Dear OHSS, 

Please go away! I don't like you disturbing my already emotional roller coaster life. You are painful and make me extremely uncomfortable to even leave my home. I hate you!! Leave me alone!! I want to be able to breath normally again. I don't want to waddle when I walk when I am not pregnant. Do me a favor and disappear. 

So there you have it ladies (and Gents if your out there) I have OHSS after they tried to prevent it. My symptoms got worst after my transfer so my luck is to deal with it now since the transfer is done with. I couldn't eat absolutely anything yesterday. The boughts of nauseou were to much to bare. Then the worst happened this morning...I couldn't get out of bed without rolling out of it. I thought ok maybe I'm just extremely bloated. Hmmm... My jeans don't fit...ok I'll be ok fine something more lose fitting but appropriate for work. 

I get to work and as soon I got out of the car I was waddling. I took a couple steps then stopped because I couldn't catch my breath. Several ppl asked if I was feeling ok because I didn't look well. Around 12:50pm I decided to phone up my clinic...no answer. Lunch time? At around 1:45pm the embryologist called with an update on my frosties. Good news! We have 9 frosties. Bad news I was in the brink of crying. She transferred me to a nurse and she told me to come in ASAP. Luckily I work 15 minutes away from my clinic. 

One look at me and they said, "Oh sweetie, you don't look so good." Sigh. While I was waiting for the Dr to come in I started having a hot flash then I felt like I was gasping for air. I laid back and felt a cold sweat coming on. As soon as the Dr came in and I told her what happened she told me, "just by looking at ur stomach from a far, the way your breathing, and that symptom you definitely have OHSS. Let's take a look." Gasp! My abdominal area was full with fluid. The next 40 minutes of my life were horrendous. She had the suction out the fluid...how is it done? Same as retrieval but this time I'm awake. Unbelievable that I did not cry but I was about to pass out. She said my lips went extremely pale and could see I was "uncomfortable". It's not like she can stop the process so she told me to keep breathing. My eyes were closed the whole time. Finally the pressure stopped and my face got its color back. The procedure was still going but I think my body started coming around. Now that fluid has been drained out I feel a tad bit better. I say a tad bit because my ovaries are the size of an orange. 

Unfortunately, OHSS doesn't vanish unless you have a menstrual cycle or your at the end of your first trimester when your ovaries are finally shutting down. As weird as it sounds my Dr is hoping I accumulate more fluid because that would be a sign of pregnancy. She wants to see me again on Friday or even sooner if I get to this point again. She made it pretty clear I will be back for another drainage. Idk if I can do that procedure again. She reassured me it doesn't harm my chances of implantation and the procedure doesn't affect the baby if I do become pregnant. Bad part: I will have to do this procedure quite a few times. 

 And I was sent home with my pee cup:

Quick update while I'm on bed rest. Today was my transfer. Everything went well. So out of 15 that fertilized 5 made it to blast + the one that they transferred. They will keep an eye on the rest until tomorrow to see how many more they can freeze. Considering that they had some to freeze we only transferred one beautiful soon to be baby. So I am officially PUPO and excited/scared/nervous.

J is at work so I'm all by myself and to top it off he's feeling under the weather and we will not be sleeping in the same room tonight. (Tear) this isn't how I pictured spending the night after having our love child inserted inside of me. Oh well. 

BETA on November 8th and Wednesday to make sure my P levels are where they are suppose to be. Now I leave u with a picture of our future baby. 

Got the call this morning. Apparently I was one off yesterday. They actually retrieved 25 not 24. Out of 25 17 were matured and out of 17, 15 fertilized. Were off to a good start hoping that they keep growing. I will get another update on Saturday to see how many made it to day 3 and with the appt time for Monday's transfer. 

My pain/uncomfortable feeling has resided but still lingering. Didn't sleep very well yesterday. If it wasn't pain on my pelvis area it was on my shoulders or between my rib cage. I don't know why my shoulders ached but it was a strange throbbing feeling. Got my first P shot this morning and it wasn't as bad as I imagined but I certainly felt it compared to the trigger shot, which was also done intramuscular. 

On the upside of things my mother surprised me this morning with a lovely breakfast. Which made my tummy extremely happy. 

Btw, has anyone taken Medrol? I have to take these for 7 days to prevent inflammation and aid implantation. Not fond of them...they tend to melt right away so u have that strange after taste in ur mouth. Yuck!! 

Oh boy. Where to start? It wasn't fun. Well it's not recovering. I don't recall feeling this way from my surgery. I can barely walk...I think I walk like an elderly person right now. Waking up this morning I felt so uncomfortable. I was bloated and felt a lot of pressure but I was able to walk right. I'm so glad I took two days off of work to recover. If I don't feel well by tomorrow I am considering calling in on Friday too. 

Ish was being such a sweetheart the whole time. I think he was as nervous as me...eh more like worried. Everyone at the clinic were exceptionally nice and excited for my retrieval. My nurse wasn't there with me during the time they were prepping me but another one that I have grown fond of was and she was also by my side when they were retrieving. Once I woke up my nurse was right there checking up on me all excited asking J & I if we knew how many they retrieved. 

So here it is. Dr. C was able to retrieve 24!! At this point I don't know how many are mature but we will get that info tomorrow. The embryologist will give me an update tomorrow, Saturday, and Monday which will be my transfer date. I will start taking antibiotics today and Methol. Tomorrow I will start the dreaded P shots. Yiiippppeee!! More shots. Now a pic of my arm trying to recover from the IV. 

Sorry I've been absent on updating with my progress. Truth is my body wasn't responding as it should and I was beginning to think my cycle was going to get cancelled. My E levels on my first check up was 120, on the 2nd check up 350, third 784. None of my follicles were growing any bigger than 13. I was devastated but then I got to thinking that my body always did this. When taking Clomid my body always responded slowly and then it would take off. Sure enough that is exactly what happened. Todays ultrasound showed how beautifully my body likes to torture me.

(This is just an estimate)

Lining 7.2
22, 20, 19 x 2, 18 x 3, 17 x 1,16,15,14,13,12 and other 10s.

I can't tell you what side they were in but thats what I remember. Triggering tonight at 10:30pm and going back for retrieval on Wednesday.

For those of you who said I would get use to the shots you were absolutely right. First stim day my mind was thinking unpleasant thoughts. 

1st Day: OMG! That shit burned. I can't do this for 10 days!! 

2nd Day: Ouch! Boohoo me. Suck it up missy this is nothing compared to labor. 

3rd Day: Silent. Asking J to hurry up and just get it over with. 

I guess the third day was a charm. The menopur didn't burn as much. Follitism is a peace of cake. We will see how I react to ganirelix. Today was my ultrasound/ labs appointment. My arm is do bruised up that I feel twice the pain when they poke at it. My nurse tried to comfort me by saying "Aren't you glad it's getting cold so you can cover this up, Before people start asking you WTF are you doing?"  Lol! The way she said it made me giggle. I saw another Dr (again) he's actually the owner of the place. He's the type to say Hello, everything looks good, bye kind of guy. I miss my Dr at this point but oh well at least my nurse was there to explain things in detail. 

Lining: 4.55 mm ( still bleeding)

R: 12

L: 11 

At this point all of them are to small to even measure. I will go back Thursday morning to check my progress. Ah! As far as the Dr I saw on Friday he is actually just there to help out while Dr. Brown is on leave, so I guess he's been an RE for a while. 

Cramps cramps go away!! 

I was surprised on how many new faces I saw at my clinic. When I say new I mean staff wise. I was seen by a Dr I have never seen in my life. He seemed fairly young. Could be that he is newly graduated or he is just new to that clinic or perhaps I just have never seen him. I haven't even heard of him so I am gonna go with my gut feeling of being new. My Dr is out on maternity leave so I am left in the hands of the other Drs. 

Ultrasound looked good. I have to admit it was a bit painful for some reason. He had a hard time seeing my left ovary and the searching wasn't pleasant. The small talk was a bit awkward and I was glad when he was gone. Afterwards I met up with my nurse to go over all the medication and how to inject myself all over again. Since my IVF consult was so long ago she wanted to make sure I was comfortable and educated on what I was doing. She started to make small talk to get a feel of where my stress levels where at. She asked about our family an if they were aware of what was going on. Answer to that is yes, both out families are completely aware we are going through this. J's family doesn't get involved in any form of way, no questions asked. My family in the other hand is very involved. My mother has been there since the first day we started seeking treatment. The rest ask but I decided to tell them that nothing is happening until November so I can get them off my back. My nurse agreed with this 100% and begged me to stay as stress free as possible. She also asked about J and what his thoughts were about this. I answered with honesty "He can't wait until all this is over with." Aren't we all?? I let a sigh of relieve when she mentioned that Dr. Brown was still calling all the shots in my treatment. She wants me to come in 3 days after stimming to see how my body is reacting. During my consult she did mention the fear of me getting OHSS because of my PCOS and my age. The nurse said I was considered early early monitoring because they usually don't monitor until after day 5. The earliest is 4 days after stimming so I am guessing Dr. Brown really wasn't kidding on keeping a close eye on me. I had to go to work so we cut our convo short and she gave me her cell number in case I had questions about mixing my meds or anything else that came up. 

For tonight:

Follitism 125 IU

Menopur 75 IU

J starts his Doxy (antibiotics) 

I have an appointment on Tuesday to check my progress. Hope I survive the shots tonight or until then. 

First day off of birth control and I feel great. Friday is almost here and I am a bit wee anxious. So today I got a wonderful phone call from a nurse at my clinic. I was unable to answer so I heard her voicemail.

"...I just wanted to run a couple things by you. Something new we are doing at RMA and thought you would be a perfect candidate for it."

When I heard this my mind began to run a million thoughts at once. What could it be? Me a perfect candidate? For? Anyhoo, I finally gave the nurse a call back and this is the info she relayed over to me. Celmatix & RMA are working together to do further research on infertility. Why was I chosen out of many women? My diagnosis of PCOS. Celmatix is a biotechnology company developing non-invasive genetic diagnosis for female infertility. This is 100% voluntary meaning I do not get compensated in any form of way. This research will not necessarily help me specifically but it will possibly help future patients dealing with infertility and are undergoing IVF treatment. What Celmatix is trying to accomplish new techniques that improve implantation and/or pregnancy rates. This research also may result in development of valuable methods for predicting IVF outcomes.

I am participating in this research with great pleasure. Even though it may not help me personally but I love the opportunity to be able to possibly help others. Everything will be completely anonymous besides my age, ethnicity, diagnosis, disease history, medical treatments, and response to treatments. I will be getting updates on the research overall. On friday when I go in for my baseline ultrasound I will be providing a blood sample which will be shipped out to Celmatix's lab and discuss this opportunity with the nurse to discuss this in further detail/ answer any questions I might have.

All in all I am excited to learn more.

They are finally here!! My meds of course. For some reason I thought I would hyperventilate when they arrived but I was just a bit overwhelmed seeing all those needles. I began to question if I was ready. Could I proceed with this? Forget the fact that I already paid for the meds. Or that I paid for surgery. Was I mentally ready to move forward with IVF? 

I expressed my concerns with J and his response was if your not ready then we don't have to move forward. Guess what?? I nearly lost my mind and began to mention all the reason I couldn't stop everything. As scared as I am the outcome is what allows me to move forward. I'm not getting a 100% guarantee that a baby will be the outcome BUT just the thought helps me move forward. 

Fear aside I am ready to get poked. No not really but I will try my best to hold the tears back. Good news is that J was able to get a schedule change so he will be with me incase I can't find the strength to stab myself. Eeek!