A day without shots....what?

You read that right!  Today I will not have a single needle injected into my body.  It seems strange.  (Which when you think about it strange in and of itself; I really want to give myself an injection....I need help!). The reason for the needless day is that I triggered yesterday.  Triggering is an injection of HCG that instructs the body to release all the eggs that have been developed.  This is specifically timed with egg retrieval occurring 36 hours later.  I took the injection at 8:30 last night, and I will be going into the operating room for my retrieval at 8:30.

The HCG shot was different than all the others I have been giving myself over the last few weeks.  For both my lupron and gonal injections, I had a nice little needle like this: 

Cute isn't it?  It would go into my stomach.  I would barely bleed (most days not all) and it wouldn't hurt...honestly.

Now my HCG gets injected intramuscularly (which means in my butt cheek) so it needs a slightly larger needle like this:

 Definitely a little more scary!  I won't lie these ones do hurt, but I try to ice it before hand (don't tell Olivia I use her Sofia the First BooBoo buddy) and it isn't as bad.  We used this "little" needle to inject 50,000 units of HCG into my body exactly at 8:30.  Now we wait and hope all things work the way they should.

How did they know I was ready for injection?  I have been going into Foxboro for monitoring (blood work and ultrasound) over the last couple days.  I had four appointments in total (Friday, Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday).  At these appointment they test my estrogen level and count and measure the follicles in my ovaries.  At the final appointment, I had 10 measureable follicles in each ovary, so instead of feeling like this:

Lots of room for the few follicles to grow.  I was feeling more like this: 

No room for anymore growth or actually any movement.  I am definitely bloated and uncomfortable, though Olivia seems to think my stomach is a great pillow to jump on.  Gee thanks kid!

My estrogen level was the thing that really made them to push me to retrieval on Friday and not Saturday.  My estrogen is 3,500 and they don't like seeing it over 3,000.  It strange that my estrogen was low throughout both frozen cycles and now it sky rockets to possibly unhealthy levels.  High estrogen can lead to Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome, which can be painful at best and deadly at worse.  The nurse said that there is a chance I could have a mild case after retrieval.  To help fight against this, they gave me half a dose of HCG. Instead of the normal 100,000 units I only took 50,000.  

Getting this news sent me to the one place that I shouldn't have gone: Google.  I have been reading all sorts of things about OHSS and high estrogen at trigger.  It can lead to poor egg quality and even early delivery if the embryo takes; it can push the RE to freeze all the embryos and not transfer anything.  After fully freaking myself out (You would think I would know not to go on Google!), I backed up and figured if it was going to be a huge issue (including possible complete freeze of the embryos) my nurse would've said something....right?  I will ask the nurse when I go in on Friday, but before that I will stock up on protein shakes and gatorade, both which help to ward off OHSS after retrieval.

I will give you all an update when I am done on Friday and am able to write coherent thought.  I will probably do a couple short posts for the retrieval and fertility report.  Send me all your positive thoughts for a good retrieval, strong eggs, and good fertilization.