We met with my personal nurse who is my "go to" nurse through this entire process on Monday. This was the day we were going to be told about all our meds, learn how to inject, ingest, etc. the meds, and when to take said meds. And let me just say...I've never seen so many meds one person has to take in a 2-3 week period of time. But hey, it's worth it, right?
So, I continue to take my birth control pill until Nov 12th. However, I will start an injection called Lupron on Nov 7th while still on the birth control. This is one of the small needles that will be injected into the stomach area. No biggie, right? I guess we'll see! I'll have an ultrasound on Nov 14th to see how everything looks, and start my other 2 injections on Nov 16th. So, at this point, I'll be doing 3 injections a night (Lupron, Gonal-F, and Low dose hCG), each of which are injected in the stomach area. I hope after the first few, it will be like second nature:) Also while doing these injections, I will be on Doxycycline (antibiotic-to keep me as healthy as possible) and Aspirin.
The following video is an example of several injections I will do in the stomach area.
While on these meds, I will have appointments for blood work and ultrasounds every couple of days to monitor the follicles and measure their growth. They will look for the follicles to grow to be around 18-21 mm in diameter before deciding when the egg retrieval will be. The goal of all these injections is to stimulate the follicles enough so that the doctor can retrieve a good number to be fertilized.
Now, this is just an estimate, but retrieval could be around Nov 27th. I will get some good 'ol anesthesia during the retrieval because they use a small needle to pierce the ovaries and suck the eggs out. I can't imagine being awake for that. OUCH! The big OUCH, however, will be the lovely Progesterone shot (in oil) I will be getting each morning every day after the retrieval. For those of you who don't know, your body naturally produces Progesterone after ovulating, but the more you have the better. You need Progesterone for implantation to be successful. The bad part is that this needle is LONG and BIG and it's oil going in which is thicker than other solutions. AND...it goes in your backside. I'm sure Jason will enjoy giving those!
Here is an example of what the Progesterone in Oil (PIO) shot looks like...
While taking the Progesterone shots daily, I will also have an estrogen patch I will wear (changing out every other day). Lastly, the embryologist will decide whether to transfer the embryos back to the uterus either 3 days after retrieval or 5 days after. Most of the time, if you have a good number of embryos, they will wait until day 5. The reason is because if the embryos can grow well and cells are dividing well in the lab by day 5, they have a really good chance of becoming a successful pregnancy. Day 3 transfers are usually done when someone doesn't have a ton of embryos and they don't want to wait two extra days incase some of those don't make it to day 5.
The fun part! On the day of the transfer, I get to take a Valium to relax my body (mostly my uterus so it doesn't contract and cause problems after the transfer). So, I'll definitely be taking a few days off work to just chill and let that (those) embryos implant into the endometrium lining. God willing, we will have a baby (babies) in Sept of 2013.
Thank you all for your continued prayers. We covet all of the sweet messages and notes. You guys mean more to us than you'll know! We love you!
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