Thursday, September 28, 2006

progress report

CD5
Injection: Follistim
Dosage: 150 IU
Side effects: None really. My boobs were a little sore this morning, but that's it. I hope the follistim is working =/

Tomorrow I go in for a blood test.

I know this is incredibly boring.

Other news: I got a gift certificate for a facial earlier this year. About 3 weeks ago, I made an appointment to use the gift certificate and totally forgot about it until this morning when I opened up my calendar! My appointment is today after work. What a lovely surprise! I just hope it doesn't make me red and bumpy because I have a party to go to tomorrow night.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

hello, hormones

Okay, so I don't know why, but the shot that I gave myself last night was a little more painful than the first shot. I bled a little more, too. Odd.

CD4
Injection: Follistim
Dosage: 150 IU
Side effects: I felt a little anxious last night for no reason - I'm thinking it's hormones.

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

i did it!

Last night, I gave myself my first subcutaneous shot ever. And it didn’t even hurt. (I still asked my husband not to hug me too tight so that my innards wouldn’t spill out the injection site though).

So, here we go:

CD3
Ultrasound: no cysts
Estrogen level: 50 (whatever that means)
Injection: Follistim
Dosage: 150 IU, once a day
Side effects: none yet
Note to ovaries: do your thing!

ultrasound blindness

How my ultrasounds usually go.

Sunday, September 24, 2006

so, it has come to this...


Sigh. It saddens me that as each cycle passes, I'm learning more and more about my cycle, my infertility, and my treatments - things that I wish I didn't have to know.

I now know more than I care to know about HSGs, clomid, IUIs, hysteroscopies, and polyps. The lame part is that having all this information still did nothing to get me pregnant.

And now I'm becoming an expert at injectables.

(By the way, I don't care if the syringe looks like a harmless little pen. It's still a freakin' needle. And mine looks really angry.)

Saturday, September 23, 2006

random post



Our fur baby likes to bite my husband's heels while my husband is sleeping on his stomach. I thought it was funny, so I decided to blog about it.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

and i thought the bar exam was frustrating


This is me on the phone with incompetent receptionist after my "injection training".

Let me explain. On the day of our injection training, Husband and I rushed home after work to make it to our training at my clinic's other location, which is about 45 miles from our house. We arrived, after driving in very stressful rush-hour traffic, only to find that incompetent receptionist failed to actually put us on the clinic's appointment calendar. And since they weren't expecting us, my records had not been sent to this location. It was after hours and all the doctors had gone home. And I had no idea what pharmaceuticals I would be using. So, yes, we drove 45 miles in rush hour traffic to injection training for nothing.

The nice nurse there quickly figured out who had botched our appointment because she asked, by name, if incompetent receptionist (let's call her M) was the one who made the appointment for me. I wasn't sure because I didn't know M by name. But I guess I didn't have to know her name - it seemed like Nice Nurse knew for certain it was M. Apparently, other patients and the staff have had to deal with M's lameness.

Oh, but wait, there's more...

M had made another appointment for me at the same time that she had set Husband and I up for injection training, so I asked Nice Nurse to please check if that appointment was at least on the appointment calendar.

And, class, what do you think she found?

You got it -- nothing. Nice Nurse opened the calendar and found that I didn't have that appointment scheduled either. Sure, M had opened the calendar and saw an open time slot for my appointment but then DID NOTHING TO ACTUALLY PUT ME ON THE CALENDAR. And that was the appointment where the nurse would give me my instructions, the schedule, my prescription - basically everything I needed to know in order to start the injectables for this cycle. In other words, it was imperative that I had this appointment before my cycle starts...

... on Sunday.

So, yes, that appointment had been timed perfectly. You know, the appointment that I had made 2 weeks ago...The appointment slot that is now filled...Along with the rest of the calendar for this week.

So, that was me on the phone with the incompetent receptionist telling her to fix her mistake because I was not going to be pushed back a cycle because she couldn't do her job. I felt terrible afterwards because M is a nice person and mistakes do happen. But still.

I was not myself.

Don't get me wrong - I LOVE LOVE LOVE my clinic. I still do. Except for M, everyone is competent. And everyone is sweet, caring, and compassionate. Nice Nurse at location #2 and Nice Nurse at location #1 fixed everything for me so that I can still start my next treatment next week as planned. I was so glad that they were there - I was such a mess.

Everyone knows how important timing is when doing these treatments. She could have botched something up that was much more TIME SENSITIVE and couldn't be fixed and then where would I be? Keep in mind, M, that that drawing above is me sans hormones -- just think of that when making any of my IUI or IVF appointments.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

please allow me to introduce...

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

pregnancy envy...now with illustrations!



My husband doesn't really have that hairstyle, but everything else is a true representation, I swear. Except for the orange shoes. As far as I know, my husband does not own a pair of orange shoes, but I'm going out right now to buy him a pair. I think they make him look dashing.

finally- news to report

Hello my blogging friends!

Sorry-- I have been a bad blogger...but life has been busy (work projects) and yet slow (still infertile!), so there was no time or reason to update.

Anyway, I had my surgery to remove my polyp. And I only had the hysteroscopy and not the lap like I wanted (I figured, I was going to be put out anyway, why not just do a complete tune-up, right?). Doc found a small polyp and nothing else, said my cervix and uterus looked fine and healthy, and that the polyp was benign. Good, right? Fabulous. EXCEPT, given what he found, he felt that the polyp was UNlikely the reason for my infertility. Great. So, my dreams of all of sudden being FERTILE after the surgery were dashed to itty bitty bits. (To be sure, it was still good to remove it because it could have grown into a problem, but I'm nothing if I'm not whining, right?).

My favorite part of my follow up appointment was when Doc showed me the pics of my uterus and polyp and said: "And that's your copy to keep." So, at least we have the photo for this year's Christmas card!

Right now we're on our 2ww because Doc said we could go ahead and try naturally this cycle - although there is nothing natural about me cornering my husband at his computer and saying, "let's do this thing!" He actually got up and ran away and I had to chase him around the house. I was able to catch him, but only after he ran into my booby trap (I dug a deep hole in our living room and covered it with an Ikea area rug).

So, next step: injection training, injections, and IUI.

Yay.