BCP Day 8

The RE's office called today with our schedule. It's something like this:

• Jan 19: start BCPs
  
• Feb 8: start lupron (oh joy!)
  
• Feb 14: last BCP (27 pills in all)
  
• Feb 17: anticipate AF (hilarious. my mother's name is Flo and today is her birthday)
  
• Feb 22: baseline U/S
  
• Feb 23: start stims (likely to be 225iu gonadotripin am/pm, and menupure in pm). stims to last about 8 days.
  
• Mar 2: follow up U/S, bloodwork (E2)
  
• Week of Mar 4: retrieval

The nurse thought that I'd also be doing 10 days of doxy before retrieval, but I just can't imagine they'd have me to ANOTHER course of abx on top of what I am already taking. It's just mind boggling.

So game is afoot, so to speak.

I'm so worried about whether this is a good time for me to be cycling or not. I haven't lost my weight from my FET and I feel just icky. I wonder if I feel so icky from all the antibiotics or what? A few of Dr. Hungarian's patients write graphically visual stories about their ovaries teeming with CT and that they would wait months after a course of treatment to make sure that things were okay.

But I just don't have months to wait. You know? I'm turning 43 this year and no one knows more than me that time is running out rather quickly. A three month wait, at my age, is a SIGNIFICANT loss of time on the "fertility clock". Our last FET failed late September. It's the end of January. My embies will be removed roughly 5 months after our last FET. I see it as a HUGE loss of time. J doesn't. He believes Dr. Hungarian when he says, "You're a spring chicken! Your ovaries are big! You have plenty of time!" J is a bit naive with these matters. He believes whatever a doctor tells him. He's the perfect patient. He also loves Kaiser health insurance and has never really had to "manage" his own health care.

As for me? I question everything. I think Kaiser sucks ass. They nearly killed me once, with an ectopic (the intern said I had a whopper of an STD and sent me home with a 2 week course of abx), and they misdiagnosed my last major GI episode. I had "the runs" for literally 7 months, and in that time they did upper and lower GIs, gall bladder scans, ultrasounds, and every wretched fecal fat test you can imagine. They found nothing. A fill-in doc for my primary care doc gave me abx one day. Just to see if it would do anything. And low and behold I was cured. 7 months of diarrhea only to find that I had an infection. My gawd. So I hate Kaiser. I don't trust doctors offhand. I question them and many of them hate me for it.

So I don't immediately trust Dr. Hungarian when he tells me that I am a "spring chicken". I think he's a bit reckless to be saying such things to a woman in her early 40's. Let's be realistic. I'm on the verge of losing my chance to be a mother. I am desparate, willing to try just about anything to get pregnant in our next IVF session. But I'm not sure if I'm willing to wait to see if this treatment works better for waiting. I think it's safer to cycle now...and if it fails...cycle again in the timeline that Dr. Hungarian patients profess to be more optimal.

I've got a contingeny plan. Of sorts.

Ah, along another path...I discovered a way to take my thrice daily dose of the foul tasting flagyl. This is something I've been thinking about for awhile now. Visions of dipping them in chocolate was my first idea. But I imagined that hot melted chocolate might disrupt the pill structure too much. I really over thought this though...and a more reasonable method came to me two nights ago. Wrap them inside a capsule! I knew I'd seen empty gelatin capsules at WF's...and yes, they still had them. The "OO" size worked perfectly. A very snug fit but let me tell you that it works like a charm. No nasty taste AT ALL. Yay! Dr. Hungarian also said I could go to 250mg thrice a day from my 500mg dose. So I have a bunch of pills to chop in half and stuff into gelatin capsules. What fun.

So we're headed for Tahoe for five days with some friends of ours, and their 2 kiddies (3 years and a bit over 1 year old). J is excited about snowboarding, but I've been so damned cold these past few weeks that the idea of freezing my add off even more just doesn't do a damned thing for me. I'm taking my board and my boarding clothes, but I think I'll be sitting fireside with the kiddies for most of the trip. My idea of vacation right about now is a trip to a beach where the weather is so warm that I actually break a bit of a sweat sitting in my cabana chair. Yes, that's about right. I'm not sure where the best place to be for such weather would be right about now but if you have any ideas please let me know. J can go to Whistler by himself. I want a warm beach dammit.