IVF Calender & shots

I know they do this for all of their patients but let me just say, this is perfect for me. At my "plan of care" apt we sat down with Tonya and went over my calender.

May was not very eventful - I started my period May 13th so that's the day I actually started BCP (birth control pills). PNV is prenatal vitamins. BA is baby asprin. So green indicates the start of a medication and red indicates the end of one. Yellow means a visit to the office/blood draw. 

 

So I started the stimulating medications on Monday and then next Monday I go in for my first ultrasound to check how my follicles are developing. They could be ready Mon, Tues, or Wed - whatever day they look good (as in lots and the right size) then I'll go home and that evening give myself the HCG shot to induce ovulation. 36 hours after that they would do the egg retrieval - which is why on the 24th it says "a common day for egg retrieval." We will just have to wait and see what happens! Then we'll see how many eggs fertilize, then 2-5 days later put them back in! Then wait! 

I have to say - I just LOVE this calender. I sit and look at it and it just makes me happy. :)

So now that I'm giving myself 3 shots every morning this is what my morning looks like: 

(don't worry, Ness, no actual needles have been photographed. Yet.)

 

The pen is my Follistim - you put a new little needle on every day and I put a cartridge inside it with the medication that lasts for two doses. This one doesn't hurt at all.

The orange normal bottle is the Lupron - that's the easiest one, I always do that one first. The medication stings when it goes in. And these needles are tiny but don't always want to go right in, like some of them aren't super sharp or something so it's a little hard poking yourself hard enough! 

The two little glass bottles are the Menopur - well, the one with powder in it is the actual Menopur. I have to mix it with the little Sodium Chloride bottle. I feel like a chemist. 

Robby is so cute - every morning he loves to watch me give myself my shots. When I'm hesitating and deep breathing about to poke myself he chants, "Go mommy! Go mommy!" He's the best cheerleader! Rob is usually already gone to work but the other day he was here and I made him sit and watch and I think he gained even more appreciation for me. :)

Now the only problem is I feel like I'm running out of room to poke myself... my hand is covering my belly button - I'm supposed to do it just in this area under my belly button and I alternate which side I do them on each day but the Follistim and Menopur leave these little marks and it's looking like I have chicken pox or something!

this stomach should not be photographed for any reason but to share all these lovely details with everyone! yikes! and it looks even worse in person, the shots I mean... fyi...

I would say I haven't had any negative side effects from the drugs but today I'm feeling exhausted and had a bad headache and my vision was all weird for like 30 minutes I was seeing stars.... but usually I feel pretty normal. I wanted to get a lot of cleaning done today in anticipation of probably wanting to be resting a lot next week after the egg retrieval (like you know how you want your house clean before you go out of town? That's how I feel) but so far I'm just mostly laying in bed... oh well! Maybe tomorrow!

Beginning of IVF Cycle!

Tonight I take my last birth control pill! I know, it's weird, birth control when trying to get pregnant? To be honest I'm still not super satisfied with answers I've gotten for why this is necessary but I'm going to go along with the program even if normally I'm not for going with the flow.

From what they've explained it's mostly an office management tool - they want people on the same time line and to do all the IVF procedures around the same time so by using birth control they make you not ovulate and then using other hormones have more control over your cycle. Also, the nurse said it's to give my ovaries a rest before we start pumping the stimulating hormones into me! On my end it's mostly just made me bleed most of the month off and on and have awful period cramps... but if it's what I need to do right now then that's fine.

So I guess I'll have my period after stopping the birth control - which is kind of weird, I didn't really think about having my period again when I started the pills and felt like we were on our way to IVF! This feels like a failed attempt even though we haven't actually started and everything's still going to plan.

I have also been taking Lupron for the last week - a drug also used to prevent you from ovulating ahead of schedule. I was lucky enough to have my neighbor/friend Shayli come over and help give me my shot the first two mornings which helped me not be too scared to do it myself. Last year when Rob was helping me give myself shots for our IUI cycle every time, all 3 shots, were just ridiculously hard even though the needle was tiny. We were just both so scared to actually jam it into my body! So watching Shayli do it with expert ease gave me a little more confidence. A week later, I'm basically an expert! Not really... but almost.

Other medications so far - they put both Rob and me on an antibiotic, Doxycycline, for 10 days to make sure we don't have any kind of infection that could mess this up! Also, I'm taking prenatal vitamins of course and they have me taking Baby Asprin which reminds me of the days in the Eager Study.

We are also taking some stuff that our Chinese medicine doctor has given us! I think that's for its own post...

And I'm going to try to take some pictures and see if I can't make this a little bit more exciting... we'll see!