Stimulation

I started stims last night. Doing stims as an intramuscular shot as opposed to a sub-q shot (in other words, in the butt instead of in the belly) is a bit of a trip. It's a super big shot and menopur makes it burn a little bit. I don't know how I'll make it through all these stim shots and THEN all the progesterone in oil shots. Yikes. Hopefully my husband doesn't leave town during this period. I could handle belly shots all by myself (even a bit of a pro at it after a while) but I'm not sure I could properly stab myself in the thigh. :-(

This part is exciting though! We're on our way to preparing little embryos!

Last Friday I had to see a high-risk obgyn who told me (surprise!) I'm insulin resistant as a result of PCOS. I've lost almost 13 pounds in the last 6 weeks by counting calories and exercising. Now I'm almost completely restricted from exercise - lifting nothing heavier than 20 pounds and doing nothing that will potentially twist my ovaries, and then comes the 2ww. I'm still going to count calories but I fear it will be a bit harder. I want to do everything possible to provide a hospitable environment for a baby - that means going back on the evil metformin and joining a different gym with a pool for water aerobics (with all the old ladies! :-)), then that's what I'll have to do.

Lupron Attacks

The side effects that I hear most girls complain about with Lupron are headaches and being in a "fog." Neither of those things have really happened to me - and with how I'm prone to get headaches and even migranes, I am extremely grateful for this. What I'm getting is uncontrollably weepy and sleepy. I have to blame it on the drugs, because I'm getting plenty of rest and have no real reason to keep crying at especially sad commercials. :-)

Also, it's a teeny tiny amount of Lupron I'm getting. We got a ton of needles and this one vial of medicine that was only partially filled. We're using insulin needles to get just ten units a day at this point, and I hardly even recognize it as medicine (except for the shot part of course, ouch!). Next Friday we go in to the doctor and sign all the paperwork and pay all the money. After that we'll start stims. I'm so scared now that school has started. I can't really afford to skip any classes on Tuesday/Thursday, so I'm hoping to push around those days if at all possible.

IVF!

So worked it out with our doctor - I still have to see the high risk OB but it's not stopping our process now. I started Lupron last night and the target for egg retrival is currenty September 8th, but it will probably be a little later knowing how long it takes me to stim. Here we go on that roller coaster known as IVF!

Scheduling

I can't even schedule my "high-risk" appointment yet because they have to call me to schedule it - I can't call them. So even though I was finally given the number today, it doesn't matter, because they won't schedule it until they call me to do it.

ARGH. Seriously, why does the set-up have to be so hard? And why didn't we know about this when we had lots of time as opposed to right before school starts/school is starting when I am super, duper busy? Are we even going to start IVF this month? I don't know.

And of course, on my facebook, everyone in the world is having babies. Just great. Not that I begrudge them, but every update about "post this if you love your kids" just makes me want to scream and cry.

Oh RE

So we went in about a month ago to the RE to discuss IVF, but we were putting it on hold due to some funding issues. He was like, great, just stay on birth control continuously and give us a call when you are ready.

Fast forward to August. We're ready! I give them a call on Monday. I am told by a nurse to go off birth control, get baselines, then go back ON birth control, and THEN we can start. Ummm, no. What would be the purpose of baselines only to go back on birth control? She can't answer me. Only the IVF nurse has the answer. She won't be back until Wednesday. So just keep taking birth control and someone will call you Wednesday. WTF.

Finally this morning I get another call. My husband and I had talked about semen freezing in case he is out of town for a job interview or something. So we have to get some frozen BEFORE we can start anything according to the doctor. ALSO I have to have a meeting with a high-risk obgyn an hour away ... BEFORE we can start anything. Luckily, they say, it's easy to get in there. Why do I have to have this meeting? Because I have a high BMI. Now I've been doing my best to work on this, but if I had to have this meeting before starting IVF, could you not have told me a month ago? We could have had all this stuff taken care of at that point instead of waiting until now. It's just URGH GAH FRUSTRATING not to be able to just get started like we were promised.

So I called them back and said, can I have the numbers? Can I set this up? And they. still. haven't. called. me. back. It's almost like they just don't want our money.