I ended up getting the teensiest needles EVER for the Follistim pen, and they are awesome. If I was a crackhead these would totally be my needle of choice.
Today was day two of injections, I'm already starting to feel a little tired and moody and some strange left hip pain and swelling (I have no idea what that's about) but other than that there seems to be a lot fewer side effects than the Lupron/Menopur combo I used the last time we did this. I'm going to blame today's mommy/daughter meltdown on my kid turning into a teenager and not the result of me shooting hamster hormones into my belly fat.
Dear FedEx: When a signature is REQUIRED for delivery of $3000 worth of fertility meds, it's usually not a good idea to play dingdongditch and dump the box on the doorstep instead of obtaining the signature, especially when the recipient is hormonal, sleep-deprived and feeling generally crabby. I'm so glad I was home, 'cause some of that stuff needed to go into the fridge. (Not so glad that I had finally fallen asleep for the first time in a few days and the doorbell woke me up.)
Got my meds today. Follistim, Ganirelix, and HCG.
Followup ultrasound showed that the cyst shrunk down to 11 mm, small enough for us to proceed. My estrogen level was perfect. I quit birth control pills two days ago and start injections tomorrow.
I am such a good mother that I dragged my feverish, overly snotty face out into the fifty degree tundra (hey, that's freezing to a native Arizonan) and watched the fruit of my loins board a thousand-pound beast and force it to jump over things.
Sidetrack here, I swear I'll be quick. The first time we rode at these new stables (instructor moved) I saw something very large stumbling around in a strange manner over behind the arena where Emma is riding in the following video. I took a closer look over that fence and had to do a double take because this is what was back there peering at me:
Hello, that is a giraffe, people. Where do you even get a giraffe, unless you are the zoo? And this isn't the zoo, just a guy with like 20 acres of land in the middle of nowhere, AZ. ??!!
Anyway, back to my sad story, I took Emma to horseback lessons even though I was dying of the plague or dysentery or something.
But so worth it! This kid is making great strides at this new place:
Seriously, I was FREEZING during this entire lesson. The wind was blowing and my nose was running and my eyes were streaming and by the time we got home I thought I was going to die. We needed groceries, the house was a disaster, and all I could do was lay on the couch and bemoan the fact that the US Army doesn't care in the slightest that The Wife (I capitalize that because I am very important) has a stuffy nose - her husband still has to leave for four days to play in the snow.
The next morning I knew I was in trouble. I attempted to listen to my own lungs with my neonatal stethoscope and that didn't work out so well, due to my size not being the same as a preemie's, but I swear I heard crap in there so I dragged my feverish, overly snotty face and now painful lungs to the local Urgent Care. Got diagnosed with bronchitis and a touch of pneumonia, lucky me! Good thing I didn't exacerbate anything by, oh, I don't know, going outdoors in the freezing windy cold.
My kid had better know how much I love her.
So now I'm enjoying a bouquet of drugs - some drug I can't spell and am too lazy to look up to spell (it's basically Mucinex with codeine), Albuterol, Azithromycin, steroids and tons of ibuprofen and Nyquil. Don't ask me if I shouldn't mix those, I have no idea, and frankly, don't care. I just know that I slept through the night without waking up to hack, sneeze, wheeze, blow my nose or tripod breathe even ONCE last night because of all of that stuff. The pharmacist tried to tell me that two of those drugs weren't covered by insurance and did I still want them and I was like SHIT YES. I actually used those words. GIVE ME MY CODEINE MAN I'M NOT PLAYING AROUND.
So IVF update! Yes, even though I am dying we are still plowing ahead. Had a procedure done in which dye was shot into my uterus and then ultrasound was used to see the outline of my internal lady parts. No blockages, but I do have a large 4-5 cm cyst on my right ovary and a smallish one on the left. These have to go bye-bye before I can start injectable meds in a few weeks, but hopefully the birth control pills will take care of that. Can I just tell you how uncomfortable it makes Chad to watch the doc do a trans vaginal ultrasound on me? The first time he watched he was all WOAH, that doc's going to put that giant phallic object where in my wife? I'm enjoying his discomfort a teensy bit, because there's really nothing else enjoyable about a transvag ultrasound. After I had switched into the lovely gown for the procedure the MA asked if I wanted my husband to be there (he was still in the waiting room) I just smiled a big smile and said "oh yes, he wants to be here for this".
Hee.
And in conclusion, here is a picture of my pretty fireplace at the new house, which we are still enjoying immensely. We are waiting for construction to start on the pool, and that had better be soon because I am getting tired of the combination of a dirt backyard, frequent rain, and dogs.
Started my first batch of meds today! In vitro attempt number two has officially begun. This first part is around 2 weeks of birth control to regulate everything. I forgot how sick I get on birth control, since I haven't been on it for eight years. Emma decided to share her nasty bug with me too so I'm both barfy and feverish! Joy. But I'm going to smile because I'm happy we're starting this FINALLY.
So Lightning the desert tortoise is now a permanent member of the Dixon zoo. Well, at least until he's too big to be inside anymore. Then I'm not sure whether we'll have to find him another home because our Sulcata, Bailey, can't live in the yard with him because of all of the prohibited inter species mingling (even tortoises from different races can't even get along, what's up with THAT) so perhaps we're more like a foster home. I don't know. But I couldn't send him back to the school, where despite all good intentions, he was not getting the appropriate food/lighting/temperatures and was nearly dead when he came to visit us again over Christmas break. Fear not, I did not tortoisenap him. The science teacher, after losing another tortoise to metabolic disease (easily preventable with proper care) realized his soft-shelled friend might meet a similar fate and offered him to me. Chad, of course, was extremely enthusiastic about me taking in yet another reject pet. (Don't ask about Winston right now, his doggie dementia is currently testing our patience.) And because I always obey my husband's every whim like a good wife I firmly made the decision to keep him after Chad said NO. (Seriously, though, he mostly just sighed resignedly.)
Little Dude is already a lot stronger and eating and pooping and behaving in the proper grumpy manner that tiny tortoises should.
Another Crankyface for me to love.
Thursday, January 10, 2013
My internal clock is all messed up again as usual, since I only work hours when the dead walk. As it's now 11 pm and I am waiting for my blueberry muffins to bake (in my new awesome ovens!) I think I'll jump on here and throw out all of those random thoughts that are stampeding through my brain.
Gardening! Anyone who knows me understands that I'm a little obsessed over things that grow. So I'm excited to show you the first little bit of gardening we've started in the new house. Johnny Jump-Ups remind me of my grandma, who, it turns out, never really liked me because she thought I was a brat. (Good thing she doesn't know me now.) I do have false fond memories of thinking she liked me so I'll just hang on to those and plant her favorite flower anyway, like I always do. (And try to forget that time she yelled and scared the crap out of me and my sister on Christmas because we snuck downstairs to get a peek at Santa and instead unexpectedly found Grandma sleeping on the couch.)
Military Man was nice enough to help me dig up the numerous large chunks of concrete and boxes of rusty nails from the flowerbeds (thank you, construction workers) and quickly get these little guys in the ground before an unexpected torrential downpour blew in last week. So much for living in a desert. We are getting a ton of rain recently. I'm waiting for Noah and his ark to show up or for Jesus to suddenly appear in the east. Or is it the west? I don't know what signs of the apocalypse I'm supposed to look for anymore since I've turned heathen. But it has been raining a lot here and it's quite shocking. I don't even recognize my own town anymore because of all of the green stuff that is suddenly popping up everywhere, I think they're called plants.
My best friend from childhood went with Mems and me to see Les Miserables this weekend. J and I have known each other since we were seven. We've spent the better part of our lives making fun of people, stealing grocery store signs (figs, five for a dollar!), creating cooking disasters, and shopping for baby chickens and cookies when we should have been helping my husband on moving day. We've had each other's backs for all the big and small things in each other's lives and both loved Les Mis in junior high, just like every other nerdy junior high drama/choir girl. Memma worships J and sat next to her in the theater. Can I tell you how incredible it was to watch my best friend of nearly 30 years hold my little preteen's hand in the theater as they both cried to the same story that we cried our own little teen souls out to so many years earlier? So awesome. And Dear Anne Hathaway, I always thought you were overly cheerful and obnoxious and detested you as an actor before but WOW you blew me away. Incredible.
Oh and speaking of crying. My fertility doc ran a bunch of labs on me to make sure my ovarian reserve and FSH levels were in line with where he wants them, and he threw a bunch of other labs in there for good measure. Got a call yesterday from the IVF coordinator and it turns out I have hypothyroid, yippee! (All of my other labs were perfect, yay.) Maybe this will provide an explanation for my freezing cold hands and feet and my bouts of random moodiness. And the numbness and tingling in my face and extremities that caused my stupid PCP to completely freak me out last summer while he worked me up for horrible diseases (multiple sclerosis, chiari malformation) may now be explained. (Time for a new PCP I think.) I start Synthroid tomorrow and am shopping for an endocrinologist. I am so relieved this lab was checked, since hypothyroid can interfere with getting pregnant and staying that way. And BONUS since I've learned that hypothyroid causes weight gain, I'm totally justified in scarfing half a Costco-sized bag of Doritos for breakfast this morning. I'm going to be fat until I get on meds anyway, why fight it?
All of this discussion of food now brings us to the muffiny smell that is now permeating throughout the kitchen. Time to go take them out of the oven.
Well here's a surprise. In vitro is being delayed a month!
It's already been five years, what's another few weeks?
*slams head against wall*
Aunt Flo made her appearance yesterday so this morning I called my clinic and told them I was ready to get going on the birth control pills that precede egg stimulation drugs, and during the conversation it was realized that if we do only the minimum time (2 weeks) on the birth control before the next drugs, we could possibly do the egg retrieval before Chad left for his two week annual army training. But! There is a possibility I would need to be on them another week, and then the retrieval and embryo implantation part would happen while he was gone. In essence I would be getting pregnant while my husband was away for the army. Ok, that sounds kind of awesome. But NO.
We all know how I feel about how the army shoves its big boogery nose in the middle of my personal business, so the thought of his not being present (again! last time the army hauled him off during this too!) for such a crucial part of this has made us decide that at the end of THIS month we'll do the birth control pill thing instead. I'm still having some labs drawn today and Chad is having a procedure done to save some of his little friends from a lifetime of swimming in circles, so we're not at a standstill.
At least that's what I'm telling myself because I truly am disappointed. I'm handling this better than anybody who knows me would expect though. Usually I would throw my body on the floor (new carpet, how nice!) and howl but right now I'm just shrugging my shoulders and saying "eh, oh well".
That residual holiday sugar high is coming in handy.
