Waiting room adventures and the hunger of a lifetime

After going through our cycle and this time going to egg collection, I just wanted to note down what happened from my point of view.

The day I was scheduled in for surgery, I had slept pretty well the previous night, considering.
I had had my trigger shot at 8pm on Sunday night, spent the whole of Monday at work being fretfully calm and then Tuesday I was raring to go.

I think the worst part of it was the fasting from midnight Monday. I know, first world problems and all.. but when someone tells you you can't eat... suddenly that's all you wanna do. Especially when you're a bit nervous. As it turns out, my operation was delayed due to a Cesarean and the waiting room kept playing ads for bacon.

Hubby was sitting with me in the waiting room until he had to go drop a load at the fertility clinic, then I had to go and see some nurses. They were all very nice, the main one Erin - kept up a light, witty banter. The only part I didn't like was the chat about the newest Kardashian-Jenner... personally I find them boring as hell and not worth keeping up with but I gave a chuckle or two when the nurse said she had put a bet on the new kid's name being either something generic like Jane or something ridiculous like Asparagus.

This nurse seems alarmed by how... hmm, vanilla I am?
I don't want to say boring, but she's like ok no allergies, no major prior surgery, no complications, no intricate vaginal piercings...
I'm sitting there like, Yup. You just wasted a lot of paper.

I kept getting called into tiny rooms for small consultations. One for the initial paper work run through, one to get changed (was surprised I didn't get a hair net or socks?) one to meet the anaesthetist and then one to go into the prep room. 

I also got to meet my fertility technician again - he was the one who did the lab tour with us and I recall quite liking him. Very happy, pleasant dude. I have forgotten his name though. Oops.

Tiny nurse Tina was also very nice, Gurney pushing Greg was hilarious - I felt weird being pushed around several wards when I was perfectly able to walk so it was nice to crack jokes about how many blue marks were on the otherwise pristine white roof. I also thanked him for bringing the bed down to my height otherwise I'd have no idea how I was gonna get up there. He said he wouldn't do that to me - very sweet.

India Uniform India

This cycle we were almost set to go to to egg pick up next week. I had been on a new drug - Menupur and then Orgalutran. However my egg numbers were still pretty low, so my ob/gyn recommended IUI - Inter-uterine insemination. Yesterday I took my trigger shot of Ovidrel, a humongous needle in which the solution inside was actually quite a small amount considering. Today, we were up at the crack on dawn to get down to the fertility centre to deposit some brogurt, which they then tested and sorted out, cleaning it and putting into two tubes. We came back after about an hour to collect this and then ran across the block to see my ob/gyn to actually carry out the procedure.

 This took all of ten minutes, if that. He used a speculum, much like a Pap smear. I won't say it was comfortable but I was too nervous to think about it much, so I only felt a strange cramp like pain when the catheter was inserted. I had been warned about cramping afterwards so I hadn't expected it straight away or during the procedure. It wasn't very bad though, nothing debilitating. I would describe it as period-lite.

That's how we did AIH (artificial insemination by husband) - so if all the sperm deposited directly into my cervix give us a child, a slight discomfort is perfectly fine with me! 

I had to stay prone for a while, which is understandable but annoying because I'd had to drink lots of water prior to the procedure and my bladder was cursing me. Honestly, it wasn't as much or as bad as an ultrasound but when you're nervous... Yeah, it doesn't help. 

So the three of us were sitting there (well, two of us were, I was lying down covering my butt with a sheet.) discussing next steps for either way. 

Telling you now, never thought I'd be this comfortable with general pantslessness outside of the home or even with injecting a million needles but look at me go! 

Mopey update and sad gorilla gifs

Another day, another appointment, another scan.

Yeah, I successfully surfed my crimson tide and dismounted for a egg check-up. The numbers weren't great - in fact, despite all the additional crap I went through this cycle it didn't do a damn thing. I had to come back for an extra check this week because we weren't sure if one of the eggs was completely right or not because it was a lot larger than the others.

That was today, and we couldn't even find this extra large edition anywhere so we don't even know what the hell that was. We think it might have been a fluid sack that popped. Ob/gyn asked me if anything had hurt recently and I just sat there thinking because I'd felt a twinge the previous day but didn't worry about it as I hadn't wanted to stress too much.

I had felt so positive about this second scan because it had looked like we were going forward with egg pick up but again I went home empty handed so to speak. I'd had a week of holidays and I'm glad because I had about two to three days of sitting around listlessly planned now instead of all the home improvements and chores I had lined up. 

It's funny because you know it does no good to get depressed but apart from that second day when it really sort of hit home.. I've just felt kind of hollow. I wanted so badly to conceive but have yet again been told in polite, clinical terms that I'm a failure.

So we're having a month breather from the intense treatment I was doing. I'm to keep up the vitamins though. I'm also embarking on a fitness campaign not only to help my body but to distract myself.

My gym membership has long expired but I've taken to running around outside at work during my breaks and using their outdoor gym equipment which is pretty basic but does the job. 

I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would. I have more energy, I can see a difference in my body shape even though my weight hasn't changed dramatically. My endurance is growing and so is my confidence. A bunch of guys at work even cheered me on the other day.

Another plus is that because I'm working out at work, I get to spend more time with my partner after work and don't have to wait for dinner or go outside in the dark/early morning. 

In other news, my sister brought some ultra sound photos around the other day and she's been happier than usual. My friend's baby has just taken his first steps. We went to visit some of my husband's relatives over the weekend and got asked twice about when we were going to have a family. 

It wasn't invasive or aggressive. One asked about us and our intentions when the pre-dinner conversation turned to nephews and nieces, the other dropped subtle hints that my partner's new car would be the kind of car you'd want to have when looking to start a family. 

Both times left me feeling like shit.

Mission In Vitro Fertilisation: Testosterone Gel Protocol

At my last planning meeting, my ob/gyn suggested a random method that might help boost egg numbers. This involves some HRT with tablets, a spray and oddly, a testosterone gel.


You apply it once per day at the same time, making sure it has enough time to dry/be absorbed before touching anyone or getting dressed etc. You generally apply it where it's not going to be rubbed off or in contact with another person straight away, or within 6 hours.
So this could mean areas like your stomach, thighs, shoulders or even your butt cheeks.

My ob-gyn said thighs or butt, the nurse said stomach or shoulders, the internet says upper arms or stomach and the 'information sheet I received says upper arms, shoulders and stomach and also contains a warning for me, advising not to apply it to my testes or penis which I am positive I'll be able to avoid seeing as how I don't actually have any. 

Anyway, it comes in a pump form dispensing 50mg of clear gel. 

Does that seem weird to use this? Isn't testosterone a male hormone? Why - yes, yes it is.
So why use it in IVF?

Clinical Symptoms of Passive Aggressive Nurses

Alright, another rant.

Every-time I get to thinking I've been too harsh on my fertility clinic.. they do something stupid.
I know they're human, but sometimes they seem to unintentionally hate on me.
I can be pretty annoying, I will give them that but still.
Perhaps if I psychoanalyse myself, I'll discover that I'm venting my rage at them due to feeling semi-helpless about my own situation but no one wants to read that, this is the internet!

So.. after my last appointment with my specialist ob-gyn, I again had to order a metric butt-tonne of medications and what not, so I spoke with the clinic and we arranged for me to come in on Monday just gone to collect the items.

The person I spoke to seemed competent and helpful. So I turn up on Monday morning at the time we discussed to pick up my swag and collection of old fashioned terminology and buzz words.. I tell the receptionist what I'm doing there. She's like cool, wait over there in the naughty corner.

Perhaps she forgets I'm in hearing range, and literally like six steps away from her because she says to the nurse that comes out "I don't know, she's probably here for a test result or something."
This is after I have said to her, less than two minutes ago that "Hi, I'm Lucky Tiger, I'm here to collect the medication that I paid for last week.'
The nurse then comes over to me and asks what I'm there for.

Adventures of a Human Porcupine

So we're actively counting the days now until we can start an actual cycle and I'm excited, nervous, and yes, kinda impatient. I'm also not looking forward to becoming a human pin cushion but what can ya do, eh?

Well, today was the day it begun. My friend had offered to help with the needles as she'd been through it before, but I'd gone through it all with the nurses so I was fairly confident with what to do. I'd been told to do it early, and at a consistent time so I woke hubby up early because I wanted someone there in case I did mess up but I thought it I had too much fuss or people around then I might freak out.

I know I shouldn't complain. Both of my grandmothers and my paternal grandfather have had to use needles everyday for Diabetes or what have you, so there's no reason I should get so worked up about needles for a couple of weeks, right?

IVF: I'm Very Flustered

This post isn't going to be too informative, but more of a vent. 

So this week, I attended an IVF information session during the week at like 10am and it's fortunate I work rotating shifts because otherwise I would have had to have taken time of work and I'm not the kind of person who likes doing that. As someone I work with pointed out, technically I could use my sick or annual leave because it's a specialist sort of appointment but I feel like a jerk if I cut out on my work friends when I'm not actually sick. 

As it was, I was the only person there who didn't bring their partner which made me wonder if they all work shifts or what they did to escape the workplace. My husband would have been at work but as it happened he had the day off on account of being horribly sick so he missed it anyway. 

Not that it really mattered, this was pretty much what happened in the session. 

Not the traditional method of getting information to the brain but...

So it was just as well it was only me taking notes because there's no point in us both being brain exhausted. 

It also gave me a chance to people-watch, something I like to do occasionally. 

All the men looked so grave. I have to say it. They held their partners around the shoulder or laid their hands on top of hers. I felt like I was invading at a funeral or something. These people looked delicate, wrought and tired. No one looked optimistic but they had the giggles every now and then. 

I was afraid that one of these women was going to fall apart dramatically, which thankfully did not happen.