Shake it, don't break it - Updated

Injection update below.

So lest anyone thing that Dr. Pig has taken any bedside manners classes since we last met him, this post is here to assure you he's just as much as a dipshit as always.

I was thrilled when I scheduled my baseline to hear that it would be done by another doctor in the office. I've dealt with her before and she's been fine. I told the nurse who was taking my blood that despite the week plus of spotting I hadn't gotten my period yet. She seemed nonplussed and said that Not Dr. Pig would be right in. So you can imagine my shock and dismay when in through the door bursts Dr. Pig shouting, "NO PERIOD YET, EH?!"

"Um, no, not yet," I manage to say back.

"Well, we'll shake it loose," he says.

Shake it loose.

Shake. It. Loose.

WHAT the fucking fuck?

He said it while waving the dildocam around, I assume to demonstrate the implement which would do the shaking loose. Of what, though? AF? My precious lining? Cramps? Bitchiness? Even though I'm not exactly a prude, or particularly delicate in my real life, I was really surprised and couldn't pay much attention to the actual ultrasound. I guess I'm good to go, there are a few visible antrals on one side and a few more on the other. That's all I could get from him.

Unreal is what it was.

So once he was mercifully gone, I asked the nurse for the needles and syringes I needed and she was more than obliging. The pureg0n stuff all fits into my f0llistim pen, so I'm good to go there.

Except I'm kind of in a funk. Now it's really hitting me that I have to do this all over again and I'm not all that psyched about it. Shocking, I know. I just have this feeling that I'm going to have a hard time doing my first shot tonight, which is weird because I was really fine with them last time around. Maybe it's because that time I just assumed I was injecting myself with the magic elixir and would be pg for sure. HA! Anyway...I've thrown my energies in to cleaning which is much needed. I'm just so glad I'm not disturbing W's nap. /sarcasm.

(Please refer to Tipsymarie's great post for pretty much my exact feelings on how feminism can suck it. Even though right this very second I do happen to be unemployed, whether I'm working or not, W does NOT pull his weight in the housework department. I'm right with her, too about how he's the best of the best and I have absolutely nothing (except this) to complain about. It's just that he doesn't care as much about when our desk is piled with crap, or if the dishes sit until the next day. ARGH.)

Ok, back to the cleaning...

So my injections went fine last night and again this morning - phew! It was good to be able to just start with 1 last night. Then this morning I woke up before W and did my first 3-shot round with ease. I guess it's just like riding a bike. Let's just hope I don't have to do the whole Tour de France.

Life at the Crystal Palace

So today was my first day of unemployment and I have to say I am not all that good at it. As much as I really would love to be independently wealthy and not reliant on The Man for a salary, I don't know if I'd be any good at not working. I think it would be way different if there was a baby or two in the mix. They would certainly help fill the time, I imagine.

To ensure poor use of my time off I woke up hungover today. It was W's fault. We made up a new (kind of ghetto) cocktail of Bombay and Crystal Light, named the Crystal Palace in honor of the nasty, plastic bottled, $4 gin his parents get, and he messed with the proportions a bit in celebration of my unemployment. I guess I should own it a little, too since I chose to have 3 of them. Yeah, three. They were so good! And practically calorie-free! It was loads of giggly fun last night, but this morning not so much. I had interviews at two temp agencies and I just don't think I was at my best. Luckily to a temp recruiter if you can string a sentence together and don't drool much during the interview they think you're the second coming. Of course they make you take a typing test and thanks to the lingering affects and the early hour I might as well have used my feet. Oh well, I'm not looking for a job in the typing pool, so I'm ok with it.

Later I hit the beach with Bella and took our car to the self-wash place that I love so. There's something about that foamy brush that makes me happy. I had plans to grocery shop and be generally housewifely, but that didn't really work out so well. In fact, slacker that I am, we ended up going out to dinner. Aren't I supposed to make meatloaves or wrap myself in saran wrap or something? I'll keep working on it...

Somehow last night, in my boozy bliss I remembered to take my last bcp. AF never did arrive, but I'm guessing she'll show up very soon. Fine and dandy, I'm headed in for my baseline on Saturday, so I'm happy to get this show on the road!

I got all my meds and can officially recommend ivfmeds.com from England. They were so nice, and way cheaper. I got Pureg0n instead of Foll!stim, but nun pee is prob'ly nun pee, right? Hopefully he Pureg0n needles are as smooth like butta as Foll!stim - they were so easy (and useless) last time!

Not much else to update. I'm kind of in mini limbo for now. I'm really anxious to see some results from the acupuncture, herbs, wheatgrass and dhea. Of course if I do have a good response, how will I know what worked? I guess I don't care, right? My face is breaking out like crazy on my forehead, which is weird for me, so maybe the dhea is kicking in. There better be some good reason for this teenage drama 20 years too late.

Holy crap, twenty years? I might need another Crystal Palace.

Saturday Freak Out - Now with Less Freakiness

Ok, yesterday I was having some major boob soreness, which I just sort of attributed to the bcp. Then late last night I started to have some brown spotting like I do before my period. Usually this lasts a few - up to four or five days. BCP aside, this is only CD12. Never in my life have I had a two week cycle. They've always been irregularly regular at 26-31 days. Of course the cycle right before my first IVF was only 22 or 23 days long. Does my body love getting those injections so much that it's hurrying things along this time too?

But seriously - isn't it weird to be getting my period while taking bcp? I've only been taking it for 10 days and only have four more to go.

I am so friggin' confused and freaking out a bit. Any ideas anyone? I've got a call into my RE's office, but they haven't called back. My drugs don't arrive until next Wednesday or Thursday because I ordered them from bloody (no pun intended) old England.

Ugh - I was so looking forward to a nice weekend before the madness starts up again and now I have this to worry about.

**UPDATE**

I've now heard from my RE's office as well as quite a few commenters (THANK YOU!) that this is pretty normal. I'm supposed to just let it flow and show up for my baseline as planned next Saturday.

IVF #2 already?

I guess I'd always hoped that I wouldn't need to qualify the term IVF with a number, but it's looking like the case. It certainly does help keep things organized, though.

Anyway, Numero Dos has been sort of this abstract idea all summer, so it's hard to believe it's finally here, but now that I'm on bcp it's definitely getting real. I ordered my meds this morning and have my calendar all ready. I'm trying to keep a lid on it, but I'm getting kind of excited again. Of course I'm not so excited about the six-plus shots a day I'll be taking, but I think just being proactive again has got me all giddy. Also I like collecting information and organizing calendars (weird for someone who's really not all that organized in life) so getting all my protocol info gave me an excuse to calendar-and-spreadsheet-it-up a bit. Geek!!

So my protocol looks like this:

BCP through 8/15
Baseline 8/18 and if all is ok, I'll take my evening shot of microdose lupr0n that night.
The next day I add in the stims, so each morning I'll take 3 shots:
10iu lupr0n
225iu foll1stim
75iu repr0nex

and then each evening I'll do it all over again! In fact sometimes it could be more than 3 shots. My coordinator suggested I buy the foll1stim in the 300iu cartridges (rather than 600) because the overflow is the same amount (about 120iu) in every size, so I'll save a little money by getting 12 overflows rather than 6. but probably have to take a few multiple shots to get my dose in. Who knows how much it will really save, but any money saved at this point is a good thing. Especially given the fact that I QUIT MY JOB! AND I DON'T HAVE ANOTHER ONE!*

I'll also continue taking dhea and wheatgrass and although I won't be drinking those delicious herbs once I start stimming, I will have acu three times during the middle week of my stims. That's a whole lot. Last time she used the electrostatic (?) stimulator which was in a word, weird. She thought she'd done it before with me, so had it all hooked up, and casually said to me (while I'm laying face down) "Ok, I'm going to turn on the electro..." "WHAT?" I yelped, yanking up my head, which was of course stuck to that little piece of paper that's supposed to keep things all hygienic, and probably messing up all the needles. Once she explained it to me and I could feel it working I wasn't so freaked out, but for a while there I thought I'd accidentally signed up for electroshock therapy. In the end it was fine. Just like a light tapping on my lower back. Hopefully it did the trick!

I don't get a monitoring u/s until day 7 of stims, which is a little odd (although Amy R has the same thing happening). I'm guessing that since I'm on the max dose of meds, there's no real reason to check in any sooner? Who knows. It's fine with me because the fewer opportunities I have to obsess over follicle counts and sizes, the better! Not that I won't do it on my own.

Anyway, I've got some excitement and hope brewin'. I will try my best to keep them both to a minimum by remembering the complete and utter meltdown I had last time, but I don't know if I can do it. Come along with me?


*So, I didn't get into it too much in my blog, but I HATED this job. I've been working in nonprofits for way too long and am so over it. I kind of knew that going in when I took the job in January, but stupidly I thought this would be different. Nope. So I've decided to head back into the "real world" and hopefully make some decent money. I'm going to temp a bit to get a feel for what type of company or which industry suits me best. It's also good timing because if I happen to be not working while I'm going through the transfer, etc, that's definitely not a bad thing! My last day is next Wednesday and I am pumped!!! Between this and my new IVF cycle, so far August is a banner month! I just hope September is even better. I mean, it has to work this time, right?

A picture is worth a thousand gut punches

So we're back from our vacation and even though we had a fabulous time, I am always glad to come home. I'll post more pics in the next couple of days but in the meantime, here's one of my cousin and I in between swims. Trip highlights included:

• amazing weather
• perfect lake temperature
• my best golf round EVER (including a chip-in birdie!)
• a beautiful wedding with free-flowing basil mojitos
• a hassle-free trip home

The only hitch in my personal giddyup is that my friend had her baby today. I'd been waiting all week for news, since she was due on 7/29. I had a feeling that although I've been ok with her pregnancy, I would not be as able to handle her actual parenthood.

I was right. Her husband sent two sweet pics of lil Zoe which I cooed appropriately over, and I scrolled down to the last picture which was my friend holding her with her husband smooshing his face into the two of them. Possibly it was a nice picture, but I couldn't really look at it and I closed the email immediately.

This is my best friend. Her first baby. And I can't even look at the picture. Somehow the baby by herself is one thing, but together with her mom is too much. Ugh. I emailed back saying she should just call me whenever she's ready, but I forgot about the fact that I might not be ready. I need to write out a list of questions or something for when she does call - any suggestions?

***********

So far nothing to report on the bcp's. No side effects or anything. I got a lovely call halfway through our trip from the RE's office reminding me that we owe them nearly four grand for the next cycle. WTF happened to the buy-one-get-one plan?? Well, ICSI and lab fees and all sorts of other crapola mean we owe more. I should have known. There's no such thing as a free IVF (for those with shitty insurance, anyway). I also need to order my meds, which I'm sure will be more than last time. Goodbye house downpayment savings... Nice knowin' ya...