And I am triggered! Retrieval is 9am Thursday.

I am feeling bloated. And looking horrendously bloated. I don’t feel that bad – unless I try eating an actual meal, at which point I feel like throwing it back up because everything is so squashed in there. (Which really makes me wonder – how on earth can I go through an entire pregnancy with a 5lb baby and huge uterus taking up my entire abdominal cavity and feel fine, but my ovaries bloat up and I feel ill? What is WITH that?) The belly is going to have fun when I get pregnant again…. it takes half a suggestion to get big and round and boy does it go for it. I guess it doesn’t look that noticeable when I’m wearing clothes, but I look down and it’s just so wrong. Dearest belly, I am NOT PREGNANT. Please deflate.

Yesterday’s E2 was 3300, so they wanted to drop down my dose to 2 vials instead of 3 of the menopur. I puttered about mixing my meds, thinking mainly about how I was going to do the trigger. Then this morning I woke up and thought to myself, Self, did you do 2 vials, or 3?? After mentally walking myself through my motions I ended up pretty sure that I had indeed given myself 3 just by rote. Well shit.

I did confess to the nurse that mistake, but she was pretty sure that wouldn’t affect anything. “We’re just supporting those follicles now,” she said. I felt better after that.

And after the ultrasound. My lining is at a lovely 12 triple. Right side has the same as yesterday (12 total), with the largest now measuring 17.5, 18, 19, 19.5, 20, 20.5. Left side also has the same as yesterday (14 total), with the largest measuring 13, 13, 13.5 16.5, 17, 17, 1, 18, 18.5, 19.5. My left ovary was very weird looking in that the top half had the big ones, and the bottom half had all the smaller ones. But she pointed out that we’ll still probably get eggs out of the smaller ones, since they’re all squished in there… they look small because there’s no room to grow, even though they’re ready.

My E2 from today came back at 4719… a good sight better than 6000+ like last time! (Even though I do realize that for “normal” people approaching 5000 is bad.) So trigger it is!

I was supposed to trigger at 9pm, which would put me at 36 hours before retrieval. The doctor apparently decided that triggering 2 hours early last time didn’t do anything, so he went back to normal protocol. But, I don’t know, it didn’t hurt anything. And maybe that’s why we got 3 mature eggs last time. So we triggered an hour early. Shhhh.

This was – drumroll, please – my very first IM shot. I was fine as long as I didn’t think too hard about it. I just kept telling myself that people do it, it’s fine. But then I started mixing the hcg with the big needle and stared at it thinking holy shit. It’s not even so much the thought of it hurting that bothered me, but I just had this irrational fear that the needle was huge and would hit bone or something. Yes, irrational, I know. But it wigged me right out.

Den reassured me – he had people at work show him how to do IM shots, and he even got to do a couple. I watched the video on how to do it – I did, not Den, the person who would be doing the shot. Later I realized how silly that was, but I needed the reassurance that it wasn’t a big deal. I iced my butt (which, shockingly enough, didn’t really feel numb like my belly gets). Bent my leg, leaned forward a little, and breathed. And did not look.
“Ready?” Den asked.
Poke. I felt a little pinch. I braced myself for the stinging.
“Okay, done!”
“Wait… you’re done already?!” I hadn’t even felt him pull the needle out. Maybe it was more numb than I thought back there. Or butts just aren’t all that sensitive. Could be a little of both, I’m thinking.

Onward to retrieval and the big reveal. How many embryos will we get this time? I still hold a little torch for some frosties. I am not naive enough to really believe that this change in protocol will give me a basketful, but getting 2 or 3 embies would be really really nice.

This cycle has gone quite well so far, I just don’t know what to expect at this retrieval.