the (mis)adventures of jenna

a memoir in eleventy billion parts

Doin’ Shots: Day 1 November 21, 2009

Filed under: blog posts, infertility — jennawoestman @ 12:13
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Yeah right, not THAT kind of shots.  (Seriously, can anyone actually see me doing Tequila shots?  Yeah I didn’t think so either.)  THIS kind of shots:

That’s just the pen and eight of the needles.  I have more where that came from, but isn’t it nice that it comes in a discreet, handy little zipper case?

In preparation for the commencement of the aforementioned shots, I have made sure to do all the stuff I will hopefully not be able to do for many, many, many months, should they work.  I am disallowed all things that pregnant women are disallowed (and then some) as of 9:00 tonight, when the first needle goes into my fatty tissue layer.  (Fortunately I have a large fatty tissue layer right now, so it shouldn’t hurt too bad.  I’ve been preparing.)

Margarita?  Check.  Coffee?  Check.

Incidentally, our doorbell rang at  7:30 this morning.  Joey and I were both in like the fourth layer of REM sleep, if there is such a thing, and it took us quite awhile to figure out WHAT was going on.  He finally hauled out of bed, threw on his lounge pants and a sweatshirt, and stumbled to the door to discover…

…HIS ENTIRE FAMILY!!  (Well, with the exception of Tony, who is in Iraq.)

SURPRISE!

I was still half asleep when I heard them, and I was srsly confused.  SRSLY CONFUSED.  Then Joey told me to get up and get decent because we had company, y’all.  So I did, but I was still confused.  Then Eric, Joey’s youngest brother, put this ginormous box of wrapped gifts in front of me.  And my MIL said “Presents!  One for each shot!”

And then, suddenly, I was awake and I yelled, “PRESENTS!  FOR MEEEEEEE!”

I really like presents.  But I think everyone probably does unless their names are Scrooge or the Grinch.

Joey came running over and looked at my sweet box of loot and he was like, What?  Presents for HER?  SHE’S NOT EVEN GENETICALLY WOESTMAN!

But MIL was smart and put one present for Joey in there too, somewhere.  (I didn’t see it but then I wasn’t looking very hard.)

All this to say: my house is full, I am tired, I have lots of presents, and if I can’t give my shot tonight, my MIL is totally doing it for me.  She’s a NICU transport nurse and, while I may be 5,000 times larger than her patients normally are…a shot is a shot, right?  Because when I was reading the directions for my Follistim pen again, I was super, super, super confused.  I know where to put the shot on my person, but the whole dialing the pen to get the correct amount of medication, and yet not over-dialing or under-dialing so I don’t OD or UD (under-dose, I made that up)….

Jibbly jibbly.

Anyway, full report on the shot and its aftereffects tomorrow.  I really hope I don’t upchuck from side effects.

 

My Day Off November 20, 2009

Filed under: blog posts, infertility — jennawoestman @ 09:58
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I’ve been up since 7:30.  The stupid Dumpster man decided to WHAM WHAM WHAM the Dumpsters against the concrete in the parking lot this morning, thus rendering me unable to sleep any longer.  But it’s OK, I decided, because tomorrow is Saturday and I can try again to sleep in.

I loafed around for about an hour, reading in bed and whatever, until I got kind of uncomfortable.  And I also got…Lairded.  Sigh.  (Getting Lairded is where you are supposed to be relaxing, but then suddenly all you can think about is the stuff you should be/could be doing in order to save yourself time later or finish your work early so that you are the most efficient person in the whole world.)

While I was laying there, I thought Gosh…if I just got up now and cleaned for an hour, I could finish all my work for the day and then have the entire weekend free!

So I got up at 8:30 and challenged myself to finish cleaning the house before 9:00.  This really was a lofty goal, even though I had done half of it the night before, but somehow I did finish by 9:10.  Then I whipped out the iron and did all the ironing, and was finished by 9:30.  Then I went to the kitchen and started pulling out ingredients to get some cookies frozen along with all my meals, but then I realized I was out of butter.

I considered riding Thunder to the store to get some, but that’s really stupid.  So I told myself it was not inefficient to wait until tomorrow to make them, it was inefficient to go to the store for just butter when I have no car and it’s raining outside.  (I really hope it stops raining before I have to go to NorthPark to meet a friend for lunch, because…I’m going to be really soggy when I get there if this keeps up.)

Anyway, now I’m making bacon and eggs, blogging and painting my toenails all at the same time.  Take that, inefficiency!  HA!

 

jibbly jibbly November 19, 2009

Filed under: blog posts, infertility — jennawoestman @ 08:11
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A “jibbly” is the singular form of “jibblies”.  Say if you were only slightly weirded out by something, it would make you feel a little jibbly.  But if it was really, really wierd?  Then it would give you the jibblies.  Maybe that’s not clear, and if it’s not then I guess I can’t help you.

Joey and I currently have the jibblies.  We were discussing said jibblies on the way to church last night.  At almost the same moment, we both confessed to having a permanent herd of butterflies in our stomachs, and they seem to be tying themselves in a knot over and over and over again.  We’re all full of “what if” scenarios, which I will neither bore you with our gross you out with here.

My butterflies stem from the consent forms that Joey MADE ME READ yesterday morning.  Between reading “in the event that egg retrieval fails” or “in the event of a laboratory mishap and your embryos are destroyed” (um, LABORATORY MISHAP?  What are they doing in there with my embryos, using them to play pinball while drink Red Bull?) and drinking coffee, my stomach was destroyed.  I told Joey I didn’t want to read that stuff, just sign it, but he said  ”No, you need to understand the process”.

This was one of those moments in our marriage where I should have just explained why I didn’t want to read all that stuff…because in my fragile brain I would take all the “what ifs” and turn them into THIS IS WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU, SO THERE.

And then I remembered that I am not 45 like many of their patients so my chances are dozens of times improved, I have a good supply of eggs (sorry, but that’s what the doctor told me) and the likelihood of the lab nerds pinball and Red Bull is really pretty minimal.

But that still doesn’t take away the butterflies.

Last night I told Joey I just wanted to have Saturday over with so I could see how Sunday went.  Like, maybe the shot won’t make me sick.  Maybe my ovaries won’t hurt really bad.  Maybe I won’t feel like death.  And then again maybe I will.  It’s just the up in the air business of not knowing that is making us both completely stressed, and the kind of stressed where you don’t even realize you’re stressing out until you think, “Gosh, my stomach has felt really weird all day long.  Huh.  Wonder why.”

And then you wonder about it for awhile and realize you’re stressing yourself out.

In the IVF pamphlets they said that IVF is, hands down, THE most stressful way to deal with infertility.  I scoffed when I read that and was all like, Y’ALL, I can DO stressful.  I been doin’ stressful for the last really long time and I have it mastered.

Um, yeah, totally different level of stressful that I couldn’t imagine.

Anyway, we have the jibblies.

And two nights ago when I was trying to fall asleep, all of my I Can Give Myself A Shot, No Problem confidence went out the window.  I feel like a yo-yo; some days I’ll feel totally awesome about IVF, other days I will be a jibbly wreck.  Joey too.

JIBBLYJIBBLYJIBBLYBJIBBLY = JIBBLIES

It’s weird to think that in just over two weeks, this will all.be.over.

 

Y’all November 18, 2009

Filed under: blog posts, infertility — jennawoestman @ 11:57
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Any www.icanhascheezburger.com cheezfrends (fans) out there?

Yeah, whatever, you’ve all probably matured beyond poorly spelled captions on weird pictures of kittehs.  (That’s “cats” for you sophisticated people.)  But I haven’t yet, and that’s probably not a surprise to anyone, especially not to my Grandfather Laird who has always known me to be grammatically questionable.

ANYWAY, there was a great one posted today.  And, bonus!, all spelled correctly so you newbies will be able to read it.

Can’t read that because it’s too small? It says “FRIENDS: To cheer you up when you are in your little box of sadness.”

That made Joey and I think of y’all.  (Yes, even you lurkers, because I know you are there; I can sense your presence using my heightened hormone levels.  Beware.)

You cheer me up when I am in my little box of sadness.  I’ve been there more than a few times in the last few months, and someone always says something encouraging and cheers me right up.  Y’all are super supportive, and that’s amazing.  I love it.

I’m not in the sadness box right now.  But if I was, you would be cheering me up.  I know you would be.

Thanks.

 

The Contents Of The Box November 17, 2009

Filed under: blog posts, infertility — jennawoestman @ 19:16
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The Box arrived today; I waited until I got home to open it (except for the part that needed refrigeration, I busted that out right away and threw it in the fridge.)  It was larger than I expected, and heavier than I expected.  It also contained way more stuff than I expected.

Shots

  • Four boxes of Follistm (3 doses each, requires refrigeration)
  • Six boxes of Ganirelix (one dose each)
  • One box of Ovidrel (one dose, requires refrigeration)
  • Four boxes of Menopur (but I think it’s five doses…figure that one out)

Not Shots

  • Crinone progestin (24 applicators)
  • Estrovel (30 pills)

Other Things

  • Follistim pen so I can take my shots with me wherever I go, wahoo!
  • Sharps container, which I have already broken and Joey has already fixed
  • Lots of needles & syringes (15 of each, to be exact)
  • Lots of alcohol pads
  • Lots of gauze

I have never taken so much medicine in my entire life.  I wasn’t even sure where to put all this stuff, so I wound up putting everything back in the box it came in.  I’m not sure how in the world I’ll keep it all straight…this may call for a spreadsheet; y’all know how I feel about spreadsheets.

I went through everything and inventoried it, just to make sure they didn’t forget something.  There is just something creepy about seeing your very own personal name on a label for syringes and needles.  Observe:

I told y’all it was creepy, and I was right.  Don’t even try to argue with me.

And here is my very own sharps container, which will go in my bathroom and creep our our visitors:

As I mentioned earlier, I have already broken this and Joey has already fixed it.    He’s awfully handy to have around.  In my defense, nowhere on the container did it say DO NOT CLOSE THE LID YOU IDIOT GIRL.  Once the lid is closed, it does not open again.  I mean, that’s really handy if you’re trying not to spread HIV, but I don’t have HIV and I really didn’t mean to break it in the first place.

Fortunately Joey is innovative.

I also like how it says BIOHAZARD on it real big and dangerous-looking.

After putting my drugs away, I stuffed the Follistim and Ovidrel in the back of my refrigerator.  But my refrigerator is not deep enough, so when you open it up it’s like, ohai Jenna’s ovary stimulants…you are giving me the willies sitting there all next to the leftovers and whatever.

Just to illustrate how large the box was that this all came in, I decided to put Henry inside.  He no likey.

I have scarcely seen an angrier face on that dog.  He’s usually fairly happy go lucky, but he does not like being in the ovary stimulant box, that’s for sure and for certain.

Alright, we’re going to go take that furball on a walk now.  So…that’s all Internet.  Bye.

 

Two Tidbits Of News November 17, 2009

Filed under: blog posts, infertility — jennawoestman @ 15:10
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I just got off the phone with Dr. Babyplease’s nurse. She called to inform me that, while my estrogen levels are, oh, 69 points higher than where they’d like them to be, they’re going to start me with shots on Saturday anyway. They figure that due to my endo and cysts and whatever else is messed up in there, I just have high levels and they’re going to use my numbers from today as the baseline numbers.

 

Whatever the heck that means.

 

Secondly, I just discovered that the annual infertility benefits with our insurance reset on January 1. INTERNET, DO YOU REALIZE WHAT THIS MEANS? If IVF fails the first round (and I am praying so hard that it does not) then we can almost immediately do another round without going up to our eyeballs in medical debt. Obviously we wouldn’t do that anyway, but knowing that we can actually try again if it doesn’t work the first time is such a freeing thing.  It’s like taking one thing off the Stress List.  (What, you don’t have one of those?)

 

But now that it’s here, I have the official word from the nurse, and I’m staring at a huge box of medicine…my stomach is in knots. It’s flipping all over the place and I feel like I’m going to get sick…and I haven’t even taken anything yet!

 

HOLY COW THIS STUFF IS STRESSFUL! I can’t decide if I’m excited or freaked out.

 

 

A Tour November 17, 2009

Filed under: blog posts, infertility — jennawoestman @ 11:20
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We had an appointment today. You know, just the regular kind: take some blood, do an ultrasound and whatever. I maintain that Dr. Babyplease is the cutest person on the entire planet. She’s pocket sized, ridiculously smiley and has just a hint of accent when she speaks. Every time she leaves the room I exclaim OH MY GOSH SHE IS SO CUTE and Joey looks uncomfortable, like he’s not sure if he’s supposed to agree or disagree or just keep his mouth shut.

Usually he says “maarrruuuurrrrrph”, which I conveniently interpret however I want to.

Today, though, I sneaked my camera in. I told Joey I was going to take pictures of everything and he looked at me like I was the biggest wierdo on the planet. But let me just tell you, it isn’t half as bad as what he did this morning on the way TO the hospital. He found a really big stick laying on the ground and he picked it up and was all, check out what I’m going to do it will be so cool.

I looked at him really, really hesitantly. Whatever he could possibly think to do with a large stick in the middle of town at 7:45 on a Tuesday morning could not be all that cool.

Then, he did it.

He hiked his arm back and I could see that he was going to THROW THE STICK. I started to yell “stop stop stop stop!” but by that time it was too late, he had already released the stick from his hand. And don’t you know it, the stick when slamming into one of our neighbors apartment windows. And I when I said “slam” I really meant SLAM, because it hit once and then hit again when it did this bouncing rotation thing.

I believe the phrase “holy cow what were you thinking?” burst out of my mouth as I grabbed his arm and yanked him down the sidewalk and to the car.

The part that was supposed to be so cool was the part where the stick was supposed to go on the roof of the building, not loudly slam into our neighbor’s window.

All this to say, I was not afraid to embarrass him at all by taking pictures of where we go when we go to the doctor. And I even decided to make him take some of them.

First we walk up to this awning, and it’s really ugly and boring.

Then we walk past the ARTS department which, up until about a year ago I thought was really shady and creepy. Well, let’s face it, that place is still really shady and creepy. But I’m willing to get past it for now.  They’ll be freezing our children.

On the third floor is my doctor’s office where once you walk inside there is a ginormous baby on the wall. It is freakishly large. The first time I saw it, it wigged me out a little bit but now I’m getting used to its massive size.

Once you leave the doctor’s office, you can look up to the balcony above and, yay happy funtimes!, see the lobby where poor Joey waited for me to get out of surgery. And just past the plant is the room I stayed in. Par-tay.

And that, in a nutshell, is a tour of the Margot Perot center. Well, I could have taken a picture of the huge fish tank by the gift shop and that would have been cooler, but I wasn’t feeling brave enough to bust out the camera right there, and I didn’t feel like making Joey do it either. (He was a serious wimp when it came to getting the ARTS department picture. He made me stand in the way and block the camera from view by other people.)

Today’s bloodwork will determine if I start injections on Saturday, or if I need to do birth control for another week. Personally, I’m rooting for Saturday. Let’s get this over with!

And the box of tricks just arrived via FedEx. It weighs 6.5 lbs and REQUIRES REFRIGERATION.

 

Mysterious Sign Sighting: 75231 November 17, 2009

Filed under: blog posts, infertility, mysterious sign sighting — jennawoestman @ 09:29
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Who likes ultrasounds anyway?  NOT ME.

Well, this machine isn’t so bad…

 

Monday Morning Totally Stinks November 16, 2009

Filed under: blog posts — jennawoestman @ 07:45
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Since there was that apocalyptic thermal shift last night which we didn’t know was coming, we left our windows open like usual. Therefore, Joey and I slept really terribly last night. Like, waking up every 2 hours (at least) kind of terrible.

And when the alarm went off at 6 and Jeeves whirred to life in the kitchen, we slapped the snooze. And slapped it, and slapped it, and slapped it. We finally re-set our alarms for 7:00 and, once the alarms went off…WE STILL DID NOT GET OUT OF BED.

About 7:05, we kicked into high gear. This is how awesome we managed to be in just under 40 minutes:

  • Joey poured the coffee and ate the rest of his Cocoa Krispies that he practically threw a tantrum at the store in order to get
  • I tossed a rather lousy lunch together for him.  Sorry, Babe.
  • I pulled some stuff out of the freezer (Pennsylvania Dutch Corn Chowder) for dinner tonight, but then remembered we already have burgers thawed and if we do that we could grill some carrots, thereby reducing our massive carrot inventory.
  • I took poor Henry outside because he was jittering by the front door. It rained last night and he refused to go outside, which I feel like it more of his fault than my problem.
  • Joey cleaned out Jeeves.
  • Joey emptied the dishwasher (bonus!)
  • I made the bed.
  • I showered, got ready and even flat-ironed my hair (bonus!)
  • Joey also showered, but took a SERIOUSLY LONG SHOWER or we could have been out the door 10 minutes before we were.

All told, we were only ten minutes behind schedule once we got to the car. That’s not bad, since we overslept by an hour. Having the temps go from 80 on Saturday and Sunday to a high of merely 58 today really messes me up. All I want to do is climb back in bed and sleeeeeeeep.

 

I just paid good money November 15, 2009

Filed under: blog posts, infertility — jennawoestman @ 14:48
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Joey’s playing Hordes of Orcs (yes, you read that correctly) for the second day straight.  And singing along with Switchfoot.  I am laying awkwardly on the couch because my iTouch is charging and I can only reach it if I lay at a moderately uncomfortable angle, but I’m in the middle of Oregon Trail so I can’t stop.  (Becca is trail boss, I am #2, and Joey and Luke are the annoying kids.)

My phone rang, so I had to do this weird twisting action that I can only keep doing for another week, so I’m living it up while I can, and answered the call, slightly out of breath because of the weird angle with which I was laying on my diaphragm.

“Hello?” I wheezed.

“Hello, this is Kimberly from Freedom Pharmacy!” Chirped a super, super enthusiastic voice.

Ahhh, Freedom Pharmacy – the pharmacy for those of us who must have our children pre-fertilized and floated in via plastic tube.  YES, Americans, they have an entire mail-order pharmacy dedicated just to us.  They are amazingly efficient and resourceful and nice, too.  Actually, every infertility person I have dealt with in the last few months has had rockstar demeanor.  I think they expect us to be just a little unstable.

Anyway, Kimberly wanted my credit card info so she could charge my copay for the $6,500.00 worth of shots.

“And your co-pay total will be $125.00!” She exclaimed.  ”Do you have your card ready?”

“No,” I huffed, crawling (literally) from my weird, weird, weird position on the couch, and stumbling over to the table by the door where I keep my purse.  I got back to the couch with much more grace and flopped down and began to read her the numbers.

“Thank you!” She gushed.  ”Let me read that back to you to make sure I kept up!”

She had kept up, and I told her so.  I could just sense money being sucked out of our account as she read the numbers back correctly.

Then I confirmed the shipping address because, surprise!, they don’t just drop the box at your front door if you’re not home.  You have to sign for it.  That’s a really, really good thing, too.  I don’t imagine you can get high off ovary stimulants (you can rest assured I will NOT be trying), but surely they have some kind of street value.  I’d be so mad if someone stole my baby making medicine.

Ew.  I cannot believe I just typed that on my blog.

Anyway, two more days of the setup pill, then on Tuesday morning I have my first ultrasound in the series.  Then…Saturday evening…SHOOT ‘EM UP!

I really am ready to get this show on the road.  I want to get it over and done with, that way if it doesn’t work I can be done with thinking about it.  And if it does work?  Then I can get on with that too.

I told someone at church that I’m cautiously optimistic about this whole thing right now.  Heavy on the “cautiously” part, though; I can barely risk any more emotional energy to be optimistic.  (That’s what I need people like Bianca for, and I really, really appreciate the support!!)  It’s probably a defense mechanism, and probably common with IVF patients.

The whole “we’re doing IVF because we can’t have kids” thing still really weirds me out.  I half think in the back of my mind that this is all just a bad dream I really am fine, just like I spent the last 27 years of my life thinking I was.  But, no…I already woke up from the anesthesia.  This is no bad dream, it’s how it is.

And you know what else makes me mad?  All that money we wasted on birth control for all those years.  Total ripoff – we should get our money back.