On September 12th she came, and on the next day we wen’t to Belgrade for another round. I remember sitting in the waiting room waiting to see the dr., leaning over to Gordon and whispering, “I really don’t feel like doing all this again.” The trips, the sonograms, the shots, the blood tests, the waiting, the wondering, the stress of it all… but we had to. I mean, we had to.
Everything looked just peachy as it always does, so the doc put a theoretical gold star on my chart and started me on Merional. Whoa, we asked, why? We were on Menapur last time and she was going to increase my dose to 3/day instead of 2, but there was no mention of changing medicine. Well, new doc said it was written on my chart by my doc and it’s the same drug, but if we really want Menopur we can also take that. Naw, I said, you’re the pros and we’ll do what you recommend.
So off we went on our injection quest. I even took some pictures of the drugs and process, why, I’m not really sure. We had an appointment to go back for an E2 test on the 17th, and the level was quite high (in the 500s), so we went for another ultrasound on the 18th, a day earlier than planned. I had 9 follicles that are 9-10mm (some more that are 8mm), so it was a really good result. We only had 4 or 5 last time, and only 2 continued to grow – so now we hoped they all continue to grow (or at least most of them), and some of them have eggs and some of those eggs will divide when joined and one of those will implant when it’s put back. Wow, what a process. To think, some people just have to have sex for all that to happen.
I didn’t mention that through all this, Gordon was fighting to meet his September 20th deadline to submit his Master’s thesis. It was indeed an insane week, and he was working all kinds of crazy long hours.
On the 21st, we went in to see our doctor, who had returned from her trip to Boston. She was waving the American flag after having a great time there, which I guess worked in my favor, because she spent time talking to us and seemed to have some personal attachment for the first time to whether or not we were successful (like, really). she was happy that I had so many follicles, and they were all continung to develop. She said she’d keep me on the stimulation therapy for as long as she could so I would develop as many as possible, and that aspiration would be either the 23rd or 25th. I’d be going back on the next day to track progress.
When we went back on the 22nd, the doctor told us the aspiration would be the next day! She asked for help from her Professor, since my right ovary is hard to see in ultrasound, and I suppose even harder to aspirate. I was more than happy to agree to that, if she felt someone more qualified could do a better job.
So, after getting stuck for the ultrasound, I got stuck with a needle for the ‘stop injection’ (so the follicles would stop growing and finalize maturation), then we went to the lab where I got stuck for 3 tubes of blood from my arm, a pinprick to my finger, and to my ear. The ear is to test for coagulation. Not sure what the finger is for. Later that afternoon we also had to go out again to the cardiologist for an exam and ekg. She was a little weird, but friendly. My bp was 120/75! She wrote that I am what translates as ‘easy chubby’ which really made me laugh. The exam cost us 1,000 dinars, equivalent to roughly $13. No zeroes missing.