Tuesday's baseline check went great. Well, I say "great" in the sense that nothing was wrong...I guess that's the low bar we are currently calling "great'! The ultrasound showed that everything is quiet, and the blood tests showed my hormone levels were close to where they needed to be to get started. Since my estrogen came back around 7.5 pg/ml, my RE asked me to continue with the birth control pills for one more night (Tuesday) to hopefully lower it a little further and then start the injection protocol Friday/today!
I wasn't enthusiastic about another day of birth control. The double dose had been giving me some serious nausea, especially the day before my Tuesday appointment. However, it was great to hear we were close to moving forward and that there were no show-stoppers on the ultrasound. Feels a little funny, but even though I'm a bit nervous about it (mostly the outcome), I'm actually looking forward to the shots. The shots feel like action. Progress! Hopefully also success...
The Lupron started today/Friday (AM and PM shots, 20 units each), which should start my natural hormone flare to kick off follicle growth. Then on Sunday, I will add in the Gonal-F (300 units) alongside the AM Lupron, and Menopur (300 units) alongside the PM Lupron. 2 shots every morning and 2 shots every night from Sunday until they say we are ready for retrieval.
With the twice a day situation (12 hrs apart as consistently as we can), there are some new dynamics. Previously, we timed the daily shots around 9:30pm. We are usually always home by then, or at least it's pretty easy to pull that off for a couple of weeks. Now in this round, if we keep the 9:30pm slot, I will most definitely have to do my morning shots solo and also at work. I'm not too panicked about this, but I would prefer to avoid the potential of dropping the syringe down the office toilet, and also I like having Michael do it (team effort!).
We settled in on timing the evening shots reasonably for Michael to be involved (~7:30-8pm) with his increasingly busy work schedule. For the mornings, if I'm shooting up solo, 7:30am is early enough that I might still be able to work my schedule to do it from home rather than haul all the temperature sensitive stuff into the office (and, again, avoiding the toilet dropping situation. This does, however, mean waking up on time on the weekends for the next two weeks.
At the moment, the timing coordination is more stressful than the idea of doubling the number of daily injections to 4. As I've said before, I really like having Michael involved in this part. During the first round, my stress level was fairly high and my fear of stabbing my own finger was real. I was so thankful he was willing to take control of the shots. During round 2, I was far more relaxed, but the 600 units of Menopur burned like crazy, so it was great to have him do it...I might have wimped out part way through.
Both times, having him involved and in control of the shot-giving was great. We felt like a team, and this was our wacky science experiment TOGETHER! Growin' eggs! With his active role, he was a little more involved and little less of a bystander to the process. When it was working, we felt great together, and when it wasn't, we were sad together. Choosing this kind of teamwork means that the importance of his role was greater than his "donation" on the day of the retrieval or being a shoulder to cry on when I was just needing to cry (several times) along the way.
I'm sure not everyone's spouse is up for it, but mine is, and I'm really thankful for that. Since we started this way, I'm not sure how the dynamic would change for us if I gave myself all the shots. So far, we have been able to stick to our normal routine, and Michael gave me the inaugural Lupron shot right at 7:30am this morning!
Here we go (again)!
No comments:
Post a Comment