Lupron – Hello! Menopause

It has begun.  Day 1.  First Lupron shot was at 8am, thus the start of this cycle.  Let me explain a little about Lupron and its lovely nickname, ‘Loopy Lupron’.  This ghastly injection makes me feel, and act, a bit like Jekyll & Hyde.  Lupron is used in the early stages of IVF cycles and works by suppressing the pituitary gland (the gland which is normally responsible for triggering ovulation) and the joy of this suppression, is that it sends your body into a pseudo-menopausal state.  And like women in menopause, all the wonderful side effects come along with it: hot flashes, insomnia, bitchiness and god-awful headaches.  These headaches are different from typical headaches because these bad boys do not go away with medication, no matter how many bottles of Excedrin you attempt to swallow, because it is a hormone (well, lack of hormone) headache and the only way these headaches go away is with the introduction of FSH meds … which are not started until 11 days later.  Joy, Joy!!  Due to Lupron rapidly decreasing your estrogen levels, it also causes the same uber-grouchiness and mood swings that you would expect for those menopausal psychos.  In my case, Lupron does not make me feel sad or weepy, it makes me feel like punching everyone who breaths too loud, drives too slow, or takes their sweet ass time in the commissary isle when I am obviously in a ginormous hurry.  **Note to self: do not go to the commissary on Tuesday, when it typically is retiree stockpile day.  I am bound to end up playing bummer cars with my cart or Nancy Kerrigan-ing a person with their own cane.  Just kidding people, I wouldn’t actually do that … but I would play out the scene in my head while flashing them an innocent white smile.  Lets just face it, Im going to want to punch pretty much anyone who is generally alive and in my immediate area.  So since I am still in my right mind I will apologize to everyone now, because you wont get apologizes from me later, just rolls of the eye and mean-mugging’ smirk smiles - I don’t take any responsibility for the person who will be living in my house or wearing my clothes!


This cycle is a little different from my last, with my last cycle I was on Lupron for about a week, then switched over to Cetrotide for the rest of the cycle.  Cetrotide is a similar drug to Lupron, also suppresses the pituatry gland and helps prevent premature ovulation, but Cetrotide is newer drug and offer less side effects, much less – and it is so true, the side effect were not near that of being on a ‘long-lupron’ protocol.  The reason for the minor change is we are hoping it gives us better embryo quality.  Not sure how the Cetrotide vs. Lupron helps in that area, but apparently it does.  So fingers crossed this happens. 

Calendar, Consents & BCPs

Calendar and Consents in hand and counter tops filled with medication and sharp containers.  Yes, were back at it.  My week will be filled with medical appts and legal appts to get everything signed and notarized in time.   I’d like to say I am surprised we are back here so soon, but when you do this on average every 3 ½ months (and yes I calculated it out) its oddly strange not cycling.  At this point I am surprised the legal department doesn’t lock their doors when they see me coming.  We have done this, on average, every 3 months since 2009, I say ‘we’ as in I.  I will give my good ‘ol husband some credit since he has to deal with me, well deal with me the times he’s not out on vacation somewhere, but he gets very little credit, when you stick with yourself with injections up to 6x a day, deal with infusions of experimental immune medication, surgeries to extract your eggs like you’re a chicken, get stuffed with magic-fairy looking wands for follicle checks and everything else and then look at his job – which is basically to orgasm in a cup – he doesn’t get much credit, especially since half of the time I’m in the mist of all that, he is off playing ‘Cops & Robbers’ in the sand and enjoying sun tanning, even if its 120* where he choose to vacation.

Things have been rather idol the last 3 months, just costing through waiting to start up again, but now the ball is really starting to roll.  Game day begins on the 30^th.   Let me give you a quick run down of what is involved.

There are 5 main stages to an IVF cycle:

1.    BCPs (minus the placebo pill)

2.     Ovarian Stimulation

3.     Egg Retrieval

4.     Fertilization

5.     Embryo Culture

6.     Embryo Transfer

I have been on BCPs (birth control pills) for 3 weeks, and have 8 more days left to go.  YAY.  I am sure it sounds very strange as why one would be taking a step to get pregnant by taking a medication typically used as contraception.  Let me explain the purpose of BCPs.  Most all IVF cycles start with them, as they serve a few different purposes– first off it help the clinics better plan their cycles in batches which helps the doctor plan for more precise timing and helps to allows treatment to be set around the doctors schedule and avoid holidays.  But it isn’t all about a benefit to the clinic - more importantly the BCPs help put the ovaries in a resting state.  When the ovaries are in this resting state it lowers LH (luteinizing hormone) and suppresses FSH (follicle stimulating hormone) prior to starting COS (controlled ovarian stimulation).  The BCPs also reduce production of androgens (testosterone) which, if produced in excess, can compromise follicular growth and egg quality.  A follicle, short-and-sweet, is what houses the egg so if you produce to much of it you can end up with some poor quality embryos.
 So BCPs play a pretty big role, more so than just “freezing” you mid-cycle as a lot of people tend to think.  

Last 5 days before we dive right back on into this - and hopefully its the last time we have to do this.