I got the call just after 3:00pm yesterday and it wasn't exactly the news i was hoping to hear. My estrogen level had shot up from 2000ish to 4000. Uzelac seemed a lot more confident on the phone about his decision to trigger tonight. I got the impression at the office that he was ready to trigger but there was something missing. Now I realize it was the rise in my estrogen that was missing at that point. From putting two and two together, I know that when a woman ovulates there is a rise in her hormones (known as the LH surge.) I'm not sure if this is a rise in estrogen but I'm assuming it might be. When I was at my appointment, Dr. Uzelac had yet to see that rise but rather that my levels had plateaued so that must be why I wasn't getting his full 100% go ahead with everything. When he called me, he said that it's a good thing to see the rise because now we know that your body is ready (I assume that means ready for ovulation) which would mean ready for the trigger shot. The job of the trigger shot is to tell the ovaries, "Ok, it's go time!" The timing is crucial when taking these shots and it has to be 36 hours before the egg retrieval happens. This way the eggs won't be released to early (before the Doctor gets in there to get them first) and it won't be to late to where they won't be ready. So he gave me the go ahead to trigger tonight. The only catch was that I had to get the other trigger shot.
He had called around to NUMEROUS Bay Area pharmacies looking for it and only 1 pharmacy had it (and they only had one!) The only catch was that the pharmacy was in San Francisco. I had just gotten home from being in Marin which is more than halfway there. Oh man! I now had a less than five hour window from this call until we had dinner reservations to celebrate my brothers birthday. I pulled Ryan into the room to give him the news and see what he wanted to do. (The other factor is that we have the kids and they don't know what's going on. I'm not sure how we would explain a random trip to a pharmacy in SF with them not asking questions.) So I called my go-to person… my fantastic mom! Though she was at a friends house having lunch, she had no problem getting in her car and heading to Napa so that we could make the road trip together. From the time we left my house, we had a little less than 4 hours until dinner. What should have been a 1hr 15 min drive, took us closer to 2 hours with all the traffic. But it was beautiful day and I had good company.
We got to the pharmacy and they had it ready to go. Lucky for me, Dr. Uzelac had mentioned the Walgreens savings card that would save a considerable amount of money. They wanted $399.99 for this little bottle of fluid. What the junk?! That's ridiculous. Instead I paid $20 for the walgreens member gig and walked out paying $210.00 instead. Not that we had that money to spend, but it was in my account. We are now accepting donations! :) Just Kidding! The good news is that we got the stuff we needed and had about an hour and a half to get home. We got home at 7:50, just enough time for me to try and not look so hit up and get to dinner a little late.
I was due to take the injection at 8:30, so I excused myself during dinner, took an all call from any nurses that wanted to participate in the fun and went to the bathroom. Mom again pulled through and as we're trying to get the injection going and drawn up, the bathroom turned into a happy hour location for all women in the restaurant. (we also had to get a little added help from my sister to know how much to fill the syringe since the units weren't the same as what I was used to. Thanks Kris!) Mom and I then locked ourselves into a stall so that it didn't seem as though I was shooting up in the middle of a public restroom. Thank you mom for being the one to start my injections and almost finish them! I'm not sure I could make it through this experience without all your love and support! (That goes for my entire family!!!) You're all fantastic!
In the bathroom stall getting my fix!
The best news of all is that the needle is SO small
that I didn't even feel it and the medicine doesn't sting at all!
Dr. Uzelac told me that I needed to take the same dose 12 hours apart. So now, being Sunday morning, Ryan just gave me my last injection of this process that I'm aware of. (Minus the IV I'll be getting tomorrow morning!) And he gets to end on a high note as yet again, a feelingless injection was administered.
Thank you my love!!!!!
My emotions are in high gear and I sit writing this through tear filled eyes as I look back on the ups and downs over the past 10 days. I've had so much support shown from friends and family and thank each and every one of you for making this journey an easier one. I had a few breakdowns over the past week but ultimately, I've made it through what I hear is one of the hardest parts of the process… the process of making all the eggs, dealing with increased hormones, having multiple puncture marks on my stomach and arms, and somewhat becoming all consumed with this whole thing. Thank you Ryan for picking up the pieces when I was falling apart and for being a solid rock for me when I had tears streaming. You amaze me every single day and I'm so lucky to be going through this with you. I'd be a wreck without you.
Though this journey is far from over, this does mark the end of one chapter as we start another chapter. Tomorrow is a BIG day as they'll be "putting me to sleep" for a short time and hopefully retrieving some strong and healthy eggs. We pray for plenty of healthy sperm and that are ready to do the tango with the eggs they are matched with. After this, I'll hopefully have a smooth and quick recovering, and we'll be receiving updates hearing about how the cells are dividing to make embryos and hopefully then turning into blastocysts. From that point, they will be freezing all of our embryos and we'll be in a waiting game for my period to start so that we can continue our journey. This whole thing is a miracle and we are so thankful and blessed to be able to be doing this. I've told several people that one of the coolest parts of this process is to see and know exactly what is happening during this process. It's one thing to get knocked up overnight, find out you're pregnant, and carry on with life. It's a totally different story seeing what happens every single day of the process. It's an absolute miracle and it's amazing to see. Science stills proves to be incredible! I know this was a long post, but thank you for reading it to the end and as always, for your continued support and prayers. Stay tuned for a post about the retrieval and all the loopy things I say when drugged up. Love you all!
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