After my imaging and labs, we headed in to meet my scheduling nurse and talk meds. My RE ordered that I start Lupron that night, and stop the BCP on Saturday (hallelujah!!). I cannot tell you how glad I am to get off those things. The moodiness, the bloating, the headaches....just the general ickiness of it all. BCP and I have never been friends and parting will mean absolutely no love lost. Starting the Lupron shots proved to be as painless as I expected. I'm sure that's just because the injection is just a sub-q (subcutaneous) needle and a thin solution. For now, I'm feeling just fine about it, however, I'm well aware that the ugly Lupron headache monster will be rearing her horned head in just a few days.
My instructions were to continue with a daily dose of 10iu of Lupron until cycle day 1 on my calendar. To get to cycle day 1, as you may recall from previous cycle posts or from your own cycle, day 1 begins the first day you start stims. And we all know you can't start stims until you have a period. I was desperately hoping that the last period I had in December would be the end of them for at least 10 months, but it looks like I'll be forced to have one more. My RE wants to start everything fresh. Fresh meds, fresh lining, fresh outlook. In the past, I've had so many issues with getting my period to start. I mean, this should be a natural thing, right?! You finish BCP, and then a few days later....BAM. Aunt Flo arrives. In theory that's the deal. In the land of me, however, that ain't so much how the dance goes. My temperamental uterus typically says "Uh uh. You think YOU'RE running things here, but lemme tell you who's REALLY boss!" I've waited up to 7 days for AF to come post BCP, and nothing. My nurse all but expects me to call and ask for meds to bring on AF just so we can get the rest of this show on the road. Wasn't that the case this time? Nope. Not in the least. And if you didn't see that coming, I'm disappointed in you, frankly. After all, since when do I do what people expect of me? Yeah. Marinate on that.
I'd walked out of the office telling my nurse, "Buh bye...I'll call you next week for AF meds, k?" Two days later, and exactly 24 hours after I quit BCP, AF swept in like Scarlett O'hara at a summer BBQ! I immediately called my clinic that Monday to shock the hell out of my nurse. "No", she said. "Its too early for meds. Wait your turn, lady!" I cackled into the phone at her. "I'm not calling for THAT. You said I should call with AF, right? Well, she has descended." Crickets. Not a word. "Um, hello?" I heard a laugh and papers rustling on the other end. "Yeah, I'm here honey. I thought I heard you wrong. Just let me look to see what we had planned." It turns out she wasn't ready either. We got ourselves together and she went over the protocol with me. Normally, I would start stims a few days after my period started, but this time we actually have to hold off for a few days because no one anticipated that AF would get here so early! I've got to have at least 7 days of suppression first (i.e. Lupron), so I'll start stimming on 1/24 and go from there. Here's my protocol:
Prior to cycle day 1:
10iu Lupron until cycle day 1
From cycle day 1:
0.2cc of 40 mg Estradiol Valerate IM shot every 2-3 days
4 x 0.1mg Vivelle Patches every 2-3 days (yeah, that's 4 patches at a time on one butt cheek, if you're keeping up)
2 x 2mg Estrace tablets daily (you guessed it...not by mouth. ew.)
5iu Lupron daily
2cc progesterone IM shot
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In case you're keeping track of the financial side of things, here's the breakdown for this round, including all visits, ultrasounds, labs, thawing embryos, embryologist assisted hatching and actual transfer of the embies:
Total Drug Cost (after insurance): $2,210
FET Protocol Cost (no insurance): $3,150
Total: $5,360
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With the need for lining checks a few times a week to see that I'm gaining some headway there, we won't have a date set for transfer for a little while. My RE says he hopes to try to get something going 14-16 days after cycle day 1, so that's looking like Feb. 6th. If my lining isn't ready by then (and what on Earth makes you think it would be?), then we would go on Feb. 13th, mostly because we only transfer on freaky Fridays. Either way, I'm prepared to jump on whichever day gives them the best chance. Because we've had two failed cycles already, our clinic gave us the option to transfer either two or three embryos this time. It was really hard to decide what to do there, not so much because we're afraid of multiples, but more so because a failure would mean losing three em-babies instead of two. The loss of any is a hard blow, but the birth of any one is all the success we hope for in life. We talked and talked, brought our feelings about it to each other, and were just open about what concerned us most. We eventually decided to go with three and moved on immediately, deciding not to discuss it again unless there was a problem. There's no need to continue to agonize, and no need to doubt our decision making. Do I want to know how you feel about it? No, not really. This is the one time I don't care to hear feedback. Really, its a very personal choice. I realize that it seems controversial to some, but please, let's each do one another the courtesy of keeping our mental controversies to ourselves, shall we? Great. Moving on.... My calendar has all sorts of exciting potential news! It turns out that my three beans could be trying to implant on Valentine's day! How sweet. <3 The best part about the timing for this cycle is that, assuming we get a positive result, it would be time for our first listen to the bean(s) heartbeat(s) around late March. That would be a glorious birthday gift for the hubs! I can't think of anything either of us would like to celebrate together more. Wish our little beans luck as they prepare to come home!
We've been here before. Its been almost exactly a year that we've been working with this RE to make our family happen. We've had a successful first cycle that later ended in loss. Then we moved on to a cycle that yielded absolutely nothing but hurt feelings and empty wallets. If you asked me to explain it, I couldn't tell you what's different. All I know is that this one just...IS. Everything about my body feels different. My blood sugar is looking the best it has in a long time (partly due to starting a friendship with Shakeology, I think, which I'll chat more about later). My blood pressure rivals that of a 19-year-old college kid. Everything is in prime condition and I can see it happening. I can visualize the hubs and I fighting over whether to find out the sex(es) of the bean(s). I can see us getting discharged from the RE to the regular OBGYN and making a birth plan. This is happening, and I can't wait to see what that means for us.