Reduction in Force?

Hey y'all -

It's been a few days...but because my ovaries were up to their usual level of staggering inactivity, I had no progress to post.

Sunday's appointment was slightly more noteworthy, unfortunately not in an overly positive way. Sunday was day 50 of daily stim injections for me, and suffice to say that the RE was none too pleased with my lazy-ass ovaries.

Here, yet another excerpt from our over-the-stirrups conversation:

RE: "K, there's still nothing happening in here, and I'm worried. Your ovaries are just completely loaded with follicles, but none of them are responding to these meds. They are all still around 6-8mm, and that is not a good sign."

Me: "I know. I've been giving them pep talks every night, but they clearly have a problem with authority."

RE: "You have what I call SCARY ovaries. IF you do eventually respond to the meds, and IF ALL of those follicles develop, we'd have a nightmare on our hands. We couldn't risk triggering with that many mature follicles, it would be very irresponsible."

Me: "I understand. So what now?"

RE: "Well, understand K - I'm not saying that you should give up.........yet."

Me: "Ahem! Ffflugh, hughhh! Ahem!" (Yet???!?!?!?!)

RE: "I can give you more drugs, of course, but the risk is that all those follicles will mature simultaneously. If they do, there is a procedure that I can perform before triggering you, which is called a follicle reduction. You'd be sedated for the procedure, and we'd insert a needle into your ovaries and remove all the "extra" follicles, leaving you with a nice, safe, 2 or 3."

Me: slightly less pale now, "OK."

RE: "So, do you have any thoughts about this? What are you thinking you want to do at this point?"

Me: (stifling the urge to scream like a banshee), "Ummm, well, I'd like to PROCEED." What's the alternative doc? Go sit in a corner and RELAX until my ovaries decide to get off their sorry asses and work for a change, all on their own????

RE: "OK then, I'm going to leave you on 150ius of Follistim for the next 4 days, but we're also going to add Menopur to your daily routine. You'll take 75ius of Menopur, in addition to the Follistim, for the next four days."

Me: "OK, so ummm, because I have all these tons of follicles - does this mean that I'm a better IVF candidate than IUI candidate?"

RE: (literally stepping back in his haste to rein in my over zealousness, and holding up a hand palm out, traffic cop style), "Well now, I've never said I thought you were a good candidate for IVF. We're not even ready to talk about that yet. I mean, no eggs, no baby. No eggs, no IVF, you know? We don't even know if you can successfully produce eggs yet, there's no way we can even start talking IVF until we know the answer to that question."

Me: (doubled over with wind knocked out of me), "Oh. OK."


I've been ruminating on this exchange ever since. I feel like Dr. D stole my trump card. I guess I've always felt like IVF was in my back pocket as our Plan B, fall-back, pull out the big guns, save the baddest for last, last resort option - my IF safety blanket, if you will.

I lost a whole lot of optimism at that appointment on Sunday. I had never allowed myself to consider the possibility that maybe my ovaries COULDN'T make eggs. I had just always supposed that it was a matter of the right drugs - albeit possibly the right combination of drugs, and the right timing. Walking out to my car I suddenly had the urge to smack my forehead, V-8 style - How foolish, this foregone supposition of ovarian ability!! Jesus, K, really, you should be so fucking lucky!

Now I'm scared to death that on Thursday at my next monitoring appointment, Dr. D will take one swipe with the wand and declare me a lost cause. "Nope, nothing happening in there, this is a case only St. Jude can help with!"

We're hosting Easter at our house on Sunday, so I'm trying to concentrate on preparing for that this week instead of dwelling on these fears, but, well, y'all know how it is.....

On a lighter note, speaking of Easter, I went bananas this weekend and bought 6 dozen colorful, fillable, plastic eggs....you know, the kind you use for hiding? I'm planning an Easter Egg Hunt for my nieces and nephews when the family comes over on Sunday. After filling 6 dozen eggs with all manner of miniature chocolate bunnies, jellybeans, marshmallow eggs, and pastel foil covered Hershey Kisses.....I found out that only THREE kids are going to be in attendance on Sunday. Ack! My sisters-in-law are all going to kill me when their kids go home with 24 eggs full of candy, each! Oh well! I also saw on the news this morning that they're expecting it will be around 40 degrees on Easter Sunday, so we'll all be wearing our winter coats to church! Bah!And who wants to hunt for eggs when it's that cold outside? Actually, KIDS, that's who. I suspect it could probably be blizzard-ing, and they'd still be clawing each other and scrambling through the front door to get out there and find that candy!!! I LOVE Easter, and I can't wait for Sunday!