Back in the Saddle Again

March 26

I intended to write another entry right after my previous one, since the nurse had called me the day I posted with our dates for this new cycle, but I just could not find the time. Since then, the cycle has progressed, of course.

I finished my box of Marvelon and its end couldn’t have come fast enough for me. I hated being on the pill. How odd. I never had any trouble with it when I had taken it before. It was my preferred method of contraception until I had my thrombosis in 2005 and had to find an alternative. But this time around, it really got to me. First, it made me hungry, and by that I mean famished. I’d wake up craving eggs and bacon every morning and 5 minutes after finishing a meal I’d be hungry again. So now I’m fat. Or at least I feel fat. Well, let’s be honest, I have certainly gained some weight, which really blows, since last year I worked my butt off to drop 30 pounds and I was so thrilled to lose the post-pregnancy boobs and back fat. But, no worries. I’ll just do it all over again once I stop the hormone treatment. In the meantime, it’s still hard to stay away from the chocolate and stick to my gym routine, but the longer days certainly help motivate me to head back to my dance classes in the evenings. And I haven’t gained it all back either. I probably have an extra 5 pounds of fluid retention, which I hope will disappear with the hormones, and 5 pounds of fat to work off.

In addition to hunger pangs, the hormones made my hair fall out. I was losing about a fistful of hair every day in the shower and my confidence was going down the drain with it. It’s really traumatizing to lose hair like that... Things are better now that I’m off the pill. I also discovered a really great hair treatment at the local Sephora and after two weeks on the treatment, the hair loss has really stopped and my hair is looking fuller and longer. When your hair falls out in clumps, you wonder how much longer it will be before you notice bald spots. I panicked enough to almost cut my hair short again! Now I’m thrilled I didn’t. Nothing worse than growing your hair out later.

Just before I finished with the pill, I started back on the Lupron, the ovulation suppressant. Sheona started back on Suprefact too. They’ve given us our key dates for this cycle and it seems the tentative egg retrieval date will be April 10. I’m not going to project myself past that date for now. I have to focus on the task at hand and make lovely, numerous and uniformly sized follicles. The Lupron injections actually hurt me this time around. I don’t know why. Also, I’ve noticed I bleed at the injection site more. Maybe it has something to do with the extra fat around my waist! Anyway, this has made my poor belly bruise quite a bit. I just hope I don’t have to switch to the legs, though soon I’ll be poking myself three and even four times per night, because my stimulation stage, which theoretically should start on Saturday, will involve two more injections. Last time around, I only took Puregon, but now they’ve added Menopur. Added to that, if we get to the retrieval date, I’ll be weaning myself off my oral anticoagulants with the help of the injectable anticoagulants in preparation for the retrieval – a fourth needle each night. This'd better work is all I can say.

Now, courtesy of the Lupron injections, I’ve got another lovely side effect to deal with: night sweats. I get them every night and they leave me soaked, as if someone had poured a bucket of water on me in my sleep. The worst part is getting out of bed to pee in the middle of the night. It feels like it probably would if I was dry and warm and had to put on cold wet clothes. I have to constantly remind myself of the prize at the end of this tunnel.

Meanwhile, Sheona is also coping with her Suprefact injections, or Super Fat as she calls them, though it seems this time it hasn’t made her feel as fat as last time. I personally think it was the pill that made her feel fat during the last cycle. I have a bone to pick with Marvelon. This time, because her period came so much later than mine, she only needed to go on the pill for 10 days or so to sync her cycle with mine, so less fat! There.