Thursday, June 17, 2010

Never a dull moment around here


Above is a view of my bedside table here at the hotel, a little sneak peak at what Mo is reading. It's not a bad read really, fairly clear and not talking down so much to the readers, which is a little unusual in the fertility book arena. After everything we've been through and my exhaustive research tendencies, we know 99% of what's in its pages, but there's an occasional nugget of new information. I didn't mean to pack it but somehow it ended up in my backpack, so seemed right to give it a brief perusal before our most likely final IVF cycle.

Despite the calmness implied by the picture above, today felt like a bit of a roller coaster. The day started off with a dramatic "IVF physical" (whatever that is), in which a nurse practitioner freaked out that I had cancer 11 years ago and have had a cough for a few weeks (it MUST be a recurrence! not) and threatened to cancel the retrieval unless I got a chest X-ray. Which I was really opposed to doing for three reasons:

(1) I've had more than 30 CT scans and PET scans (can we all say five miscarriages and more radiation exposure than a Hiroshima survivor - no joke)

(2) right now, after the HCG trigger, is when the eggs shed their extra set of chromosomes going from 46 to 23, and this is when many sequencing errors occur, so the LAST thing I want to do is add even a miniscule amount of radiation to this already tricky mix, and

(3) a chest X-ray isn't going to show anything anyway, so it's just pointless.

After much anxiety and handwringing, around 4:30pm, we finally heard from the nurse that we're good to go. Phew. Big drama for nothing.

The only other news is that despite coasting for a day and taking two shots of Centrotide, my estrogen has shot back up to 7,300. The nurse said she was checking with Dr. Schl. to see if I need more medication prior to or after the retrieval to deal with hyperstimulation issues. Fine, whatever. Not worried about that, as long as the retrieval goes forward.

"We expect to get a lot of eggs tomorrow," the nurse said to me.

God, I hope so.

And may all be quiet until then.

Mo

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26 comments:

  1. Following along with bated breath!

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  2. This is a real nail-biter!! Finger, toes and eyes crossed for you!!!

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  3. Best Wishes for your Egg Ret!!! Hope all goes well

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  4. Good luck! Complete coasting is a good thing and chicken nuggets will be great for the feeling post retrieval!!! I have a really good feeling. You sound on a very similar path that we had - a huge stim response, coasting, the works...

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  5. Good luck! And thinking of you.

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  6. Hope you have a good result tomorrow!

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  7. It has a magnificent ring to it, "... a lot of eggs..."

    Best wishes tomorrow. Enjoy the count down from 10 as the meds kick in.

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  8. Looking forward to your news tomorrow...

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  9. Good luck tomorrow! I hope it is all downhill after the IV. The good news is you can knock yourself out with cold medicine afterward since you aren't doing a transfer :) Take care.

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  10. Hoping for a perfect retrieval and I CAN'T WAIT TO HEAR HOW MANY YOU GET. You rock-star, you.

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  11. "Expecting a lot of eggs" is great news, elevented estrogen levels or no. Wishing you an easy and abundant retrieval.

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  12. Ok yeah--no more radiation. Sheesh, what a dolt doing your physical.

    My E2 hit over 7,000 on our last cycle, too. We got 26 eggs, our best yield ever. Hoping you do the same! For some reason they may be take Dostinex, which I didn't get at all...it brings down prolactin but I didn't know it brought down estrogen? Of course it involved a dramatic trip to the clinic in the late hours and paying through the nose for said Dostinex. I probably should have just refused. At any rate, I hopped a plane three hours after they let me out of the retrieval suite, with nary a symptom of any OHSS. Hopefully you'll be just as fine :)

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  13. Thinking of you. Good luck tomorrow!

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  14. You should totally write a book. You are smarter than most RE's!! Keeping all my crossables crossed for you!!

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  15. Yay, tomorrow is the day! Way to stick to your guns!! I hope for lots of good eggs for you tomorrow!

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  16. This is my first time writing a message to you... I've been following your blog and story. You've been thru soo much. I wish you the very best. Will be praying for wonderful results for you tomorrow.

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  17. Man, I'm so not a big fan of drama at critical times like this! I'm so glad you didn't have to do the x-ray!!

    Mo, I'm just very excited for you... I can't wait to hear the ER results.

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  18. Thing of you guys, so sorry that you had so much drama on your day before retrieval. I think having to advocate for yourself and educate those who should know already is very stressful.

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  19. woah.... 'not dull' is quite a graciosu way to put this! Good luck for tomorrow!!!

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  20. Such an absolutely big day for you. I'm mostly hoping that you have many mature eggs that all fertilize well. It is such a numbers game as you know all too well.

    And BOO to nurse drama!

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  21. Um, yeah, no more radiation! I'm glad you fought that one.
    Hoping for a great retrieval with a large number of perfect eggs!

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  22. Thinking of you and hoping for some fantastic eggies.

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