Thursday 31 October 2013

A new kind of two week wait

The two week wait is what the trying to conceive community calls the time between ovulation and when you find out if your efforts were fruitful. Right now I'm beginning a new two week wait, a few days into my down regulation birth control pill protocol, I noted on the calendar that exactly two weeks from today will be my first early morning ultrasound.


And I have to admit, it's strange being back on birth control pills after all these years, and especially as a step towards getting pregnant. The idea is to regulate my hormones, make my lining thin, and make sure I have no cysts. It's all about getting me to a good starting point, and I'm sure that over the next two weeks I will read a lot more about how this all works. But right now, I just need to remember to take it every night at 9pm until my scan in two weeks.

Monday 28 October 2013

IVF protocol officially starts today!

This is an exciting day. A week and a half ago, we had our marathon IVF orientation session. And it was a marathon. Two hours of instruction with the nurse, including all the injections and the protocol plan, 10 minutes with a financial officer, and two more hours with a psychologist. My brain hurt from all the information I absorbed. When we went home I had a headache and was exhausted and honestly was confused about what day it was. I wanted nothing more than for it to be Friday afternoon and to have a weekend to rest, but no, it was Thursday and I would have to be up early for work the next day. And the following Monday was the surgery. We are working on a tight schedule with a narrow window of opportunity.

I'm so glad they squeezed us in before my other half had a tumour the size of a grape removed from his brain (he's doing great, btw). Now with the surgery down, the protocol begins tonight with 18 days of birth control pills. Seems so counter-intuitive, but it's to get my hormones and ovaries to the starting gate. On that 18th day, I go in for an ultrasound bright and early. If that looks good, I stop the pills, wait for a bleed, and then on the third day go for another ultrasound and blood work. And if that looks good, I start injections that night! Puregon 225 and Menopur 75, every day, and then about 5-6 days in the regular monitoring begins. Finally, a use for that muffin top! Estimated retrieval is the end of November, which could not be more perfect with my schedule to take some time off and rest (I've been recording Grey's Anatomy to save just for that). So now I've got my fingers crossed for a positive pregnancy test for Christmas, and an estimated due date in late August.

So excited!!

Thursday 10 October 2013

Good morning probing

Yesterday was the anxiously awaited saline sonohysterogram, the fun cousin of our favourite fertility diagnostic test, the hsg. In the sono, like the hsg, a catheter with a balloon is inserted through the cervix into the uterus, where the balloon is inflated. Then sterile saline is injected to open up the uterine walls (which usually lie flat against each other like a sandwich) while our trusty friend the transvaginal ultrasound probe visualizes the walls of the uterus.

I was in fear of a giant polyp waving back, like this:


The letter A is pointing to a big ole polyp. First off, mine didn't look anything like this, it looked much much much smaller when "fully" inflated with saline (B) and those muscular uterine walls (C) also look huge. Maybe this image is enlarged relative to what my doctor had on screen.

Once the procedure got going, and that balloon was inserted, words can't describe the pain I experienced. In places I didn't know existed, aside from the brief jab during the hsg. This sono though, pushed through that pain. Ironically, when I was expected to feel "cramping" I did but it was no big deal. I felt certain in those moments that the pain was evidence that my entire uterus was fused together like a grilled cheese sandwich and the pain was ripping adhesions. As that was not the case, I have no explanation for the excruciating pain, all I know is that it only happened during these two procedures. Which I never ever want to repeat.

but I could go for a grilled cheese.

Good news, everything was clear, and a nice ripe follicle was identified on the right ovary that will ovulate sometime in the next few days, not that it has anywhere to go. Bad news, I'm still on the maximum daily dose of Advil from the pain of yesterday's probing. My other half asked where all the eggs go if my tubes are all blocked. I suppose they are all reabsorbed into the body, but I can't help but picture my abdominal cavity full of little globules.

Next week, IVF "class" - can't wait to see what that's all about. I bet there is a test.