Friday, August 17, 2007

Nervous

I'm nervous and I'm surprised by it. I haven't been nervous or anxious about this cycle since I feel like such an IVF veteran. But tonight, on the eve of my baseline scan, I am nervous.

For starters, this has just been a weird period. There have been exactly TWO days that I did not bleed. Oh yeah, you read that correctly. Now it wasn't like full flow (sorry, TMI), but there was some kind of bloody activity every day except two. I'm a little concerned about what might be going on in the ol' ute...

Second, I've been taking DHEA for 2 months now. I haven't experienced the nastiness that others have (insomnia, acne, etc.) but it has truly jacked up my stomach badly. I'm very much looking forward to my retrieval so I can stop taking it. Anyway, I'm nervous about how it will have affected my ovaries. Hopefully I'll go in for my baseline tomorrow and will be stunned by the sight of 8 or 10 antral follies. Yeah, right. But a girl can dream...

I read lots of stuff that said DHEA benefits aren't fully realized until the 4th month of taking the drug. I figure 2 months is at least *something*. But, a couple of weeks ago, I read an article or comments somewhere or something (probably blocked it out as a self-preservation technique) that said DHEA made people's egg production WORSE. ACK! Are you KIDDING me?!

So, between the crazy bloodfest and the possiblity of even worse egg production than normal (can you have negative eggs?), I'm nervous about tomorrow's baseline scan. My appt is at 7am so at least 12 hours from now I'll have some sort of answer. The first of 7,682 hurdles to clear...

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

My fingers are crossed for you.

I have read that DHEA doesn't make a difference to FSH levels or antral counts, but it can improve egg quality.

I will be back to check on you tomorrow!

Erin said...

Hey there - our baselines are on the same day. Kind of cool! Also, I've been DHEA'ing for just shy of 3 months, so I'll be interested to see if it's doing anything. I hadn't had any side effects from it, but just in the past week or so my forehead started breaking out and although my skin's not the best, my forehead is usually ok. I'm going to take this as a good sign that the DHEA is actually in there doing something.

Can't wait to hear how things are going for you!

Unknown said...

good luck!!! Can't wait to hear how things go!!

TeamWinks said...

Good luck! Let's hope you can see a positive difference. I'll be looking in on you as soon as I can.

Waiting Amy said...

Oh Leah, I'm posting too late to give you much encouragment. But I also saw that negative DHEA info (it was in a comment). I could not find anything to support this.

At the Center for Reproductive Health (I think that's the name), where they did the preliminary studies, they only do 2 months of DHEA and then do IVF in certain older women. So you should have had enough time.

Hope your scan went well! Can't wait to hear.

lub said...

Good luck tomorrow. :)

Anonymous said...

Take it easy until tomorrow and I'll be crossing all my bits too :) Good luck, good luck, good luck!!!

AwkwardMoments said...

Sending you Postive Egg vibes

kati said...

As most ultrasounds don't exactly leave me with good news ("oh, there is another endometrioma, did you know about this?"), I always dreaded the baseline scans. And those IVF scans were particularly stressful to me (with my low egg production, I was never far from being cancelled). So, I hope so much for you that your scan went just fine with lots of antral follicles!

...oh, and I always refused the FSH baseline draw. I figured I already was on the max. stims (and then some), so why bother...

Grad3 said...

Just wanted you to know that I will be thinking of you tomorrow and will check back in. Hang in there and good luck!