5th lupron shot

i still cant just quickly stab my thigh like that. i always slow down as i reach my skin cause i think it'll hurt! it never really does! aaahh! why cant i do it!?

it just looks scary. needle filled with medicine flying through the air. 

well i didn't slow too much, cause it poked right into the skin. held down the plunger for a quick 5 seconds, when it should have been a slow patient 5 seconds.

i'm learning. by the end of these couple weeks i'll be a pro.

still feel fine. no side effects to report. no sleepiness today.

though, my injection site feels like it got bit by a mosquito. i wanna scratch it.  i just have to wait until the medication spreads out into my body. i feel like i'm made of play-dough. 

or a jelly donut. and i just injected the jelly. is that weird?

my 4th lupron shot kinda stung because i hesitated, and instead of quickly jabbing the skin - like they tell you to do - i slowly pushed it in and the skin bent inward until the needle broke through. so dont do that, cause it hurts a little.

no blood this time. i injected this one a lot higher up on my thigh, where there was more fat, so there would be more cushion.  

i think i can feel the muscles around the shot twitch a little bit. i think that happened yesterday with my right thigh too. not sure, maybe it was psychological. after i read that lupron causes 'bone pain' i noticed a slight aching in my wrist bones and shin. not sure if i was imagining it or not. it almost wasn't there. i could have convinced myself it was going to happen. hard to say. the mind is very powerful and persuasive like that.

i feel more tired today. i dont know if its the medication. last night I slept 10 hours, woke up refreshed, and then i felt sleepy starting around 5. my eyes are heavy and its only 9:30. i guess i'll go to bed. it was funny last night, I literally fell asleep over my book. i woke up with my face smashed into the pages and a drool stain in the middle of the paragraph i was reading. its the kite runner by khaled hosseini. good book. 

i finished it today. only took me 4 days to read it. i snuck chapters in while walking running errands, in class, early morning waiting for my husband to wake up, while in the bathroom, while waiting for the onions to turn translucent cooking myself dinner. i was like Belle, the book reading main character, in beauty and the beast. maybe its not the lupron, maybe i'm tired cause i've been reading a lot the last couple days. 

i think finally

my breasts are no longer swollen. they feel normal. i just realized this morning. i can squish them or bump them and it's not all crazy sensitive. must be the lupron.

i take my last femcon fe pill tonight. then its only the lupron injections for another week, and then i get my estradiol levels checked.

3rd lupron shot

didn't even hurt. i dont know why i still expect it to. 

still no side effects. i feel completely normal.

this time, though, there was a drop of blood when i pulled out the needle. that was gross.

my 2nd night on lupron

i feel fine

my first injection was last night just before dinner. i took out the little vial of liquid, wiped the top with an alcohol pad, used the tiny syringe to take out 15 units (about 0.15 mls), wiped  a spot on my thigh, stabbed quickly into the fat and pushed the plunger in slowly held it there for 5 seconds, and pulled it out clean. no blood or anything. it hardly hurt. maybe a tiny prick at first. when putting the needle in all the way, i didn't feel anything. it hurt way less than a flea bite. this needle is tiny tiny.

my thigh felt kinda strange for a few minutes. not achy, not painful, but like something was there. i mean - something WAS there. a bubble of medication that my body hadn't taken into the bloodstream yet, but it was a really strange feeling.  I did it on my right last night. 

tonight i did it on my left. the right thigh feels fine. no soreness or anything. just a tiny pink dot where the injection site was.

i dont feel any different.

lupron is a synthetic version of a naturally occurring gonadotropin releasing hormone that suppressing the shedding of the endometrium (lining in the uterus) during menstruation, its used to treat endometriosis, prostate cancer, premature puberty in children, and fibroids. its pretty much delaying my period until i sync up with the surrogate's cycle. we were opposite each other in our cycles - when she was bleeding, i was ovulating. we need to be at the same place for this to work. so i'm syncing up with her, cause since shes going to be the pregnant one, we dont want to mess with her cycle!

according to the FDAs trials of the drug, during the first week on lupron, my testosterone levels are supposed to raise above normal, temporarily increasing the likely hood of uncomfortable side effects - like headaches, anxiety, appetite changes, etc. the usual culprits of medications. Its supposed to block the hormonal signals from the brain to the ovaries, so estrogen production is suppressed. so they're turning me into a man temporarily. or a female eunuch.

for a couple weeks, till they check my estrogen levels to make sure i'm where i want to be before starting the normal IVF medicines.

I read that the spike in testosterone can take away some calcium from the body. "Achy bones" is a side effect i saw on one website. kind of like growing pains. did you ever have those as a kid? just achy limbs for no apparent reason. that sucked.

I've been taking my vitamins and eating foods high in quickly absorbable calcium (collards, mustard greens, chard, lentils, etc)

crazy how you can manipulate the body like this. 

injection training

i start the medication on friday. lupron. one shot a day

the nurse went over how to give myself the shot. its using little insulin syringes. 

almost there.

still taking the birth control pills, will be taking those for another week still.  they dont bug me as much lately.

femcon fe

this femcon fe birth control pill makes my boobs sore. and it makes me carsick.

good thing i usually bike everywhere

it feels like they're growing bigger, but they're not. and i cant lay on my stomach or squish them anymore. lame.

I set up a time to review the injection training. it will be the 23rd. my medications will start the 26th.  Turns out i dont have to go all the way up to L.A. for my ultrasound and estradiol checks, they work with a clinic in la jolla. so that'll save me time. All travel expenses are reimbursed. i think i'll take the bus. do some reading on the way.

we're entering the abstinence only phase. so this is gonna be a fun few weeks. my husband will be grumpy, and want oral and hand jobs. i actually signed a contract that said i would remain abstinent during the cycle! and that, once i begin taking the medications, the eggs i'm developing are no longer my eggs, so if i impregnate them i'm in breech of contract and risk a lawsuit! not really worth it. I'd have like 17 embryos also, and i'd have to abort all of them. its pretty crazy.

i cant wait to start the injections, they give 750 dollars upon starting.

the calendar

i received my 'calendar' its a set schedule of dates i will be taking hormones, when i need to go in for an ultrasound, etc.

I'll be taking the pre-natal birth control pills for 2 weeks before beginning to give myself daily subcutaneous injections of lupron. after a week of that, i'll have a period and go into the doctor's office to check my estradiol levels, to make sure the drugs are working correctly. Then i begin injecting 2 other medications daily for a week. then I go in for an ultrasound to monitor the progress and check that everything is okay. The final medication I will take is a big ugly shot in the butt called a trigger shot. it has to happen at a certain time before the extraction procedure. 

My fertility doctor faxed my medication to the MDR pharmacy, they specialize in fertility drugs and such. They called me to verify the address, and the next day i received an entire foam refrigerated BOX of hormones and needles and stuff. It filled up half a refrigerator shelf at first, then i organized it all to fit in one of the door shelves.

I wont be needing any of that until the 26th. Now i just have to remember to take a pill at 9pm every day.

step 1

when i called to let them know i'd gotten my period, they told me to begin birth control on day 2, while the fertility doctor planned out a calendar.

The nurses faxed down a prescription for femcon fe, a birth control with iron. I took my first birth control pill ever tonight. somehow i'd managed to avoid that type of birth control. i've been on the patch, lunelle, depo, and nuvaring. its crazy that in all my years as a sexually active adult this is my first birth control pill. they're chewable and mint flavored! i'm  glad i waited for the birth control pill industry to evolve into chewable, mint flavored medicine.

well it was delicious. tasted like a mint flavored necco wafer. even brought back nostalgic childhood memories of necco goodness. I dont eat much candy anymore, just chocolate and salty snacks.

It was weird too, cause the pharmacist who rang me up was about to go through the egg donation process for her sister. crazy, huh? I told her this was my first time. i'm supposed to update her on how its going. but i probably wont, cause i rarely go to that part of town anymore, and i'll be getting the fertility drugs from a clinic in L.A.

begin process

so this is my first donation. I signed up with a couple of companies a few years back. nothing happened. in february i signed up with an L.A. based egg donation agency who advertise that they sell eggs from extraordinary donors. so they pay 8000 the first donation instead of the standard 5000. They want donors who are somewhat attractive and college educated. I got IQ tested and everything. they recorded a video of me answering questions like "My talents include...." and "something unique about me is..." and "my hobbies include..." That was horrifying. i was nervous and kept smiling funny while i was talking throughout the video. i wanna redo it now. 

I also did a ridiculous personality test designed to catch people with mental disorders. it had agree/disagree questions like, "sometimes i want to hurt people for no reason" and "sometimes i hear voices that other people dont hear" it was hilarious.

this egg donation agency targets the gay community, so when i signed up i was crossing my fingers and hoping i would get to give a sweet gay couple my eggy weggies.

I got chosen in march by a heterosexual couple who resides outside of the united states. I was bummed that they werent gay. I hope sometime in my life a gay couple wants my ovum...*sigh*

The 'intended parents' as the agency calls them probably chose me because my genetic heritage is similar to theirs.  so we began with the screening process. I worked with a lawyer to sign my egg donation agreement. The intended parents needed a surrogate, and they were looking for one. so i waited for a couple months. they found one, so we continued and I went through with the medical screening with the fertility doctor. apparently i have about 17 follicles in my ovum? cool. They took 6 or 7 of those large tubes full of blood. they even took a bunch of my husband's blood too.

Then the surrogate backed out for whatever reason. they said they have to wait to find another surrogate. Then my blood tests came back and my thyroid levels were off. My fertility doctor said it was off so slightly that it was probably subclinical - probably normal for me, but still i had to get a doctor's note saying i could go on with the egg donation process. so that delayed us yet another couple months.

I made an appointment with the gaslamp clinic in downtown san diego. I'm a naturally hyperactive person. I always have been. So when the nurse at the clinic asked me if i feel like i'm on crack all the time, i laughed. They ran thyroid panel, and the doctor there gave me a box of pills to begin taking to bring my levels back to normal. I faxed the information back to the fertility doctor and took my first pill. the next morning at 8 o'clock on the dot my fertility doctor called me enraged, that stupid doctor at the clinic had misdiagnosed me and given me the opposite medication. so i called the clinic to yell at the doctor and demand my money back, i went and got my money back, and my thyroid panel test results. My t3s were off but everything else was normal.

I made an appointment with a 'real' doctor at a normal primary care facility. the doctor there looked at my test results and felt my throat and asked me a million questions and concluded that i had a slight hypothyroidism, but because she didn't know the cause she couldn't prescribe medication, and she referred me to an endocrinologist. She said the specialist would want to run another thyroid panel, because they run their thyroid panels differently, so i gave more blood, reluctantly.

That thyroid panel came back normal. the doctor wrote me a clearance stating that my levels were normal, and the previous levels were subclinical.

By the time that nonsense was over, they had found a surrogate. It took a while for her to finish her legal contract. I waited patiently for another month. and then got an email that the surrogate had just gotten her period, and to let them know when i get mine. They're going to manipulate my menstrual cycle to sync it up with the surrogate's cycle. and then the process will begin

I started my period on 9/8