A Looong Day...

So it's 8:52 p.m. and we're finally home from St. Louis....only to turn around tomorrow morning and drive right back for another ultrasound. Gotta love it. Nothing is wrong. In fact, everything is going as planned. Dr. A upped my Follistim dose from 225 mg to 300 mg for tonight's injection to get some of the follicles to grow a little bit more before the egg retrieval. They're ranging in size between 12 to 16 with two of them in the right ovary measuring 21. He wants the majority of them to be between 16 and 20(?) on the day of the egg retrieval, so the two 21s are most likely already out of the running. It's very normal to have your medication tweaked to get the perfect-sized eggs at the perfect time, hence all the ultrasounds so he can monitor them very, very carefully. We were warned we could have appointments back to back, but I think we kind of forgot and were a little surprised when we were told to come back tomorrow. Why didn't we just spend the night in STL tonight, you ask? Well, we didn't have any clean clothes with us for tomorrow, it's cheaper to sleep at our house rather than a hotel, and I didn't bring all my drugs and vitamins with me to get me through another day/night. Driving at this point is not that big of a deal. It gives us time together to regroup and digest everything that is happening.

As we were driving in horrendous rush hour St. Louis traffic this morning to get to my 8:00 a.m. appointment, I had a bit of an anxiety attack (thanks to my PTSD from my '03 car accident) and walked into the clinic with a red tear-stained face (thanks to my uncontrollable mood swings), so that started off the day with a bang. Then the first thing the receptionist does before she even greets us is informs us we have a $53.27 balance we owe, which just kind of rubs you the wrong way after we've already paid the amount of money we have to them. As if we're not good for it! Thank goodness we love our doctor as much as we do because the support staff leaves something to be desired once in a while. Oh, well. I think that can happen no matter where you receive your health care. BUT, anyway, my uterine lining is measuring 10.5 mm which is very good and right where it should be. I didn't ask exactly how many follicles I have, but the nurse who was in the room with us during the ultrasound told me "Good job!" after Dr. A got done counting and measuring, so I guess that means I'm doing something right.

I had my first (of hopefully many) immune treatments today which is called IVig. It was at a different office a couple miles from the Sher Institute. The transfusion consists of human blood product (like plasma) and is supposed to suppress my crazy overactive NK cells so my body won't kill off the embryos after the embryo transfer. Don't ask me how, but that's the theory behind it. My next IVIg treatment will be a few days after my positive pregnancy test and then once a month for the first six months of pregnancy. During the treatment all I have to do is sit in a recliner and receive an IV drip and drink lots of water. I was told it would take three to four hours and it took six and a half! Again, par for the course for the way today went. As of right now I have no side effects, so that is very, very good news. Some of the side effects I was warned about were headaches, nausea, body aches. Basically flu-like symptoms. I was instructed to drink lots and lots of water before, during, and after the treatment, which I've done, so that's probably why I'm symptom-free.

The very wonderful thing that happened today (besides the good report from Dr. A) was there was another girl sitting next to me receiving the same treatment as me, and she is eight months pregnant with her sister's twin boys! They're dealing with a problem called alpha matching rather than NK cells, but the same IVIg treatment can be effective for that problem as well. Anyway, we spent six and a half hours talking about our experiences and IVF in general (along with speculating amongst ourselves whether our nurse knew what the heck she was doing) and it was really, really awesome to talk so personally to someone else. Of course, it's a little different because she's a surrogate for her sister, but I learned so much information and got so much reassurance from her and her sister that Roger and I will be able to overcome our infertility with IVF. I just kept looking at her big belly thinking this will all be worth it if I can just look like that someday. After my treatment was finally over and we were ready to walk out the door we were instructed we needed to hand over $500 to pay for the treatment. A little warning would have been nice! It makes sense, of course, that there would be a charge, but no one bothered to tell us beforehand how much it would be or when it would be due, etc. Oh, well. At this point Roger and I have just learned to laugh at the insanity of it all rather than getting upset. It's a whole lot more fun.

So that basically wraps it up, I think. Dr. A is planning to do our egg retrieval this Friday but maybe Thursday. He'll tell us for sure tomorrow. Stay tuned for further details.