Saturday, July 28, 2018

The ART Coaster, Again

The roller coaster lives on.

I had a monitoring appointment today, my fourth this cycle (plus baseline). I was thrilled with the outcome: follicles at 22, 19, and 17. Lining at 6.18 and trilaminar! It's not going to get any better than that for me, so I'm happy. I assumed we'd trigger tonight, especially since my LH appears to be climbing.

Then the call came in: stim for one more day, return for monitoring tomorrow.

Really?

By tomorrow, that 22 will be at least 24. Larger follicle sizes on older patients are not typically good quality eggs.

If past experience holds, my lining will only get worse by tomorrow. It might be thicker, but it won't be trilaminar. In other words, given all past cycles, waiting a day will make things worse. I develop cystic patches each time they try.

Then there's the extra monitoring. At $575 an appointment, with 6 appointments, we've spent an insane amount on this cycle. This will mean monitoring on days 7, 8, 9 and 10. WTF?

The last hit: we're going to the boundary waters for our anniversary and to scatter Quinn's ashes. Pushing trigger until tomorrow means that if this cycle results in a positive home test, I'll either have to cancel the trip, or wait nearly a week for betas. That wouldn't matter at all if I thought that waiting a day would improve our shot, but given the first two points above, I definitely don't.

Also, new sonographer today. Hands down most painful t/v ultrasound I've ever had. Partly because she managed to drop the gel off the transducer onto the table, meaning there was no gel on the probe when she put it in. Partly because she couldn't find my ovary, decided my bowel was in the way, and started mashing my abdomen with her hand to 'move your bowel'. Spoiler: ovary was not hiding behind my bowel. Partly because, when mashing my stomach didn't reveal the ovary, she must have decided it was down toward my spine, so she angled the transducer such that she was pressing hard on my urethra. Did I mention I have a UTI? I do. It was the longest ultrasound I've ever had and I came close to telling her that we needed to be done. Lots of yoga breathing. New sonographer? She's on again tomorrow.

Only on the ART roller coaster can you go from so thrilled about the results to so down in an hour or less.

1 comment:

  1. Damn that’s rough! Request that a nurse be in the room with you for the ultrasound. If they ask why, mention that you have bruises from the previous day. That should get their attention.

    My fingers are crossed for you.

    ReplyDelete