After a weekend of unsuccessfully trying to be anti-social and a week of trying to recover from the funk I entered after learning both embryos were abnormal, I think I'm finally ready to start thinking about what comes next in this whole IVF process. That's good, because I start round 2 of IVF next week.
It was a struggle to decide whether to jump into Round 2 right away or wait. Starting another round right away means that retrieval will mostly likely take place Thanksgiving week, which means we can't go home for the holiday. We already missed one family holiday dinner in September because of IVF, and I was really torn about missing another one. I love getting together with our families, but because we live so far away we don't get to see them nearly as much as I'd like. On the other hand, if we don't go right into another round of IVF, we would have to wait until January because the fertility clinic closes in mid-December for cleaning, equipment fine-tuning, etc. So, after several conversations with my husband, we decided that starting another round right away makes the most sense. In the meantime, I'm trying not to think about eating Thanksgiving dinner by ourselves at some random restaurant in Jacksonville while our families are enjoying home-cooked food, fun, and conversation.
Round 2 will be mostly the same as the first round: I drive out to Jacksonville on Wednesday afternoon for a Thursday morning appointment, drive home late Thursday morning, and start the injections Thursday evening. The bottom crisper drawer of our fridge is once again filled with medication instead of vegetables and fruits, and I'll have a daily alarm set on my phone to remind me to do the injections at exactly the same time every day (or as close as possible within an hour before/after).
For the most part, everything worked as it was supposed to with the first round -- the medicines did their job and produced lots of follicles -- so my fertility doctor isn't planning on changing anything there. What will change, though, is the timing of the trigger shot (the medicine that tells the body to ovulate and release the eggs) and the timing of the retrieval process itself. Apparently my body was overeager and ovulated too early after given the trigger shot, which, I was told, is quite rare (lucky me). Now that the doctors know that's how I'll respond, they can time the retrieval better and hopefully capture more eggs.
The other changes I'm making are really only for my peace of mind/sanity. In case you haven't guessed, this is an extremely stressful process and it's much too easy to look back at my behavior during the first round and attribute it to the cause of the abnormal embryos. Should I have walked more? Did I walk too much? Did I lift something that was too heavy? Did I eat too little? Did I accidentally eat/drink something on the do-not-eat/drink list provided by the clinic? Should I have rested more? Maybe I rested too much. Should I have drank more water each day? Maybe I drank too much water. Should I have tried meditation to de-stress? And so forth.
So, for Round 2, I'm making some changes. I found an acupuncturist in Macon and I'm going to try her out in two weeks. I used to go to acupuncture regularly several years ago, but when we moved to Georgia, I wasn't able to find one nearby. Granted, Macon is still 90 minutes away, but when I'm also driving 4+ hours to Jacksonville or 2.5 hours to Tallahassee regularly, 90 minutes isn't that big a deal. Hopefully I'll like her ... I could use the calming effects of acupuncture and it could also help with the IVF process itself. The other big change I'm making for this round is to work with someone on my nutrition to make sure I'm eating healthy while I'm on the IVF meds. During Round 1, the meds took away my appetite completely (with the exception of some not-so-good-for-you-foods), and although I'm fairly certain the abnormal embryos were mostly due to my age, I'd like to know for sure that my diet had nothing to do with it.
Maybe we'll have better luck with this round?