herveryown

I am Handy in a Drought

Let's see...do you want the good news or the bad news first?

Wait, what am I thinking?  What good news?

My ovaries are currently 11.5 centimeters each, or in inches, "fucking enormous".  I have free fluid in my abdomen in pockets approximately the same size as my ovaries.  I am popping percocet like tictacs and they seem about as effective at managing the pain.  It is becoming increasingly difficult to pee.  I gained seven pounds in six days.  I look about four to five months pregnant, which is sure going to be a lot of fun when I return to work this week.

I guess the good news is that we no longer have to worry about whether or not I'm going to get OHSS.  The only question still in play is 'How much worse is this going to get?'

Weekend Buffet

Today's post is brought to you by Percocet and the number nine.

No, not that number nine, but the nine on the pain scale, which I hit last night.  I was actually a little encouraged when that happened, because the last time I was in that much pain, I proceeded directly to the big one-oh, which is "blacking out," but alas, last night I stayed conscious and was forced to feel what I can only describe as a brace of rabid hedgehogs wrestling to the death in my pelvis.

I immediately called the clinic, convinced that I was going to die in the very near future.  I left a message with their answering service, and Dr. DuJour, who was supposed to be on call, never called me back.  Now I really hate her.

When I finally got ahold of her this morning, she seemed somewhat unimpressed by my symptoms:

• increasing abdominal pain
• increasing pain upon urination
• increasing bloat

Sounds suspiciously like OHSS symptoms, don't they?  Dr. DuJour did not concur, as I am still technically able to eat and pee.

I am to go in tomorrow morning for a wanding, which might lead to a Day Three transfer.  We just don't know.

In the meantime, all this pain could be caused by the Endometriosis.  It's very similar to Endo's Greatest Hits, which came out two years ago.  It could also be from the retrieval.  Every doctor I've talked to has suggested that they expected retrieval recovery to be this painful for me, based on the number of follicles they aspirated (all of them).  I find it interesting that they didn't give me a heads up about this beforehand, something along the lines of "And about 48 hours after the procedure, we expect you to be prostrate in bed, unable to move or speak, praying for your own death."

Funny that they don't put that on the brochure, isn't it?

Numbers

Sixteen eggs were retrieved, nine fertilized.

My Ass is a Laff Riot

Despite what I've put it through over the past week, my body still has a pretty good sense of humor, as evidenced by last night's trigger shot.

Sam has been freaking out about giving me the trigger shot for a couple of months now.  I can't imagine why, although it might have something to do with a somewhat unfortunate choice of words on my part.  "Don't worry, honey," I said confidently.  "I can give myself injections, no problem, so you really only have to give me one single shot during the whole cycle."  At which point I should have left well enough alone, but somehow, my mouth opened and the following came out: "...of course, it's the single most important shot in the entire cycle."

Yeeeeeeeah.

So you can imagine how relaxed Sam was as our midnight trigger time approached. 

2:00pm  "Do you think we should call Nurse Sweetie, Akeeyu?  Maybe we should review the instructions for the trigger.  I don't think I remember everything.  Maybe we should talk to her.  And review the instructions.  You know.  For the trigger."

3:00pm "Got your email, Akeeyu.  Reviewed instructions.  I think we're okay."

7:00pm to 11:00pm "Well, Akeeyu, are you ready for the trigger shot?  Because I am.  Yessiree, Bob.  I'm gonna poke you in the butt.  With an inch and a half long needle.  Yes, indeedy.  Almost injection time.  Yeah...I think I'm going to go sit down over there."

11:30pm "Okay, Sam, are you ready to review those diagrams I found for you on intramuscular injections?  Great.  See how easy that looks?  This is going to be a breeze.  All ready?  Okay."

11:45pm "So, Sam, I thought that probably the best way to do this would be to have you give me a practice injection of plain sterile saline so that you'll feel totally confident and relaxed when it's time to do the real shot.  Okay?  Okay.  Great, so you just take this...and do the ninety degree angle thing like we talked about.  Now, I'm going to bend over the bed, and you can just go to town.  With the needle, I mean.  There, see?  That didn't hurt a bit.  You did great!  You're a pro!"

11:46pm "Holy crap, Akeeyu, you're bleeding."

11:46pm and fifteen seconds "Yeah, it's normal if a drop of blood appears at the injection site.  That's totally fine."

11:46pm and fortyfive seconds "No, honey, you're like, really bleeding.  Look at your ass!"

11:47pm "Holy crap!"  (furiously mops up blood dripping over my ass and down my leg) "Well.  That's...um...totally normal.  It's just...um...never happened before.  But it's okay.  Let me just grab some gauze pads..."

11:55pm "So, Sam, feeling all confident and relaxed for the trigger shot?"

I Call

Is it possible to get emotional whiplash?

Nurse Sweetie just called.  My e2 has dropped to significantly less insane levels.  We're back in the game.

We are going to trigger.

I am so excited, I could just pee myself!  Actually, what with the enormous ovaries pressing on my bladder, I could just pee myself anyway.

We're not out of the woods for OHSS by any means.  There are still no guarantees for future cycles.  I know a couple of y'all want to run my doctors out of town on a rail, but please, back away from the hot tar  and put down those feathers for just a moment.

Believe me, if Dr. BrightEyes and Company decline to pursue IVF with us in the future, our first step will be a second opinion.  The problem is that, frankly, we're already at the best game in town.  In order to get a second opinion with a clinic as good as ours, we would have to leave the state.  I've read the statistics and done the research.  These are the good guys.

The problem is that, as the good guys, their greatest concern is not their success rates or their bottom line, but rather, the health of their patients.  In this case, my health.  My stim dose was so small, it was laughable.  I was monitored every single day from day seven on.  At every visit, they answered all of my questions and grilled me on OHSS symptoms.  With sixtyfive antral follicles, I am a tough case, and they took me anyway.  They really did not want to cancel me, but as much as they wanted to collect their full fee, they wanted to not put me in the hospital with a lifethreatening illness even more.

Thank you all for your hope and good thoughts and support (and in the case of Jen, your rocking righteous indignation).  I am so incredibly grateful to you all.  I promise, I am in good the best possible hands.

Nurse Sweetie has drawn a target on my ass in permanent marker, and we're ready to go.

We're triggering tonight. 

Retrieval is Thursday morning.

I'll See This Cycle, And Raise You Forever

I can't quite think of a pithy opening line that will fully express how quickly things have gone to hell at the Buttmansion abode.

Perversely, I am feeling pretty good physically, although the nurse agreed with me when I said that I think I'm just getting used to having ovaries the size of baseballs.

Unfortunately, I had to see Dr. DuJour again, and um, I hate her.  A lot.  I'm not sure if I'm just using her as a scapegoat because she always gives me the worst news, or if it's just that she has the wandside manner of a clinically depressed insurance salesman in Louisiana.  She's always got her eye on the worst case scenario, and I have just the cursed pelvis to go with her doom and gloom predictions.

The free fluid is gone.  That's good.  My ovaries are actually smaller by a few millimeters, which is also good.  I'm not dead yet, which is spiffy.

Now, before I proceed with the bad news, I want to make something absolutely clear.  When I say 'cancellation,' I am not talking about simply skipping the fresh transfer.  As high as my e2 has been, they're currently chalking up the fresh transfer as a total loss, and good riddance, since a successful fresh transfer would pretty much guarantee me a free vacation in the hospital and a scenic tour of the finer points of OHSS.

When I say they're considering cancelling this cycle, I mean that they are considering cancelling everything.  This means that they would decline to trigger me and would therefore not retrieve any eggs.  There would be no embryos available for future frozen transfers. 

This cycle would be a total loss.  We would walk away with nothing but a collection of large sweatpants and a lasting aversion to Gatorade.

But wait, that's not all!

Tell her what else she hasn't won, Dr. DuJour!

"Well, folks, if Akeeyu's e2 doesn't drop significantly, Dr. BrightEyes and I are considering declining to cycle her again, ever!  Yes, that's right, we feel that she may be at too great a risk for OHSS on future cycles, even on lower doses of stims, and would want to proceed with things 'other than IVF,' things that don't have a goddamned hope in hell of working."

Wait, what?  So what does that mean?

"That means that we're going to try, if at all possible, to avoid cancelling this cycle because at this point, it looks like everything is riding on it."

And Then Things Started Getting REALLY Shitty...

It's never a good sign when, immediately upon introducing herself (and before even bothering to insert anything into your dainty girly areas), the Doctor Du Jour starts discussing cancellation.

My e2 is 10,300.

I have free fluid in my abdomen.  I'm not sure why they call it 'free fluid' when, by my tally, it's cost about $10,000 to get it in there.

Things aren't looking so hot.

Please, friends and total strangers, join me in prayer, or my heathen equivalent, 'thinking really hard'.  No no no, don't pray for ME, sillies.

Instead, please pray that the thoughtless bitch who ignored my clinic's clearly stated no-children-in-the-office policy and had the extremely bad taste to bring a crying toddler to the Reproductive Endocrinologist's office this morning (during IVF cycle monitoring hours, no less) gets some sort of unpleasant karmic penalty.  Keep in mind that the parent of this toddler had another able-bodied adult with her, an adult who sure as hell could have toted that child down to the lobby for ten damned minutes.

There's nothing quite like sitting in the phlebotomy chair, weeping and murmuring "...probably cancelled...my ovaries hurt..." while listening to somebody else's child have a tantrum in the very next room.

Ugh.

I'm coasting again tonight and getting poked and wanded again in the morning.

I am not feeling optimistic.

Crowded House

"You know, Sam, I gotta say, I'm surprised that it's going this well."

"'This well'?  Akeeyu, you're all loopy on painkillers and you've missed how many days of work so far?"

"Yeah, but I figured I'd be in multiple organ failure by now, so really, this is pretty good."

Here's the scoop:

I have about twenty follicles between 14mm and 17mm, and a whole lot more that they're not bothering to measure or count anymore.  My lining is 11mm, early trilaminar, my e2 is at 7000, and as of tonight, they're coasting me.  I've had daily rides on the WandMonkey Express since Friday, and I get another one Monday morning.  Retrieval is looking more like Tuesday or Wednesday. 

This morning's wanding was another installment of MasterFreak Theatre.  You know those nifty little medical illustrations that clearly show one happy little ovary on the left and one happy little ovary on the right?  Well, I don't have that anymore.  My ovaries were about one big follicle's width (or approximately six tenths of an inch) apart on the ultrasound.  Think about it.  My ovaries are almost touching eachother.  How is that even possible?  I mean, isn't my uterus supposed to be a spiffy place holder in between the two of them?

This would be freaking me out more if I had the capacity to really mull it over, but I am so uncomfortable right now that I'm having a hard time gathering my thoughts.  Here's the problem: It's not just the Endo flaring up (although GOD, the Endo is really flaring up, and yes, they refilled my Percocet, and yes, I'm taking it, but probably not as often as I should), it's that there is apparently a finite amount of room in my abdomen.

I am nauseated a great deal of the time, which makes it difficult to eat.  I am ravenously hungry.  When I do eat, I immediately feel very full and bloated.  When I drink anything, I have to pee almost at once.  My bladder has dwindled to the approximate size of a Mandarin Orange, and everything else down there is pretty crowded, too.  I have endometrial implants on my bowels, in the space next to my left ovary, I'm about 99.44% sure I've got them on my bladder, and they're all very, very angry.  My breasts are enormous and tender, and to top it all off, there's something pretty weird going on with my flippyflaps.  This is not fun.

Look, I know you're tempted to say what everyone in my life has already said "Hey, sounds like being pregnant!  Har!"

Yes, yes, I know.  Hilarious.

The problem is that I'm not pregnant.  If I were pregnant, I could get all glowy and noble and say that I was suffering for the sake of the baybee and all that, but the thing is, I'm not doing this for the baybee, I'm doing this for the chance.  You know as well as I do that great stimming and lots of follicles and 'perfect' embryos in a dish and two lines and all that stuff doesn't mean jack shit.  None of this is a guarantee.

In between naps and Percocet hazes, I can't quite shake the fear that I could still be doing this for nothing.

So If I Waddle The Same As A Duck, I'm A Witch?

Definition of Irony # 384: Not only is my follicle hoarding belly pooched out like Trailer Trash Barbie's, I am currently waddling and clutching my back a lot.  If I saw myself at a fertility clinic, I would probably kick my own ass.

It's A Group Effort

A while ago, I was thinking about the things that you lose with ART.  Privacy, intimacy, the sense of wonder and faith in the concept of reproduction.  That moment by the fire or on the beach or on the kitchen counter (or whatever does it for you) when you and your husband make a baby out of nothing but eachother.

Those are all nifty things, but as it turns out, I don't really miss them.

I have come to peace with what we are doing.  I don't feel a loss of what we should have had, how easy it should have been, because there's something beautiful in the way it is happening.

In case you can't tell, yeah, I'm on Percocet right now, hence the uncharacteristically mushy attitude.

Yesterday, I called and emailed my parents several times and found great comfort, both physical and emotional, from the gifts that they have given me throughout my life.  I would not be able to do any of this without them.

I went to see T'loo's veterinarian to discuss the plans for the end of her life.  They don't make housecalls, she explained, but for us, for T'loo, she will make an exception.  When the time comes, T'loo can leave peacefully at home, instead of in a harsh, frightening office.  I am so grateful for this kindness.  When I got home, T'loo climbed up on my chest and licked my face very gently with her wounded tongue.  She is still very happy with us.  It's not time yet.

Today Nurse Sweetie gave me an official blessing to take Percocet for the pain due to the Endometriosis.  As my estrogen levels continue to rise, the Endo will flare up.  It's normal, just annoying.  She confirmed this after I left a semi-coherent message on her voicemail.  She called me back quickly and was comforting, and I was touched by this, the concern shown by a relative stranger.

My MIL stopped by this morning with a gift, a lucky token for tomorrow's check up, something she had rushed out to purchase for me yesterday, and I almost cried.  I showed her my ridiculously bloated belly, and she said "Well, you'll have to get used to it, honey."  "I hope so," I said, and thanked her, so grateful for this new relationship that we have forged.

I used to play games and read the news on the Internet, or endlessly Google "Endometriosis," searching for a miracle.  There is no cure to be had, but instead, there is something better.  My friends online who support me, who talk me down from the nightmares, lend comfort in person, leave the sweetest comments at the best times.  Thank you.

Sam is sick with the flu, and in between coughs and sneezes, he cares for me.  In between winces and grimaces, I care for him.

This is not what I planned, but I'm grateful for what I have.