Mission accomplished

I'm now cyst-free. Yesterday's cyst aspiration was completely uneventful, quick, and relatively painless. Sierra wanted to give me the lowest dose of IV sedatives she could, but Dr. M. said I was talking too clearly still so requested her to up the dose. I ended up using 2/3 the amount of Versed, Demerol and Fentanyl as I did in February when I underwent egg retrieval for IVF. The result is that I "came out of it" much more quickly, and while I was queasy and shaky all day, I never got sick. What a blessing...being ill with a fridge full of Thanksgiving leftovers would have been a special kind of Hell. :)

It turns out that I didn't ovulate last Sunday after all. Dr. M. never called with my serum progesterone level from the blood test, but I found out yesterday it was only 1.67 - definitely not ovulatory. So, that little follicle o' fluid was actually a second cyst in the making. I'm not sure why I was in so much pain last Sunday, whether because the new cyst was forming (the first one didn't hurt at all), or perhaps because the larger one was starting to shrink. Regardless, Dr. M. sucked the life out of both of them. Yay.

I did provide an evening full of amusement for Paul as, just like February, I started repeating my questions. This time, though, I vaguely remembered asking a question, so I'd ask again, and then say, "You already answered this once, didn't you?" He'd giggle...usually it was more than once. I had this weird memory of being catheterized and it hurting, but I chalked that up to a dream from the night before, until I tried to pee later in the day and it really hurt! I wandered out and asked about it, and sure enough, I did actually recall being catheterized because I was...and I recall that it hurt a little bit at the time. I could also feel the giant needle puncturing something (the end of my vagina or my ovary, not sure), but it wasn't bad, and the drugs helped. Last time I yammered on and on about having to put our steers on my spreadsheet, funny because I was actually in the middle of gathering stuff for our first business tax cycle, and there really was a cattle inventory spreadsheet.

My lack of fear this time I chalk up to trusting Dr. M. so much more than we did in February. Up until then, we'd had several visits but the most "techy" thing we'd done was three unmedicated IUIs, which don't really require that much vulnerability (save for having him all up in my lady parts, which doesn't really count in this business, to me anyway).

February was supposed to be our first IUI cycle with injectible hormones. Our odds of conceiving were jumping from 1-3% per cycle to 20-25%. It felt like a miracle. However, I went at it kicking and screaming. I was PISSED that I had to subject myself to four daily injections of hormones to make my body do what we wanted. Our second follicle scan revealed I had too many maturing follicles to do IUI safely - IUIs done in combination with injectible hormones have an increased risk for multiples pregnancies, so our doctor won't do one with more than 4 follicles. I had 6. I was so worried he'd cancel my cycle, throwing all that heartache and over $1000 worth of drugs down the drain. Instead, he offered us the ability to convert to IVF for another $3000, a fraction of the cost of a regular IVF cycle. We thought about it for all of two hours and jumped. Paul gave me an injection of Cetrotide to halt ovulation, and the next evening at about 10:00 p.m. I gave myself an injection of Pregnyl, a trigger shot. The following morning, with a very empty stomach and a mind full of fear, I was put under for egg retrieval.

We ended up with only two eggs. That's one thing I was apparently asking as soon as they finished, and my response was, "Two?! Only TWO?!" Of course, the drugs make you forget the whole experience, so I proceeded to ask that question another 40,000 times over the rest of the day. Paul left a semen sample and we went on our way, me barely upright, very loopy, and then sick sick sick as the drugs left my system. The following days were a nightmare of stress...waiting each day for a call from Dr. C., the embryologist, reporting on fertilization (none the first day, I had to get a message to my logger hubby - which ultimately went up with a log truck driver thanks to my brother-in-law - to come back to Olympia and give another sample by 1:00 p.m.), news that one of two eggs fertilized the second day, and then, finally, short notice on day 5 that we had a healthy 5-day blastocyst to transfer to my uterus. Unfortunately, that little blast (I called it the Little Embryo that Could) failed to implant. We took a couple of months off, and then, in May, we did a proper superovulation IUI and got Aliya and Bennett.

That February cycle changed things at our clinic. No longer did we feel like a number. They knew our names, Sierra asked about the farm all the time (she thought it was so funny that I decided to talk cattle while under sedation), and we have a whole new level of trust. When I started bleeding in June, Dr. M. and Sierra both were so awesome.

So, cyst aspiration under the hands of Dr. M., Dr. C. and Sierra? No sweat. Sign me up! They did a fabulous job as always, I made it through yesterday, and today feel like myself. Now we need to wait for my next period to start sometime late next week so we can start again. I'm actually anxious to start the shots again. I'm feeling hopeful about our next cycle. I will be working on checking my expectations so that if it doesn't work I'm not crushed. (That's a tall order!) I'm just happy to finally be on the road to making some progress again.