EIGHTEEN!?

Wow – where do I even begin? A lot has happened in the last 48 hours!

On Tuesday, March 13, Everett’s birthday, I had an appointment at the fertility clinic. My follicles were all growing as expected and I was at the point where we were ready to do the Trigger shot. But wait… things are never that easy for me. The doctors were once again really scared that I might get OHSS (hyperstimulation) because I had 20+ large follicles and my estrogen doubled again. There is another injection that you can take to prevent OHSS, however it’s a bit more complicated. Thankfully, after analyzing my blood work, they decided to give me the Trigger shot anyways. This is an injection that helps the eggs release from the walls of the follicles so that they float in the fluid within the follicles. When they do the procedure 35 hours after the shot and drain all the follicles, the eggs will then be floating in there. Pretty cool hey! I almost feel like I’m a doctor myself with all the knowledge I have now haha. So, that night I got to take my Trigger shots (I say shots because I had two injections of 1ml and 0.5ml)…. at 11:00pm. If you know me, I go to bed at 9:30 pm so I was prying my eyes open to try to stay awake! I was so excited and wanted to share the news with all of you but March 13 was a day to celebrate Everett, not myself! So we partied, went to the park, played outside, had a nap, went swimming, opened gifts, and ate a lot of cake!

Thursday, March 15, rolled around and I was ready to go! I have been looking forward to this day for the last 5 months. Thankfully the clinic provides Valium to help you sleep or I would’ve been bouncing off the walls counting down the hours, minutes, right down to the seconds. Our appointment was at 10:00 am, so we dropped Everett off at a friend’s house down the street (thanks Ashley!) and checked into the clinic at 9:15am. They brought us in right away and gave us instructions what to expect.

First I gowned up, put on my cute little booties, and the nurse took my vitals. Obviously my blood pressure was high… but don’t worry, within 20 minutes it was so low I pretty much passed out. Okay, let me explain.

Before you can start the procedure, they get an IV going so they can start giving you some fluids, followed by some lovely drugs. Usually I have really great veins but for some reason the nurse was having a hard time finding them. She attempted on the top of my right hand but my vein slipped on her, and she was poking away, moving the needle around, telling me that she just need to bend my hand down to stick it in farther… and just kept making it worse. So I started to get super hot and sweaty, then light headed, and next thing I knew I was seeing black. How is it that I can give myself an injection no problem but when it comes to IV’s, I just can’t keep my composure?

My Doctor, Dr. Scott, came in and told me I looked like a ghost. Yup, that sounds about right! So she did the IV on my left hand and I hardly felt it. She was very sweet and stayed in the room with us for about 10 minutes talking about her life, career, family, and surrogacy. It was actually really nice!

Then she took me into the ER room and Craig went down to do his thing (if you know what I’m talking about). Dr Scott gave me some lovely drugs which kicked in instantly and put a giant screen in front of me so I could watch the whole procedure. WOW! I loved this whole procedure – it is so cool to watch them drain the follicles, and then see the embryologist find all the eggs within the fluid. How often do you get to see your own eggs!? I was only in there for about 10 minutes but it felt like 1.

Next thing I knew, I was back in my nice lounger drinking some ginger ale and eating cookies. All my friends told me not to eat the cookies because you’ll barf them up shortly after… but I couldn’t resist! So here’s my confession… I should’ve listened to them because I ran out of the vehicle before Craig even got it in the garage and barfed. Anyways, I stayed in my room for about an hour with the IV giving me fluids, taking my vitals a few times, and just hanging out.

I thought I was done all my injections! But yet again, I like to complicate things. Since I had a blood clot in my neck earlier this year from a central line, Dr. Scott put me on Tinzaparin (blood thinner) injections for 10 days. Then I should be on the home stretch!

We went home and I actually felt pretty good the rest of the day! I had a bit of cramping and bleeding (sorry, if that was too much info) and just relaxed.

Today is a bit of a different story; I have a lot of cramping, bloating and pressure in my lower abdomen. It’s hard to explain but it kind of feels like when I had my uterus removed and stood up for the first time. Things were shifting and it caused a lot of pain and discomfort. It’s extremely painful if you move wrong or go down the stairs too fast. I also look like I’m 10 weeks pregnant.

Here’s a little Bio 101 for you – eggs are housed in fluid-fill follicles, and follicles live in the ovaries. Many follicles (23+ in my case that are each over 2.0 cm) = big ovaries. Seems simple. During the egg retreival, they drain the follicles of their fluid, and within that fluid comes the eggs. However, after the follicles are drained of fluid they fill up again with blood. They become Corpus Lutea and make a lot of hormones that can make you feel not so hot (#progesterone). As a result, this hormone soup keeps the ovaries large, the belly filled with fluid, and you feeling like a balloon party from a few days ago at Everett’s birthday party!

Anyways, I had blood work done this morning to check my levels and test for OHSS. I will have one more test done on Monday to make sure things are still looking good.