And we're off!

I had my head all wrapped around a break. I will be in California in three weeks and I thought that by taking a cycle off of synthetic hormones, maybe my hair and skin would look nice in my photos. I had convinced myself that a break was a good thing, and I was actually looking forward to it.

But when I spoke to my Dr. for our follow-up last night, it went a little like this:

Dr.: (in his best compassionate doctor voice) “So, there’s no rush, no hurry, think about what you want to do and when you’ve decided, give me a call.”

Lulu: “Oh, we want to do it again. We want to do it again right away. We assume we need to take a cycle off since it’s CD4 already.”

Dr.: “If you’re ready, I’m ready.”

Lulu: “What?”

Dr.: “Are you on birth control?”

Lulu: “No. Wait, what?”

Dr.: “I can call in BCP for you and get you a protocol tomorrow.”

Lulu: “What? [pause as she considers getting through airport security with needles and Qcaps, decides that diabetics do it every day and that she can live without close-up shots of her in San Francisco, after all that’s what photo re-touching programs are for right?] Okay, let’s do it.”

Dr. Friendly thinks he can address my shitty fertilization report by increasing my stims (2 Bravelle, 3 Menopur the whole time) and ICSI-ing all of my eggs. I asked him if he was concerned about my egg quality and he said absolutely not. About two minutes later I asked again “So you don’t want to do any further bloodwork? You think my eggs are fine?” He said he’s not concerned about my eggs at all.

I heard him say that twice, ladies and gentlemen (listen to me, like there’s a single gentleman out there reading this blog). There was no discussion of Premature Ovarian Failure, an egg donor, an AMH test like I had geared myself up for. Just poor stim timing, which is correctable.

I feel like IVF#1 was child’s play compared to this upcoming cycle. I didn’t gain a single pound (!) and had very minimal bloating and pain. I know with this more aggressive protocol I won’t be so lucky this time, and I told him that.

Lulu: “Pump me up, I don’t care how uncomfortable I am, I want something to freeze this time.”

Dr.: [chuckling, probably asking himself how he deals with these hormonal women every day of his life] “Well, I will hold you to that.”

Fasten your seatbelts, here we go!