Two steps foward and . . .

Things have been so hectic here. Last Thursday I started spotting and experienced horrible painful cramps and stabbing pains in my lower abdominals but by Friday I felt much better. On Friday morning we went to the Ginormous Fertility Clinic for our IVF injection class with Nurse Dizzy. David and I and one other couple (Zach and Yvette) were in attendance. Nurse Dizzy began the class 15-20 minutes late. After explaining to us that she'd slipped and injured her ankle earlier that morning, she left the conference room to fetch her tray of meds. Well, her tray was completely disorganized and apparently not well-stocked, so she repeatedly left the conference room in search of the correct meds. In many cases she couldn't find what she was looking for and returned rifling through her tray making statements like "Where is the Lupron?" "No that's not Lupron." "Well Lupron kinda looks like this." "Oh no, my ankle is getting swollen." Great . . . way to instill confidence.

She then walked us through the IVF process. Since Yvette and I have the same protocol, Nurse Dizzy gave us some estimates on the length of the Luteal Phase Lupron Protocol and stim phase, along with an overview of ER and ET. She stressed the importance of proper trigger timing and informed us that excuses like "I had theater tickets and so I did the trigger shot three hours late" were not acceptable. Apparently, couples have done this in the past. Given my masters in Googlelogy, I learned nothing new. Zach, however, took copious notes and corrected Yvette when she referenced the wrong meds during a break.

Finally, Nurse Dizzy returned to the meds discussion and talked about Follistim and Menopur, HCG and PIO. She then escorted David and I out of the conference room to find a room to do my practice IM shot. After being unable to find a free room, we returned to the conference room and asked Yvette and Zach to wait in the waiting room. Nurse Dizzy looked at me, estimated my weight about 10-15 pounds less than what it is (and wouldn't believe me when I corrected her) and suggested that I request one-inch needles for IM injections. She then went on a hunt for a one-inch needle for my practice shot. After several minutes, she returned with the needle. She and David filled the syringe with saline solution. I was told to lean on the large conference room chair (although she said it's best to do IM shots lying down), lower my pants and lift one leg off the floor (shifting my weight to my other side). I was then sharply injected in my upper rump. Hmmpph!

Later that day I spoke with Nurse F, who reminded me that they needed our consents and updated infectious disease screening. I mentioned the spotting and expressed my concerns about possibly not getting a normal period. I thought that perhaps I should return to Ginormous on Saturday or Sunday for my Lupron Evaluation but I was assured that we should stick to the schedule and have u/s and b/w on Monday (today). So following a very hectic weekend (including a surprise party that I hosted for David, which I will describe in a later post), we went in for testing.

The waiting room was packed this morning and we waited about 45 minutes. I had a nice nurse draw my blood rather painlessly. The ultrasound, though painless, showed an endometrioma on my right ovary. So now we get to wait and see whether we can proceed with stims or, or . . . I don't know . . .

After another 20 minutes or so, we signed the consents for IVF, embryo freezing, storage, etc. A nurse witnessed our signatures and checked our ids. From there we went down to the pharmacy, requested that the meds be packed up for us and had our infectious disease screening at a nearby lab.

So now we wait for the call about next steps. I'll let you know where we go from here.