Ovarian torsion questions

Sorry if my posts these next few days/weeks are going to be very IVF-centric, but this being my first cycle, I have lots of questions and it's all new to me!!  I'm going to do my best to try to talk about other stuff as well....

That being said, I need some advice from the IF ladies...specifically those of you that have gone through IVF.  I am getting worried about starting my stimulation medications and what I can/cannot do.

According to my doctor, ovaries are not well-supported organs in the pelvis and are only attached with a few blood vessels and loose tissue.  Once I start stimulation meds, the doctor wants to restrict my physical activity.  According to my doctor I can walk, swim or bike ride.  I have to avoid lifting over 25 lbs, and no bouncing- such as jogging, aerobics, tennis, horseback riding, bungee jumping, sky diving, or kick boxing.  (By the way, women have asked to do all of these things so that's why they have had to include them.  BUNGEE JUMPING?  Seriously?!?  I can't believe someone even asked.)  The doctor is worried about ovarian torsion (twisting of the ovaries on the blood vessels) because it can be a life-threatening condition.  

But as soon as I started to talk to the nurses, they suggested that I not walk the dogs because they might tug on me with their 80 pound bodies, causing the torsion.  I also have to be careful with Buster jumping on me and trying to give me a hug. (It's adorable, but won't be for these 9-12 days.)

So what did you do while you were on the stimulation meds?  Did you even try to work out?  Were you able to do household cleaning and regular tasks?  Bouncing may not happen while vacuuming, but sometimes there are some jerking movements- is that something to worry about?  Or am I just freaking out unnecessarily again?

Any help/suggestions/advice would be fantastic.  Thanks in advance!!

Lupron headaches

Not much to talk about today.  Just tired...and oh yeah MY PERIOD STARTED!!  Woo hoo!  That means that Friday I'm headed into the doctor's office for an appointment with the dildo  ultrasound wand and a needle.  If everything looks good I'll get instructions on when to start the stimulation medications (Gonal f and Menopur).

I'm ready to be done with the Lupron.  Yesterday I woke up with a migraine at 5am that I completely attribute to the Lupron.  As CP got ready for work I tried to sleep through it with his pillow over my eyes and ears.  I ended up feeling well enough to go into work, but only lasted half a day because the computer screen was not helping matters.

Chicago got hit with a few inches of snow yesterday.  Thank goodness I bought a new pair of boots (thanks fantastic sale at Macy's!) a few weeks ago.  I wish that I could wear these all the time.  They are seriously the most comfortable things on the planet (and warm!).

My apologizes for a crappy post today.

Meds are here*

Things are fairly quiet in the NSC household.  Had a nice weekend with friends and family, despite the fact that I couldn't partake in any wine drinking with them.  Just plugging along with my Lupron shots and hoping to get my period soon....

All of my medications arrived on Friday.  We have a bunch chilling in the fridge.....

And a bunch in the second bedroom hanging out with all of the necessary supplies.....

I'll be honest....I'm a little freaked that all of this will be going into my body in such a short time span.

And I find the fact that we are even at this point hilarious because only a few years ago we were only going to try the "natural" way....and at how that has worked out the past (almost) three years.  0 pregnancies and a whole lot of heartache.  HA HA HA HA is how current me laughs at old naive me.

If these drugs are what it takes to get me pregnant I say BRING.IT.ON.

*Said in the same voice as Pauly D's "cabs are here!"  Yes, I watched Jersey Shore for a season or two.  It is not something I should advertise.  :-)

Feb ICLW

Welcome everyone from ICLW!  If you are looking for some background on me, please go here.  My infertility timeline is on the right side of my blog.

Just yesterday I started my Lupron shots for IVF #1!  I had quite the freakout which turned out to be so silly.  My logical brain knows that I'm a smart girl and a lot of other women have been able to give themselves shots....if doctors thought that it was too dangerous then they would have women come into the clinic every night and have the nurses give the shots.  It turned out that I barely felt the needle and it wasn't a big deal at all.

I find that I often psych myself out when I get anxious and build things up too much.  I was worried when I started taking scuba diving classes in preparation for our honeymoon because I don't like to open my eyes underwater...despite the fact that I had gone scuba diving twice before.  I was worried that I wouldn't be able to run a half marathon, but sure enough, I finished it right at my goal time.  I doubt myself and my abilities too often and then feel silly for doing so.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but at least I know that I can handle the Lupron shots!  We'll see if I have another freakout when I add in the Gonal f and Menopur.  :-)

Big day today

Today is the big day.  Tonight I FINALLY get to start sticking myself with needles- that's right I start my daily Lupron shots!  I'm part excited to GET THIS SHOW ON THE ROAD and part nervous.  You see, my clinic doesn't bring me in for a class or instructions on how to give yourself these shots.  They give you a link to videos on the internet (which don't play on my iPad or iPhone) and tell you to call with any questions.  I get that this clinic is very busy with a large number of patients but they really don't have 15 minutes to spare to show me how to do this????  

I have always been fearful of giving myself injections. I'm not sure what this stems from.  I have good veins and have no problems giving blood and/or getting vaccinated so I don't have a problem with other people using needles on me....I just have a problem using them on myself.  (I could never have become a heroin addict.)  I do have a funny story about my fear of giving myself an injection though.

When I was in law school I was ecstatic to find out that I could go abroad for the summer to take classes.  I never got the chance to study abroad in college because I played two Division 1 sports, so this news made me very happy.  I researched a bunch of programs, including one to St. Petersburg, Russia, but ended up choosing Buenos Aires, Argentina.  I could work on my Spanish, take two classes, and enjoy the summer in a foreign country.  In addition, the study abroad fee included a plane trip to Iguazu Falls!

Cataracus.  Sadly the first day was cloudy and rainy.

Thankfully the next day was beautiful!  This is Devil's Throat.

Part of Cataracus on the second day. 

As you can see from the pictures, Iguazu Falls is absolutely amazing.  Part of our trip there included a zip lining tour through the rain forest.  I was really excited while others on the trip were nervous about the heights.  I got out my camera and filmed my zip through the rain forest.  But I started to get turned around on one of the lines and headed with my back towards the platform.  I freaked out and did the worst thing possible- I reached up to where the zip line met the wheel in hopes of turning myself around.  TO THIS DAY I HAVE NO IDEA WHY I DID THIS.  Unfortunately, two of my fingers on my left hand got run over through the glove.

After we finished zip lining, my fingers still hurt a bunch so I took off my glove and sure enough, my fingers were bloody.  I didn't think too much of it, just rinsed them off with some water, however, the blood soaked through every bandaid the guides gave me and my fingers were pulsing and getting swollen.  It was suggested I head to the hospital.  Now when I say hospital, I mean a small building in the middle of a rainforest.  I sh*t you not, the instruments that they used on me were held in a FISHING TACKLE BOX.  I was pretty sure that my fingers were going to fall off at this point from an infection.  After we left the hospital we headed over to the pharmacy.  This trip was early on in the summer, so my Spanish was still VERY rusty.  I had a law school professor who put together the trip and a guide who accompanied me.  Both of them spoke fluent English and Spanish.  

When we arrived at the pharmacy, the person working behind the counter looked all of 13.  She was talking pretty quickly in Spanish and I wasn't catching all of it.  What I thought she was saying was that I was going to have to give myself a tetanus shot IN MY BUTT all by myself.  I started crying thinking "I don't know how to do that!  Don't you have to flick the needle to get out the air bubbles?  That's what they do on tv!  I'm going to kill myself with an air bubble!!"  Thankfully a few minutes later the professor realized that I didn't catch what the girl was saying and clarified that I wouldn't have to give it to myself, but that the 13 year old girl would.  I was incredulous that she knew how to do it (she claimed that she had been to school for it).  But I headed to a back room with her, she gave me the tetanus shot, and I still have my fingers.

I'm sure that I will be thinking of that story tonight as I give myself my very own shot.  :-)

Any tips ladies?

Assurance

I was nervous as I drove to the therapist’s office yesterday.  I thought that I would have a minute or two to collect myself, but as soon as I sat down she came out of her office and welcomed me.  She talked for a few minutes, asking if I had any questions before we got started, and then asked me to describe why I was there today.

I basically told her what I wrote yesterday…that I was coming up on my first IVF cycle and wanted to make sure that I was mentally ready.  I thought that I was doing okay, but I needed some reassurance.  We had a discussion into how I have been feeling the past 2.5 years, how I am feeling about the upcoming IVF cycle, and what kind of support I have had throughout my journey.

I also told her about how I have been already working on keeping myself sane:

Despite getting bad FSH and AMH numbers back in December at my IVF consult, I have made a concerted effort NOT to google the numbers.  How is googling them going to help me?  If I am able to find blogs of people that had similar blood results and were able to get pregnant, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I will get pregnant too.  What if I was able to find nobody in the entire blogosphere with those blood results that ended up getting pregnant?  How is that going to help with my attitude going into this cycle?  Maybe they have other issues as well that I don’t have and that’s why they didn’t get pregnant.  Who knows.  At this point, I am choosing to not worry about it.  I am doing what I can do by taking my egg quality supplements as recommended by my doctor and I am going to fertility acupuncture as well.  I am doing the things that I can control and not worrying about those things that I cannot control.

My mindset going into this first IVF cycle is that it is going to be mainly a diagnostic cycle.  My doctor and I have no idea how my body is going to react to the stimulation drugs.  Will I be a poor responder because of the Lupron?  Will I have only a few follicles grow?  Who knows.  I can’t worry about it ahead of time because it’s a mystery. 

I am going to do my best to keep busy during my two week wait while I am pregnant until proven otherwise (PUPO).  Let me tell you, if I get that far this cycle I’m going to be pretty excited to be PUPO.  It will be the first time I can say I’m even a little bit pregnant!  In the past, I have googled early pregnancy symptoms and I am going to do my best to NOT do that.  First off, I will have just injected a sh*t ton of weird drugs into my system, including one that is made out of highly purified urine of postmenopausal nuns!!  (Seriously)  I could have all kinds of weird symptoms that mean NOTHING.  Secondly, early pregnancy symptoms are very similar to premenstrual symptoms.  Trying to guess whether they are one or the other won’t help.

I also plan on waiting as long as possible to break out a pregnancy test.  I’m trying to decide whether I should test out the HCG trigger shot or not. Return to Go sent me an awesome box of pregnancy tests because she no longer needs them (YAY!) but I’m not sure if it will be healthy for me to obsessively pee every morning.  If not, I would like to wait until at least day 10 or so.  I will have to re-listen to the Infertility 102 Bitter Infertiles podcast where they go into GREAT detail about peeing on all kinds of sticks. For those of us that haven’t had to pee on much of anything, it was awesome and seriously informative.

The last thing I am going to use to keep me sane during this cycle is the Circle & Bloom Mind-Body IVF program.  A number of ladies on various blogs have talked about it and I like the idea that it is tailored to the various days in the IVF cycle.  

In the end, the therapist thought that I was doing pretty well considering we have been on this ttc rollercoaster for coming up on three years.  She thought that I had good coping skills and that although I may get sad sometimes, if I was depressed it wouldn’t be the kind of depression that would affect my chances of getting pregnant.  To be sure, she is going to send me a test that I can take on a daily basis to track how I am doing.  If I start to see results that I show that I am getting bluer, then I am welcome to see her.  She doesn’t think that I need weekly therapy sessions, but kept her door open in case I need it.

I’m happy that I went, if only to get assurance that I was doing fairly well in spite of everything.

Do you have any other suggestions on how I can keep sane through this IVF cycle?  Sadly they can’t involve alcohol.  :-)

Mental checkup

This afternoon will be my first visit with a therapist.  As this infertility journey has dragged on, I have slowly picked up more avenues for support.  Telling some family and some friends, the RESOLVE monthly group, and of course, blogging.

I have yet to see a therapist- until today.  I have certainly thought about it and have definitely taken into consideration some of your comments on my posts.  I know that a lot of you see therapists yourself.  The problem is I don't really see myself as depressed.  Sure I have some bad days where I am unhappy, exhausted, and not motivated at all.  But most of the time I am fairly content with my life because I know that I am lucky in so many ways.  Although it certainly sucks that I have never seen a positive pee stick, I do think that has kept me from a lot of emotions that other infertile women tend to have after losing a pregnancy.

But as this IVF cycle gets closer, I really want to make sure that my mind is ready, along with my body.  I keep thinking back to Alice Domar's book and the studies that she cited on depression harming a women's chances of conceiving.  Therapy is covered under CP's insurance and so we'll see how it goes.



.....No Valentine's Day post for me.  I'll talk to CP tonight on the phone, but he's not back from Colombia until late Friday night.  Buster and Fuzzy Britches will have to be my Valentines tonight.  

Bonus picture post

Bonus post today....but it's mainly pictures....

Daily Lupron shots came in today.  My first shot is next Weds.  Getting nervous.

Buster is very sleepy after doggie daycare.  He decided to use his penguin toy as a pillow.  Adorable.

My mom gave us an amaryllis bulb earlier this winter.  With a little water and sunlight the stalk shot up and we miraculously have four flowers all at once!!

Snippets

CP left for Colombia yesterday.  He gets back late Friday and then is off to Brazil Sat night.  I can handle him gone for this month, but will definitely need him around more next month....  The sooner we get our IVF schedule down, the better so that he can block out dates where he can't travel.

Thankfully CP is leaving me with delicious and super healthy food to eat the rest of the week.  We decided to take a weekend off of home improvement stuff and have a fairly lazy weekend.  Sunday we ended up cooking most of the day, but CP finds that "relaxing."  Weirdo.  We had my parents over for dinner on Sunday night to a Lebanese feast.  Three kinds of hummus (regular, beet hummus and pumpkin hummus), chicken kibbe, small eggplants stuffed with lamb, a winter tabouli salad, fool moudamas, and a red curry soup.  Thankfully my parents took some of the food home, but I definitely have enough food for lunch AND dinner while CP is gone. 

Beets make for a very pink hummus!!

I went to my first fertility acupuncture appointment on Saturday.  Acupuncture is covered by CP's insurance (which I am still on for now), but it doesn't cover IVF.  My insurance covers IVF, but not acupuncture.  Weird.  Anyway, I have had acupuncture before (in high school for pain in my right shoulder.  Nothing else worked- I don't think I could have finished the tennis season that year without it) so it wasn't scary.  I had some fertility-friendly tea, told the acupuncturist way too much about bowel movements, my cycle, whether I had hot or cold feet, my diet, etc. and had a bunch of needles stuck in me.  It was pretty relaxing so I'm headed back next Saturday for another appointment.  CP thinks that I am crazy but whatever.

So technically my one-month dose of Lupron should be fading away as of yesterday, but the symptoms are sure deciding to stick around.  My headaches aren't so bad anymore (more like background headaches), but the body aches and the exhaustion are killing me.  I haven't really been working out too hard because even just a walk with Buster on Sunday made my body feel like it had been hit by a truck yesterday.  I wonder if it is the combination of the Lupron AND the birth control pills?

Our condo out west has been on the market for a month now without any offers.  It would be REALLY REALLY REALLY nice to sell it as we could really use the money towards our current house.  Not having renters in the condo for the past two months has not helped our bank account....

Nor is the $2600 my insurance company is telling me we will have to pay for our IVF meds.  I was expecting to pay at least a little, but the Gonal f is $1770.  I don't know how you ladies without insurance do it.

Kitchen rehab

Well, CP and I finally finished our kitchen rehab project the day before the Super Bowl.  We aren't completely jazzed about the kitchen- for one it is really small- but I keep telling myself that hopefully this is not our forever kitchen.  If we end up moving prior to being able to build out and create our dream kitchen then at least the stuff that we did do will help to sell the house a bit quicker.

Now to the BEFORE pictures:

Ahhh check out the lovely laminate floor, laminate countertops, yellow METAL cabinets, ancient light fixture, old wallpaper, etc.  I could go on....

Appliances that do not work.

The wallpaper.....there are no words.

Was the seller trying to match the dishwasher with the cabinets?  YIKES.

If you want pictures of kitchen from mid-rehab go HERE.  Yes, we have been working on this room since August.

Now to the AFTER pictures:

As you can see, quite a difference.

• Under the ugly laminate floors there was hardwood so when we had the floors redone in the rest of the house, we also had the floors in the kitchen sanded and stained a darker color.
• New light fixture
• All new stainless steel appliances
• New granite countertops.
• Spray painted the metal cabinets a cream color and put new hardware on.
• Painted upper cabinets a gray color and put new hardware on.
• Backsplash (which we did NOT install) is made of marble tiles.
• Removed wallpaper and paste and painted sage green (not our favorite, but again, not our forever kitchen).
• CP plastered the ceiling before we painted it white.

Just ignore the alcohol on the counter.....it was quite necessary during this whole process....

Finally a working and more updated kitchen!!!

 My favorite part of the new kitchen?  The black tiles interspersed with the marble tiles under the microwave.  I think that it is a cute feature (ahem....that I thought of) that breaks up the grayness of the tiles and the cabinets.

Another two week wait

Well my friends, things seem to be looking up (kind of).  I went in for my ultrasound and bloodwork this morning and all signs point to me not ovulating.  So thank you for your DO NOT OVULATE thoughts.  However, while I didn't ovulate, my progesterone levels were too high so I now have two weeks on birth control. (boooo)

I was freaking out a bit yesterday as the nurse sent over NINE pages of instructions for my upcoming IVF cycle.  Yikes.  It was completely overwhelming and I'll be honest, it didn't make a whole lot of sense.  The nurse had me call a specialty pharmacy for my meds and I was a little upset when they started to tell me the prices for the medications ($7300 for Gonal f, $1530 for Menopur, etc).  Turns out my insurance company doesn't work with this specific pharmacy so the drugs weren't covered.  Whew.  I wasn't quite sure where we were going to find almost $10,000.  I'm still not sure how much we will have to pay the pharmacy that my insurance company does work with....

The nurse said that right now things are looking good.  My lining is thin, I currently have 10 follicles sitting around (despite the Lupron), and I'm still young.  I did remind the nurse that I am 34 and my hormones weren't looking too good in terms of egg quality and she said that she thinks that I am going to respond well.  She is the expert and worrying too much about things I can't control is not going to help so I am going to trust her judgement as she deals with this every day.

I did have a nice and pretty IVF schedule but now the birth control pills are going to throw things off.  I was going to get the daily Lupron party shots going tomorrow, but now I have to wait until the 20th.  So my retrieval will likely be towards the end of March.  While the extra two weeks sucks (LET'S GET THIS PARTY STARTED ALREADY!!), it will give me time to get mentally ready and give CP time to clear his travel schedule.  He's not going to be around much in February (this week Atlanta, next week Columbia, the following week Brazil, possibly Tampa at the end of the month), so HOPEFULLY his travel schedule in March won't be too bad.  I keep telling myself that it will slow down....the job description did say 25-30% travel but some months it is more than ridonkulous.

So YAY for no ovulation and not having to get another month-long Lupron shot!  But BOO for the high progesterone and the two weeks on birth control.

***Your fun fact of the day.  Did you know that normally your ovaries are the size of your thumbs?  Well, once you add in the stimulating drugs for an IVF cycle they grow to the size of tennis balls!  No wonder I will be bloated and they will feel "heavy."***

Tweet tweet

One of my co-workers wants me to share Tweeting responsibilities at work. She is ready to retire in 1-2 years so I figured that I would take the plunge at home to try to figure out what is going on before looking too stupid.  I mean, I'm only 34 so I should know more about Twitter than someone who is looking to retire soon, right?  So I decided to join Twitter last night.  I'm thinking this may last longer than the last time I joined Twitter.

The only thing that worries me about joining is someone in real life finding my account- especially because I linked it to this blog.  I don't need random people from high school knowing about our infertility struggles.  I originally had a picture of the puppies up as my profile picture but realized that it may be too recognizable.  I also protected my tweets so that only people that follow me can read them.  Anything else I should think about?  Any other general Twitter tips for a newbie?  Don't worry- I'm already following most of the Real Housewives!  ;-)

On the other hand, I'm looking forward to following you guys on Twitter if you have an account.  Find me at @Nschica (I was told to keep my Twitter name short).

Heart melt

Once in a while, despite his sometimes gruff and I-don't-show-emotion-because-I-am-a-man personality, CP surprises me.  While we were painting the kitchen last night he was telling me a bit more about his trip to Thailand.  He had almost a full day in Thailand before his flight to Brazil so he took a tour of a National Park.

There were quite a few temples on the tour and he was able to go into at least one of them.  While in the temple you could pray to Buddha, so CP decided to do just that (CP is about as religious as I am....meaning that his faith is nonexistent).  I asked him what he prayed for and he said, "for a kid."

My heart melted.

We certainly talk about the upcoming IVF cycle, or any number of logistical "we should do this when we have kids" or "we need to think about this when we have kids."  But for him to go to a foreign country and have that be his one wish?  Makes me want to cry.  It's a pure wish.  A heartfelt wish.  A wish that we both share.

So I guess if this IVF cycle works, we will have to raise our child to be Buddhist.  Ehhh, there are worse things in the world.  :-)