Gametes In Love

Today was our last day of injections! We ended the evening with the trigger shot. Much like the name suggests this injection triggers ovulation. In two days, or 35 hours to be exact, I will be knocked out in a surgical room while our RE harvests my eggs.

My last ultrasound was also today. I have 9 follicles that the doctor is pleased with (16mm +): 1 straggler (~14mm), and two little munchkin ones (at about 8mm). I really wanted there to be more. I’ve even given my body little pep-talks. It’s actually more like a chant that I’ve been running in my head “grow eggies, grow!” And they’ve been growing: just not enough for the little ones to catch up.

I heard two statements at the appointment today that shot me through the heart:

1. In general, not all mature follicles have eggs inside: only about 2/3’s do. So here I’m thinking “Great, now our odds are even worse!”.
2. My uterine lining is on the thin side, which blows: thin lining equals lower chances of implantation. There are no supplements or drugs I can take at this point to improve that.

It just frustrates me that these two elements are so out of my control. I can will my eyes to blink and my fingers to type, but I can’t will my ovaries to evenly grow more than 10 follicles.

However, in good news, did I mention that tonight’s trigger shot was my last shot? In even BETTER news, it was subcutaneous!!! When we showed up at the trigger injection training last night I saw the nurse put on the big 1.5 inch needle on the syringe. I asked her if it was possible to trade in our 1.5” for a 1” as I heard they shorter ones hurt less. She looked at me perplexed and said: “this is just the mixing needle, the injection needle looks like this” and pointed to a short 0.5” one. “It’s subcutaneous”, she says. At that point I blurted out “I love you!” Ok, if you’re sitting back there thinking “What’s the big deal?” let me explain: trigger shots, typically using the drug HCG are intramuscular. Big needle goes in your bum and hurts… a lot. Our clinic’s protocol, however, is to use a different drug, Novarel, which is administered subcutaneously with a short needle in the fat of your belly. I know that belly shots sound yucky, but believe needle fearing me: they are a piece of cake.

Our egg retrieval is scheduled for Saturday morning. I’ll fill you guys in when the anesthesia wears off. Meanwhile, please chant with me “Grow eggies, grow!” and throw in a “Fertilize, fertilize!” chorus line for good measure. More on that Saturday!

This entry was posted on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 6:48 am and is filed under Making Baby. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.