Awake

Gads. Here it is 1:50 a.m. and between the dog's back-to-back outdoor bodily function relief requests and Paul's allergy-induced mouth breathing/snoring, I am rendered wide awake and annoyed. Why must I, despite wearing ear plugs nightly, be the one to sleep lightly enough to hear every single thing? Yes, likely all my mothering instinct. I know. Sucks about the dead babies, though...all I get to hear is the sound of my own racing thoughts. (I considered Tylenol PM, but since I'll have to be up to prepare my three morning shots in 2.5 hours and then up for work in 3.5, it just doesn't seem like a good idea. So here I am.)

Thanks for the comments about the Metformin use. My doctor called me back last night with my estradiol level from yesterday morning. It's risen to 98, so my follies are starting to produce their own estrogen now. Hallelujah. We talked a bit about the Metformin. He feels like since it's commonly used to help normalize and induce ovulation in women with polycystic ovarian syndrome - women whose bodies make too many follicles all at once and don't ovulate them - and since I am not polycystic (IVF would be a great time to be, though) and do always ovulate on my own, it's actually suppressing my body's ability to produce more follicles...completely defeating the purpose of the stims. This information still annoys the crap out of me, since he has my big, fat, approaching-2-inches-thick chart - in which only he writes - and he's not thought of this before now. He actually, somewhat jokingly, suggested I eat a big bowl of cereal last night before bed to spike my blood insulin and kick some more growth toward my follies. I didn't do that because he called about an hour before bedtime (8:45, that's what happens when your husband's job requires that he - and therefore you, recipient of the shots in the butt he must deliver - arise 15 minutes earlier with each passing day).

I was in the middle of a nice dream where I went to my next follie scan and was found to have *17* follies, as if stopping the Metformin had fixed everything! (Then the dog woke up needing to go out and pee. Damn it!) I did do a little research last night and found several IVF success stories resulting from only 3 follicles. And, the thing is, IVF does have a higher success rate for 38-40 year old women compared to IUI (between 22-30% compared to about 11% statistically), so Paul and I think we probably will pay the extra money to convert if it comes to that.) (We're actually pretty fortunate to use this clinic in one sense, and that is he doesn't cancel cycles except for ovarian cysts...so even if it doesn't turn out like we want, we still do get a shot at conceiving.)

In researching clinic success rates more, I found that another Oregon clinic has better success rates for my age group - by over 10% - than OHSU's clinic, and OHSU has a slightly higher success rate than our current clinic. It is clear to both Paul and me that if this cycle doesn't result in pregnancy, then it is high time we switch clinics. There's fear with that, but frankly, if we keep doing what we're doing we'll run out of time. A consultation (or second opinion, not sure which it would be at this point), even though it'll cost us a day's pay for Paul and whatever fees we have to pay the clinic for the privilege, would be worth it at this point. If we are told that donor eggs are our only recognizable option, we'll cross that bridge, but we definitely need more information from another source before we give up.

Wouldn't you know, now I'm hungry. Maybe I'll have some cereal after all.