Racing along

I can sort of feel the ovaries now. This is my 5th day of stims (though I haven't taken the 5th shot yet). My sonogram today was fine, though I had to get a cervical culture. That sucked. I'd do 10 sonograms before I'd do one of those.

I asked if I could run today and they said no, but it probably would be ok but we would say no and you shouldn't. So I took that as a "we can't tell you that you should because there is a bit of a risk, but really you'll probably be fine". So I'm going. This will certainly be my last run until like 10 days post-retrieval (if i can wait that long).

They did say that I have lots of follicles, so yay me.

The end is near

News from the clinic today that the recipients who are lined up for the donation that was to follow this one are not going to continue. I don't know if they got pregnant, don't have the money, or what, but the reality is that the cycle is cancelled. That means next week, I'll have the harvest on Tuesday, and then I'm done.

I'm relieved. Of course, there was no way I would have pulled out of the cycle I was picked for. But I will be so glad to have this finished. I feel like I'm getting my body back.

Stims are going well. I'm really tired, but I don't think it has anything to do with that - It's probably just dealing with the divorce and all the other issues in my life. The pen-inject-into-repronex worked well today. That should mean smooth sailing for the rest of this week.

It's not rocket science. It's IVF.

Today is stims day 1. They decided to switch things up on me and now i have this giant gonal-f pen. It has 900 "units" and this weird dial on the end. I'm supposed to set the dial to 150, then turn another dial to 150, put the needle in, and then push the second dial to dispense the medicine. Sounds easy enough.


Clearly, I'm not thinking straight.

I got the set-to-150 part right. I inserted the needle end, and pushed. One little click happened. So I pulled it out and was like "That's it??! That can't be it!" What I should have done at this point was to poke myself again and push harder on that second dial to make sure it was all the way depressed. Instead, I wanted to see exactly how much 150 actually was. So I turned the second dial back up to 150 (where was it to start? I didn't look. I'm clearly not thinking straight). Well it clicked four times when I squirted this out into my hand. So I had deduced that I didn't get a full dose. However, in my haste I neglected all the sensible things to do, so I actually had no idea how much I had taken. So I thought a bit and figured, well, I got one click the first time, and there should have been 4 clicks, so I'll turn it back to 150, do 3 clicks, and then I'll have about the right amount. So that's what I did. Was that right? I have no idea. But I can't double dose on this stuff. Hopefully it's approximately correct and over the next 3 days I'll get it right and no harm will be done.

I've also decided that this pen crap is for the birds. First, it means I get TWO shots - one from the pen, and another of the repronex/lupron combo. So tomorrow, I'm going to do the lupron water drawup, inject that into the powdered repronex, and then take the damned pen, turn it to the right place, and inject all of that into the repronex, too. That way, it's all mixed together, and I can just draw it up into one shot. It will prevent the problems of today, and it will also make me a less pissed off person from double sticking.

Stupid pen.

-------------------

There is better news, though. The clinic asked me today if I would be interested in a part time position with them answering questions about IVF for potential patients. It would basically be phone calls and emails detailing the process and what to expect. This is awesome. I already do a lot of that, anyway, via this blog. It will be fun to have it as a job, and to have contact with more people. There are still details to be worked out, but I'm looking forward to this.

Taking a break

I'm in the midst of a donation cycle right now. Retrieval will be October 4th. I have another one scheduled to follow immediately after that, probably with a retrieval in early December. After that, I need a break.

I had a couple months of no retrieval this summer, but by the time this is done in december I will have been doing egg donations basically non-stop for 2 years. It's starting to get trying.

It is not the clinic - I love them dearly. They are one of the most supportive groups of people I know. I miss them when I'm not down there.

It's certainly not a moral thing. I love the thought of all these people having babies and the fact that I can help them.

It's partially a practical thing. Since I'm getting divorced, the logistics are a bit harder. My husband is taking me to this retrieval, and probably the one after that (thank god we still get along well enough to do these things for each other). But we have very separate lives at this point, and I cannot rely on him to drop everything because I have a retrieval, let alone if I feel like crap the next day and need to be driven somewhere. Those were things he would have done at the drop of a hat before - and I love him for that - but he has his own life now that is a lot harder to interrupt for me.

But mostly, it's just a burnout thing. I'm very tired of worrying about OHSS. I had it the first time, and it really fucked up my life for a while. I know the chance is small that it will happen again, but the possibility and planning for how I will handle it if it happens is wearing on me. More than that, I am very tired of adjusting my life for almost a month around the retrieval. I can handle the shots, but I hate having to stop running. If you're not a runner like me, this might not make sense. I go to bed thinking about when I can run the next day; how far I'm going to go; if I can maybe fit in two runs; if I will go down to the trails or if I will stay around my house; etc. It is the highlight of my day to get out and run. On top of that, I love running the marathons and half marathons, and I miss one for basically every egg cycle. I'm missing one in a couple weeks because of this retrieval. I missed one in the spring. I missed one last fall. There are easily 4 big races, and half a dozen small ones that I would have run if I hadn't been stimulating or recovering post-retrieval. What makes it worse is that I WANT to run, and I feel fine running at those times, but the danger of twisting an ovary is big enough that I'm just not allowed. That means I am miserable for two or three weeks around each retrieval because I can't do the one thing I want.

I'm tired of the birth control pills. I feel so much better when I'm off them. I'm tired of wondering about getting puffy with water weight around the retrieval. I'm tired of having this part of my life that I can't discuss with my family and that I have to work to keep them from knowing about. I'm tired of driving an hour each way to the clinic for every appointment. I'm tired of having to get up 3 or 4 hours earlier than my normal time to make the appointments. I'm REALLY tired of them getting bumped from 10am to 7:30am on Sundays because someone decided that was a better time.

In short, I'm burnt out. I'm at the point where the only thing that makes me consider doing another one is the money, and that's bad. I don't do this for the money, though it is really useful. I don't want it to be about the money, but I'm about at that point. So I need to stop.

Lupron, and pills done

So I've slacked in posting, but you all know the drill at this point. I took my last birth control pill on Monday, and I've been on lupron for about a week. All is well. It's all easy for now; stims start sunday.