The Eternal Guest Room

We’re moving right along. I take my last birth control pill tomorrow (yaaaaaayyyy). In the meantime we do a lupr.on shot every morning at 7:15. The shots themselves have been worse than I expected; 2 days D couldn’t get the needle to pierce my skin on the first attempt, and it turns out being poked with a needle is much more painful that being pierced with one. Ow. Yesterday I had a weird little bump/reaction. Today it bled. So that hasn’t been super fun. D told me that it’s harder than when we did injections for the IUI because I’m a little thinner now. I don’t know if that’s the reason or if my body is just putting up a fight and trying to be even more difficult than usual. Doing them in the morning has been pretty weird, too; either I’m half-asleep (on weekends and the days I work from home) or in the process of rushing to leave (on the days I go to my away-from-home job).

Emotionally, I feel better. My moods seem to have stabilized quite a bit. I haven’t felt like killing anyone or burst into tears at nothing. So that’s progress.

Physically, my one side effect is headaches, and those suck. I have a near-constant headache. Sometimes it’s a dull pain that’s barely there, sometimes a medium throbbing, and other times like a migraine complete with nausea and stabbing pains throughout my entire head. So that’s not so awesome.

I’ve been going to acupuncture for 2 weeks. There have been actual studies that prove it improves success rates for IVF, so even though it’s an extra cost we feel that it’s worth it. This is our one attempt for the foreseeable future, so we’re putting everything we have into it. Unlike the last time I did acupuncture (a year ago with IUIs), I’ve been enjoying it. I’m pretty sure it’s 95% because in that time she has gotten heated beds. So I get nice and cozy and relaxed. She also puts a heater right over my stomach or back and covers my feet and shoulders with thick blankets. So it’s a nice little warm cocoonish 20 minutes instead of pure agony like last time. Amazing what a change in temperature can do. I also think I’ve just gotten used to the needles; and maybe I’m better at being still. Who knows.

I finally got around to taking a photo of my meds to show you. I actually have a lot less than most people seem to. Partly because my doctor orders the minimum and then I get refills later if I need them. Hopefully not, as they are expensive and I’d really rather not need any more. It also just varies based on protocol, age, situations, etc.

And yes, I did use my photoshop skills to remove my name, address, & phone number before posting these to the internets.

See all those needles on the left side??? Holy crap. I’m really hoping (and thinking) that they sent me way too many. Both pharmacies that I ordered from sent me a whole bunch, so I’m thinking (and again, hoping) that they both sent me a full set. And each more than what I actually will need. Because yikes.

Most of them live in the refrigerator, so I get to see them every time I need something from there. I have a lifetime supply of ice packs at this point, so if you’re in need of ice packs, please, let me know.

What else is in my refrigerator, you ask? Well let me show you them:

The holidays…that’s a completely different post. For now I leave you with these guys. I know you all want one.

I gave myself a shot this morning.

I was tricked.

We went in for an appointment and were instructed to bring the Lu.pron. First we had a sonogram and everything looked fine. Then we went into a room and the nurse came in and started giving instructions for the Lupr.on shots. She said we were going to do the first one then & there, and then tomorrow we’d start doing them on a daily schedule. She asked if I wanted to stand or sit, and first I stood up, but as she stepped toward me I realized I was backing away slowly, so I sat down. She had me rub alcohol on one spot on my stomach. Then she told me to pinch the skin. Then she told me to hold the needle.

I looked at D in terror. He later said that he’d never seen me look so terrified. I said “but he’s going to do them” and the nurse said “you need to be able to do it.” And as I started to panic and (geez, embarrassing…) cry, she kept saying I had to show her that I could do it. She basically forced me to hold the needle and said “it’s already in! You just need to push down.” So with my eyes shut and through tears I found the end of the stupid syringe and pushed the stuff in and then took the needle out of my stomach.

It was an out of body experience for sure.

She then said “wow, I’ve never had anyone do it with their eyes closed before!”

So now I know that i can give myself a shot. Well, at least if I can do it without looking. Which might not be a great idea.

But I never want to do it again.

A little advance notice would have been nice, but I guess I don’t really get a vote in any of this.

For the educational portion of this post: The Lup.ron suppresses your ovaries and prevents you from ovulating. This is important because you can’t ovulate until they’re ready to snatch those eggs out. Otherwise the whole thing would be a waste. I hear horrible things about it – hot flashes, killer headaches, extreme bitchiness – so I’m a little apprehensive, especially after the BCPs didn’t agree with me. We have to do the shot every morning at the same time, so for the next 2 weeks I have to be awake even on my “sleep-in” days early enough to do it at 7:15am. I told D that might actually be better – to do them while I’m half-asleep.

My last BCP is on Thursday, and then a few days after that we start the shots to rev everything up. I’ll do my best to keep this updated with the progress; life has been super busy but I’m hoping that starts to slow down a little.

As we pulled out of the clinic parking lot, that “End of the World as we Know it” song came on the radio. I started laughing and said it was apropos in some ways. Because this kind of is the end of the world as we know it – either we’ll have a baby and the world will change completely, or this will fail and our lives with change completely in some other way. Either way, it’s a turning point.

I’m not sure if I’m ready to say “And I feel fine,” but I am ready for everything to change.

And I still can’t believe this is actually happening.

I’ve been waiting to post until I took a picture of my meds, but I just can’t seem to get myself to do that so I’ll go ahead and write something in the meantime.

It’s kind of weird right now. Everything is very surreal.

I’m ready to be done with the birth control pills. Ever since I started taking them I’ve been more emotional and much more irritated. Last week I snapped at my supervisor and nearly lost my temper completely with her – which would have been very bad. They give me mood swings and I’ve had a few complete breakdowns, some of which were very embarrassing. And I learned the hard way that the pills and alcohol are a bad combination, at least during my first week of taking them; so much for enjoying some wine at a wedding. And the side effects are getting worse instead of better as I take them longer. I’m worried about how the rest of the meds are going to affect me – I’ve taken one of them without much problem, but it was a lot less. It’s only the beginning of the hormones and so far it is not going well; I’m scared of the next 2 months. Right now I feel like a crazy person.

I’m actually sort of having a hard time as IVF gets closer. Well, now that it’s here. I was excited and looking forward to it for so long but now that it’s here, I don’t want it to be. I’m not sure why. Maybe because for months I thought (or hoped) we wouldn’t really need it. Maybe it has something to do with spending time around children that came with no problems. Maybe it’s all the shots in my fridge and needles on my kitchen counter. Maybe it’s just too real.

I wish I was happy and excited and hopeful, but I just feel like skipping the whole thing and giving up entirely. It’s so dumb. And maybe it’s a defense mechanism. I don’t know.

But I feel crappy about the whole thing. I feel like a whiny child: I don’t want to do it, why can’t I be like everybody else? I annoy myself completely.

I have needles in my purse. Every time I see them my stomach turns over. I mean to take them out but I always forget when I’m at home. Now that it’s here, I’m terrified of the shots. There are so many.

I know it’ll be fine. Millions of women have done this and survived. I remind myself that the shots are temporary; lots of people have to take shots their entire lives just to stay alive. I can suck it up for 2 months.

I’m hoping that these feelings don’t last; I’m hoping that I start to get excited and hopeful and do all that positive thinking business. Right now though, it just isn’t happening.

I think I’ll blame the pills for that too. That’s fair, right?

Time is really flying by. IVF is almost here.

I talked to the first pharmacy I’m ordering drugs from today. We’re using two different pharmacies because one has better prices on gon.al f & the trigger shot, and the other has better prices on the rest. In the end we’re saving a whopping $45. It’s easy to say “why bother, it’s just $45 out of at least $2000,” but in the end, forty-five dollars is forty-five dollars. I always heave a dejected sigh when they ask “do you have insurance or are you paying out of pocket?” I’m going to call the other pharmacy tomorrow to get the rest ordered (I’ve been waiting for the credit card statement to roll over).

So step #1 will taken care of: Order meds.

Step #2 is next Monday: Mock transfer and medication training. The mock transfer is basically poking around in my uterus to measure it and decide where to place the embryos. It doesn’t sound too bad on the surface, but here’s the fun part: I have to drink 32 ounces of fluid one hour before the appointment and don’t get to go to the bathroom until AFTER the mock transfer. So they stick a catheter up there and poke around while you have a full bladder.

Oh lord, I hope I’m not the one to pee on the doctor…

Medication training is just what it sounds like: Learning about the medications. We had to schedule it for a time when D could come, since he’ll be the one administering all the shots. After all was said and done, we ended up rescheduling the appointment 3 different times. Hopefully it’s set now.

When I go in for that, I get my prescription for birth control pills.

Yes, it’s true. The protocol I’m doing (which is the most common) starts with a couple of weeks of birth control pills. This way they can shut everything down before starting it all up again. After a few weeks of those, we start the shots.

I’ll get into more of those specifics in a later post. For now I just wanted to let everyone know where we are, because people keep asking, because I apparently am super vague and uninformative when I post here.

I think at this point, I’m just really shocked that we’re here. Even after 4 1/2 years, it doesn’t feel like we could ever really be at this point. But here we are, counting down the days, really doing it. It’s so much different than IUIs – those feel like a lifetime ago. The whole thing is very surreal.