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| IVF #2 meds delivery via FedEx |
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| Opening the box |
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| All the fixin's |
- 88 vials of Menopur
- 6 Cetrotide doses
- 2 Ovidrel shots (aka "trigger" shots)
- 2 Z-packs (His and Hers)
- Syringes
- Mixing caps
- Injection needles
- Sharps disposal container
- Ice packs to keep it all cold, which are great for road trips...
- And the receipts!
It's an IVF kit in a box. 11 days of Menopur, plus my 1 day of leftover Menopur from last time gives me 12 days. If we have to continue beyond 12 days, I can call the pharmacy, order the extras I need, which will get delivered overnight. My insurance coverage on this medicine is very good. For the first round, which lasted 15 days + trigger day, my meds cost me about $1,200 vs. a full price cost of nearly $10,000. This batch of 11 days cost $380. Refills / extras get quite a bit more expensive, but we are still very fortunate to have the coverage we have!
Shots started officially on Friday, April 1. 600 iu of Menopur takes quite a bit longer to mix. I'm using more saline than before ~1.5cc across 8 vials of the soluable powder pills. The main difference this time isn't in the mixing...with the higher concentration of Menopur and volume of shot, the injection stings / burns badly and continues to burn for about 10 mins after being injected. Even with the ice. Curious if it would be better without the ice, we tried it in the hope that the easier flow of the fluid into the tissue might improve or at least reduce the duration of the burn. No luck...worse.
Poor Michael was the one giving them to me, hearing me utter "Son of a BITCH!" on more than one occasion. I tried not to show him how much it hurt (at least while he was doing it), because it was pretty hard on him to do something that hurt me like that everyday. Well, we've made it this far. I can grit my teeth through a couple weeks of these...it will be worth it. Eyes on the prize!
Here's what my evening's standard supplies look like:
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| Menopur shot supplies (powder vials x8, saline vial x1, alcohol pads x2, syringe x1, injection needle x1, mixing cap x1). Does not include Cetrotide shot. |
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| Menopur vial up close. Powder is visible as a disc / pill, which dissolves upon contact with the saline. Each of these must be filled, swirled to mix, then drained in sequence to make the final formulation for each night's injection. |
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| Frozen gel pack, new for cycle #2. Thank you, Ryan Mathes! |
My ultrasounds and blood test checks were scheduled for Monday, Wednesday, Friday starting on the morning of the 4th day of shots, which I was to take every evening. The first couple of appointments didn't show much, save for the cyst we already knew about on the right ovary. The second appointment did show one follicle on the left side starting out pretty strong. This would ultimately turn out as what they call a "dominant" follicle. While a few smaller follicles would show up by the weekend of April 9, this "dominant" follicle was the only one that would grow strongly during this cycle.
After the second check appointment, my nurse called me. She said she discussed the results with my RE, and he wanted to prepare me for potentially canceling the cycle if there isn't reasonable improvement by the next check on Friday. This would mean stopping the shots alltogether and giving up for this round.
I was a little stunned. It had been 5 weeks of prep at that point (including all the androgen priming and associated nausea), but it felt like we just started the shots phase. It hadn't even been a week of shots yet..last time we went 15 days. Can't we give them more time? I wasn't even considering the possibility of cancellation for this round. We were doing "everything and the kitchen sink" protocol. In my thought process up to this moment, it had been more about how many we would get in the end, not whether or not we would get to the end. Damn, this was bad news. She said to stay positive and Friday we might catch up...
I got in the car and drove to my acupuncture appointment right after the call with the nurse. I asked Jaime to give me everything she thought would help. She added some more needles, hooked me up to the stim machine, and increased my pill count to 20/day. For the first time since my first week of treatments, I couldn't clear my head enough to fall asleep during the treatment.
On Friday, April 8, we both went into my check appointment with the nurse only (the RE was out of town). As she performed the ultrasound, it was obvious things hadn't improved. The small ones were still small, and the big "dominant" one was still growing ~15mm avg diameter. We started to discuss feelings about "to cancel or not to cancel". After all we have been through, including the 5 most recent weeks of prep, and what we know about my low reserve of eggs, every single one feels valuable. Even the little ~5mm ones feel valuable, if we can afford to give them more time. Assuming there is no considerable risk or potential delay to the next cycle (as it was becoming obvious we would need), we were both on board for doing a retrieval, even if it was just for 1 follicle. If the RE was game, we were too. This could be a very healthy and wonderful egg, and it would be such a shame to waste it. And if we could get through a few more days of shots, perhaps it could be more than 1...
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