After a weekend of driving -- 3 hours to Atlanta on Saturday to see Hamilton, 5 hours from Atlanta to Jacksonville on Sunday, and then 4 hours from Jax back home on Monday after a morning appointment -- the last thing we want to do is get back in our car for another long drive. But that's exactly what we'll be doing on Wednesday afternoon so we can be in Jacksonville by 7am Thursday morning for the egg retrieval appointment.
At today's scan, the doctor decided I'm close enough to be "triggered," meaning my follicles are at a size that indicates I'm ready for an injection that will tell my body to release the eggs that the doctor will then hopefully harvest on Thursday morning. The timing of all of this is incredibly important -- if I do the trigger injection too soon, the eggs will have dropped before the doctor gets in there to retrieve them, and if the trigger acts too late, there won't be anything to retrieve because they won't have dropped yet. At this point, it's a matter of hoping my body responds to the trigger meds as the doctor thinks it will. I have one more night of normal fertility injections (only 3 needles), one more morning of the anti-ovulation injection (only 1 needle -- yay!), and then Tuesday evening at exactly 8:30pm will be the trigger shot.
The doctor is trying something different with this round's trigger. The first two rounds he had me do a 2-dose Lupron injection. I had to do one injection in my abdomen about 36 hours before the retrieval appointment and a second injection in the same area about 24 hours prior to the appointment. For this round, he's having me do a one-injection trigger called HCG about 36 hours prior to the retrieval. From what I gather, he's hoping this one will lead to a better egg retrieval in terms of quantity and quality. On the plus side, it's only one injection. On the down side, it's an injection right above my butt, which means my husband will have to stick the needle in me since I can't see behind me (he's the one who hates needles). The nurse kindly drew a box outlining the area where the injection needs to take place, and I kind of think it's funny I'll have a "needle goes here" box on my lower, lower back until I'm able to scrub the sharpie away.
I'm hoping this egg retrieval and post-retrieval goes better than the first two rounds, but there's nothing more we can do at this point than continue the injections, go to Jax, and wait for the post-retrieval reports.