Wednesday, January 9, 2008

First Round of Fertility Drugs

Okay, Chickadees, here's the story. On the 30th of December I started Clomid 100 mg which I took for five days. Yesterday, January 8th, I had an ultrasound to check for follicles - make sure the Clomid worked. I guess it did, because I had two follicles on the right ovary and *at least* three on the left. The nurse in my dr. office said that they were at least 10 mm or something like that. Tomorrow I get some shot and 30-36 hours later ( around midnight on Friday) we will need to bed down. That's the short of it.

Here's the long of it. I was an emotional wreck while on the Clomid. I have only been enjoying my returned sanity for two or three days now. I guess it was Sunday when we realized that I went a whole day without getting my feelings hurt.

As for the ultrasound - I can't seem to get a strait answer about how many follicles are typical. I asked the tech and she said - "well any would be good for you honey!" and then said it looked like I had some so that was good. So girls, how many is good? If I have five follicles is that going to mean I will release five eggs? If I release five eggs does that mean that I will end up with quints? I asked the nurse that question and she just said, "Oh, that's unlikely" But then she fished around asking if I knew this procedure increased my chances of multiples. I told her yes, but I didn't ask her multiples of WHAT - two, three, five?

Okay as for this shot - this is odd. First they tried phoning it in to a pharmacy. Three pharmacies later and they find out that no one carries it in my town. It will need to be UPS delivered from a pharmacy warehouse 400 miles away. I won't be able to give the injection to myself at home, I will need to go to the doctors for that. But, I really don't want to go thirty miles away to my doctor's office. So, I get orders faxed to a walk in health clinic here in town so some nurse can stick a needle in my hind end. Here's the other thing. I don't even know WHAT it is that I'm being injected with. Each person I speak with on the phone calls it something different. Trigger shot, Lupron? The box says HCG which I'm pretty sure is the pregnancy hormone, right? Did they UPS guy deliver the right stuff?

All this stuff feels like a rocket launch, not something that teenagers can manage in the backseat of a station wagon after consuming too much alcohol.

Oh, also I'm doing some vitamin voodoo protocol that involves vitamin e, wheat germ oil, ginkgo, and evening primrose oil - it was smuggled to me via the infertility underground. AND husband and I will be using pre-seed for our critically timed snogging. Keep your fingers crossed.

2 comments:

andrea_jennine said...

You poor thing! I'm sorry no one gave you any straight answers. Here's the low down: 5 follicles is totally fine. It means you are a good responder to Clomid. You SHOULD NOT end up with quintuplets! I always had 5-6 follicles on Clomid, and my doctor told me that the body still chooses the best follicle to actually release an egg - there are just more (and better) options to choose from for that egg. The "trigger" shot IS HCG - you got the right thing. It comes under different names as a result of pharmaceutical branding. I always received "Ovidrel" from my pharmacy, Novarel & Pregnyl are other common brands. The HCG shot will mature the follicle(s) and cause ovulation to happen at a predictable time. ("Lupron" is something different; it suppresses ovulation, rather than inducing it; it's used in IVF protocols to prevent all the eggs from being released before they are surgically retrieved.) You can read more about the HCG injection here:
http://www.drugs.com/mtm/ovidrel-injectable.html

Meghan said...

You should call your doctor and demand some answers. It is completely wrong of them to not tell you what medication you are taking and what effect it is going to have on you.

What you're taking is the trigger shot, which is a massive dose of hCG. It allows you to time ovulation.

5 follicles is a good response. How many you will release depends on what size they are. I've always triggered when my largest gets between 17 and 20mm, depending on how many there are). Anything that is mature at the time of trigger will release.

Sorry you didn't get all the info you need, I'd call them back and raise some hell!