Tuesday, September 11, 2007

It's hard to come up with a title today....

Before I get into the events of the day… Please remember all those who died and all the families who lost loved ones on this tragic day six years ago.

Six years ago today, I was sitting in my office and heard a commotion in the hall – my co-worker’s wife had just called because she was watching TV and just heard that a plane hit the WTC. We all thought it was a terrible accident. I called my mom to see if she knew – during that time the second plane hit and everyone tried to get to news sites on the Internet to find out what was going on. All the web sites were already jammed and we couldn’t get anywhere, even though we were on a T-1 line. Someone put on a radio. We found out that the planes that hit the buildings were passenger planes. I pretty much lost it after that…

I don’t remember exactly when we found out about the Pentagon and the other plane that crashed in PA. I lost it again when an IM popped up on my screen from a friend – it said this:

“I think Bob is dead!!”

Bob worked across the street from the WTC and no one could reach him on his cell phone. Thankfully, he is still alive.

When the towers finally fell, I was in the back area of our office building, with everyone else, listening to the description of them crashing down on the radio. I was looking out a window as it happened - just staring out and listening.

One of my duties that week was to post certain emergency information on a hospital web site – one of the company's clients was a major hospital in the NY area that was treating many from the WTC.

I was glued to the TV for days.

May such an atrocity never happen again. May we never ever forget.

I debated whether to wait until tomorrow to post anything else. It seems odd to talk about 9/11 and then go right into follicle counts.....

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Yesterday I mentioned that I had a total of 16 follicles, 8 which were on the bigger side. Four of that 'Big 8' were on the larger side, and it seemed as if the smaller four from that eight may not catch up, which was the optimal situation – 4 mature eggs releasing for the upcoming IUI. I was excited to see where things stood this morning.

*Sigh*

Here are my current ‘Big 8’ follicle sizes:
Right: 13, 13, 12, 12, 12
Left: 15, 13, 12

Oh, now come ON!! Why do they now insist on all catching up to each other!?

Arrrghhh!!

My poor RE, who did my ultrasound this morning instead of the assistant, just sighed as he took the measurements and said “These couldn’t be any closer together.” The look of concern came across his face, just like last month. I don’t have to cancel the cycle at this point because even though the sizes are so close, they are still small enough that we still may be able to get half of them to get bigger and not all eight. Plus, my RE said my previous estrogen level was not outlandishly high. So, my tentative protocol was 100 gonal.f and the ganireli.x tomorrow morning, though he said he really wanted to look at my blood work results in the afternoon, and I would be notified if anything was to change. I go back Thursday morning for another follie look-see.

He also said my current uterine lining measurement – 6 – was a little thin. Isn’t it supposed to be at least 8? Or maybe it’s still early? I didn’t ask him to elaborate today for various reasons, but if it is still low at my next appointment I will ask for more details.

I was pretty sure by the follicle sizes, before he even said anything that I probably wasn’t going to take my trigger shot tonight for a Thurs. IUI. It looks like it may be on Saturday, which actually would work very nicely because I won’t have to even think about scheduling work around it.

While I would prefer not to have a little army of follies all the same dang size, I was very happy to find out they at least still existed. See, this morning, I thought it would be a neat idea to work myself into a frenzy over nothing.

Here’s what happened: I took the gonal.f and ganireli.x yesterday as directed. However, I got the bright idea to check my cm this morning – for what reason, I don’t know – and expected to see the ‘you’re close to ovulation but not quite yet’ type. Instead I got the ‘Hey, you already ovulated’ type… you know, white, clumpy, not stretchy… (TMI?)

I had a minor heart attack. I panicked. I thought ‘Oh no, I didn’t administer the shot right and I OVULATED YESTERDAY FRICKIN’ EVENING!!” This is all going on at 6a.m. I actually debated whether to go jump on sleeping DH and attack him, then figured if the cm was already at that stage it was too late and there was no point in frightening the poor man at that hour. I didn’t have time plop in front of the computer and start plugging in terms to see if cm changes were a side effect of ganireli.x. I tried to tell myself that that had to be the case – that in preventing ovulation, it probably also changes the mucus. Then I thought “I took the shot in the morning on Sunday and didn’t take it until the evening yesterday – maybe I took it too late and by the time I took it I had already ovulated!!!! %$!” Now, my RE had said to take it in the evening, but I then thought perhaps I misunderstood, or he had thought I had administered the shot on Sunday later than I did. Oh my was I worried until I saw those dark spots on the ultrasound monitor.

I did ask the RE today about the cm thing (left out the details - he still must have thought I was a real genius) He said that the ganireli.x would affect my estrogen level and that the decrease in estrogen would cause the cm to change.

Note to self – forget checking cm while taking injectibles!

I received a call from one of the nurses later in the afternoon. Apparently my estrogen level is dropping quite a bit (ah HA! More confirmation on the cm issue!), so instead of just one dose of 100 gonal.f and a dose of ganireli.x tomorrow morning, it’s 125 gonal.f and a shot of ganireli.x tonight and tomorrow night.

May those dang follicles cooperate!

2 comments:

Egged Out said...

Hi Carrie,

Your gonal f/ganarelix protocol is similar to mine - thought I took 300 gonal f the whole time and produced 8 follicles and no one is worried about multiples for me (one advantage of being 41 I guess). I also worry about ovulating when I am using ganarelix because I can feel my body wanting to ovulate (changes in cm) and then when I use it, everything seems to slow down. I take mine in the morning and they told me to take it a little earlier each day - never more than 24 hours apart. I try to take mine 15 minutes earlier each day to make sure. It's hard to imagine that ganarelix stops you from ovulating for exactly 24 hours (and not 23 hours 45 minutes) but that's what they told me. Does ganarelix sting for you, too? It stings me and leaves a big red welt which later turns to a yellowish bruise.

Sorry for the long comment - I hope your IUI is Saturday so it is easy to schedule. Good luck!

AwkwardMoments said...

OH my, I am so sorry you freaked yourself out. I think it is super easy to do while injectingour selves with expensive hormones. I am glad that all is balanced again and i hope you a very easy and smooth IUI on saturday