I wasn't sure that they would allow us to trigger and I was worried that we may need to push forward to a Monday ER. I don't really care when ER is, but C was making a big stink about taking days off from work (yeah, I know...) so I was still hoping for the Sunday appointment.
Here were the exact numbers:
Right: 20.7, 19.7, 19.3, 19, 16.3, 13.7, 13.3 and 4 <10
Left: 17.7, 14, 12.3, 12 and several <10
I had a few errands to run yesterday with my cousin as she was preparing for her big block party. I was running around and baking desserts like a madwoman when I realized that it was 4 o'clock. C would be leaving work soon and would need to know whether to take off from work and I was worried that somehow I had missed my call back. I gave a quick call, just to be sure, and they called me right back.
The instructions were as follows:
- immediate shot of Menopur and Ganirelix right then at 4:30
- trigger with Novarel at 11:15
- blood work again on Saturday morning to confirm absorption of trigger
- lots of water on Saturday
- no food or drink after midnight Saturday
- back to the office at 9:00 on Sunday morning
- no jewelry, contact lenses or perfumes on Sunday
Holy sh*t. This is really happening. After years of failed IUIs, even those hopeless ones just to finish out the protocol and over three years of TTC, we are finally here at IVF. I can't wrap my head around how much it has taken to get here. It took a lot more to get here to IVF than it does for many other couples, and now we're really doing it.
Because C was not yet home from work at the time and we had to rush over to a birthday party as soon as he did get home, I was in that awful pickle of giving myself the Menopur and Ganirelix. For some reason, the Ganirelix syringes like to poke me really hard without actually piercing the skin, making for epic torture for a borderline needle-phobe like me. I did it, though, and there was something really cathartic and final about me doing the last of the injects myself.
~~~
On a slight tangent, I was pretty pissed when I scanned the scene of my bedroom dresser after that last shot. I was thinking about the stimming phase and how I had done so many things that I never thought I would as I shoved the last syringes into the very full sharps container. And then I looked over at the unopened boxes of meds.
Right now, on my dresser there are nearly $1600 worth of unused meds, and that really kind of upsets me. Knowing how broke we are and how much it took to buy those meds, it felt really wasteful and I felt slightly duped. I feel like there should be an option of running back to the pharmacy and buying more stims one box at a time. Sure, maybe you are busy and you can't do it, or maybe the meds were shipped from some distant pharmacy, and in that case, you can take it all at once. But if you are in a situation where a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars could really make a difference, you should be able to refill as needed. If I knew it would have saved us $1600, I would have happily driven down to Brookhaven a few times to pick up extra meds. It just doesn't seem fair that we had no choice and were forced to buy maximum stims.
If this cycle or a later FET are successful, I'll definitely donate the meds to someone who can use them, but for now, we're keeping them. There is no question that that much money could mean the difference between cycling again or not in the future, so we're keeping them until we are sure we don't need them.
~~~
A little after 11:00 last night, I rushed back to my cousin's house for her to deliver the trigger shot. I have expressed my discomfort with IM shots many times before, so I won't belabor the point here, but I was a little nervous. It so happens that some triggers burn more than others and I had never used Novarel before. I prepped the syringe, then laid across her sofa acting "brave."
She said, "OK, there was the little pinch. Here it goes."
To me, that meant, OK, I just pinched your butt flab to prep for the injection and I will stab you now. I waited, waited, waited for the stab.
To her, she meant, OK, I just stabbed you and here come the meds that may or may not burn or sting. My point is, after all that stress, I literally didn't even feel the shot. I don't know if she has gotten really good at giving shots or if the needle was a better gauge, I have no idea. But I literally lay there waiting for the stab and it never came. Then she said, "You're all done," and stuck a band-aid on the spot.
As I was in the car driving home, I realized that the shot was much lower than it probably should have been. I started thinking that maybe it didn't hurt because it didn't go into the muscle... Maybe it just got me in the (abundant) fat layer and it won't work. Commence stress. (Jeez, IFers never get a break from constant worry...)
These thoughts probably never would have crossed my mind if not for the nurse telling me that I needed blood work Saturday morning to confirm that it had been absorbed. But, now they're here, and the worrisome thoughts are stuck in my brain like a burr.
I went back to Cooper this morning for blood work and my rockin' left arm vein decided to quit. To be fair, she has been hit at least ten times in the past few weeks, so I guess she deserves her rest. The only problem with that is that other than the lefty rockstar, my other veins are actually a rather difficult stick. The phlebotomist hit the left vein and after some digging (owwwww), was only able to get a trickle of blood, so she had to move over to the right, do some more digging (owwwww) and finally get the sample.
Luckily, when they called back later, the beta draw was 84, so I had successfully absorbed the trigger shot despite the lack of pain and torture. I was able to attend my cousin's big party today, which was very important to her, and now ER remains perfectly scheduled on Sunday morning.
Please let this work...
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