Aug
08

Is Whining a Lupron Side Effect?

Predictably, the headaches and night sweats started as soon as I hit “publish” on my last entry, the one that asserted that I “haven’t noticed much in the way of Lupron side effects.” Hubris, you bastard.
Also, the period I mentioned? Sometime that night it disappeared, replaced by spotting. Now, I am grateful not to be writhing on the floor in agony, don’t get me wrong, but my baseline scan is tomorrow, and I don’t need additional factors to worry about. For those of you playing along at home, here is a partial list of the thoughts frantically cartwheeling through my mind:

Do I have a cyst?
What if my lining isn’t thin enough?
If all is clear at tomorrow’s scan, will I be starting stims right away?
What if I still haven’t had a full period?
Why is my scan only three days after stopping the pill?
What if I get my period AFTER starting stims?
Will eight days of Lupron at 10 units have been enough suppression?
What dosage of stims will they put me on?
Will it be too much?
Too little?
Why are they using Menopur with the Bravelle rather than a straight FSH protocol?
WHAT IF THEY FORGET I HAVE PCOS AND OVERSTIMULATE ME AND I AM CANCELED AND DEVELOP SEVERE OHSS AND DIE AND MY CORPSE IS TOO BLOATED TO FIT PROPERLY IN A COFFIN WITH THE LID CLOSED AND MY BRUISED, DISTENDED BELLY BALLOONS OVER THE CASKET TOP, FRIGHTENING THE MOURNERS?

You can see from this last bit that I am having limited success with my “worry about one thing at a time” plan. Well, actually, that’s not entirely true; I was feeling quite calm and collected until today, the day before Forbidding Hurdle #1. It is not helping that I have never met my new doctor, the one looking at my chart after every visit and making decisions about dosage changes and cancellation. And I’m not going to meet him, at least not anytime soon. After several days of phone tag with the scheduler, and two rather pathetic phone messages pleading for even five minutes of the good doctor’s time, I got a call this morning informing me that his first opening is Thursday, August 23rd.

Hmm. Does that date ring a bell for anyone? IT IS MY TENTATIVE RETRIEVAL DATE. A bit late in the game for introductions, don’t you think? I wanted to meet the person who would be overseeing my cycle, so that I felt sure he knew me and my history, because god only knows whether my chart is complete. And I’d like him to be able to put a face to the ovaries—there is something unsettling about meeting a doctor for the first time when you are heavily sedated and he is swabbing your cervix.
Everyone who knows him assures me I will be getting excellent care. He was a pioneer in the field, responsible for the first IVF birth in the state. He is involved in clinical studies, wears adorable bowties, and is by all reports a delight. But I still wanted to meet him, so that he can see how utterly charming I am. And because this cycle is more or less in his hands.

I consider my self quite knowledgeable about infertility treatment. I keep up on research, I understand the mechanics of the endocrine system and PCOS, I am well-versed in diagnostic procedures and normal lab values. But for once I am completely out of my league. I have read and read and read about IVF, but, really, the only way to understand specific dosages and protocols and how you might respond to them is through experience. Of which I have none. I am not used to feeling so uninformed and reliant on the judgment of my doctors. Those of you who have been reading for a while may have picked up on the fact that I can be an insufferable a bit of a know-it-all. At the risk of sounding terribly conceited, I haven’t run into much that I don’t understand, or can’t come to understand with a bit of reading. And this understanding has helped me feel like I have some control. It sounds rather stupid, but it has been important to me to know what tests to request and what my lab values mean so that I don’t have to take someone’s assertion that “everything looks fine” for granted. I have been at this fertility thing for almost three years, but with the start of IVF, I am back to feeling like the rankest beginner, with very little idea of what to expect and an uncomfortable, creeping awareness that I have absolutely no control over whether this cycle works.

I will post after my scan tomorrow. Until then, please think stern, repressive thoughts toward my ovaries.

By Alexa | Posted in Ceci N'est Pas Une Ecrivaine |