November/December 08

The weekend before Thanksgiving I started taking Prometrium to get my period started. The longest it ever taken for me to start after taking the medicine was 11 days. Of course this time it didn't go as predicted as usual. It took 21 days! By then I was getting concerned. I talked to my nurse and they wanted me to come in and get another shot of Progesterone to try and get me to start again. We held off since I also had a sinus infection and waited a week. It all of a sudden dawned on me that maybe this "web like" thing I had on my ovary had grown or turned into something bigger which was causing me not to start. They agreed that it was something they needed to check and so we scheduled an ultrasound for Wednesday December 17th.


Of course the morning of the ultrasound I started to spot but it was very light. Luckily the ultrasound of the ovaries looked great! No more web-like thing on my ovary and they still look like chocolate chip cookies. I wonder if that has anything to do with how many chocolate chip cookies I actually eat? Hmmm...Maybe my New Years Resolution will take care of that. So they said we would see if I actually had a regular period and if I did then I could start the shots. Fortunately for me I still have 3 boxes of medicine sitting in my fridge from back in June. Was this the ideal time to start treatments? Not really. We were leaving for Phillip's family Christmas in Florida in two days and then once we got back we had just a few days and then my parents were coming in to town and then Christmas was this week too. I have a tendancy to get very hormonal, emotional, tired, edgy and grouchy. We talked and prayed about whether or not we should just wait until the first of the year go through another cycle. That was very tempting being that our flexible spending starts over and wouldn't cost us near as much as if I did a treatment in December. (We went through the FSA in lightening speed last year will all of my issues and fertility treatments.) What if this time worked? What if this was it? We couldn't resist so we decided to go for it.

Thursday we received a letter in the mail from Dr. L's office announcing that he was leaving his practice and taking a new position with a very well known medical school a few hours from here. Effective December 31 he would no longer be in Birmingham. That helped seal the deal. This gave us one last shot with Dr. L before I had to find a new Dr. This would be his great send off getting me pregnant! It all was looking up for us!


Saturday December 20th we started the shots. I decided to have Phillip give me the shots instead of me doing them myself. I think I tried to be to in control of things and not including him in the process thinking I could handle it all myself. I wanted him to understand the process and everything that comes with it more than I was allowing him to be a part of. He actually did a very good job giving the shot. He was very nervous but in the end he was good. We started off doing three nights of 112iu's of Follistem and I was scheduled to go back for my ultrasound and bloodwork first thing Tuesday morning.

Tuesday December 23rd I had to pick Emma up out of the bed and put her in the car for our trek downtown for the ultrasound and bloodwork. I felt so bad waking her up because she needed all the rest she could get since she was sick this past weekend and we ran her ragged. We made it downtown just in time and the ultrasound looked fine. Still little follicles growing and the bloodwork came back with my estrogen being 49 which was low but we still had time for it to increase. Dr. L increased the Follistem to 150 for three nights and come back on Friday morning. This would give me an opportunity to meet my new Dr. and go over my file before Dr. L left. The ironic thing about my new Doc, I'll call him Dr. B, is that he was the one who saw me and confirmed my miscarriage back in August. He is slightly familiar with me if that is a positive thing. Bloodwork came back and my estrogen increased to 66. We would continue on with 150iu's of Follistem for 3 nights and come back Monday morning.


Monday December 29th I went back in for my ultrasound and bloodwork. My ovaries looked good to me and I felt like the follicles were increasing nicely. My nurse told me that today was Dr. L's last day and that he would be taking vacation days up until it was time for him to leave town. He told her that he wanted her to call him with my results and that he was going to monitor me from home. I was his "special case." I think he was a bit fond of me. All in a good professional way. Actually I think he was more fond of Emma than me. He always looked forward to me bringing Emma in and getting to visit with her. That afternoon Nurse L called and was saying that she was sad because I was her last Dr. L patient. I immediately got a bad feeling when she said that. What the heck was she talking about? He was going to monitor me from home. Why was she being all sappy? Then she dropped the bomb. He was officially canceling my cycle. My estrogen hadn't increased enough to be able to handle any substantial growth or pregnancy if that was the case. There wasn't any point in continuing the medicine and spending the additional money for more. I was totally shell shocked because I thought things were progressing rather perfectly minus the little estrogen problem. My hopes were high and now they were crushed. I had dreams of being able to "trigger" (take my last shot) on New Years Eve. What better way to bring in the New Year than being pregnant?


I was sad for just a few minutes and then Emma wanted to go outside and play. Isn't she awesome? She knows just the right time to entertain me. lol We went outside and played sidewalk chalk in the beautiful 65 degree weather the end of December. As we were drawing I could only feel but so sad. Phillip and I had talked about and wanted to wait to try again until January so this was just a bonus round cycle. A little positive spin on it was that Nurse L said that Dr. B may let me start another cycle in January and not sit out a month as usual because my estrogen was so low. Let's hope for this.