Today in the middle of an internal ultrasound (a particularly painful one) I joked that at least I wasn't worried about my headache anymore. The technician responded sympathetically along the lines of 'you're great trying to find the positive in these things' and I realized that I do try to put on a positive front - whether it's the nurses, my fertility specialist, friends and family or even on this blog. I'm not positive all the time, some days I sob my eyes out and I just want to yell SCREW YOU! to the world.
Today is not a particularly negative day and it's not a particularly positive day but I want to share it as it is because it's an honest glimpse into our journey.
I woke up before the alarm set for 6.15am with a cracking headache. All I wanted to do was crawl back into bed. I felt sorry for myself that in these couple of weeks between jobs so many mornings are going to be filled with early clinic visits, blood tests and ultrasounds rather than 'sleep-ins' (Anything past 7am is brilliant!). I know I'm lucky to have this time and not do the cycle whilst starting a new job. But as I'm getting dressed and my head feels like it's in a vice I just don't care about the upside.
J is adamant that he's coming in to the clinic with me (he is the best!) so we drive in separately so he can go to work afterwards. I'm glad we're on the road early enough to miss the bulk of the peak hour traffic but the girl in the red ute who cut me off still made me cranky - despite the fact that MY ute was twice as big and cool as hers!
I duck into the bathroom outside the clinic - whenever I have an ultrasound appointment I get paranoid about needing to go to the bathroom in the middle of it - I never do, it's too uncomfortable, but the thought of being stuck up on the chair with the ultrasound probe doing it's thing and needing to go to the bathroom is horrible!
Despite the fact that we arrive at the clinic right on opening time at 7.30am, there's still people in the waiting room ahead of us. Sometimes I wonder if the clinic secretly opens at 7am... Today is day 8 of my injections. I've been on two injections a day since day 5, today is my 4th blood test (should have been 3rd but I had a false start for the start of my period with some spotting) and my first ultrasound for the cycle.
I get called for the ultrasound first and as we walk out the back to the room I remember how much I hate these things. Once I'm pant-less, up on the chair and legs up in the 'stirrups' (they're not stirrups, just pads that you prop your ankles up on) and a towel draped over me, I force myself to joke around with J as the technician raises the chair up high. I hope that this ultrasound will be a good one - easy, painless and lots of follicles. Of course it's not, even getting the probe in feels more uncomfortable than normal (maybe my positivity extends to minimizing the uncomfortable memories!). She starts with my right ovary and I know with the long wait before she starts reading follicle sizes and the way she keeps moving the probe around, that it's going to be a difficult one. I close my eyes, grit my teeth and try to breath through the pain. She finds three follicles averaging about 10mm (ideally they will double in size before egg pick up) and two more smaller ones. It's not a huge number but those three are a good size so I'm feeling positive as she repositions the probe to the left side. After a while she asked if we had much luck with the left ovary last time and again I knew it was going to be difficult. Two small follicles showed up and she decided to leave it for today. A sense of relief that the pain of the ultrasound was over but disappointed there weren't more follicles. My mind automatically jumps ahead to egg pick up and I wonder if we only collect three eggs if we'll even have anything to transfer. I know my heart will break if we have a cycle that results in nothing at all. I text my beautiful sock buddy while I'm waiting for the blood test, which luckily is quick and relatively painless. We grab a coffee outside and J and my sock buddy both remind me of essentially the same thing, that early in the cycle low numbers and small sizes are ok - they will grow and be easier to see.
My head is still in a vice as I say goodbye to J and text someone I was going to catch up with to cancel. I head home, ice my belly and do my cetrotide injection. I hate that one! On the weekend I must have injected an air bubble as well as the medication because I ended up with a huge bruise so the last few I've tried to get the air bubbles out which can get a bit frustrating trying not to squirt medication across the kitchen. I have some Panadol (no nurofen during a cycle) and run a bath. My plans for the day - catch up, lots of house work and some study/business work are out the window. I feel guilty because I want to look after J while I'm not working and there are a million things I want to get done but I'm going to give myself today. It's going to be a day on the couch with trashy TV and crappy food. My resolve for my self care day is only reinforced when I get the call with my results from this morning. My oestrogen levels are still low but my doctor doesn't want to increase my dose any more because then I'll only be one dose off what I was on last time when I was hyperstimulated.
I am super lucky that I'm not working at the moment - otherwise I'd be in the office pretending like everything is normal while I worry about the outcomes of the cycle. I am still sitting here counting days to figure out how long my cycle can be before it's going to get complicated with my new job but I'm not going to get changed out of my trackies, I'm going to smile at my puppies' little paws twitching as they sleep and dream on the couches next to me and I'm going to watch as much trashy TV as I can handle. I'm going to appreciate the good things and let the sucky things be sucky. It's just one more regular day on the IVF journey.
Today is not a particularly negative day and it's not a particularly positive day but I want to share it as it is because it's an honest glimpse into our journey.
I woke up before the alarm set for 6.15am with a cracking headache. All I wanted to do was crawl back into bed. I felt sorry for myself that in these couple of weeks between jobs so many mornings are going to be filled with early clinic visits, blood tests and ultrasounds rather than 'sleep-ins' (Anything past 7am is brilliant!). I know I'm lucky to have this time and not do the cycle whilst starting a new job. But as I'm getting dressed and my head feels like it's in a vice I just don't care about the upside.
J is adamant that he's coming in to the clinic with me (he is the best!) so we drive in separately so he can go to work afterwards. I'm glad we're on the road early enough to miss the bulk of the peak hour traffic but the girl in the red ute who cut me off still made me cranky - despite the fact that MY ute was twice as big and cool as hers!
I duck into the bathroom outside the clinic - whenever I have an ultrasound appointment I get paranoid about needing to go to the bathroom in the middle of it - I never do, it's too uncomfortable, but the thought of being stuck up on the chair with the ultrasound probe doing it's thing and needing to go to the bathroom is horrible!
Despite the fact that we arrive at the clinic right on opening time at 7.30am, there's still people in the waiting room ahead of us. Sometimes I wonder if the clinic secretly opens at 7am... Today is day 8 of my injections. I've been on two injections a day since day 5, today is my 4th blood test (should have been 3rd but I had a false start for the start of my period with some spotting) and my first ultrasound for the cycle.
I get called for the ultrasound first and as we walk out the back to the room I remember how much I hate these things. Once I'm pant-less, up on the chair and legs up in the 'stirrups' (they're not stirrups, just pads that you prop your ankles up on) and a towel draped over me, I force myself to joke around with J as the technician raises the chair up high. I hope that this ultrasound will be a good one - easy, painless and lots of follicles. Of course it's not, even getting the probe in feels more uncomfortable than normal (maybe my positivity extends to minimizing the uncomfortable memories!). She starts with my right ovary and I know with the long wait before she starts reading follicle sizes and the way she keeps moving the probe around, that it's going to be a difficult one. I close my eyes, grit my teeth and try to breath through the pain. She finds three follicles averaging about 10mm (ideally they will double in size before egg pick up) and two more smaller ones. It's not a huge number but those three are a good size so I'm feeling positive as she repositions the probe to the left side. After a while she asked if we had much luck with the left ovary last time and again I knew it was going to be difficult. Two small follicles showed up and she decided to leave it for today. A sense of relief that the pain of the ultrasound was over but disappointed there weren't more follicles. My mind automatically jumps ahead to egg pick up and I wonder if we only collect three eggs if we'll even have anything to transfer. I know my heart will break if we have a cycle that results in nothing at all. I text my beautiful sock buddy while I'm waiting for the blood test, which luckily is quick and relatively painless. We grab a coffee outside and J and my sock buddy both remind me of essentially the same thing, that early in the cycle low numbers and small sizes are ok - they will grow and be easier to see.
My head is still in a vice as I say goodbye to J and text someone I was going to catch up with to cancel. I head home, ice my belly and do my cetrotide injection. I hate that one! On the weekend I must have injected an air bubble as well as the medication because I ended up with a huge bruise so the last few I've tried to get the air bubbles out which can get a bit frustrating trying not to squirt medication across the kitchen. I have some Panadol (no nurofen during a cycle) and run a bath. My plans for the day - catch up, lots of house work and some study/business work are out the window. I feel guilty because I want to look after J while I'm not working and there are a million things I want to get done but I'm going to give myself today. It's going to be a day on the couch with trashy TV and crappy food. My resolve for my self care day is only reinforced when I get the call with my results from this morning. My oestrogen levels are still low but my doctor doesn't want to increase my dose any more because then I'll only be one dose off what I was on last time when I was hyperstimulated.
I am super lucky that I'm not working at the moment - otherwise I'd be in the office pretending like everything is normal while I worry about the outcomes of the cycle. I am still sitting here counting days to figure out how long my cycle can be before it's going to get complicated with my new job but I'm not going to get changed out of my trackies, I'm going to smile at my puppies' little paws twitching as they sleep and dream on the couches next to me and I'm going to watch as much trashy TV as I can handle. I'm going to appreciate the good things and let the sucky things be sucky. It's just one more regular day on the IVF journey.