About a week after my surgery, on Friday, I had what they call a baseline ultrasound. This is basically to measure the uterine lining, check for cysts, and to do blood work to check hormone levels. I had stopped taking my birth control the day before per my doctor's orders.
This is what my calendar looked like. All the medications and appointments were listed on here.
The baseline appointment is really quick. I got in and immediately they took my blood. Then I went back for my ultrasound where everything looked great! Lining was where it should be (and it better have been after just having surgery to correct it!), And I had no cysts! They told me I was good to go and to follow my calendar and they'd see me in about a week for my next check up! This was so exciting for me! I always think the worst and after everything that has happened up to this point I kinda expect it a little.
I was living about 7 hours away from home with my husband's grandma for all of this. So as soon as I was out of the appointment and in my car I immediately called Randy to let him know it was a go! He was just as excited as I was to finally be moving forward!
The following Monday I began what is called, in the infertility world, stims. This is the stimulation medications/hormones that I had to inject into my stomach. I had 2 injections to start. One was 150 iu of Gonal-F and 1 Menopur powder. The menopur powder was mixed with 1 ml of water before being injected. I honestly was a little worried about doing the injections. Not that I don't like needles but I didn't know if I could poke myself with one. Luckily I was able to convince myself to just do it. So I washed my hands, prepped both injections, cleaned the area of my stomach with a alcohol swab, did the first injection (which was Gonal-F), rubbed the area for a second with a sterile cotton pad, then did the second injection (which was Menopur), rubbed that area for a little longer (Menopur does sting!), and then cleaned up the trash and needles (they went into a needle disposal container). It really wasn't as bad as I was expecting! As long as I was quick at inserting the needle I had little to no pain. Except for the burning sensation as the Menopur was injected.
My injections that I did each morning. Gonal-F and Menopur.
I had three days of these injections before my next appointment. So on the third day, Wednesday, after doing my injections, I headed to my doctor's office. They just did bloodwork and told me I'd get a phone call with the results later that afternoon/evening. So I waited. That evening I got the phone call. They told me I was responding extremely well to the stims and that they were going to cut one of them back. So starting the next day, I would only be taking 75 IU of the Gonal-F, and I would continue taking 1 powder of Menopur.
So I did those injections until my next appointment on Saturday. At this appointment, they again did bloodwork, and then I also had an ultrasound. This ultrasound is to check to see how the egg follicles are growing in response to the stims. Mine were responding well! I had tons of follicles in my right side and quite a few in my left. After seeing this and how big they were already getting, my doctor told me to add in a third injection. This was Cetrotide. Cetrotide is a hormone blocker, it's main job is to block the hormone that tells my body to ovulate (meaning release the eggs), which if my body did release them the whole cycle would be a wash. I was to do my first injection of this as soon as I got home.
So when I got home, I prepared the injection and administered it to myself. (I was a pro at giving myself shots by this point!) Then I continued doing the three injections each day until my appointment the following Monday. At this appointment I again had more bloodwork and an ultrasound. The results were great! I had lots of big follicles on both sides! Biggest follicle on each side was, right- 17mm, left-14mm. With quite a few in each side that were close to those same sizes. By this point I was getting more uncomfortable. I was beginning to feel all those follicles growing! Which was exciting and not fun at the same time lol.
My new daily injections with the Cetrotide added in.
The next day I had another ultrasound and more bloodwork done. My biggest follicle at this point was 18mm with lot of others close behind. At this point it hurt to sit in certain positions and to lay on my sides. Standing or laying flat on my back were the only ways I found some relief. I was soo excited that everything was going so well! Later that day they called me with my bloodwork results and with my doctor's orders to trigger that night!
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My pants were too tight on my bloated belly, I had to use a rubberband so they didn't hurt.
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To trigger means to do an injection with the actual pregnancy hormone. This makes the body think you're actually pregnant and prevents it from releasing the eggs once the other injections are stopped. I no longer had to do injections of the other three stims now that I would be triggering.
That night at the exact time I was told (I honestly can't remember the exact time lol) I did my trigger shot. This injection was a little different because it was not injected into my stomach. Instead it was to be injected into my upper buttock just below the hip bone. After watching (and rewatching) the instruction video, I finally gathered my courage (I had given myself plenty of time to prepare), and jabbed the needle in where I needed to. Surprisingly, it didn't hurt at all! I got the injection done and then rested for a bit. I was a little sore after but not too bad.
The next morning they had me take a pregnancy test. It was to make sure the trigger worked. It was really weird to see my first ever positive pregnancy test and know that I wasn't even pregnant! Since it was positive, it meant that the trigger had worked. So when my doctor's office called and asked me if it had come up positive I of course told them yes.
It was faint but there! You can't really see it in the picture.
I will get my next blog post up about the egg retrieval within the next couple of days! So keep an eye out for it!
If you have any questions or need any tips about the stims, please feel free to ask in the comments! I will try to answer as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Til next time!
Becca
