The Peanut and the Whale

It's really funny seeing your follicles on ultrasound sometimes. My right ovary is so full they're all getting squished into weird shapes--the u/s tech said: "Look at that giant one! It's shaped like a whale!" Then there was a peanut and an odd assortment of other shapes. They grew again, quite a bit. The nurse who looked at the chart said they might trigger me tonight but I seriously doubt it. Only one was over 20, there were others at 19 and 18, and still a few at 15-16...but I'd honestly rather see several at or over 20 and I think Dr. M feels the same.

We went ahead and made our return flights for Monday night assuming a retrieval Monday morning. Yes, I know it's not fun to fly the same day as a retrieval but we really have no choice. I simply cannot miss another day of work. If we end up triggering tonight and retrieving Sunday we'll do our level best to get home Sunday night but alas, there are no more Southwest tickets available so we'd have to save our credit and pay through the nose to fly with someone else. Oh well, what can you do?

In the meantime, we'll see what the estrogen does. I am going to call my nurse in a second to see if they can call me as early as possible if they do decide to trigger tonight so I can let my work know about canceling my schedule Monday....they've been so great but I'd love to give them as much lead time as possible. I think if the estrogen shot up they might be more inclined to trigger too...

Today we're moving hotels. Boo. We have fallen in love with our little "home away from home." I've been here nine nights, I can scarcely believe it. We got a great deal on Price.line and then when we used Price.line again got a different hotel but for a similar deal so at least it's fairly cheap. Not that cost is an issue at this point....see flight cost reference above.

So we've been taking the shuttle from our hotel tons. We've been chatting it up with the driver. Today I just asked him if he had any children--he's in his mid-50s or so--and he said, sadly "No, we were never blessed. We did all the treatments too...at one point I was giving my wife two injections per day."

My heart just sank for him. He said that, while they've adjusted to being childless, seeing babies still "tugs at his heart strings." I teared up and could only nod.

I can only imagine what the fertility treatments were like ten and fifteen years ago, the super low odds of success, the stress of the unknown.

Who knew? Me and the shuttle bus driver...fellow infertiles...although seemingly so different, we're more alike in ways most people will never, ever know.

UPDATE: Well, my E2 went to 5998 in one day with almost no meds. I didn't even get the other numbers. So I'll only get microdose Hcg tonight and no GonalF. I get it. The funniest part was my nurse called and said: "OK, so she doesn't want you to take any GonalF tonight. But she wants to know what you're really going to do..." Ha. I guess they think of me as a rogue patient or something. So, all that hope of my E2 not going out of control...I guess that didn't happen. I guess I'm glad it didn't go so high at the beginning, but should I be concerned about the high E2 ruining my egg quality?? Yikes. Not that I can do anything about it now. I guess it should fall a little bit tonight.....