kindness, I really must find a way. She said she was so glad that my husband thought to call her.

“I’m so glad we’re in this together,” she said.

Me too, M, me too.

I’m not sure she’ll ever know how much this kindness means to me. I’m not sure I can ever articulate how huge her tiny sacrifice (of an hour’s sleep to talk me through getting into her house) was for me. I don’t know how things will work out this cycle, but I do know that without her help, I wouldn’t have had an opportunity to find out. I also know that without my husband’s quick thinking (WHY DIDN’T YOU THINK OF IT HALF AN HOUR EARLIER???), I wouldn’t have had a chance to find out how this cycle will work out. I love you, sweetie. I’m so glad we’re in this together.

—————————————

P.S. At monitoring today, they thought I’m probably looking at getting 10 eggs at retrieval. Just so we’re clear, the doctor more than doubled my medications this time around in hopes of getting at least a 50% increase in response this time. I got 10 eggs at retrieval last time. I know that it only takes one, but I’m not in the least bit amused that more than doubling my medications didn’t really change the overall outcome. I *did* ask the sonographer how big my ovaries are and she measured them: they are over twice the size of an average, non-stimulated, ovary. I asked if I was exaggerating to call them baseballs and she said definitely not. My left side, she said, might be closer to the size of a softball.

Gah!

Read Full Post »

There’s always a but, right?

My nanny’s father died suddenly on Thursday, so she is out of the country. I don’t know for how long. I am assuming at least a week.

My retrieval which we THOUGHT was going to be either Saturday or Sunday is now… Monday. At almost exactly the time that I’m supposed to be at a school conference for my foster son. A school conference at which I’m paying for the pleasure of the company of the developmental pediatrician and the speech therapist.

And I thought I’d be missing that school conference, because of the retrieval… but it looks like… maybe not so much.

I thought the problem with Monday’s retrieval revolved around childcare for the wee ones. For if I had no care for them, I was going to have to call the whole thing off. Which seemed like an incredible waste, no?

But.

Actually, just before 11pm tonight, I pulled out my bag o’ medication and…

No trigger shot.

I forgot I used it when my last cycle was cancelled and it was the one thing I didn’t refill this time around, assuming I already had it. My husband called around to all the local 24 hour pharmacies in the area and none of them have it in stock. So… I’m out of luck and I likely blew an entire cycle for nothing.

Read Full Post »

The doc at monitoring today thought I *might* trigger today, but I was skeptical. Turned out, I was right to be skeptical – “same and back tomorrow…” which is the same instruction I get every day. I have three or four mature folllicles, some of which I’m probably going to lose and a whole lot of smaller follicles that they want to give time to catch up. So there you go. My right ovary is still (as usual) subpar, but what are you going to do?

So I have to go back to the clinic tomorrow, which is a logistical nightmare because it’s a Jewish Holiday (Shavuos), but I have a friend who agreed to take me, and all the important details are taken care of, so that’s all that matters.

I’m extraordinarily uncomfortable – it feels like I have canteloupes for ovaries right now, and I assure you, I don’t have room in there for two canteloupes. I will simply take this as a good sign of lots of growth even if we’re not seeing it all on the ultrasound. Yeah, that’s it.

Read Full Post »

I didn’t update you on yesterday’s monitoring because I was swamped. Anyway, yesterday’s monitoring showed 1 follicle over 10mm on the right (aka: the useless ovary) and 4-5 on the right. They ranged from 16mm to 11mm. Everything else was smaller. My estrogen had jumped from 181 to 532 and my instructions were to stay on the same doses and return to the clinic today. My nurse sounded really perky about the whole thing, and honestly I was a little surprised by that. I’d been a bit down about the follicles – I had about 12 total, but half of them weren’t over 10 yet and aren’t showing a lot of promise, and with more than double the dose of Follistim from my first cycle (and a quarter of the Lupron), I’m not showing a much better response. I was discouraged. But she sounded so perky – and so I thought that estrogen must have been a really good sign, but who knows. I can’t even tell anymore.

So I went in today and the doctor covering monitoring said right away, before the sonographer was even done with the ultrasound, “Well, we’re going to need to have you back tomorrow; we’ve got to get your estrogen under control, and we’ve got to get some of those other follicles growing.” He didn’t sound encouraged, that’s for sure. That being said, I do have 13 follicles today – but I have some clear leaders: a 21.3 and an 18.8. Everything else is much smaller. I suspect we may just lose those to let the others grow enough. We’ll see. I don’t know who’s covering monitoring tomorrow, but I’m sure it’ll be fun times, regardless.

I think I’ve decided to be optimistic at this point, despite the way the doctor today sounded. I know this is completely uncharacteristic for me, but hey, I like being unpredictable.

I have a couple posts floating around in my head, but I have so much going on I just can’t get there. Bear with me, because they’re coming. Eventually.

Read Full Post »

This morning I was fairly certain today was CD1, so I made an appointment for my Lupron Evaluation to be Thursday (it can be either CD2 or CD3 and tomorrow is simply impossible for me).

But… now I’m not so sure. Not to be too graphic or anything, but hello? What the heck did you expect? You’re reading a frickin’ infertility blog for crying out loud! Anyway, right. Disclaimer made, so… this morning I felt certain it was CD1 and all signs pointed that way. But no sooner had I seen those signs did they all disappear.

Except, you know, the mind-numbing, debilitating cramping. I’m actually starting to wonder if that’s normal. Really. Is it? Do you all get positively debilitating cramps with your cycles? Because mine are so bad I literally almost throw up from the pain. I almost can’t stand up. The pain is so intense I see spots. It’s unbelievable. I just find it hard to believe that this is normal.

Anyway. Aside from the cramping – everything else pretty much went away. So now I don’t think today really was CD1, so I’ve got to count on tomorrow being CD1, or I’ll have to cancel Thursday’s LE. This is all very aggravating.

Today my headache was so bad and I really wanted a Coke – I knew it would taste brilliant and I also knew that little bit of caffeine would take the edge off the Lupron headache. But… I also know that the last two cycles got canceled, in part because of elevated estrogen levels, and my first cycle did not. My first cycle I didn’t have a drop of Coke (not intentionally – I just didn’t happen to have any). I’m certain that one Coke isn’t going to make a difference, but it’s a slippery slope, you know? I even called my friend, M, knower-of-all-things and asked her to talk me off the Coke Ledge. “Seriously? I wouldn’t be able to resist the siren-call of the Coke,” she said. “It’s not going to hurt you.”

“Okay,” I said, “but if I get canceled because of high estrogen levels, I’m blaming you and writing an entire blog post about how it was all your fault.”

But… I couldn’t take the guilt of the possibility that I’d make someone feel bad by doing that… so I didn’t succumb to the siren-call of the nectar of the gods. You owe me one, M. 😉

Read Full Post »