mindless woman, mindless ramblings

Just as I thought, Stephanie stalled until the last possible minute to get her stim shots. Jayne stressed that Steph’s stims should be given between 5pm an 8pm, and absolutely no later than 8:30. It was 8:15 before Stephanie worked up the nerve to get her shots.

She’s arranged for a friend of hers who is a nurse to administer her IM shots. Terry iced the injection site, and before Stephanie knew it, the shot was done.

There are only about 11 more days of stims that Stephanie has to make it through, but I think that now that the first shot has been given, the hours leading up to the next shots won’t be quite as nerve-wracking for her. Now that Stephanie has started plumping up her follicles, I’m really anxious to see how her ovaries are reacting on Monday’s ultrasound.

I cannot believe that tomorrow is the first day of July. Only two weeks until transfer, give or take a few days.

Good luck to ShannonA!!! Get us July girls off to a good start with our first BFP!

Kym: Hi. *waves* My name is Kym. 
Group: “HI KYM!”
Kym: Uuuuh, yeah. *Ahem* My name is Kym, and uuuh, I have Preconceptia Dementia with Obsessive Compulsive Peestickitis.

Preconceptia Dementia:
The usually progressive deterioration of intellectual functions (such as memory) that occurs as a result of attempting to generate human life. Women with this condition may exhibit mood swings that are directly proportional to the events of any given cycle day. Significant others of women with this condition will fare well if they learn to say, “Yes, ma’am,” keep their heads low, and be supportive, even if they think their women are whackos.

Preconceptia Dementia with Obsessive Compulsive Peestickitis :
The usually progressive deterioration of intellectual functions such as memory that occurs as a result of attempting to generate human life with the compulsion to use reproductive diagnostic tests.

Well, I held out for as long as I could, but last night the urge finally became too overwhelming – I bought my first peesticks. I bought 3 FRERs, 3 Accu-clears, and 3 digitals from a fellow surrogate who has fallen on quite a run of bad luck and needed to sell off her stock of more than 100 hpt’s (Hi, Nicole!). Then just for good measure, today I bought 3 more digitals and 3 more Accu-clears. Catherine has saved about 12 test strips for me. Oh, yes…the pee insanity is definitely starting to warm up.

I know that I’m not the only one out there who suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Peestickitis. There’s a whole group of us on SMO (Hey, PISSERS!), and we know that there’s a complete scientific method to testing for pregnancy. First there’s the almighty first morning urine, or FMU. FMU is supposed to have the highest concentration of hCG; therefore, it is usually best to test with the first pee of the day. That’s great for the people who can get away with only testing once per day, but for nutcases like me, two or three tests a day is more reasonable. So to make sure we have concentrated pee, we hold it until our eyeballs float and refrain from drinking too much liquid until the moment that we can test again.

Once we’ve peed on the tests, the hunt for the line ensues. The best way to look for an unobvious line is to take the strip out of the plastic casing if there is one. There are many strategies used to look for that elusive line. There’s the classic twist and squint, where we twist the test in every conceivable way in all sorts of light- sunlight, fluorescent light, flashlights. I’ve even climbed up onto my bathroom counter so that I can backlight tests against my bright Hollywood lights.

I know that you’re supposed to throw away tests that are negative after ten minutes. I do throw them away. But I’m also a trash-digger, and I know I’m not the only one. We trash tests, only to go dig them out a few hours later to see if a hint of a line has magically appeared. We’re sick, sick creatures, calmed only by a solid second line or by a PREGNANT on one of the new digital tests. And in the case of being a surrogate (or IVF & IUI patients), only completely cured by positive and safely rising betas.

So hello, fellow PISSERS! *waves again* Leave a comment: how many peesticks have you, or did you stock up on? I’m up to 27…but I’m quite sure that I’ll purchase some internet cheapies and some of the new FRER’s before I’m finished.

Pee early, pee often!

Thank God that I put on a “just in case” pad before I left for my appointment this morning. While waiting to be called back for our ultrasounds, Stephanie and I both had to make a quick run to the bathroom. Lo and behold, AF finally decided to make her appearance. Now I have one less thing to obsess over.

Our ultrasounds went very well. Stephanie’s ovaries are quiet, and from what I could tell (with my non-medical eyes) it appears as though she has 5-6 antral follicles on each ovary. Dr. Blohm is very confident that we’ll get lots of high quality eggs for someone of her age (he never forgets to remind her that she’s old in terms of fertility).

My lining measured a perfectly thin 4mm, thanks to the 40+ days on bcp’s. He wants me to “bleed” for today to thin it down a bit more, then tomorrow I’ll start my course of Vivelle patches to start building it back up again.

Our nurse for the day was Jayne, who I had been hoping to meet for a while. When my great friend Catherine (CatherineDiane on SMO) was a GS patient of Dr. Smotrich’s in California for her last set of IPs, she had the pleasure of working with Jayne. Jayne was one of Dr. Smotrich’s nurses, and she and Catherine got to know each other fairly well through her two cycles. When Catherine started her current journey a few months ago, she went to Dr. Blohm’s office for her local labs, monitoring, and screening procedures. She was surprised to find that Jayne had moved from California to Georgia and was now working in Dr. Blohm’s office. Small world! Catherine told Jayne all about me, Stephanie, and Terry, and Jayne was also looking forward to meeting me.

Jayne was great and was very patient as she gave Stephanie and Terry a referesher demonstration on how and where to administer Stephanie’s meds. Poor Stephanie is so terrified of starting stims, especially the intramuscular Repronex, that she was on the verge of tears through nearly the entire appointment. Jayne was very comforting, and even drew a circles on the “target” areas of her hips with a Sharpie to be sure that Terry gave the shots in the right locations.

Jayne also went over our calendars with us. Mine is the same as explained before, except the dates are pushed back one day due to starting the patches tomorrow instead of today. Stephanie will start Follistim and Repronex Friday night. She will get three days of her protocol at a time. After three days, she’ll go for another ultrasound and round of blood work, as well as receive the next three days’ worth of med dosages. Lupron started on June 22 (for both of us) and will continue until told otherwise. Here are Stephanie’s first three days of stims:

June 30     300 units Follistim/1 vial Repronex
July 1        275 units Follistim/1 vial Repronex
July 2        250 units Follistim/1 vial Repronex

On Monday, July 3, Stephanie has her next ultrasound. Technically, I don’t have to be seen again for another u/s and set of b/w until the day that Stephanie triggers, but I’m going to go with her to all of her monitoring appointments. I want to be able to keep a record of her follicle development and ask any questions that I may have right there on the spot. Mostly, I just want to be there to support Stephanie because I know how stressful everything is for her.

The best thing that I think we got out of our appointment was a slightly more specific set of transfer dates. Jayne thinks that based on the first three days of stims and the amounts that Dr. Blohm has Stephanie on, Stephanie will be ready for retrieval on July 12, which will put a 3-day transfer on July 15 and a 5-day transfer on July 17. I have the feeling that we’ll have a 3-day transfer.

Just 17 more days.

Where the heck is my period? I thought for sure that I'd get AF yesterday, since I usually start my period on the third day after stopping active birth control pills. Here it is the fourth day after my last active pill, and I'm still here waiting, obsessing over every little pelvic twinge.

So now I've realized that the time for obesssion has begun. Today it's obsessing over AF. Starting tomorrow, it will be over how well my lining thickens and Stephanie's follicles development. Then it will be over how many eggs are retrieved. Then over the fertilization rate, then over whether we'll do a 3-day or 5-day transfer. Then over quality and quantity of embryos transfered and whether or not any make it to freeze. Then of course, the worst obsession of all, yet the one I'm most looking forward to – the two week wait.

At the very latest transfer is only 23 days away, but I'm having somewhat of a hard time realizing that it's so close. We've been looking forward to this since early February, and to help cope with the seemingly eternal 5-month waiting period I've tried to focus on the small, incremental steps along the way rather than focus on getting all the way to transfer. That mindset really did help the time go by quickly, but now I can't seem to shake the "July is so far off so don't focus on it" mindset. Though I've known for two weeks that Stephanie would be starting stims tomorrow, this morning when I looked at my planner (like I do every morning) I was actually startled to see "STEPHANIE STARTS STIMS" scribbled in hot-pink ink. Stims 10-12 days, fertilize for 3-5 days, and then TRANSFER. How did it get here so fast?

I'm not complaining; this is actually a good thing. Hopefully time will continue to go by just as fast, though I'm sure that time will drag to a standstill once I start the two-week wait obesessing. I'm having minor freak-outs when my mind happens to venture into the "what if it doesn't" work department. Now I find that I'm telling myself something that I often told Sarah – "no stinkin' thinkin'."

For now, I'll just focus on the short-term obsession of waiting for AF to start.

…that’s what Stephanie said at our appointment today. She is absolutely spazzed out at the thought of starting Lupron tomorrow. The poor thing was up late last night stressing over starting meds and ended up giving herself a headache. I can’t help but be a little tickled, because I know that once she makes it through the first Lupron shot she’ll be fine. The Lupron shot is such a tiny little needle that I’m sure she won’t even feel it go in.

She reminds me of how worked up I got when I had to take my first progesterone injection. Those needles are HUGE and have such a bad reputation, so I was naturally worked up over it. I froze my butt until I couldn’t feel the cold anymore, and only then would I let Frank get anywhere near the gluteal region with that needle. After many starts and stops of being ready then not-ready, in a near panic I told Frank to just go ahead and do it before I lost my nerve again. Little did I know, he was already finished. I didn’t even feel the needle go in. I learned the next morning that the actual needle isn’t the hard part, but it’s the way your butt locks up with the lovely progesterone cramp that is.

Stephanie, Terry, and I met up at Dr. Blohm’s office to give him our contract (finally!). We also had to go downstairs to get our labs drawn. We each had to four vials of blood drawn. When we walked in and gave the nurse our lab slips, she said that she’d draw Terry’s blood first, then send him into the bathroom for his sample. All three of us had looks of utter shock on our faces, and while Terry instantly turned crimson red again, Stephanie and I instantly got the giggles and three of us asked, in unison, “What sample?” We were thinking that one of his tests required him to be completely put on the spot to produce another sperm sample. Thankfully, the nurse straightened us out real quick and told us that he needed to give a urine sample. They check for one of the diseases through Terry’s “sample,” but through pap smears for Stephanie and me. Stephanie and I continued to laugh about it as Terry got his blood drawn.

Next I got my blood drawn, then I had to talk Stephanie through her turn so that she didn’t spazz out right then and there. In the meantime, Terry loaded up on water ao that he’d have something to “give.”

After we were all sufficiently drained of bodily fluids, we had to go back up to Dr. Blohm’s office to pick up a bit of paperwork to review before our next appointment on the 27th. Thank God we had to go back up there, because a few minutes later the lab called up to ask if we were still there because they missed getting a vial of blood from one of us. Stephanie nearly had a heart attack, but was relieved when we found out that it was me who had to go down and get poked again. I didn’t mind. Needles don’t bother me much anymore. But like Stephanie, I could never be a drug addict. Except for the fertility meds, of course.

Finally, we have something of substance in relation to starting cycling. Somehow, everything feels more real now that I have an actual protocol in my hands. I can’t wait until I actually begin meds. Though Stephanie and I are on bcp’s, cycling just doesn’t feel official until I’m jamming needles in my thighs (or rather having Frank do it for me).

Yesterday Stephanie and I finally received our calendars. For Stepahanie and Terry’s benefit, we also viewed an injection instructional video. Our meds are ordered and should have arrived at their house sometime today. I’ll get my Vivelle patches, PIO, doxycycline, and collection of needles when we meet next week at the hospital for our required screening bloodwork (which by FDA regulation has to be completed within 30 days of embryo transfer). For the sake of trying to document more of the important details, here is the first part of my calendar:

June 22-26: take 10 units of Lupron daily. Take last BCP on June 22 (THANK GOD).
Day 1:   June 27     10 units Lupron/apply 1 patch    (Stephanie starts stims)
Day 2:   June 28     10 units Lupron
Day 3:   June 29     10 units Lupron/apply 2 new patches
Day 4:   June 30     10 units Lupron
Day 5:   July 1        10 units Lupron/apply 3 new patches
Day 6:   July 2        10 units Lupron
Day 7:   July 3        10 units Lupron/apply 3 new patches
Day 8:   July 4        10 units Lupron
Day 9:   July 5        10 units Lupron /apply 4 new patches
Day 10: July 6        10 units Lupron
Day 11: July 7        10 units Lupron/apply 4 new patches
Day 12: July 8        Stop Lupron

From there, I’m to continue applying 4 new patches every other day. I’ll get the second half of my calendar (which will include instructions on when to start the PIO and doxycycline) at our next appointment on June 27. Stephanie and I will also have our baseline ultrasounds on that day. I pray that she has a good antral follicle count going into stims.

Mindless ramble about the cycle alert:
~I hate birth control pills.

~found out that Stephanie and Terry won’t be allowed in the OR for the transfer, which sucks. They will be allowed in afterwards to wait with me while my rear is still in the air and I’m trying desperately to keep from peeing everywhere.  

~we’re the first gestational surrogacy that this RE office has done and it seems that I know more about parallel cycling than they do. Okay, well maybe they know more about the technical aspects, but I’ve caught more than a few holes that could have screwed up the whole cycle.

~I really hate birth control pills.

~Stephanie looked a tad bit green while watching the video. I thought that she was going to pee everywhere when when we got to the part on the lovely intramuscular butt shots.

~We watched the video in a small examination room. Like many dr’s offices, there was a Jack-and-Jill type bathroom separating our room and the exam room next to us. We all got the giggles and felt a tiny bit embarrassed for the person whose pee we heard hit the toilet oh so loudly. A little while later, I heard a few minutes of some rather cheesy instrumental keybord music coming from the bathroom and couldn’t help but wonder if there was some poor guy in there taking care of his part of the reproduction-through-IVF process.

~Have I said that hate birth control pills? Well, I don’t hate them. I abhor, despise, loathe, and detest birth control pills, and Stephanie feels the same. I feel like I have an everlasting case of PMS. By the time I take finally get AF in a little more than a week, I will have taken 8 weeks of only active birth control pills and will have been equally as long since my last period. Hopefully this is the LAST time I can look forward to having AF for a very long time.

I’m looking forward to my period.
I’m looking forward to being a human pincushion.

Surrogates look forward to some of the the strangest things. Right now it’s the simple little things that make me happy. I just hope that all these simple little pleasures add up to one (or two) big results.

As if waiting to transfer wasn't already hard enough, according to new FDA guidelines concerning the donation of bodily tissues, sperm now has to be quarantined for a 6-month period when it comes from a non-intimate donor. Thankfully, Terry made his visit to the "Secret Room" (as Stephanie calls it) on January 5, a bit more than a month prior to our matching. Today, there are just 30 days remaining in Terry's swimmers' prison sentence in Cryo Lockdown Penitentiary.

At one of our appointments one of the questions I asked was if we *heaven forbid* need another transfer and there are **double heaven forbid** no totsicles, could Terry leave another sample now to be stored in cryo if we have to go through another prison term. Dr. Blohm, who is never anything less than in-your-face blunt, responded, "Noooo…Terry left a HUGE sample so there's more than enough sperm to last through three or four fresh transfers. He's a top producer!" Then he let out a good chuckle, obviously amused at himself.

Terry, ever the quiet, genteel shy-guy, promptly blossomed into a shade so crimson that had it been any darker, his face would have been purple. I'm sure he enjoyed hearing Dr. Blohm discuss his "production" in the same tone that a dealership owner would use with conversations about an associate's monthly car sales.

So, in about 45 days or so (the timing with cycling will add about another 15 days to the prison sentence), some of the frosty papas will be thawed and mixed with eggie mamas and will produce what we hope are lots of high-quality embryos and blasts. Hopefully, we'll get the best of everything with this cycle and have our first transfer be successful and be left with an ample number of remaining high-quality blasts. But if we end up with the worst luck ***triple heaven forbid***, thank God Terry sells lots of cars.