Wednesday, May 03, 2006

First blood test results are in

Yesterday was a rough day as I mentioned on my blog. Thanks for all your prayers and encouragement. At 9:00 p.m. I couldn't take the stomach pains, loopiness, and headaches anymore and went to bed. JB followed a few minutes later reminding me that I hadn't take any of my meds. He gave my metformin pills which I took and then went into the kitchen to prepare my Gonal shots.

I noticed John was taking an exceptionally long time preparing my shots, and my mind started wandering. I started adding. Each Gonal "pen" contains 900 units of medicine. As I added I realized that I had taken 825 units of medicine so far. I needed to take 150 units of medicine. How could this be done unless ...

JB came into the bedroom with a pouty face and mumbled, "I have bad news." I already knew what it was and started laughing and yelling, "Noooo!!!!" If there was only 75 units left in the pen (worth over $50), I would need to take two shots in the stomach. Bummer! It was not the news I wanted but my wonderful husband did the best job he could and it was relatively painless. However, when your stomach is cramped, grabbing a bunch of skin and sticking a needle into it isn't my favorite thing to do.

However, JB made me feel really good. He told me that he thought I was doing a great job which meant a lot as I have really felt like one big complaining frustration. He actually said that emotionally I have been handling this better than the IUI cycles.

Anyways, I slept very well and woke up feeling pretty good. I went in for my blood draw at 7:00 this morning having just one headache pill left.

My doctor continues to give me 20 pills at a time with no refills. This means that every time I finish my pills I have to call the pharmacy and request that they fax my physician and get more pills. Since I am allowed to take 13 pills a day (I take about 3-5 on a good day and 8-10 on a bad day), giving me 20 pills is only about 2-3 days worth. This doesn't always work well. I called the pharmacy on Tuesday morning and as of 8 this morning, they still didn't have anything for me. I called up to my doctor's area, and they said they would push the order through.

An hour later I get a call. They wouldn't refill my prescription unless I came back in for an appointment. Now mind you, I am currently a hormonal basketcase! I have already cried a few times that morning for no reason at all. So when they tell me this, I start crying. Then they transfer me to the appointment desk and I am told that the next available appointment is on Monday, May 9th! Needless to say I started crying even harder.

The woman obviously felt bad for this weeping girl fighting a migraine and cramps and began looking for another doctor I could see. She found an opening later that afternoon -- 1:10. I immediately emailed JB and asked if he could go with me. I felt a mess and really wanted him there to answer questions or help if I fell apart. I didn't want to appear as if I was desperate for drugs. John had a lecture but said he would work on it. About an hour later I got an email from him. It read:

I will be going with you! I spoke with Dr. ___, and he brought me to his office. He then showed me his family photo of his two daughters - one from IVF (ixy?) and the other a china adoption!!!! He was great! He also said that the other Dr. who is in charge of the rotation, Dr. ___, has twins from IVF!!! And both of these doctors are Air Force! Amazing. Either way, I will be going with you.

I was blessed again by how present the Lord is in the little things. It meant so much to have John there with me. And the fact that the physicians he was working with have not only been understanding but many of them have DONE IVF was amazing!

The new doctor talked to me a bit, said she thought this would go away after IVF was over and gave me a new prescription with 60 PILLS and 1 REFILL!! Another great answer to prayer.

Shortly after returning to work I got a call from Nancy at the RE office. She said my estrogen was 165. Now this means little to you and even very little to me but basically this number indicates how mature my follicles are. A mature follicle emits approximately 150-200 "units" of estrogen. This number is pretty low but low is not bad. They want to move slowly. They will look at this number and my internal ultrasounds to determine when my follicles are ready to go.

So the new schedule: Gonal tonight (225 units), Lupron and Gonal tomorrow (Thursday) and then a blood draw and ultrasound on Friday morning at 8:10. I will know more then. I would assume after Friday the ultrasounds will definitely be everyday until early next week.

In other news, our friends Calvin and Karen had their son: Jadon Wan yesterday around 2:00 in the afternoon. However, even neater than Jadon's birth (well, maybe not, but it is still pretty cool) is that Lesley is on OBGYN and got to deliver him! I was looking through the pictures and was like "There's a familiar face!" Here are some photos via Calvin. He sent us a whole album with some great snapshots.

Congrats Calvin and Karen on your new son.

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