Stimulation Day 9 & Monitoring

UPDATE: Minor update since I posted the below this morning. As expected, we are staying on the same dosage tonight and going back for monitoring again tomorrow morning at 7am. Also can we just talk about this snow storm for a second?? Seriously I love snow and have been mad all winter that we got nothing and NOW in the middle of freaking March when I'm at the end of an IVF cycle we are forecasted to get a foot of snow - you've gotta be kidding me!!!!! Thank god we have a Wrangler.... Tomorrow morning will be interesting!


Day 9. Ugh. Can we be done yet????

I mentioned on my last post that we were instructed yesterday to start our third injection, Cetrotide, to prevent ovulation. I was nervous about doing a new one just because I wasn't sure what to expect - would it hurt like the Menopur or be ok like the Follistim?

We did the Menopur and Follistim injections first because I wanted to get the "easy" ones out of the way before doing the new one. We were instructed to increase our dose of the Menopur last night and doing that made it SO much worse. That one already burns going in and adding in the extra medication put me in lots of pain that I wasn't expecting - whew. Follistim was the same dose and was ok as usual. We prepped the Cetrotide and I was so surprised when I didn't feel a thing! Of all the injections it was by far the easiest one. I was so happy until about 5 minutes later when the injection site started feeling really itchy and burning. I lifted up my shirt to find a 2 inch diameter red rash all around the injection site - cue the panic. Just when I thought it was easy - nope - if there's one thing I've learned, nothing about IVF is easy.

I started googling online and found that a red itchy rash is a common side effect from Cetrotide, so that made me feel better. I took some Benadryl and by two hours later, it was basically gone. I was glad the rash was minor, but not fun knowing that's going to happen after every Cetrotide injection. Last night was the only night we will do Cetrotide with the other injections. Now, we do it in the morning. Yay....

We were up bright and early again this morning for monitoring - appointment at 7am. We rolled out of bed around 5:45, took the dogs out, and then had to prep my Cetrotide injection. Seriously, injections at night are hard enough, but doing them at 6am right when you wake up is AWFUL. I was so not in the mood and not mentally prepared to be doing that at 6. I got a rash from it again, but it was smaller this time and again lasted just about 2 hours.

Our monitoring appointment completely sucked this morning. My veins are SO done after doing blood work every single day. This awful nurse poked me three times trying to get blood and kept blaming me for being dehydrated (and then threatened to use a vein in my hand). Ummm no, I've been chugging water and peeing every hour lady, this is YOUR fault for missing. I can't stand when they blame it on the patient. They still couldn't get my blood so they made me go back for ultrasound first. No doctor today, so I didn't get much info, but everything seemed to be fine. Largest follicle was 18mm today so they are still growing right along, but not ready quite yet. The tech said she thinks 1-2 more days probably. I went back to try again for blood after my ultrasound. FINALLY they gave me my reliable nurse who always gets it on the first try! Thank god for her. And I never thought I'd say this, but thank god it's Monday. The weekend appointments really suck because there aren't many techs and nurses and your stuck with the sucky people.

The only good thing about going to SGF? There's a Krispy Kreme right across the street :) I was a little upset after all the poking today, so we stopped on our way out. Yes please to all the chocolate iced donuts.

Same drill for today - gotta wait to hear back from the nurse on this morning's results and next steps. I'm sure we will be back there again tomorrow.

SO CLOSE!!!!