Now I'm Nervous!

Just got the official word from the clinic that I am to trigger tonight at 10:30pm and show up at 8am on Tuesday for the retrieval! Yay! They have also started me on Dostinex to help prevent OHSS. I'm excited and terrified! There are 6 RE's at the clinic I go to and I found out that one of the docs I know the best will be doing the retrieval. She did my surgery in January and also did my ultrasounds today and yesterday. I'm glad it will be her rather than some doctor I have never met. I do wish it was my main RE though as he is just the kindest, gentlest doctor you could ever meet! Maybe I'll get lucky and have him for the transfer. Now I need to head to the pharmacy to pick up my meds! Wish me luck with keeping calm for the next few days! I'm not sure how I am going to make it through work tomorrow! Oh, and I'm also not sure what I am going to WEAR to work tomorrow as my tummy is so bloated! I look pregnant already!

He called me an "over-achiever"...

Wow this is going fast. Yesterday and today I had bloodwork and ultrasounds. I was so nervous that they were going to do the scan and find that I hadn't responded well! Well, they found the opposite! Yesterday the RE counted 19 really nice follicles between 11 and 16mm (with lots more little ones) and then today they were around 14-19mm. I will likely trigger tomorrow and then have my retrieval on Tuesday. They are going to call me today to give the official word. The doc today did warn me that likely a bunch of the eggs won't be mature but that I will still get "a good number". I can't believe this is actually happening! They are also starting to talk about OHSS which scares me but I guess I'll just have to trust them to make the best decisions for me.

I was looking around the clinic waiting room today and thinking about how fortunate all us women there really are. In Canada, IVF is only covered by our provincial medical plan in one province (Quebec). Some "Extended Health Insurance" plans through work do cover the meds (mine doesn't!) but most people will be paying completely out-of-pocket for treatment and meds. I think about how many other couples would love to become parents but just won't be able to ever afford to do the level of treatment that we are doing. I makes me very thankful for the situation that T and I are in. I wish that more provinces would start to realize the importance of paying for fertility treatments. In Quebec they decided to pay for it to try to decrease the rate of multiple births which, of course, are higher-risk and end up costing the medical system A LOT of money in NICU stays and complications for mom and baby. They will pay (I think) for 3 rounds of IVF as long as the minimum number of embryos are put back in (that means 1 for under 35 years and max 2 for over). Since they implemented this policy, their multiple birth rate (and costs associated with) has plummeted and more families get the baby they have dreamed of. I wish the other provinces would figure this out! Anyways, for most of you this might be confusing because of Canada's very different medical system than the States. All I can say is that I am SO THANKFUL that we have the medical system that we do but I wish it would figure out that infertility is a disease too and our treatments should be paid for like anything else!

Anyways...I'll keep you posted once I hear back from the clinic about the plan for the next few days! Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend.

Trucking along...

THANK YOU for all your lovely supportive comments about my "injection-FAIL" the other night! It's nice to hear that I'm not the only one that was super nervous about all of this! The last 2 evenings have been totally fine as T is super good at giving injections. He brags that his patients "request him" to do their shots (I don't believe him but he is good at it!) Still burns when he pushes the medicine in but I can deal with it by looking away and counting to 10.

Had my first E2 blood test this morning (6:50am on my DAY OFF!) Came home and went right back to bed! In BC we have a website where you can see your results even before your doctor does (kinda crazy,  I think) and so I saw that my results were up around noon. Cue panic mode because my result was 744 pmol/L and when I started googling E2 of 744 it was coming up as way too high for this stage in my cycle. I had visions of a cancelled cycle! Again people, I am a nurse, I should know better. I luckily soon realized because of the whole metric thing, my result was actually just in a different format and is more like 202 pg/ml. Totally fine. This was confirmed when my nurse called and told me to keep on the same dose of medication. Ugh, I have got to chill and stop consulting Dr. Google. It gets me no where! Next blood test on Thursday and then ultrasound likely the next day. As one lovely commenter put it "Go go gadget follicles!!"

I leave you with two photos of things that are helping keep me calm....

My darling Paisley...seriously the only thing keeping me sane! Don't ask me why she keeps one eye partially open while sleeping...creepy...

Beautiful sunset last weekend while we were fishing with T's parents. 

I'm a big baby...

So last night I gave myself my first injection of Menopur/Bravelle. T wasn't home so it was up to me to do it (we had originally planned to have him give them to me but he was working late). It was absolutely pathetic how nervous I was, even just mixing up the meds. My hands were shaking. This is crazy because at work I spend many many hours drawing up and administering immunizations so I should not be nervous around vials of meds and needles! I was convinced I was doing it wrong so checked and rechecked my schedule a million times....OK, 75units Menopur....150units Bravelle....that means 1 vial of Menopur and 2 of Bravelle....oh I hope I have this right! Basic math, people, basic math and I was stressed I was getting it wrong! Finally I got it all drawn up and ready. I uncapped the needle, pinched by stomach and proceeded to put the needle in WAY TOO SLOWLY! I know better, it hurt like crazy even just going in. Then came the pushing the medicine in. Man that stings! Supposedly its the Menopur that stings. I finished, put the syringe down then the whole room started to spin and I had to lay down on the kitchen floor! I'm so glad T wasn't home because he would have been laughing hysterically at me (we are both nurses so have little patience for drama!). I can't believe I almost passed out. Unbelievable! What a baby I am. I left a note for T on the counter that read "That fucking hurt, I almost passed out, you are doing it tomorrow" and went to bed. Tonight we have to do the injection at my parents house so I told T I would go lay down and he could inject me while I'm laying down so I don't feel dizzy. I'm embarrassed to admit all this because of what I do for a living. Geez. Oh, the stuff we are willing to do to get a baby!

ICLW!

Welcome to people stopping by for ICLW! This is my first time participating in it and I'm looking forward to getting to know some new bloggers.

Please see my TTC Timeline for a run-down of how we got to where we are today. The first day of ICLW also happens to be my first day of stims for IVF #1. Nervous and excited for what the next few weeks have instore for us. I'll keep you updated!

Not so late after all...

I am pleased to announce the arrival of my normally dreaded but right now celebrated AF! Called the clinic and I'm to start my stims on Friday evening! YAY! T was going to do the injecting because I'm scared of giving myself needles but now he's working until midnight this week. I'm going to have to suck it up and poke myself! We'll see how that goes!

Distractions

Thanks for your support ladies! Feeling better this week..but not good enough to attend a BBQ thrown by one of the pregnant friends...just couldn't deal with it...

We had a lovely weekend away at my family's cabin. We took T's parents up there and had such a great time. The weather was hotter than it was in July when I was up there. We fished, suntanned, walked, ate (A LOT!) and just relaxed. On the way home yesterday I was sitting in the backseat staring out the window (it's a 6 hour drive) and realized that I was feeling super down again. I had felt really good all weekend, even going as far as being kind of thankful that we didn't have kids with us as it would have been a lot less relaxing. However, as soon as we were driving back down to reality...I started to feel depressed again. I think that I need distractions and things to look forward to. I think I made it through this summer with the 3 negative IUI's only because we had lots of weekends away and family stuff to look forward to. Now what am I going to distract myself with? I'm really dreading the 2ww after my ET. I am going to be a mess!

I was expecting AF to show up this past weekend but I guess that Synarel can make it a bit late. I, of course, started to imagine pregnancy symptoms (as I have done every 25-27 days for 2.5 years) and took a pregnancy test this morning. Duh, of course it was negative. Why do I do this to myself? I just want AF to start so I can start my injections! Then I will feel like I am actually doing something!

Seriously?

Three pregnancy announcements in one day...

1. A girl at work who got married a month ago now telling everyone that she is "2 weeks pregnant"

2. A friend who already has 2 kids (age 3 and 1) that she routinely ignores/pawns off on other people. She also recently left them for 5 weeks with her parents so she and her husband could travel around Europe kid-free.

3. A friend who just moved to Indiana and being Canadian and without a job, has zero health insurance and openly says that they "cannot afford to have a baby right now".

WHAT????? Meanwhile, here we are...

Sorry for the pity party. Just kind of a tough day. I think the Synarel is getting to me!

Fake boobs and nasal spray...

So I'm on my 3rd day of the nasal spray and so far no side effects. Not sure how long it normally takes for the hot flashes/headaches/moodiness to kick in but I'll enjoy the lack of these while I can! I ended up filling my prescription for my Menopur and Bravelle at the fertility clinic's pharmacy because I just decided it wasn't worth it to mess around with the idiots at Costco anymore. Today I had the day off work so I drove the hour into the city to the clinic. Filling the prescription and paying for it took less than 5 minutes! What a difference! So worth it, I've decided to pay a bit more but not be stressed about whether the pharmacy is going to screw it up! Yesterday and today were big spending days...$7300 paid yesterday for the IVF/ICSI cycle and $1500 today for the meds. Yuck. And to think that most people can have as many kids as they want FOR FREE! So crazy! Oh well. It is what it is.

Yesterday I was telling a girl I work with (who I consider a friend, we also attend the same church) about our IVF and asked her not to tell anyone else because I am picking and choosing who I tell. I also told her that I am a bit nervous to tell people at church about it as some Christians have very strong opinions about IVF (these people with these opinions tend to be very fertile, I might add) She says to me "while we are sharing personal and confidential information that you are nervous about what people might think, I guess I should tell you mine"...I started to get a bit panicked inside thinking that she might tell me she is pregnant (although I know she had her tubes tied after her last baby so why my mind went there, I'm not sure...well, probably because I'm extra paranoid about pregnancy announcements!). She then says that she is sure I have noticed but she got "fake boobs" (as she put it) last November. Crazy that I had totally never noticed! I kinda feel bad! I do remember her being VERY VERY self-conscious about her breast size (non-existent, really and truly) but I've been so wrapped up in myself and my problems that I totally never noticed the change! She is super happy, which is good as she says that she "never felt like a woman" before. I think you can draw some parallels between what she chose and doing fertility treatments (not that I am saying the two are comparable!)...it's something that everyone has an opinion about...either "good for you, do what works for you" or "oh, I would NEVER do that, and you shouldn't either"...Just kind of made me think...

Stupid Pharmacy

So I now officially hate the pharmacy that we use. We've been using a Costco pharmacy for a long time now because they tend to be cheaper than others when our medical plan doesn't cover the meds (like fertility meds for instance). I have now decided that they are incompetent fools. One of our main issues is that they will tell you that your prescription will be ready at "xyz" time the next day and then you will go back, wait in an at least 30 minute line-up (no joke, it is always crazy busy) only to have them tell you that they don't have it ready because of some issue. Sometimes they have lost the prescription. Sometimes they need clarification from the doctor and haven't bothered to get it or sometimes they screw up the dose or the med.

Here is my latest example. Yesterday T went at 4pm after work to drop off my prescription for Synarel nasal spray. First the pharmacy person tells him that it should be ready in 30 minutes. He says "I don't think so, I bet you are going to have to order it in" (we were told by our nurse that most pharmacies have to special order these drugs). She looks at him blankly for a minute and then says "Oh, I guess I should check if we carry this". She comes back to him and says "You're right, we have to order it in. It will be here tomorrow". He asks "Are you sure? We've had problems with this before" and she says "Yes, come after 11am and it will be here for sure". So today I call them at 5:30pm (because I do not trust them and am in no mood to stand in a line) and the be-otch who answered the phone says "Well, this didn't get ordered until 10pm last night (um, WHAT? it was dropped off at 4!), so how would you expect it to be here already?". I then tell her how her colleague promised us it would be here at 11am, it is a very important medication, and why couldn't they call me to tell me it wasn't ready? She has the nerve to respond with "We see 500 people a week, you can't possibly expect us to keep track of all the prescriptions" Ummm...you are a PHARMACY! Keeping track of prescriptions is kind of your job! Argh! The Synarel better be there tomorrow or I am going to flip out on someone. I am considering calling the pharmacy manager or even going higher than that because this happens nearly every time we try to fill a prescription there! T is on a lot of meds for his back and it is rare that something is not screwed up. Luckily we are nurses so we can tell if a mistake is made with a dose or something but what about other people? So unbelievably unprofessional and frankly, dangerous, to have idiots working in such an important area! Clearly they are short-staffed so why aren't more people hired to help so they can "keep track of prescriptions". So frustrated! I was planning on ordering my stim meds through them as well to save a bit of money but now I'm just going to get them from my fertility clinic's pharmacy (It's worth spending a bit more to deal with people who know what they are doing) because I do NOT want that screwed up!

It's good news!

We were back at the clinic today for our orientation to IVF and I start Synarel nasal spray this Sunday! Yay! I'm so excited to get started. I feel sorry for all non-medical people having to learn to mix meds...I was feeling a little overwhelmed and I'm a nurse! With this timing, egg retrieval should be right near the end of the month. One of the parts of the orientation was meeting with a person from the financial department. Yikes, this is going to cost a lot! I'm trying not to think too much about that part...

We had a great little vacation with perfect weather. I can't say I was too successful in forgetting about IVF and babies but I had fun anyways! 

Hope everyone had a nice long weekend!

Oh, one more thing...had a date with the dildo-cam today for an antral follicle count. The RE who did it (my RE for once...most of the time I get one of the other 5 RE's for procedures) asked me if I wanted to insert the probe myself.  Anyone else's RE offer that? It was kinda like "um...you all have shoved enough random things in there over the past few months that I think I'll be OK with the U/S probe..."