Lupron: Day 9. Stims: Day 7

U/S #2
Went to see Dr. Moustache for a second U/S this morning. Okay. So I had things a bit mixed up yesterday, as in which follicles were on which ovary.

Today's count:

Follicles: 15 (2 may be cysts)
Left: 9
Right: 6

E2: 2689 (Holy smokes! It was 1543 yesterday)

He said that each ovary has one follicle that is somewhat bigger than the others, and that sometimes these are just cysts, without eggs, and to ensure that we're not stopping meds too early, for the sake of mere cysts, he suggested we ride one more day on the Gonal F. I agreed - anything that increases the number of mature eggs is fine by me. One cyst is peculiar...it's a "follicle within a follicle". It looked a bit creepy on the U/S monitor. Like bubbles on my ovaries. Dr. Moustache said that the other follicle often doesn't have an egg in it, and that the inner one is usually the true follicle. I wonder what sort of weirdness cooks something up like that in my body?

I asked about embryo glue. He said he did 200 transfers with it, interspersed between regular ones. Not even a single percentage point difference. He said, "If it worked, we'd be jumping all over it in a second." It would cost $300 to $400 to order the elixer. I'm not afraid of the expense, if it works, but since he's done a bit of a study, I didn't press for it to be used.

Prolactin: they call this a stress hormone. I asked: "Why is my body producing so much of it this time? I don't feel particularly stressed out." He said: "You estrogen is higher this time around (1543 yesterday versus 900-something) and that can raise your prolactin levels." Okay. So that explains it. So it has literally nothing to do with my personal stress levels, per se, but it's a positive feedback loop. Pop half a Parlodel in the baby kitty and it's all better.

After the U/S I went off with a nice nurse to go over the instructions for the meds for the next few days as well as how to do the trigger. I noticed a "suggestion box" on the wall and while she was out I slipped in a suggestion: "The specimen room needs a DVD player with a working remote!" Hehehehe....can't tell you how many times J has had to wrestle with the remote while wrestling with....well....you know....

So tonight's my last shot of Gonal F. I'm bummed that I'm going to have to use up half of a pen for just the one shot. It seems like such a waste of medicine.

On the good side. A Monday

How to get the last bit of urofollitropin out of a Gonal F pen

It's frustrating to see how much Gonal F remains in a pen after you've used up the prescribed amount. I had 450iu pens for this cycle, but the box says that they have something like 568iu in each box. Hell. That's a waste of perfectly good Gonal F.

How to get it out of those blasted pens?

Well, you can't turn the knob to 125iu and get anything out. I tried that. I even tried, 75 and 37.5. Nothing. You simply can't pull the plunger out to load the syringe. At least I wasn't able to discern a way to do it.

What's a girl to do?

I had four "empty" pens sitting about. All I needed was 0.375CC of Gonal F to make my 225iu morning shot and I sure as hell didn't want to waste an entire pen for my last shot. Well here's what I did, and do note that this is against the advise of most medical personnel.

Take yourself a sterile 3cc syringe with 27.5g needle (something small). Wipe off ends of each of your pens with alcohol. Holding Gonal F pen upside down (plunger in air), stick insulin syringe into Gonal F pen, drawing out the leftover Gonal F. Miraculously, the plunger will down move to aide in evacuating the solution. Repeat with remainder of pens.

At this point I'd loaded slightly more Gonal F into the syringe than I needed for my morning shot. I emptied the entire syringe into an evacuated and sterile 0.9%NaCl container (same stuff you mix the dried variety with) and then using a sterile 0.5CC insulin needle, I drew out 0.375CC of Gonal F.

Swabbed off the injection area with alcohol and I was good to go.

Worked for me!