Friday, March 15, 2013

Stim Days 9 & 10 - Follicular Vocal Therapy Success Rates

Someone needs to conduct a new study here. Singing works. Scientific facts:
A) On Wednesday I sang to my follicles.
B) At my Thursday ultrasound, they were bigger and more plentiful, my uterine lining was thicker and my estradiol level had doubled. You may think it was the carefully monitored doses of medication but I believe that my crystalline voice and heartfelt, awkward lyrics greatly contributed to my ova-uterine accomplishments.
I realize that I am a small sample group of one but I'm convinced there's something to what I shall call Follicular Vocal Therapy. Yesterday the head IVF nurse called to tell me that things were looking good and that we would most likely do retrieval on Sunday. I can't believe I'm almost there. I thought I'd be shooting up at my kitchen table forever. I did not have the 20+ follicles that I've heard about women growing but instead 9 lovely plump follicles at or above 10mm and 5 of those were over 14mm. I went in for another ultrasound today and hopefully, one or two more will scoot over the 14mm mark. Quality over quantity. What would I do with 20 children anyways? I live in a small, 2 bedroom apartment. There is simply no room.
In order to ensure another dazzling show at today's ultrasound, I continued my Follicular Vocal Therapy this morning. This time, J chimed in. We sang and sang in the bathroom. Our lyrics were impressive, the accoustics impeccable.
Scientific fact "C": It worked again. The nurse just called back. I now have 12 follicles at or over 10mm, 7 of those are over 14mm. And my uterine lining is 10.5mm. That is huge. My uterine lining has never gotten over 7.1mm and that was with medication. I usually roll in the 5-6mm range which, in bagel terms, is the endometrial equivalent of a "shmear." Embryos do not like to nestle into a mere scraping of lining, they like to cozy into something nice and cushy. And today, ladies and gentlemen, my uterus is cushy.
My apologies to any gentlemen reading this. It is highly unladylike to speak so freely about one's uterus. You know what else is unladylike? What I'm about to tell you. I'm embarrased. My leading side effect of the medication has been fatigue. All day, all night, can't get out of bed or spell my own name fatigue. My ultrasounds take place in the morning before work and I am typically less than chipper. I have gotten way too used to lying in that ultra-exposed position. Today I was exceptionally tired with 18 days of Lupron and 9 days of Follistim and Menopur stored up. As I lay on the paper-covered exam chair, my feet in stirrups, my head on a foam pillow, and a wand up my hoo-hah, I started to fall asleep. I didn't actually fall asleep but definitely started heading in that direction. With a stranger with a foreign object probing in my lady bits. This is a new low. So low. Pretty horrifying, completely embarrasing, and now for you to ponder and me to forget.

Retrieval is officially scheduled for Sunday, St. Patrick's Day. May the luck of the Irish be with me and may it actually be true that everyone is Irish on St. Patrick's Day.

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