Tuesday, April 30, 2013

32 Eggs Retrieved!

Yesterday was a very emotional and physically tough day.

An hour prior to the egg retrieval, I took Valium and Keflex. The Valium is to relax you. I can't imagine going through the waiting and the prepping without it.

I got taken back and they hooked up my IV. They had me give Brian a kiss good bye. They let me do one last tinkle. Then I got undressed from the waist down and then they pulled my legs apart and put them in these contraptions that we kind of like stirrups but for your legs, not feet. They taped my legs in. The doctor came in and asked how I was doing - I said okay even though I was nervous.

They put happy juice in my IV. They put on a gas mask. And I don't remember any of the surgery.

I woke up in recovery and could hardly wake up; I kept going in and out. I remember asking for water. I got really pissed off when they gave me ginger ale but I drank it. I ate cheezits. I asked for them to bring my husband back. They asked for his name and a few minutes later he was there. They told us they got 32 eggs out of me.

They discharged me a short bit later. I was in such a fuzz that I could hardly walk so I held onto Brian really tight.

I felt awful in the car. I begged for water but then I'd beg to get home as fast as possible. Then I threw up in a trash bag. It was fizzy orange vomit - hello, ginger ale and cheezits!

Brian helped me up the stairs. It was uncomfrotable to walk. I got right in bed and fell asleep.

Then I woke up from the nap and my mother in law came to visit. She brought delicious Legal Seafood. I had trouble eating so I'd eat bits at a time and have Brian keep putting whatever I didn't finish in the fridge.

I napped again.

I watched Heavyweights and a couple of our TV shows with Brian. Then I took a pain killer and fell asleep.

I feel very weird. I feel excited and happy but very strange. I feel very emotionally drained. I met the embryologist who will mix and watch baby crane grow yesterday. I'm having a lot of trouble thinking about my baby being mixed and coming into embryo stage without me. I am happy, of course. But it is very strange for me to think about. I feel very odd knowing I'm that baby's mother, and it's not safely growing inside of me.

All I can do now is rest and work on recovering. My body needs to get nice and rested for the transfer in roughly a month.

I hope many of the 32 eggs will fertilize and many will grow to embryo stage. I hope I feel "normal" soon. Though I truly have no idea what normal really is anymore.




Sunday, April 28, 2013

Day Before Retrieval.

I am officially uncomfortable. At all the last few monitoring appointments they would ask me how  was feeling. They always seemed shocked when I'd say, "I feel great!" I was thinking, look at me just doing IVF like a fucking champ.

Now that's biting me in the ass.

I feel uncomfortable. It's a sensation I really can't describe. When I go to sit down and my butt hits the chair, I feel like my ovaries are going to burst. Same thing happens when I bend over. I feel super bloated so I'm going to the bathroom non-stop thinking it will deflate me but no such luck.

I have two very huge ovaries filled with giant eggs. The doctor said it's somewhere between 15-20 eggs that range in size from about 20 mm up to 26/27 mm. Needless to say, it feels weird. It feels nothing like a 16.5 mm egg just hanging out in one of my ovaries.

My body is officially freaking out, and I've cried a few times today.

I have less than 24 hours until the retrieval.

I am nervous.

Going into IVF, the retrieval was one of the parts that terrified me.

I am so excited for all of this but it catches up to me sometimes. Holy moly... am I really walking around with 20 eggs? Did I actually just give myself 30 injections over the past 2 weeks? Are we seriously doing this?

They are going to take 15-20 eggs out of me. And they are going to mix them with Brian's sperm. And most will fertilize and grow. This IS happening.

Wow.

Let the roller coaster of emotions continue!


Thursday, April 25, 2013

"Why me?"

In yesterday's blog, I talked about being blissful 98% of the time. It's a pretty simple emotion to understand. I feel so close to having a baby; it's so exciting.

I want to cover the main driving force behind the other 2% of the time.

If you struggle with infertility, I have a feeling this will strike a chord with you.

Brian and I have both struggled with the "Why Me/Us?" aspect of infertility. I honestly think it's one of the toughest parts. I've read that people become angry with God over this, and I've been there, too.

As a child I thought children were something everyone could have if they wanted them. I played with my baby dolls for practice, and knew someday, when I was ready, I'd have my very own babies. When I got a little older and learned about reproduction, I knew my mom never had any trouble so I assumed I was super fertile. I actually had a friend in college say I seemed like a girl who would have lots of kids so I'd probably get pregnant if a guy sneezed on me.

When I was diagnosed with PCOS, I didn't believe doctors when they told me getting pregnant could be a challenge for me. I remember we started trying, and we both kept thinking it would happen right away.

After some time of things not working, I started to wrestle with, "Why Me?" Why couldn't I have a baby? Teen moms who don't want to have babies could get pregnant on prom night. Unstable women who drown their children in bathtubs could procreate. Women who abandon their children had no trouble conceiving them. Countless women take the day after pill or visit abortion clinics; they could get pregnant but didn't want to be.

Why can't I get pregnant? I am 27 years old. I have been with my husband for almost 7 years, married for almost 4 years. We have the closest thing I've seen to a perfect marriage. We have a lovely home. My husband does very well for himself. We have saved money for this baby. We have parents and sisters and brothers that are looking forward to becoming grandparents, aunts and uncles.

My mom said if I ever needed to adopt, that an adoption agency would love us. We are pretty much the perfect candidates to be parents.

But the sad thing is, I'm 99% sure that without assisted reproductive technology - we would never be "chosen" to be parents. And I will never ever understand why.

I used to ask "why?" all the time. I knew I'd never get an answer but I'd cry in the shower just begging God to tell me why.

Lately, I hardly think about why. I've more or less come to the realization that I just wasn't made the same way as most women. I am of the 10% of women who are infertile. I am of the 1% of women who will undergo IVF. I don't know why but I just am.

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

The Ups and Downs

I wish every woman struggling with infertility could find the peace I have very recently found. It is not because I'm stronger that I've found this peace. It is because I had gotten to a point in the road where I had to choose a peaceful outlook on my situation or stop.

The emotional pain I felt from my last IUI was unbearable. It was the worst pain I've felt in my life. I wanted to hide it from everyone around me. I couldn't even write a blog entry about it because I wasn't ready to admit that I felt miserable on the inside. I was angry and frustrated. I was jealous of every single person who hasn't had to go through this.

It was forgotten only to be replaced with a nervousness about my polyp removal surgery and a fear of all things IVF, mainly injectables.

But once I had my surgery and did well with my first injections, things clicked. I wasn't giving up; in fact, I was working harder than ever before. I needed to get ready because this is how I'm going to conceive my child. It is not beautiful. It is not natural. It is not normal.

But you know what it is?

It is amazing. It is wonderful. And it is exciting.

I decided that I would let nothing stand in the way of me viewing this as a joyful time in my life. I would stop wishing to be the fertile woman that I'm not. And I would choose to love and cherish the time I worked really hard to make my beautiful baby.

It is not easy.

Sometimes it takes everything inside of me to remind myself of the good in the bad, the beautiful in the less than beautiful.

I have not completely perfected the art of the peaceful outlook. I have it about 98% of the time. The other 2% is a little part that creeps up on me and seems impossible to control. That 2% encompasses over 2 years of hurt, anger and resentment. It represents a tough time that's not easily forgotten.

But that 98% of the time is something I have worked so hard for. I can say this and whole heartedly believe it - I have earned this peace. If I could bottle it and hand it out to all the infertile women out there, I would.

I will never know why this is the path I was given. All I know is I was designed to rise to the occasion.

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

The First 2.

Last night, the nurse came over. Love her. I had never met her before because she no longer works in the clinic; she basically just does this teachings for them. You can also pay her to come over and do your injections for you.

She instantly put me at ease. She told me that everyone is nervous their first time but that I'd do great.

We went through every single injectable, and I get it now. There are 5 different types including the progesterone in oil for the frozen embryo transfer.

Yesterday, I took my Gonal F 150 IU and Menopur 75 IU. These are both egg growers. I should continue to take these for a while, until my eggs are ready.

Gonal F is refrigerated. It comes is lovely pen form. Aside from prepping the pen for it's first use, there's very little to do here.

Remove the cap. Screw on a needle. Set the dial to your dosage. Pull back the stopper. Prep your skin with alcohol. Grab a roll of fat and stick yourself 2 inches from the belly button. Push down the stopper. And voila! You've injected yourself with egg-making-goodness.

Menopur is not refrigerated. It is a little trickier to use because you do mix it.

You get out your supplies: a syringe, a needle, the vial of Menopur (powder form), the vial of water (sodium chloride? i don't know - I sucked at science), and a Q cap.

Can I just say I freaking LOVE the Q cap? So much easier than mixing injections with a traditional needle.

You unwrap the syringe. Unscrew the needle on it. Toss that in your sharps container. Screw on the Q cap. Use alcohol swab to clean the tops of the 2 vials. Use syringe to pull in water (hold vial upside down). Then with the Menopur vial right side up, insert Q cap and add water. Give a slight shake to mix. Draw back into syringe. Unscrew Q cap, and screw on the needle. Tap out air bubbles. Prep skin with alcohol. Push needle into skin and then push the stopper to inject. This one is more liquid entering your skin so it did burn a little. It also made just a dot of blood so good to have gauze ready.

I'm writing this how to blog entry for when I panic tonight about whether or not I remember how. That will happen.

Afterwards, I felt so proud of myself. I did close my eyes while inserting the needle. But I did something I never thought I could do. Truly, I'm more afraid of needles than childbirth. It was so empowering to conquer a fear and know I'm doing everything I can to have a baby.

I'm giving myself a huge pat on the back and feeling like I'm the Queen of Awesomeness :)

Tuesday, April 16, 2013

Feelings.

This morning I walked back to the sonogram room with the nurse, and she asked me, "Are you nervous or are you excited?"

The truth is, I'm both.

Nervous.

When people ask if I'm nervous, I say, "not really." There's a reason I say that. It does zero good to tell someone you're nervous. Usually they'll tell you not to be or that you'll get the hang of all this, and then you kind of want to punch them in the face. You kind of wish you could take an injection and have them stab themselves a couple times... every day.

It's so obvious that it seems to dumb to say but it's NORMAL to be nervous. I'm going to be injecting myself, and it IS a little scary. I'm letting all sorts of unnatural hormones enter my body and completely alter it to a highly unnatural state. That is nerve racking!

If you have in fact given yourself dozens of injections and have grown your ovaries to the size of grapefruits carrying more eggs than you can count on both hands, you can correct me. You can tell me you weren't nervous. And I'll bow down to your bravery.

Until then, I'll be a little nervous until I "get the hang of it."

Excited.

So the same reason I'm nervous is the same reason I'm excited. I'm about to alter my body to a highly unnatural state. On these injections, I should have no problem growing eggs. And in turn, creating embryos. And then hopefully, growing a baby.

Obviously, the effectiveness of IUI and IVF can't be compared. They're not the same thing... at all. Clomid IUI just made me feel like I wasn't going to have a baby. Going into IVF, I know this is the best of the best available, so I believe it will work. I'm so happy to believe again! I'm excited that this should finally lead to baby.


They called with my instructions for tonight. For the next 3 days I'll do 2 injections a day: Gonal F 150 IU and Menopur 75 IU. Then on Friday morning, hopefully I'll get to see some follicles developing. Not gonna lie, I'll be little ticked if my ovaries are empty.

So I leave off about 4.5 hours until the nurse comes over to do the injection teaching. I'll continue to be nervous AND excited. Later, I'll update with tales of my glorious first 2 injections!


Monday, April 15, 2013

Baby Crane's 1st Letter.

I walked out to the mailbox on Friday to be happily surprised by a turquoise envelope with my address is beautiful, bubbly handwriting. I love getting to the mailbox and having a piece of "real" mail, not the normal junk that fills it.

When I opened it and read it, tears streamed down my face. I feel so loved to have a friend who would write this and mail it to me. Brian walked in the door a couple minutes later. I think he could tell I'd been crying so I just handed him the notecard. I saw manly tears well up in his eyes, and he just gave me the longest hug. 

That little card meant the world to us. I'm framing it in a matted frame for baby crane's nursery - his or her very first piece of mail. Someday I can't wait to tell him or her about my amazing friend, Sabrina. And to tell baby crane how he or she is probably one of the only babies who got a letter even before they were baking in their mama's tummy.


a letter to us.

a letter to baby.

Friday, April 12, 2013

Hello, Tuesday!

Two posts in one day? I must be freaking nuts!

Just had to post to say things are falling in to place. It looks like I will be taking my last birth control pill on Sunday. I have a baseline sonogram on Tuesday to check to make sure nothing is going on, and there are no cysts. Please please please God let there be no cysts for once!

As long as the sonogram goes okay, I'll begin my injectables Tuesday night. A nurse is coming to our house to show us how to use all the various medications, and she'll be there to watch me stick myself for the first time.

Wow, this is really getting real.

We're going out with some friends to dinner but afterwards all I want to do is snuggle up with my husband and live in this moment. A moment where our dreams seem so close to becoming reality.

Overwhelmed.

Yesterday Brian and I had our "cycle review". We thought it would be an hour long class where we received a flow chart or calendar of medications to take AND learn how to mix and administer the various injectables. Turns out it was a little over an hour of just learning how the cycle works. We will have a separate 1-2 hour long class where we learn to mix and administer my medications.

Now, to get the full idea of what yesterday was like, think to yourself, "have I ever had several hour long discussions with medical professionals just to discuss the next 6-8 weeks of my life?" To say the amount of information we've been given, paperwork we've signed and pharmacies I've talked to is overwhelming is the epitome of an understatement.

I got very sweet texts from my boss yesterday checking in on me. As much as I hate to say this, I'm not sure I'll be returning to work anytime soon. I think my life is about to get turned upside down. I absolutely could not work how I used to going through this. I've learned there will be a few weeks during the process I can expect to be in the office every day.

Today I'm going to begin researching all of my medications. Yesterday I filled prescriptions for 11 medications - some from a speciality pharmacy in Massachusetts (the big guns), a speciality pharmacy in DC, and my regular old Target pharmacy. I have one shipment arriving via courier today. Then the big guns arrive tomorrow from MA - literally thousands of dollars of egg making injectables arriving via a FedEx shipment, some in coolers.

In a way, I kind of feel very badass. My medications make my old high dose of Clomid look like the row of sugar pills in a birth control pack.

Also, this weekend we will begin the organizing process. The advice we've read is to have a place in your home that is free of bacteria, has adequate surface area and is well lit for mixing and injecting. Whelp, this is where the "nursery" comes in handy. We're setting up our folding table in there along with two floor lamps for lighting. I need to disinfect the table with hospital strength disinfectant.

We also will buy bins to organize the medications. Organization is very key in this process. The nurse advised us to divide my various doses of medications into ziploc bags. The one I will need to keep in my purse comes in handy pen form so it can even be injected in a public restroom if need be. Why can't they all be like that?

I've been advised to take turns each day doing all my injections for that day on one side, and alternate between left and right. Yes, there are multiple injections a day most of the time. I've learned you can inject over a bruise. My daily baby aspirin (to prevent clots) will make me bruise more easily. I've been warned my stomach will look like I've been punched or kicked repeatedly. Thank goodness I'm too chubby to be wearing a bikini anytime soon!

My ovaries are currently the size of walnuts and will get to be the size of grapefruits. I will be pretty uncomfortable at that point so thank goodness for maxi dresses. But between both my lovely large ovaries I should be carrying around about 20 eggs. Yeah, Clomid gave me 1 undersized egg each time.

I'm terrified but genuinely excited. My whole life I've been afraid of needles, yet I can't wait to get my hands on my syringes. I'm starting to realize there is very little I wouldn't do to have this baby. I know in my heart of hearts that every ounce of fear will be outweighed by the joy I feel the day I find out that all of this worked.




Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Approved.

I got the official call today saying we're approved for the money back guarantee program. Tomorrow we'll pay, learn all about my medications and they'll order my injectables. Wow! It feels so quick... even though it's actually taken quite a while to have gotten here.

I'm so happy and optimistic. But it doesn't change my recent inability to tolerate baby crap all over facebook. I just saw a facebook baby announcement from a couple who got married late last year. Are you kidding me? People can get married, start having unprotected sex and get pregnant?

All the bumps. All the baby photos.

Yeah, I'm happy for people. I want my damn turn!

On another note, the hubby told a couple of his bosses at work what's going on since he's been taking more time off lately. They were totally fine with it. They've also known me for almost 6 years (I remember when he was just interviewing with this company when we were in college) so I know they are also rooting for us as a couple.

Please please please let round one be THE ONE.

I'll post an update tomorrow with all the good stuff I learn :)

Monday, April 8, 2013

IVF update!

So we had been told that we'd likely be waiting 2 or 3 weeks after the surgery to start injections. I kind of figured for the next 2 weeks not much would happen. I'd attend my post op appointment and possibly my cycle review.

Well, I just got a call from the IVF coordinator, and her exact words were, "if we had your injections ready, you could start tomorrow." I should get the official word tomorrow afternoon of our acceptance into the money back guarantee program. All the doctor's should be signing off on it tomorrow in their weekly meeting. To be on the safe side, my cycle review is scheduled for Thursday morning. They'll teach me all about my medications, we'll pay, and they'll order my injectables. We are expected to start injectables next week.

I'm not exactly an expert on how this works but I'm starting to think we'll do the transfer in early June.

2 weeks of injections and monitoring to grow eggs
Retrieval
2 weeks until I get my period
Another 2-3 weeks of injections & monitoring to prepare the uterus
And bam, transfer!

So if this first round works, we would definitely know by my 28th birthday :)

I had no idea I would get so excited after receiving this particular phone call. But after 6 total rounds of Clomid including 3 IUIs, I'm excited to be trying something so much better. Jumping from a 15% (probably lower) chance to a 60% chance per round is huge. I feel like I will be pregnant soon!

Of course, Brian and I had started our diet. I stuck to it all day. But we have to go out to dinner to celebrate this! We're finally starting a new chapter in our trying to conceive journey, and we're both so excited about that.

When the time comes for me to give myself my first injection, I know I'll be nervous. But until then, I'll savor this giddy feeling we don't get to feel often. Yep, this is what they call hope.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Infertility Treatments and Your Body

So I'll be completely honest, I was not a skinny minny before starting fertility drugs. I've struggled with my weight ever since I can remember. Any of my "skinnier" phases were just a lot of hard work. But since starting Clomid last May, without changing my diet what so ever, everything fits tighter. I feel so swollen.

That is actually very typical. And supposedly, the IVF injectables are even worse. Women tend to balloon up.

Well, the truth is - I can't take anymore weight gain.

I don't need to be skinny but I need to be healthy. I can't feel like I'm dragging my fat ass around and getting sweaty and winded after walking a few miles.

Right now, I'm not supposed to be exercising or lifting much. So obviously, I'm not hitting the gym after writing this entry.

But what I've decided to do is do the South Beach Diet. I'm putting it in this blog to hold myself accountable. And since the next two weeks are really considered my "recovery" period, the strictest part of the diet won't impact an actual stage of the IVF process. Looks like the surgery was good for something!

We intended to start today, and I made us a South Beach breakfast: egg beaters & canadian bacon. But going to our god daughters' christening derailed our lunch. We also received a delicious edible arrangement from my grandma which we will let ourselves enjoy. It's not everyday people spoil you with stuff like that. Brian is going to make us a South Beach dinner: bun-less turkey burgers and grilled veggies. And tomorrow will be our first full day on the diet!

Since I was too afraid to get on the scale, I closed my eyes, and Brian wrote down my weight for me.

I did give him my "oh my god please don't let it be more than X pounds"... and it was less than that... thank goodness.

I'll weigh back in in 2 weeks, and then confront the new number on the scale.

Throughout the IVF process I intend to weigh in weekly to try to keep things under control. That terrifies me but so does having a horribly unhealthy pregnancy. I've gone through enough already; I don't need extra complications.

A Baby Crane is not turning into a weight loss blog but I do plan on using this as an outlet to get through "Phase 1" of my diet.

Plus, if you didn't know about the weight gain aspect of treatment, this sheds a little light on something people don't really like to talk about. Now you know why your favorite infertile mertile has a little extra junk in her trunk ;)

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Surgeries Make Babies, Not Sex

My urge waking up this morning was to go online and look at baby blogs and look at all things baby on pinterest. To be honest, this past week I haven't thought much about having a baby. I was thinking about my surgery.

Before I hit the internet to look at a bazillion baby things, I checked for bleeding. I'm not bleeding as much as I thought or they said I would. But I am supposed to keep as eye to make sure my bleeding is less and less and after today, it really shouldn't be bright red.

The two things I worried about this surgery were waking up from anesthesia without Brian there and putting too much strain on my uterus and starting to bleed a lot (which is the biggest risk of the surgery). The first is now behind me, and the second, I'm working on following the guidelines so it doesn't happen.

Here's how the surgery went:

11:15 - arrived at hospital and checked in at surgical registration

11:40ish - called back to sign some consent forms

12ish - headed back to my pre-op room, peed in a cup for a pregnancy test (haha), and got changed into my hospital gown and grippy socks

Between 12-1:15 -  laid in bed, nice and comfy, and a slew of nurses and doctors came in to introduce themselves and ask questions. They gave me my IV. Dr.Reh came to say hi and asked for any last minute questions. Then my new best friend Mike aka the anesthesiologist put a few drops of the good stuff in my IV. Told me it'd take a few seconds and then I'd be nice and relaxed. It worked like a charm. Brian gave me a big kiss per my request. Then they wheeled me into the operating room.

1:15ish - get to the huge, super bright operating room. They asked me to crawl onto the operating table and once I was on the doctor popped over and asked if I was ok. Told her I was ready to rock and roll. Then they put on my gas mask, and I fell asleep.

Almost 2:30 - I get wheeled into recovery, they hooked me up to some machines to monitor my vitals. They check my bleeding, it wasn't much on the dressing but there was a puddle of blood under where my bottom was. They put on a lovely hospital diaper. I got the chills so they wrapped me in lots of hot blankets, and few minutes later I felt fine. They gave me a diet coke. I looked around, and I seemed to be doing much better than everyone around me.

3ish - I got wheeled out of the 1st recovery room into a second room and ate crackers. I waited a little while before Brian came back around 3:15ish. They let me take my first pee. It hurt a little but they said that was normal. I didn't realize I wasn't allowed to walk by myself so I picked up my IV bag and walked back to my recovery bay. A nurse came over to help me but said I did look great.

They bandaged where the IV had been and went over post op instructions. The instructions were much stricter than my doctor's.

A nurse wheeled me down in a wheelchair while Brian got the car. We were in the car at 4:05 and headed home.

Walking wasn't comfortable - I felt like my uterus was going to fall out so I just laid in bed. I don't feel the cramping or arm pain they said I would likely have. I feel very lucky to have done so well. They said I'd be groggy and likely sleep a lot but I just slept from 11 pm - 7 am like normal.

Today I am starting to think about my baby. I am also thinking about how weird it is that most women don't have to pop pills, take injections, have surgery, be monitored, or have procedures done to get pregnant. The thought of having sex with my husband to make a baby is a very, very strange thought to me. Because I've never had a baby, this oddly feels kind of "normal". Irritating and frustrating at times but starting to feel normal.

I think I was very brave yesterday. It is very weird to have a surgery and think you are doing it for your family... when you don't even have a baby growing in you yet.

This morning I looked at a Pottery Barn Kids catalog and cried. So far, but yet so close.

Brian told me in the beginning that I'm the strongest woman he knows but I never believed him. I'm realizing that I AM one hell of a woman - and a very strong one at that!





Monday, April 1, 2013

Pre Op Appointment

I was hoping to walk in to the clinic today and have them say, "April Fools! You don't have to have surgery!" But that didn't happen.

When we walked back with Dr.Reh she said, "Sorry we keep making you come in so often - especially without even starting the IVF yet!" I told her I didn't mind. In my head I was thinking, "Um, you guys aren't really making me come in - my stupid uterus and crappy ovaries like to cause these frequent visits."

She had us sit down to talk about everything. I had a nice long list of questions. Let's see what I learned...

Midnight Thursday is the cut off for any eating or drinking. 

At 11 am on Friday I will check in with Surgery Admissions at the hospital. They'll take me back and start getting me all prepped up and ready to go. Dr.Reh will be performing the hysteroscopy. She'll insert a camera through my cervix, and they'll use surgical instruments to remove the polyps. The polyps will be sent to pathology to check for cancer, though she said the chance of cancer is teeny, like 1%. The surgery will only take about 40 minutes but she said Brian can expect to be in the waiting room longer than that due to the prepping. When the surgery is over, she'll come out to let Brian know that everything went okay. I will be kept a bit longer just to eat some crackers, drink some juice and shake of the anesthesia a bit. If all goes as planned (which I'm sure it will), I should be out around 4 pm.

It'll be Brian's job to stay with me for 24 hours following the surgery; I'm not supposed to be left alone. But we should have the house set up for my night of recovery so that we don't need to leave.

I'm being prescribed painkillers for afterwards to deal with the cramming. I'm also allowed to use heat pads. I'm going to try to stick to heat pads more than the pain killers. For some reason they also said to expect severe shoulder pain - something to do with the anesthesia.

I'm not allowed to drink alcohol for 48 hours after surgery. I'm not allowed to drive 48 hours after surgery. I'm not allowed to lift more than 10 lbs for the 10 days following the surgery. Basically for a couple weeks I'm supposed to take it easy.

Then I have a post op appointment. As long as my body has recovered, 2-3 weeks post op we will begin to do injectables to truly begin the IVF process.

At the end of the appointment I asked Dr.Reh if she thought having the surgery done before the IUIs would've changed the outcome. She said while it's possible that it would have, that most studies and doctors would say that is unlikely. She does not recommend doing another Clomid cycle post surgery. She said while the polyps on my uterus could be adding to my infertility that the true culprit is my inability to ovulate. She said that before IVF, they want every factor to be as perfect as it can be.

She said my surgery is a very open and shut case - which is a true relief. She remains EXTREMELY confident in IVF working for us. 

I walked away from the appointment much less anxious about the surgery. Though it was more like wobbling away since today I had a very dizzying blood draw. They seriously had to draw my blood to make sure I'm not pregnant... ha, could've sworn that was an April Fool's joke. 

This surgery is just another little bump in the road but it'll be behind us soon enough.

Now I just want to nap off some tiredness and dizziness.