Please crank the A/C!!

As I posted last night, I gave myself the first injection yesterday (well, the hubby did since i am a chicken). The problem that I should have worried about wasn't the pain of the injection but rather the side effects! Man oh man, they are killer! About 30 minutes after the shot I started having stomach pains. I'll be honest, it wasn't too painful but it definitely was uncomfortable. Without getting into too much details (TMI, I know) the pains were even worse when I had to go to the bathroom... Poor Mike was trying to make me feel better and decided to rub my belly and tell me "that must be all the eggs getting ready in there". While I appreciated the sweet thought behind his actions, I swatted his hand away and snapped at him for putting more pressure on my already painful belly. I am so grateful that Mike doesn't take any of my mood swings too seriously and I must remember to do something extra thoughtful for him soon as a thank you for putting up with my crazy! Luckily, though, I fell a sleep pretty quickly and was able to sleep through the night without waking up in any pain. But this morning I felt "off". Again, nothing too bad but just not good feeling. Things only got worse as I started getting horrible hot flashes throughout the day. Never again will I crack a joke about hot flashes at my mom's expense, I swear! I really believe hot flashes are the workings of the devil! One minute I am going about my business feeling normal and then out of nowhere I feel like I am burning up and sweating uncontrollably. This must have happened to me about 6 times today. Not only is it uncomfortable and gross feeling (can I have a shower installed at work?), but its exhausting. At one point in the day I was so drained and uncomfortable that I practically yelled at a customer on the phone for no reason. **Note to self: get that under control before someone complains to your boss!!** 

The one positive thing I have going for me with all this is my amazing coworkers. With the exception of one male coworker, I work with all females and we are all pretty close and friendly. Everyone is aware of what I am going through and is pretty sympathetic. At one point today, one of my coworkers started to call me over for help when they saw what I'm assuming to be my sweaty and pale face from one of the lovely hot flashes I was experiencing and instead came to me. I just keep telling myself to breath and take it day by day. Hopefully the side effects will lighten up as my body adjusts to the medication. But if not, it's only for 10 days. If the end result is a precious little baby (or two) I can certainly handle worse then this. 

With that said, off to bed I go (but not before another wonderful shot)!

My First Shot!

Well, I made it through the first night of injections and I'm still alive! Haha!! In all seriousness though, it wasn't THAT bad... My current protocol is 2 vials of Bravelle and 1 vial of Menopur each night now through Friday, at which point I will add 1 syringe of Ganirelix for 4 more nights. Luckily, I get to mix the Bravelle and Menopur together so I only have to take 1 shot! Everything was pretty easy to prepare since it was pretty similar to what I had to do for my last IUI. The only problem was that I received so many different syringes in my shipment that I accidentally messed up and didn't switch to the correct size for the actual injection. No biggie, I just unfortunately used a larger needle then necessary so it hurt more then I think it normally would. The worst part of it all is that AFTER the shot Mike says to me "are you sure you used the right needle tip? I don't think you did". Turns out he decided not to say anything because he was afraid I would freak out. Thanks a lot for saving me from the pain Mike! Oh well, no harm no foul. Thankfully, my hubby was on hand to deliver the shot. He has had Type 1 Diabetes since he was 12 so he is somewhat of an expert in giving shots. I was going to try and give myself the shot but in the end i panicked and started crying. As long as Mike is around I guess I don't need to put myself through that. 

In the meantime, I go back for my 1st monitoring appointment/ultrasound/blood work this Friday. I'm hoping everything will look good and be right on schedule. Wish me luck!

It's about to begin!

I start stimming tomorrow and I am a bundle of nerves! I decided I needed to get away and relax for the weekend since the next couple weeks are going to be full of shots and doctor appointments so I went with one of my best girlfriends to Big Bear. We had a blast laughing, drinking, and talking. I definitely needed that.

But now I am home and thinking about everything that is about to happen. Our last cycle was going to be an IUI and I was on daily injections of Menopur. Unfortunately I developed mild OHSS and had way to many eggs to risk doing the IUI so it was cancelled. I think I'm mostly nervous that I'm going to react the same way and this IVF will be cancelled. Dr. Lee said he is obviously taking that into consideration and will be monitoring me closely the entire time. I just hope everything goes smoothly...

Look what came today!!

Look what the wonderful UPS man delivered today!!

It's truly terrifying to see all those needles! I must admit i unpacked everything like a kid on Christmas day, going through everything piece by piece. I can't be the only one who feels like I could be running a pharmacy out of my house, can I? As scary and overwhelming as it may be it's also a sign that things are progressing and we are really doing this. 


What exactly is all that, you may ask? 

• Bravelle
• Menopur
• Novarel
• Estradiol Valerate
• Doxycycline
• Medrol
• Valium (scary that i need that!!)
• And a TON of syringes

However, I was confused to find several medications on my list not there. I was missing Ganirelix, Progesterone in Oil, and Leuprolide. This is where my nightmare began...

After many calls to my insurance's specialty pharmacy (I have Aetna so I'm going through CVS/Caremark) I was told that the PIO and Leuprolide only have a shelf life of 30 days so they don't want to ship those to me until closer to the date (which I don't quite understand because I'm scheduled to take them in less then 30 days but i'll humor the insurance company and just wait a week I guess). Then I was told that Ganirelix is apparently back ordered nationwide (how does that happen??). They told me to try calling Freedom Pharmacy because they supposedly had some. I tried that but was shut down immediately. Freedom said that they will only give it to people who are ordering their entire cycle worth of meds through them. Um ok... My RE said that they were going to try and order them "as office supplies" and then i'd just have to pay out of pocket and get reimbursed from my insurance company. Thankfully, I got a call from CVS/Caremark today saying that they got some Ganirelix in today and are going to have it shipped to me tomorrow! Yay!! Then I was told that I wouldn't be able to get the Leuprolide through them because apparently California has some strange law regarding shipping it (why wasn't this told to me earlier when I was talking to them about why it didn't ship initially?).Ugh! So now it looks like I'm going to have to order that through my RE and pay for it out of pocket (they said it will probably be about $115). It's just frustrating that I have to call around and figure all this out... I guess it's all sorted out now so all I have left to do is get the PIO shipped to me in a week or so and then just sit back and take my shots...