Transvaginal Ultrasound Wand, It's Been a While

Today C and I made the 90-minute trek up to the RE for a quick ultrasound to check out my uterine lining, and a quick blood draw to make sure I didn't ovulate. There were TWO babies in the waiting room, leading me to almost post to FB "two babies in the infertility waiting room: advertising, or inconsiderate?" (I didn't, though. And for the record, I didn't think it was inconsiderate, I could just see how someone else may have felt that way.) The ultrasound was the quickest I've ever had - probably about 30 seconds, tops. Lining looked good, OK, all done.

Next was the blood draw. Somewhere along the line someone decided that I don't do regular needles well, apparently, because the last several times I've been in there they've used a butterfly needle. I actually looked at it this time. (Usually I just look away, for no good reason, because they don't really freak me out that much but watching just doesn't sound like fun.)

And then we were done, and after picking up some very cheap progesterone (only $10 for 4 vials, with all the needles and the sharps container to boot!) we went back to a very busy office to await the nurse's call.

The phone rang late in the afternoon, which brought back sad memories, but the nurse was chipper. "Your progesterone was at 1.32, which is good, and you're all set to go! So decrease your estrace to 2 per day, and start your daily 2cc of progesterone tomorrow night." I asked about the level of progesterone doubling, which she said had to do with how my body is doing less work with the FET than it does with a fresh cycle, and needing more help. She also confirmed transfer day is November 4, and that they'd call the afternoon before with an appointment time.

After that we talked about the transfer itself. I have two vials that each have two day-6 embryos inside, and one vial of two day-5s. My doc had talked to me last month about how they were going to transfer two of the 6ers. But this morning during their team meeting (where they review everyone's protocols and talk about everything) the embryologist mentioned that the 5ers were in better shape than the 6ers. So the nurse asked for my consent to transfer the 5ers instead. It kind of worried me that the older ones looked worse than the younger ones - was that why the last cycle didn't work? Does that mean the 5ers will suffer the same fate, shriveling away after day 6? Only one way to find out.

Back in the Saddle

I had a lovely break-cycle. I didn't think about IVF much, and C and I enjoyed ourselves.

But Friday it was back to business. I called the nurse to tell her it was time to start the FET cycle, and she gave me the new protocol:

Sunday, October 16th-20th: Estrogen 1x/day
October 21st-24th: Estrogen 2x/day
October 25th-28th: Estrogen 3x/day
Blood draw/ultrasound October 28th
If all looks good, estrogen 2x/day and 2cc progesterone starting October 29th, and the actual FET on November 4th.

Then a comedy of errors kicked off the weekend: because it was late in the afternoon on Friday, I asked the nurse twice to make sure she called my local pharmacy with the order right away because I wasn't sure if it was open on weekends. She assured me she was doing it right after the phone call, so after work I went straight to the pharmacy. The pharmacist hadn't gotten the order. So on Saturday morning (we had plans to go to Portland mid-morning) I called the pharmacy. They still hadn't gotten the order. I called the on-call doctor, who said she'd call it in. I waited for 45 minutes and called the pharmacy again (around 9:45). The audibly annoyed pharmacist still hadn't gotten the order, so she took my number and the doctor's number and told me she'd call me when it was ready.

Two hours later, I still hadn't heard from the pharmacy. I had an appointment in Portland in the late afternoon and I needed time to get up there, so I called the pharmacy again, intending to let them know I only had two more hours before I HAD to have the prescription, and they said the pills were ready. Upset that they'd never called me to let me know that, I ran to the pharmacy. "Oh, it's Megan!" the pharmacist said with a weird look when she gave me the estrogen. I thought that was odd until about ten minutes later, on our way out of town, when my phone suddenly beeped to let me know there was an incoming voice message. It was the pharmacy. They'd called at 9:55. And my phone hadn't gotten the message from the voice mail system until almost 1. No wonder the pharmacist talked to me like that - she thought I'd been nagging them because I was in a hurry and then didn't show up to the pharmacy for three hours after they'd hurried to get the prescription filled. Oops. Sorry, pharmacy. It wasn't my fault.