Well, I missed the call from my nurse, but she did leave a message that we are to administer the trigger shot tonight. I do not know what my estrogen level was, but apparently it was high enough to make them want to trigger to help avoid OHSS. Pictured above are the vials of water and HCG powder to make up the shot, and the needle that Matt will have to use to inject the mixture. This shot will be an intramuscular shot, so it will be given in the outer/upper part of the buttocks. My nurse drew large circles on my backside to give Matt an idea of where to shoot me up. The shot needs to be given at an EXACT time, and the OR scheduler called to let us know that we have to give the shot at 12:45 AM. We will be setting our alarm for 12:30pm to get up to do this. Uggh! The egg retrieval will be scheduled for 36 hours after the trigger shot is given. So, egg retrieval will take place at 12:45PM on Saturday. We need to arrive at the office at 11:45AM to get things started. Tomorrow I will need to continue taking my prenatal vitamins, and I will have to take two Zithromax pills tomorrow evening. These are antibiotics that are given just in case an unknown infection is raging somewhere in my body. Outside of that, tomorrow will be the only day that I do not receive an injection of some sort. Woo hoo! I will give more details on the upcoming egg retrieval tomorrow.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Trigger Shot Tonight!
Well, I missed the call from my nurse, but she did leave a message that we are to administer the trigger shot tonight. I do not know what my estrogen level was, but apparently it was high enough to make them want to trigger to help avoid OHSS. Pictured above are the vials of water and HCG powder to make up the shot, and the needle that Matt will have to use to inject the mixture. This shot will be an intramuscular shot, so it will be given in the outer/upper part of the buttocks. My nurse drew large circles on my backside to give Matt an idea of where to shoot me up. The shot needs to be given at an EXACT time, and the OR scheduler called to let us know that we have to give the shot at 12:45 AM. We will be setting our alarm for 12:30pm to get up to do this. Uggh! The egg retrieval will be scheduled for 36 hours after the trigger shot is given. So, egg retrieval will take place at 12:45PM on Saturday. We need to arrive at the office at 11:45AM to get things started. Tomorrow I will need to continue taking my prenatal vitamins, and I will have to take two Zithromax pills tomorrow evening. These are antibiotics that are given just in case an unknown infection is raging somewhere in my body. Outside of that, tomorrow will be the only day that I do not receive an injection of some sort. Woo hoo! I will give more details on the upcoming egg retrieval tomorrow.
Thursday
We are getting close. Today's ultrasound still showed around 19 total follicles. In my right ovary I have 5 follicles greater than 12 mm, and five other ones are ranging from 14.8mm to 17.8mm. In my left ovary I have 5 follicles greater than 12 mm, and four other ones ranging from 16.7 to 18.3. I am borderline for being triggered at this point, but they would like me to do another day of stims (lower dose) to get the smaller follicles to catch up. However, if my estrogen levels come back too high, they will trigger me tonight in hopes of warding off OHSS (ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome). OHSS can be very serious and can lead to fluid build-up in the abdominal cavity. This can sometimes force a patient to be hospitalized. So - if necessary, I will trigger tonight with fewer mature follicles, but we should still have at least eight good ones. Ideally, though, I will have one more stim shot tonight and trigger tomorrow night. This would give us the best chance of more mature follicles at retrieval.