My Wife Is a Stud

Or, you know, whatever the female, follicle-forming-fool version of that would be.

Shrike went to the fertility clinic this morning for her Lupron evaluation, which involved blood work to check hormone levels ("nice and quiet" as they should be) and a visit to the dildo-cam.

Remember the preliminary antral follicle check that we did on her a few months ago, to get approved for shared risk?

When everyone was so impressed with her 36 antral follicles?

Yeah, well, that was nothing.

Today, she had (wait for it) - forty-one antral follicles!

Show off.

Dr E seems to be very happy with that, but also wants to be careful with her protocol, to avoid ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome.

(Note to Shrike: Please do not click the above link!!!)

She will continue on the full dose of Lupron (the suppression drug) for now, rather than reducing it, and will take less of the gonadotropins that Dr E had original planned.

For those who care about such things, she's been taking 20 units of Lupron each morning, and will continue that until further notice.

Tomorrow night, she'll start 122 units of Gonal-F and 1/2 vial of Menopur each evening.

Those can be combined into one shot, but because of the 1/2 vial thing, it's only practical to do that every other night, when she'd getting the second half of the vial.

So, she'll still get one shot each morning, and will alternate between one and two shots each evening. These are all subcutaneous in the belly.

For my end of the deal, I started last Monday with Del Estrogen, .2 cc intramuscular (in the butt), every three days. So far, that's been Monday, Thursday and Sunday. The next one will be due on Wednesday.

I'm set for a mid-cycle lining check on Monday, but maybe we'll change it to Sunday or Tuesday, to coincide with one of Shrike's monitoring appointments.

I will probably continue my shots the same way until Shrike triggers (with an IM butt-shot of HCG), 36 hours before egg retrieval (tentatively scheduled for March 2).

I think I start on the nightly Progesterone in oil butt-shots either the night of the trigger, or the night after, and continue through something like twelve weeks of pregnancy.

(Or a negative beta, but we're not thinking about that option.)

So, we are definitely on our way here!

Update:
I just talked to Shrike on the phone for the first time since her appointment, and got the lowdown on everything that went on this morning. She said that Dr E called her a "Follicle-Making Machine."