Ugh. It’s such a pain in the ass dealing with the constant highs and lows of fertility doctor visits. Five months into Dana’s pregnancy we started the IVF process for me. Not to get me pregnant pronto, but to withdraw and fertilize my eggs in order to freeze my embryos for use at a later date…or to sell on the black market. Almost 4 months later, we are still trying to withdraw my eggs so we can fertilize them. It’s like the chicken has flown the coop and refuses to lay eggs anymore. My ovaries were just fine until we started screwing with them with these IVF drugs. Now, instead of producing eggs, my nether regions are developing ovarian cysts. Which is what led me to this past Wednesday’s fertility doctor’s visit, and the second appointment for aspirating TWO MORE cysts (we aspirated the first one a few weeks ago). Lucky me.
I choose to do the aspiration procedure without anesthesia because my body loathes anesthesia more then the IVF drugs. Honestly, the pain isn’t overwhelming. It’s just…well, being in that position while you’re fully coherent of your surroundings, and a needle longer then my tibia is being inserted vaginally…you get the picture. And what does my dumb ass do to tolerate the elephant in the operating room? I crack jokes, the physician and assistant laugh, which then causes the ultrasound head and tibia-length needle to move inside of me…which doesn’t feel so well.
The baseline measurements from my blood work that day and in the follow-up appointment on Friday still showed that my estrogen levels were too high, thereby keeping me on the antagonist injections. On Monday they will withdraw blood again to get my levels, and if they are where they should be, then I start another set of injections to trick my body into producing a shit-ton of eggs all at once, that we will then withdraw to make babies with at a TBD date. If the levels are still wacky, then I’m postponing this whole step in our lives until later this year in order for my body’s hormone levels to return to normal. This is my life…this is my decision…and quite frankly, I feel like the doctors and assistants in the fertility office have seen my vagina enough lately to the point that they probably have every nook and cranny memorized.