Estrogen, estrogen, and what? Oh...MORE estrogen!

I had another monitoring appointment today and when the nurse performing the ultrasound told me that my uterine lining was 6.9, my first thought was that it wasn't quite thick enough. I know, I know......what MORE can I worry about?! I'll always find something!

The nurse from the fertility clinic called and told me that my uterine lining is a bit "thinner than what we want right now", so I'm going to increase my dose of estrogen AND start wearing estrogen patches. WOOOOO! That's a LOT of estrogen! Here I thought I was lucky for not feeling the typical side-effects that others feel. I also felt as though the intramuscular injections were too "easy" and too "painless", that we might not be getting it all the way in to the muscle. My blood work shows that my estrogen levels have definitely increased (from 42 to 417!), but my uterine lining isn't responding like it should. This has been a big concern for me all along as I've heard of surrogates who weren't able to proceed with a transfer due to the their body's lack of response to the meds. I've thought for a while "what if I don't respond to the meds and my lining doesn't thicken?". The nurse re-assured me that it IS in fact responding to the meds, but we're going to increase the dose and add some more estrogen to make sure we're at the point that we need it to be for the transfer. Everybody...........you've been warned!!! :)

A quick explanation for estrogen and why it is important for my uterine lining to thicken; estrogen helps thicken the lining (as does Progesterone, which I start pretty soon, too), which gives the embryos a nice "cushy landing spot" and increases our goal of achieving a pregnancy. 

 

First intramuscular injection down....several more to go

I had my monitoring appointment today; they did a vaginal ultrasound to check my uterine lining (looks pretty fluffy in there, which is good for potential babies), and my ovaries (still don't understand the need for this, we're not USING my ovaries). They also drew blood.........this is something I will battle with forever I'm sure. It's a 50/50 chance that I'll wind up doing a face-plant on the floor when I have to have my blood drawn. But today was a good day, I didn't feel a thing:).

I received the call from the fertility clinic a few hours later to give me the "go-ahead" to start my intramuscular injections of Estrogen. "My" coordinating nurse at the fertility clinic, described the steps to giving this injection. She asked if I would have someone helping me, to give me this injection. I said "I'm not sure yet.......we'll find out how the first one goes!". I was SO relieved to find out that the reason there were TWO different needles for this injection was because the BIGGER one was to DRAW the medicine and the SMALLER one was to INJECT it. Phew! So all day I've been wondering "what's this going to be like?". I drew the meds and made Terry read the directions.........a few times. We paid special attention to the part where it said "stick quickly". He had to tell me to quit laughing so I'd quit jiggling (this was nervous giggling..........not "hey, this is fun" giggling"). I'm pretty sure he was as nervous as I was, but he wouldn't admit it (probably a good thing that he didn't admit it at that point:). He cocked the needle to the side and said "should I inject it like this, or like this?" Neither one of them looked good to me! But, it was so quick and painless! I couldn't believe it! Assuming we hit the right spot every time, this will be an easy bed time routine! Afterwards, Terry said "I don't know why, but I feel queasy". Good thing he has 4 more days to re-cooperate :)

Fast forward -> Meds, meds, and more meds

Wow has the summer gone by wayyyyyy too fast! I won't even begin to explain how sad that makes me feel, I love spring and summer more than anything. I'm just glad I have so many things to look forward to over the next..........10 months, assuming everything goes well. I have this lingering feeling of "what if my body doesn't do what it's supposed to?"...........I need to get over that quickly.

So, lets brief over the past 2 months: In June I flew to the clinic and had my check-up, which I blogged about just before this post. I received a phone call from the clinic on 8/2/12 to learn that the donor had been cleared to proceed.........along with the rest of us - WOOO HOOO!!! T&Y were over the moon, I could hear it in their voices over the phone and I could read it in their messages to me. The transfer is set for 9/13 or 9/14.

I started birth control pills, baby aspirin, and prenatal vitamins that evening. The birth control is to sync my cycle with the donor's and my fingers are crossed that my cycle will cooperate.

I received the rest of the medications via FedEx on 8/10/12 and words can not express how excited I was to get those. First of all, the box was like the "black hole" - a never ending supply of pill bottles, syringes, alcohol prep pads, oils, etc. It meant "the beginning of something amazing", and it was also a little scary to see those intermuscular syringe needles. But it made everything a little more "real", for me. 

I had my first "monitoring appointment" on 8/13/12 to measure my uterine lining. I assume all was "good" because I received a call from the nurse at the fertility clinic with the "go-head" to start my Lupron. Lupron is a medication that is used to control ovulation and it is given via subcutaneous injections. I was warned by the nurse of the possible side effects; nausea, moodiness, dizziness, headaches. I've read quite a bit about other surrogates' experiences with Lupron and their side effects and those are the ones that seem the most common. I give myself the injection after work around 5:00pm every evening and tonight will be my 5th day. So far, I've experienced; a headache, which probably had nothing to do with the meds since I get headaches periodically anyways - nothing an Excedrin couldn't kill; a bruise at one injection site (won't be using that area again! Ha!); some dizziness a few minutes after the injection; and I'm just going to pretend that my moodiness over the past week has EVERYTHING to do with the meds - today is my worst day in regards to moodiness but I have a feeling the weather has more to do with it than anything else. So, in all honesty, I don't feel much different and I'm expecting it to gradually show its effects with each passing day. Not to be a Debbie Downer, I just think it's better to be prepared :)

Mine and Terry's flights are booked to go to La Jolla 9/11-9/17. We plan to spend time with T&Y on the two days before the transfer - probably the San Diego zoo one day and maybe dinner and walking around another day. I will be on STRICT bed rest at the hotel for 3 days following the embryo transfer, before I'm allowed to go home. I had been pretty excited about the idea of sitting in bed and relaxing until one experienced surrogate mentioned not being able to shower during that time........WHAT?!?! So I quickly came up with a solution and decided that Terry will have to give me sponge baths in bed because there is NO WAY I am laying in bed for 3 days without at least SOME form of washing. Is it weird that I'm one month away from this amazing experience and all I can fret about is the fact that I won't be able to shower?! I plan to spend the first day off bed rest, taking a shower!

I'll have more to blog about when I start my estrogen injections (those are the big ones), next week. Terry will be administering those to me in my butt cheek..........lets hope there isn't a whole lot to blog about next week ; )

Until next time..............