1 Injection Down, 70 or So to Go

As you can tell, I’ve been behind on blogging and commenting. I started to catch up last night, but I still have a ways to go, so please forgive me if yours is one of the blogs I still need to visit.

I can’t believe a week has gone by already. It’s all such a blur – I’m not sure where it went or what I’ve been doing for this past week, other than working like a crazy person. One of my co-workers gave her notice last week, so my boss’ team is now officially only 50 percent staffed. When I take time off for the cycle, that number will drop to 25 percent – yikes!

I wish I had something profound to write related to this cycle, but I don’t. At least, not at this point. Maybe all of the drugs will eventually give me inspiration. Speaking of the drugs, I did my first Lupron shot this morning. And, as you can see, I lived to tell about it.

The peace I’d been feeling temporarily took a back seat to hyperventilation when I got up today, but ultimately it was much, much easier than I was making it out to be in my mind. It had been almost two years since I’d done an injection, so I was nervous. But the needle didn’t hurt at all going in, and it was such a small amount of liquid to inject that it turned out to be no big deal. One of my biggest fears was that the Lupron would sting, but it didn’t.

Updates: My friend’s first ultrasound went really well. Since she was only at 5w2d, they didn’t see a heartbeat, which they didn’t expect to. However, they did see two sacs – she’s got twins in there! I’m very happy for her.

The Pooch is still having ups and downs, but at least now we know what the problem is: She has pancreatitis, or inflammation of the pancreas. She had a relapse again on Friday, so I took her back to the vet (third time in two weeks, they’re getting to know us really well) on Saturday. They ran some blood tests and called yesterday to tell us the results.

The good news is that she seems to have a relatively mild case of it, and it’s possible that once we get it under control this may be the only episode of it that she has. The bad news is that it’s often triggered by giving dogs high-fat food they’re not supposed to have, like table scraps, and getting my mom to follow the “nothing but kibble” rule is going to be tough. Our zoo will be staying with her while we cycle, and she likes to spoil them.

I’m hoping she’ll cooperate when I make it very clear that 1) pancreatitis can turn serious and even fatal, and 2) I’m going to be super stressed about the Pooch if I think there’s even a tiny chance she’ll be fed something other than kibble and that the stress could mess up the IVF cycle. (Disclaimer: No, I don’t really believe that stress causes infertility or causes IVF cycles to fail, but if thinking so is what gets her to cooperate, I’ll take it.)

My mom is one of those people who, when a doctor says not to do/eat/take something, responds with “Oh, what does he know? Doing (whatever the “something” is) can’t really be that bad.” Then she goes ahead and does it anyway, just to prove that no one can tell her what to do. So, I’m afraid she’ll dismiss the vet’s orders of no table scraps or treats. But I’m also hoping that if I throw in the “stressing me out could mess up the IVF cycle” idea on top of it, the potential guilt will be enough to motivate her to cooperate. We shall see.