Game Plan

So the next update will be on Thursday, August 4th.  I have a 7:20am ultrasound and blood draw that day and they will let us know if we can proceed to the next step or if we need to continue on with what we are doing and not advance in the process yet.  They need to make sure my ovaries are ready!  They do the ultrasounds and blood draws early so the results are back by time the team meets at noon and so they can get back to me with the new plans in the evening.

Till then, same old same old lupron 10 units every night, vitamin D/ASA (aspirin)/prenatal and I end birth control tomorrow.

See you Thursday!

Love,

MamaD

 

Two posts: 1st work injection/grateful

Friday’s after work post I didn’t publish till now:

1st work injection:

Injecting myself today was easier than yesterday, instead of 20 times it took about 3.  I did it in the med room at work.  My hubby pre-filled a syringe and packed it in a Tupperware container for me to take to work….dinner would have been nicer!  Again, taking Lupron really isn’t an issue so I had no problems taking a break a work and continuing on today.  I am glad that I am off the next week. I think I’ll just let the hubby do my injections for me to take the pressure off.  It also makes him a part of the process as well which I think is important.  I do not believe all of the work should fall on me.

Cigna!!!  **** **** That’s how I feel about this insurance company.  I am grateful we have 100% coverage but again still fighting our now almost 19 month old $1750ish bill for G.  I also need to start a new pack of OCPs (oral contraceptives) tomorrow, went to pick it up today from the pharmacy and Cigna will not pay for it unless I pick it tomorrow morning.  BTW, we are attending the funeral of my Aunt tomorrow so we’ll just have to swing by the pharmacy on our trip out of town.  They also did this with some of my hubby’s meds when he injured his back, he literally had one pill left of Flexeril and they would not fill the prescription until the one pill was gone (so the next day).  What if we needed to travel?  Cigna is very inflexible when it comes to refills and it seems like they really try to nickel and dime all of their costs.  But who knows, maybe this is how they offer 100% coverage for IVF.  Anyway, so I will start a new pack of OCPs tomorrow but only take 3 pills of the new pack then I’ll be done with birth control and solely on injections then hopefully preggo!

Grateful:

So CVS didn’t have my prescription ready this morning and we literally had to wait 20 minutes for it to fill before going to the funeral….we were running late as it was.  We missed the wake and luckily arrived 10 minutes before the start of the ceremony.  It was really nice seeing all of our family and reconnecting.

On the way home, I was on facebook and saw that one of my old classmates passed away.  He was very young and I have very fond memories of him.  I am not sure what happened but from the posts it looks like he had been in the hospital sick.  My work family also had a tough time this past week as well.

Overall, I am just feeling grateful about having good health and being a fortunate person in this world.  My struggles aren’t too bad in comparison.

Love,

MamaD

Celebrating milestones

So we have been really great at capturing most of G’s milestones with professional photography.  Part of the reason we are so diligent is because we treat her like she could be our last child.  We don’t want any regrets and will have these memories forever.  We love her soo much and are soo grateful to be her mommy and daddy.

We have found this amazing local photographer who is also affordable!  We love love love her work and just received G’s 18 month photos today!

Totally in love with my sweet baby!!  I can’t believe how fast she is growing!

Earlier today, I’ve been messaging a friend who has now gone through several rounds of IVF and or transfers without success.  She may be reading this, just wanted to let you know I realize how lucky I am to have G and I think about you everyday.  I hope that you get to become a mother one day, one way or another.  I feel so blessed to be a mom.

Love,

MamaD

Photo credit:  Studio 4 Photography

1st shot done!

Tonight was simple, 10 units of Lupron.  Last time, my hubby did 99% of my injections for me.  However, now that we have G to watch and I’ll be at work for some injections, I really need to do majority of them myself.  I took on the task of giving myself the first one and I literally haven’t practiced in years since our last round.

Even though I am a nurse, there is a mind game to overcome when stabbing yourself with a needle.  I literally counted 1,2,3 in my head with a stabbing motion 20 times before I actually did it.  I was pleasantly shocked when it didn’t hurt!  This medication isn’t bad at all, I’m not to the painful meds yet (I believe Menopur gave me the anxiety/painful injections last time).  To combat the issue with Menopur this time, it’s in the fridge (it can be room temp or in fridge) and I can dilute it more…so we’ll see how it goes…not sure if either of previous factors mentioned will actually help but can’t hurt to try to see if it makes a difference.  I also had mixed Menopur with Bravelle last time, not sure if that was a factor…this round I will have Menopur by itself.  I have no clue why it burned so bad, but I remember crying before I got the injections because of my anxiety surrounding the pain.

At least tonight, I didn’t feel the needle at all or the medication really.  It was just overcoming the fear of stabbing my belly.  Thankful for my bell fat for once.

Love,

MamaD

 

 

Purpose of blog

Wow, we start injections tonight….it is still sinking in.  Today, I’m sending private messages to all my close family and friends letting them know that the process is starting.

I may be really hormonal the next few weeks and stressed which either equals a lot of crying or saying off the wall mean things I don’t really mean.  So I am giving everyone fair warning that I probably won’t be myself…  I will try to be myself but sometimes the hormones just take over!  Last time, I think I was more sad than mean.  I cried a lot and during inappropriate times (like at work).

I am also asking people to read the blog instead of bringing up IVF the next few weeks.  I’m re-sending out the link to the blog with a gentle reminder to read the blog instead of asking me questions. I started the blog with this purpose in mind and it’s why I loved having a blog during our first round of IVF as well.  It allowed family and friends to stay informed without me having to repeat everything in person all the time.  It really helped reduce the anxiety and emotional toll talking about it brings while allowing me to express my feelings and still share this wonderful journey with family and friends.

Love,

Mama D

 

We start injections tonight

Honestly, it doesn’t feel real yet.

I was discussing with my neighbor last night about things that you don’t expect in life.  Infertility for us has been that thing and I chuck it up all to “bad luck.”

She has an autistic son and really focused on things happen for a reason, maybe this is happening so I can help someone else.

Maybe this blog will reach a reader and make them not feel alone, help fertile couples understand what IVF entails, or help others understand why you don’t ask when someone is going to have more kids….are they going to have children….etc. etc.  You never know what struggles may be happening behind closed doors.  1 in 8 couples suffer from infertility, so chances are that you know someone even if you don’t realize it.

Love,

MamaD

 

Educational session

This morning we had our 1 hour educational session with the nurse.  It was much shorter than last time and it was a great review of our medications.  So I’ll start injections on July 28th, it will be one daily until August 3rd.  On August 4th, I will be getting two injections daily and it will increase to three injections daily on August 7th and will continue three injections daily till August 12th or 13th.  On the 12th or 13th, I will take my trigger shot and the morning after the trigger shot is egg retrieval.

A few things I clarified, my trigger shot is now subcutaneous (aka a small shot in the belly).  Last time, my trigger shot was with a 1.5 inch needle in the buttocks and my co-worker had to give it to me while at work.

Anesthesia is 100% better this time.  I will be completely asleep for the entire egg retrieval procedure.  Last time, I was awake, it was painful at times and I had conscious sedation.  This time I will be asleep for 45 minutes or so and wake up in recovery with a nurse.

Last time, after I found out I was pregnant I had to take progesterone in oil intramuscularly with a 1.5 inch needle into my buttocks.  It really sucked!  I was sore, sat on a heating pad while at home, and very unpleasant overall.  Instead of a 1.5 inch needle, I will be giving myself progesterone vaginally 3 times a day.  So instead I will be a leaky mess…  I will take estrace orally and progesterone vaginally for a total of 10 weeks if I am pregnant.

If pregnant, the clinic likes to perform a 7 week US and then release us to an OB (last time, I had bleeding/clots/chunks of tissue scares….so we did extra ultrasounds before the 7 weeks).  I really liked my OB but she didn’t deliver us because she was in a rotating practice.  She did give us extra ultrasounds and was sympathetic to our infertility struggle.  So I am not sure if I plan to stay or go, I do like that she was super close to us (less than a 5 minute drive).  We will most likely stay because of location, which is huge with school, a baby, and work.  It would have been nice to have someone we knew deliver us.

The clinic printed us out a nice version of our calendar below and here are some of the notes I took this morning.

Some additional notes I took on back:  The Menopur can be mixed into 1ml of fluid.  The lupron is measured in units like insulin units and that is what the insulin syringes are for.  The Gonal-F is basically the same drug we used last time (Bravelle) but a different manufacturer.   Bravelle had a huge recall so the clinic stopped using it.  They overfill the Gonal-F, so even though the vial states it is 450 IU, it is really closer to 600 IU.  The vial is multiple use and we have special syringes to measure these units for injection.  We could technically mix the Gonal-F and menopur but it’s a lot of fluid and it would be better to keep separate.

Can’t believe we start injections in 6 days.  Ready to start and get this over with and praying all of this ends in a beautiful baby.

Love,

MamaD

 

 

 

 

Date night

Hubby and I had the opportunity to have a date night while on vacation.  At dinner we both got teary eyed discussing IVF.  We would love to have another child but there is a possibility this won’t work and that we will only have one child.  We thought about it, cried, and talked about how grateful we are to have her.  She will be enough if this does not work.  We love her so much and are lucky to be her parents.  We just would love to give her the gift of siblings.  We both grew up with siblings and would love for her to experience that joy.

A friend of mine offered to watch G tomorrow during our medication teaching.  Last time, I had to take lots of notes.  Hopefully, second time around is a lot easier and more straight forward!

Love,

MamaD

It’s getting real, meds are here!

I still remember the first time that I picked up my IVF medications and how shocked I was.  I knew I was signing up for IVF but I didn’t really comprehend the amount of medication I would be injecting into my body.  This time, I knew what to expect…it’s more of a I hope everything is here and I am not missing anything. Overall, I feel less anxious about the whole process.  I need to be strong and be here for my daughter, so a lot of my focus has been on her (which has been a wonderful thing).

Our meds were delivered to our home while we were on our lovely beach vacation with the in-laws this past Tuesday.

Instead of me getting shocked by the box of medications, it was my neighbor who gladly took the package off our porch, opened up all the boxes, and refrigerated the proper medications.  When she called, I could tell she was slightly taken a back by all the medications.  I said something like, “Now you get a first look at what we have to go through to have a child.”  She carefully went through everything and made sure my medications were stored properly for me.  So grateful for awesome supportive neighbors!

So below are the medications for this round!  We will have our teaching session tomorrow.  We used lupron and menopur injectables the previous round but the gonal-f is new.

Love,

MamaD

 

The large box to the right 28G x 1/2″ is all needles…inside of it is the picture below.

This is my first time using the Gonal-F, inside the box is below.

5 vials of medication and 5 vials of sodium chloride to mix the powdered injectables.  This is one box of menopur.  I have 4 total!  

Cigna is a pain in my a**

So even though we should have 100% coverage, Cigna makes it very difficult to get anything accomplished.  Luckily, the IVF clinic really works hard to make everything go as smoothly as possible for their patients.  They said the nurse and MA spent a lot of time on the phone dealing with Cigna and it was not pleasant.  We said we totally understand because we are still fighting our $1800 medical bill from 18 months ago.  We have 100% coverage, so I am not paying it.  Cigna agrees we shouldn’t pay it but they are also not paying it and the hospital wants their money.  I feel like Cigna and the hospital need to work it out, we have spent 2-3 hours on the phone every month for the past 18 months and nothing has been resolved.  I am glad we have 100% coverage, but it doesn’t mean anything if Cigna doesn’t pay the bills and we get thrown into collections for their incompetence.  Ok enough of that….sorry for the rant…..

Starting yesterday, I have received several emails from Cigna indicating that there was a problem with our medication orders.  They needed prior authorizations, approvals, etc. etc.  Last time we went through this process we had a different insurance, meds were ordered and we picked them up at the local pharmacy (easy!!).  Now meds are going to be delivered this week while we are on vacation, but my neighbor is going to pick them up and refrigerate medications if needed.  Next Friday, we will be bringing our meds and calendar to an educational session.  We didn’t have to do one for this IVF, but we decided we wanted a quick refresher just in case we have to mix certain medications.  We also have a different protocol and different medications this time. I want to make sure we understand what we are doing. IVF is so much to go through, you really don’t want it to be unsuccessful because of our error, misunderstanding of medications, or procedures etc.

I have also decided since I am working super part-time, and since I work during evening injection time, I will give myself injections while at work or ask a co-worker.  It is going to suck but hopefully I’ll only have to do it a handful of times.  If worse comes to worse, I can always have the hubby drive to my job and give me a drive by injection(s) in the car.

We also signed our lives away today and put our names on the 20 page consent document.  Honestly, I didn’t read it this time and just signed away.  But basically, you have to decide what to do with embryos if one of us were to pass away (options:  donate to science, discard, freeze indefinitely at a different facility, etc.).  Babies born to IVF have slight increase risk of birth defects and then there is also the risk to yourself.  Do these meds put me at higher risk for cancer? etc. etc.  I don’t remember all of the details.  Either way we are going through this and understand the risks.

I also scheduled my follow-up appointment (after IVF….hopefully it is a good happy pregnant appointment) and all of our ultrasounds today.  So while on medications, they monitor my ovary response through ultrasounds and blood draws and will tell me to possibly increase meds/let me know when they think ovaries will be ready for egg retrieval.

My ultrasounds/blood draws are scheduled on:  8/4,  8/11, and 8/13. Just blood draws are scheduled on 8/7 & 8/9 and  my follow-up appointment is 9/12.  All of my appointments are around 7am which will work out great, before Jeff goes to work so he can stay home with Gabby.  I really try not to bring her into the clinic because I want the clinic to be a safe place for those struggling with infertility.  So far we have only brought her in once.

Below is a more readable calendar for our followers.  As you can see, medications with question marks mean we don’t know for sure if I’ll be taking those meds on those days.  It depends on what my blood work/ultrasounds tell the doctor.  They literally adjust medications based off of levels and ultrasounds on an every other day basis.

My work schedule is pretty set/I usually get what I request….so I am thinking I will be doing injections at work…. July 29th, August 6th/7th, and August 12th.

Love,

MamaD