IVF DIARY VOL I: 30-31 JULY 2015

August 1, 2015August 1, 20159 Comments

Medication(s) administered and dosage(s). 3 injections: (AM) Cetrotide 0.25mg, (PM) Gonal-F 300iu and Menopur 75iu.

Medical procedures undertaken. Ultrasound and Estradiol blood test, my mum came with me, that was really nice.

How do I feel today? I pretty much cried at work today because my team gave me a good luck/thinking of you card, with a very generous gift – a voucher for a very fancy restaurant in our neighbourhood…to help us chill out! How amazing is that?

What are my symptoms? My stomach is still painful from the injections and I feel like I am waddling a little bit from the bloating 😦

How does Chris feel today? He is out having a drink with some work colleagues at the moment, so I think he is probably feeling OK right now!! I just couldn’t face it this evening.

Any results? Today I had 7 follicles on each side, so it looks like the left ovary caught up, but I am not sure why I had 9 two days ago and today there were 7! Most of them were 13mm-16mm and the two newbies were 6-8mm I am not sure how they track them all, there are so many to count and measure. Whatever…it looks like I’m reacting to the drugs according to plan so that is all that matters.

What’s next? Tomorrow morning I have another monitoring appointment, hopefully the last one before they give me the go ahead to ‘trigger’ and I have egg retrieval on Monday. Yippeee!!

Weight. NSTR

Waist. NSTR.

Boobs. NSTR

Hours of Sunshine 🙂 No sun today 😦

*Notes. I take First Response Reproductive Health multi vitamin gummies (pre-natal) and CoQ10 200mg gummies daily. NSTR = Nothing Significant To Report.

IVF DIARY VOL I: 29 JULY 2015

July 30, 2015July 30, 2015Leave a comment

Medication(s) administered and dosage(s). 3 injections: (AM) Cetrotide 0.25mg, (PM) Gonal-F 300iu and Menopur 75iu.

The cetrotide was a bit better this morning, but as I was distracted with getting to the clinic on time for my monitoring appointment I didn’t feel as bad as yesterday. Phew!

Medical procedures undertaken. Ultrasound and Estradiol blood test. My appointment was at 8AM, I arrived at 0750 and the receptionist told me that they were a team down and there may be some delays. I commented that was fine because it just meant I didn’t have to work for quite as long! However, it was at 0945 I was getting a little annoyed at the wait, AND I had drained my phone battery googling IVF success statistics. I had a new doctor I had not met before, she apologised profusely that she had been stuck in surgery. Oh well stuff happens. As soon as the doctor inserted the ultrasound wand and I saw all the follicles in my right ovary I almost cried with relief!

How do I feel today? Still feeling positive! My mum arrived from the UK today and we won our game of softball (that I managed to drag myself to despite feeling poo every time I bend over) so it was a pretty awesome day despite some of the pains in my tummy.

What are my symptoms? My stomach is still painful from the injections, but not quite as bad as yesterday.

How does Chris feel today? He tells me he is feeling good. He stabbed me four times with three injections today. I was watching this time and I burst out laughing as he managed to get the needle with the second attempt, which is NOT a good idea – jiggling about with a needle hanging in you!

Any results? 9 lovely follicles in the right ovary, so a couple of new ones have had a growth spurt, only 4 in the left….as the doctor said, it’s the lazy lefty ovary. But everything is on track and no adjustments to my medication required.

What’s next? Focusing on getting my project at work completed so I can focus my energy on next week.

Weight. No gain or loss today. Still not sure how.

Waist. Oh my waist is still a little pot bellied bloated.

Boobs. NSTR

Hours of Sunshine 🙂 About 15 minutes as I had a walk at lunch time with a friend to get some fresh air, and then about 1.5hrs in the glorious evening sun playing softball (well attempting to play softball without bending over too much, which is pretty difficult as I play Catcher!!!)

*Notes. I take First Response Reproductive Health multi vitamin gummies (pre-natal) and CoQ10 200mg gummies daily. NSTR = Nothing Significant To Report.

IVF DIARY VOL I: 28 JULY 2015

July 29, 20152 Comments

Medication(s) administered and dosage(s). 3 injections: (AM) Cetrotide 0.25mg, (PM) Gonal-F 300iu and Menopur 75iu.

Cetrotide – is this evil in disguise? Maybe. The injection did not hurt going in, I could barely feel it compared to the other two injections, but my goodness it stung afterwards. It was like a wasp had crawled into my stomach and couldn’t get out.

Medical procedures undertaken. Nil.

How do I feel today? Having used half of my menopur medication stockpile I am kind of excited by this this fact!!

Tuesday night is games night in our household. This evening we learned that we should perhaps never play games ever again whilst on these drugs. Chris beat me at risk – well I conceded after 10 minutes of play. Then he beat me at cribbage. Seriously Chris, you were supposed to let me win at least one game :_-( Oh and I also scared the cat out of his skin when I jokingly screamed at Chris after I lost at risk “I’M HORMONAL – YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BEAT ME” (perhaps the neighbours think I am mad now too). I have also lost my voice from shouting; it serves me right really!!!!

What are my symptoms? OH TODAY HAS SUCKED. After the cetrotide injection, I got into work and immediately wanted to go home and curl up in bed. My colleagues were telling me to go home when they saw me. However, I still have this project to finish, so I made myself a hot water bottle and managed to make it through the morning. The pain was from the injections, I felt like I had done 1000 sit ups, my muscles ached, and my skin was sensitive to touch – when my work pass touched my stomach I winced. I thought I was going to have to go home at lunch, but suddenly my stomach felt a whole lot better after 1pm so I stayed and felt quite chirpy for the rest of the afternoon.

How does Chris feel today? He is going to write his own blog post tonight. Bless him, he still gets nervous with the injections.

Any results? NA.

What’s next? Tomorrow I have another monitoring appointment. We are half way through the stimulation part of the IVF cycle now! (Hopefully). I am not looking forward to the next cetrotide injection in the morning 😦

My mum is flying in from the UK tomorrow to stay for three weeks so I will be picking her up from the airport!

Weight. Apparently I weigh less than yesterday….not sure how that is possible when I look down at my stomach.

Waist. Oh my waist is still a little pot bellied bloated.

Boobs. NSTR

Hours of Sunshine 🙂 Only 1/2hr of sunshine whilst I tidied up the garden this evening.

*Notes. I take First Response Reproductive Health multi vitamin gummies (pre-natal) and CoQ10 200mg gummies daily. NSTR = Nothing Significant To Report.

IVF DIARY VOL I: 27 JULY 2015

July 28, 2015July 28, 20156 Comments

Medication(s) administered and dosage(s). 2 injections: Gonal-F 300 iu and Menopur 75 iu.

Medical procedures undertaken. Ultrasound and blood test. Also had a quick pre-surgery health check up.

How do I feel today? I have found it really hard to concentrate at work today. I don’t know why. I have a really big project deadline coming up…of course it is due the week of egg retrieval and transfer. Couldn’t have planned it any better?!?! (a bit of sarcasm there). I have pondered about working from home, I have also pondered just calling in sick. But I checked out our sick leave policy for the first time in my life! If I am off work for more than two days I need a doctors note, and if I am sick for more than 6 days in a year it cuts out of my annual leave entitlement :-s so as I will probably be taking 3-4 days of sick leave for the procedures next week, basically, I need to not call in sick! (I had one sick day earlier this year).

The doctor who did a quick pre-surgery health check up was very young. So young that she actually said “Love it” to me when I said I had no questions. I feel old.

What are my symptoms? Lot’s of peeing! I’m trying to avoid headaches so I’ve been drinking more water, it has mostly helped, but I am having the odd headache here and there.

How does Chris feel today? “Feeling good because we are on track and injections are going well” (he hasn’t killed me yet basically)

Any results? My follicle count this morning is currently at 8 at various sizes from 4-8mm…apparently I am progressing how they want me to progress and were pleased with this. Well I’m pleased if they are pleased! I will stay on same dosage of Gonal-F (300iu) and menopur (75iu), but adding cetrotide to the list of injections.

What’s next? Eeeek, I start the Cetrotide injections tomorrow morning, increasing total number of injections per day to 3. Seriously going to run out of space on my tummy soon! But I am excited because this means we are almost half way through this stage of injections.

Weight. OK so I panicked with my 1.6lb increase yesterday, but some of that had disappeared by this morning, so it must have been a combination of weekend munchies with some bloating from the stimulation.

Waist. Still feeling bloated.

Boobs. NSTR

Hours of Sunshine 🙂 Well the sun didn’t come out in Virginia today, so there was no sun to be had 😦

*Notes. I take First Response Reproductive Health multi vitamin gummies (pre-natal) and CoQ10 200mg gummies daily. NSTR = Nothing Significant To Report.