Stimulation Day 8 & Monitoring (yes, again)

Lots going on over here today!!!

Not gonna sugarcoat it, last night was hard. First, I waited around all afternoon for our call from the nurse to let us know our results from Saturday's monitoring and our next steps. I was not informed of this, but apparently, on the weekends, they do the calls between 4 and 7pm. Earlier in the week, I had been getting calls between 11am and 3pm, so when it was 4:30pm on a Saturday and I still hadn't heard anything, I got worried. We waited, 5:30pm passed, and it was getting close to our 6:30pm cut off time for injections (you're supposed to take them within an hour on either end of your typical time). Kyle was home napping, and after me worrying and pacing for 2 hours, he finally checked his phone at 6pm and realized that for some reason they had called and left a voicemail on his phone instead of calling mine! Ugh!

They kept our dosage the same last night, but the kicker was they wanted us to come back in this morning for blood work and ultrasound... AGAIN. We weren't expecting to be back till Monday. This led to my first major meltdown later last night. I'm not sure why - I think I'm just mentally and physically exhausted from all of this. I was frustrated that they didn't see my right ovary Saturday morning, and I was frustrated to know we had to go back again Sunday. I'm so so so over it and done at this point.

Soooo, we got up at 6:30am this morning (which, was really like 5:30 since we lost an hour of sleep last night) for our 8am appointment. I haven't gotten to sleep in in days and we seriously feel like we live at SGF. I'm beyond exhausted. I'm also starting to look like a heroine addict because my arms are so bruised and my veins are so done being poked (they took two tries to get a vein again today...). I will be so happy when I no longer have to get blood drawn every single day.

But although I was annoyed going back this morning, today went much better. They got good pictures of my right ovary this time (the right is out performing the left so it's important to see that one). [by the way - I find it super interesting that my right ovary - the one that's not connected to anything - is the one producing the most eggs - just a fun fact.] My biggest follicle is now measuring 16mm!!! Getting so close!

I mentally prepared myself today to not get our phone call till later this afternoon, but they ended up calling at 1230!! Woo hoo! It's been hard dealing with all of this over the weekend, because my primary nurse isn't the one calling me, it's the weekend nurses, but they've been super nice still. And!! We got some good news on the phone!! My estrogen is up to 904! Anddd since my follicles are getting big, we are officially starting the third injection, Cetrotide, tonight! Cetrotide prevents ovulation so we can keep those eggs in there maturing a bit longer. For the first day, we do the new injection tonight with my other injections, but starting tomorrow, I'll take the Cetrotide in the morning, and then my normal other two, Menopur and Follistim at night - so complicated! Also, since we are now adding in the Cetrotide, they have increased my dosage of Menopur - so we'll be doing 225 IU of that instead of 150 like we were doing before.

And the final update (which at this point is no surprise) is that we are going back again for blood work and ultrasound tomorrow morning. Shocker. At this point, since we are at the end, I expect to be there every day until my egg retrieval. 

I'm feeling much better today. Physically, I feel pretty good, and mentally, I'm excited that we've progressed this far and made it on to the next stage. Starting Cetrotide means we are near the end of stimulation, so that's exciting!! Should only be a few more days now! I am a little nervous for a new injection tonight though. I've gotten very used to the Menopur and Follistim and they are *almost* easy for me now cause I know what to expect. I'm hoping the new one doesn't cause any trouble and is easy too. I'm definitely running out of space on my stomach though for all these needles!!! I'm a human pin cushion and I have bruises everywhereeeee.

Yay for Day 8!!! More updates to come tomorrow!