Yesterday morning’s appointment (stim day 9, for those of
you keeping track) was a mixed bag:
The good
- The doctor (not my normal doctor) measured nine follicles on my right ovary – three more than we saw last time. She also said that they’re all growing at about the same rate, which is great.
- She also told me that I do not have to worry about my lining at all, because it’s already at a 10.5.
The bad
- My left ovary was hiding (again), so I have no clue what’s going on over there. She reassured me that they’ll find it on retrieval day when I’m passed out and they can get a little more rapey with the ultrasound wand.
- My follicles aren’t growing very fast – last time the biggest ones were somewhere around a 12, and this time they were approaching 14s.
- My estrogen is still only at a 646. It was 377 two days ago, so it didn’t quite double. (My nurse has reassured me that this is all fine – that they’d rather my estrogen rise on the slow side than too fast, they would have raised my dose if it was a concern, and that it just looks like I’m going to be stimming for the long end of a normal amount of time. Still… I was hoping for more. I’ve decided that my body put all of its energy into growing those few new follicles, which aren’t big enough to produce much estrogen yet, and maybe I’ll see big jumps tomorrow.)
The ugly
- My arms are getting tapped out - it took two nurses four tries to get blood, and they had to use a new vein. The crooks of my elbows are now a lovely collage of bruises.
The longer the stimming/this cycle goes on, the more it
is slowly, subtly wearing away all the pleasant parts of my life. For example,
this weekend we were at Henry’s uncle’s house. It's near the beach, a few
hours away, so we had packed that day’s shots with an ice pack and brought them
with us. While we were there, we were left alone in the house for about an
hour. Henry’s aunt left behind a key, and told us we should take a walk down to
the beach while everyone was gone. This sounded
wonderful; I love the beach, I especially love the beach in winter, and on our
drive in we had caught glimpses of beach houses with Christmas decorations,
which I was dying to see more of. So of
course we walked to the beach, right?
Nope. Instead, while we had some
privacy, we put the meds into the fridge and the melted ice pack in the freezer
and listened carefully for the car to pull into the driveway so that we could
get it all put away before anyone noticed.
Then that night we stayed over with my parents to break
up the drive. This was really convenient
– except my monitoring appointment was the next morning at 8:15, two hours
away, and we had to drop the dog off at our house on the way. I realize that some people live two hours
from their doctor, and I really feel for all of you. No one should ever have to wake up at 5 a.m.
to drive two hours and then get poked. I
enjoyed my midday nap, but I would have preferred to sleep in on a rainy Sunday
morning.
Then, this morning… so sad. See, last week, I ordered a few new dresses
for work from Target. In a shocking turn
of events, I actually liked all of them!
I was so excited to wear my favorite one today; I even had a meeting I
wanted to look good for. But then as I
was gathering my work clothes last night, I realized that my favorite dress had
elbow length sleeves, which would reveal my drug-addict arms. The sleeves on my second favorite dress were
even shorter. I refused to ruin the
effect with a cardigan, so I had to wear my least favorite of my three new
dresses. Those wonderful new dresses
will be stuck in the closet until my arms heal!
Oh, the humanity!
Being dramatic helps.
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