Ready the engines...

After 8 days of stims, we are cleared for take off! Today my E2 jumped way up to 1711, just like my RE had said it would (silly me for not trusting him that everything was "looking good"). My progesterone was 1.49 so I am very, very close. Tonight are my last stomach injections- no more Lupron and Follistim for me after that, and that's a cause for celebration in itself. My follies were all about 17-18 mm- well, the ones Dr. S measured. Jake thinks he stopped at measuring 14 follicles because he didn't feel like doing anymore, and there were many more slightly smaller ones on the screen that he didn't measure. Dr. S just said, "and there's multiple smaller ones, and we'll leave it at that." So I decided once and for all, that I am done worrying about the number and size of follicles I've got brewin'. (This does not, in any way, mean that I cannot be worried about the number of eggs retreived or fertilized however. I still reserve the right to stress about that.)

That means that we will trigger tomorrow evening, and the retrieval will be bright and early on Sunday morning. And when I say bright and early I mean- be there at 7 am, leave our house at 5 am. To celebrate the 4th of July, I get my first shot-free day in a long, long time (and hopefully for a long long time afterwards). And I get to go to bed early. Wohoo.

My stomach is ready for a break. I feel lucky that the largest bruises I got were the size of a pea, but just about every follistim shot left me with a purple mark. My stomach has purple polka dots. I'm not sure I'm quite ready to hand over the needle reigns to Jake though, or my rear. I was unaware that the nurse would mark a big X in a rectangle with permanent marker on my upper backside today to help Jake find the spot. This presented a little problem.

See, I had a massage appointment today at 2 pm. How to explain the large X and not die from embarrassment? I tried a large band aid, but that didn't work because you could still see the X through the gauze. So I gave up trying to hide it. While I was face down, she said, "did you go to the doctor today?" I told her, "yes, I have to administer an injection tomorrow." Then she asked if they used permanent marker because she wanted to make sure the massage oil wouldn't take it off. It took off a little, but you can still see it. I'm just glad I was face down so she could see my how embarrassed I felt or how red my face was. Hmmm. How ironic and fitting that embarrassed has the words bare ass in it.