January 10, 2004
Gonal-F Cycle 1, checkup 4
By 10:00 AM, it had already been a long day for me and Dale.
I got up shortly before 7:00 AM and woke Dale about 10 minutes later. We dragged ourselves to the car and drove to St. David's by the University to get my blood drawn. The draw didn't go too smoothly. Two butterfly needles and two fresh holes in my left arm, the phlebotomist called for backup. She'd tried twice and only got a tiny amount of blood, so she didn't want to try again. The second phlebotomist disdained using a butterfly needle, but before I had time to panic she'd zeroed in on a vein and filled a test tube in a matter of seconds.
We then went to my 8:15 AM appointment. Dr. Vaughn isn't on call this weekend, so another doctor did the exam. She was pretty brutal with the ultrasound wand, but my ovaries were playing hide-and-seek behind my uterus and were harder to find than usual. The right ovary still hadn't produced any really big follicles (I think the largest was 10mm) but the promising one in my left ovary had reached an average of 19.5mm. She said that meant we could proceed because the follicle would reach 20mm by the time I needed to get my hCG injection in the evening.
We left the clinic with a prescription for Ovidrel, two steril specimen cups, and appointments for me and Dale for Sunday and Monday. Unfortunately the pharmacy didn't open for another 30 minutes, so Dale and I went in search of breakfast.
We went back to the drugstore at 9 and picked up my prescription. We went back home, napped, and then re-started our day.
Dale went out this afternoon, so I got to inject the Ovidrel myself. Once again, I had to get the needle in place then close my eyes before I stabbed with it. Yeesh, I really hate doing that!