This weekend was my friend D.'s wedding so that took up a lot of emotional and actual time. When I wasn't at the wedding or obsessing about how to get to the wedding or wondering where I'd administer my injections at the wedding, I was at the clinic and/or obsessing about what was happening at the clinic.
Today's CD 11 for me, and that's when I triggered last month (but that's not necessarily something we want to emulate as I wound up with only one dominant follicle and am not, as you might have noticed, pregnant). Still, I doubled my dosage this month so I was expecting things to move along more quickly. Instead, what's happened is this: I've spent the last three mornings at the clinic (a major drag when you have to be there around 7 and have been out late at wedding-related festivities the nights before).
Given my misadventures in blood-letting, these visits have not been fun. What's more....I don't think the news has been good. The fellow I saw yesterday and today was not terribly communicative, but if I'm reading the ultrasound screen right (and hey, with my extensive medical training, why wouldn't I be?), I seem to have 5 follicles at around 15mm. And that seems good. But yesterday's e2 level was 298, which seems bad. Really bad. My Infoholic Witch keeps finding women with E2 levels over 1000. Over 1500 even. And I'm at 298?
I'm not a particularly svelte girl, and my Infoholic Witch has also somewhat helpfully pointed out that my extra padding, as it were, can affect my E2 level, but still. Phrases such as "poor responder" and "snowball's chance in hell" kept running through my head, when I should have been thinking good thoughts for the bride and groom. Oh, and did I mention that this was an old fashioned Catholic ceremony--the sort that mentions childbearing as a part of the wedding vows? That part was my favorite.
Help me out - how many days have you been stimming? Because an E2 level of 300 for 5 follicles seems OK to me. I had an E2 of 300 the day I had 4 follicles, and I ended up with 10 mature eggs. Of course, I'm not pregnant, so you may want to ask me what the hell I know, and I'll be forced to shrug and stare at the ceiling while whistling.
At any rate, I'm sorry you're feeling down. I know those depths very well.
Posted by: getupgrrl | March 07, 2004 at 08:16 PM
You know, when we all get our medical degrees and open our clinic, Vaginas R Us, we're going to have nothing but specially trained blood-letting technicians who swab you down with topical anesthetics before even thinking about approaching with a needle. Of course, there'll be alcohol administered orally afterward, and all our U/S techs give play-by-play instead of hoarding the results like CIA "top secret" files.
I'm hoping this cycle is more fabulous than even your Hope Addict can imagine.
Posted by: Julia | March 08, 2004 at 11:30 AM
Thanks ladies. I'm blaming my current instability on the drugs--I can't possibly be this insane under my own power. Or can I? Gah.
Posted by: Lisa | March 08, 2004 at 11:44 AM
It's the drugs, it's situational -- it's all of it. It sucks.
But another feature available at Vaginas R Us will be the option to spend your entire cycle high as a kite on legal, non-pregnancy-harming painkillers. So, you see, it won't matter at all!
Here's hoping this cycles goes better for you.
Posted by: Jo | March 08, 2004 at 02:52 PM
Sorry that the clinic has been your second home lately. Hope you will trigger soon and end this monitoring madness so you can move on to the 2WW madness. ;-) The fun never ends!
So how did you make out with doing the injection at the reception??
Vaginas 'R Us sounds heavenly. Can I add to the wish list that there be no insurance bullshit to deal with? My latest salt in the IF wound...
Posted by: JulieBean | March 08, 2004 at 03:44 PM
Jo--God, it would be so much more bearable with painkillers.
Julie--The injections were fairly comical. Fortunately, both the rehearsal dinner and the reception were held in clubs that have conference rooms as well as the big ballrooms where the wedding events themselves were held so we were able to duck into empty conference rooms to take care of business. At the reception, however, we ducked out right before the entree, and our table companions were unable to convince the waitstaff that we had not in fact left for the night so we had to plead for our leg of lamb upon our return. Again, I'm so sorry for your insurance ordeal. Can we just all win the lottery already?
Posted by: Lisa | March 08, 2004 at 04:01 PM