Day one as a human pin cushion - drugs for IVF

Not much to report today.  Absolutely nothing happened on cd 15 as I was waiting for my appt today.  One minor note, I started spotting last night which had me slightly worried.  But I thought it made sense seeing as I stopped the bcp's 2 days ago.  The IVF nurse confirmed this was completely normal and nothing to worry about. Only other item of interest was this great big expensive box arrived on my doorstep.  $4300 worth of fertility meds.  I have to admit, even with all that money spent, it certainly did not feel like Christmas.

Had an early morning bloodwork and ultrasound.  The bcp's did their job and everything looked good. They said my ovaries looked "fantastic"which made me laugh.  I made the comment "at least something in my body is doing it's job!"

I do want to interject here.  While not eating straight paleo, I have been strictly gluten free, and I do tend to try and lay off the grains.  I think that has had a seriously positive impact on my ovaries.  I've noticed on the ultrasounds, those "string of pearls" have been conspicuously absent.  I think my inability to get pregnant really falls under either my age or that "unexplained" category.

Anyway, my "fantastic" ovaries were showing about 20-25 follicles on each side.  I am hopeful that that means we will have a very successful retrieval.

Anyway, around 2:30 I got the call that everything looked good and my instructions for the weekend.  I'll take 225 IU of the Gonal-F tonight, tomorrow and Sunday.  In the mornings, I will take 3 vials of the menopur.  Time to whip out these babies....

Don't they just look scary?  The good news is, these are just used for mixing the menopur, NOT for injecting into me, thank goodness!  The actual needle is much smaller, no bigger than an insulin needle. I'll try and remember to take a picture of it tomorrow so you can see.

Honestly, I was more nervous about mixing everything up.  The vials actually come with the meds in a dry powder form, and you have to add a special water to it. But my IVF nurse had walked me through it, then suggested watching videos on youtube.  So that's what I did, I laid everything out on my computer desk, watch the video and did my thing.  It was just like an insulin shot (I had gestational diabetes with both boys) and it did not hurt one bit.  I chose to do it myself into my stomach.

DH tried giving me insulin shots back when I was pregnant with both boys, and frankly he's horrible at it.  He either jams it in (the man has strong Scottish genes) or loses his nerve at the last second and goes too slow.  In any case, it hurts and I really am OK doing it myself.

So shots over the weekend, then I go in Monday to see what's happening. And that wraps cd 16.