'Good Stimmer' But Not Feeling So Good

I intended to post more this past week, but honestly I was not up to it. One goal was of course to write about Easter and the other was to talk about our journey and how it all was going.

Well, after multiple daily injections and frequent doctor visits, it turns out that I am a very good ‘stimmer’ which means that I react to the injections very well and produce MANY eggs. Depending on the women’s body and the cause of infertility if applicable, some women can produce as few as 5 follicles and even into the 20s. A follicle is a fluid filled sac in the ovaries that may contain an egg. Not every follicle will contain an egg; usually about 50-70%. Recently our doctor had a patient who had 40 follicles. Well, last Friday the nurse counted 53 follicles… 28 in one and 25 in another. You should have seen her eyes get real wide. At the end she smiled at me and Jason and told me as I got dressed she was going to take the ultrasound pictures to the doctor. When I came out, everyone was standing around smiling at me all wide-eyed saying… wow… you must be so sore. Whew… I thought I had a high tolerance for pain, but I sure had been tender this week and this sure did explain it. Most women are shocked when they have 20 something… I had over 50! So the doctor explained what this means and what the risks were and how the pain would be. Needless to say, we didn’t do anything this weekend. Went to 2 movies and I lay around the house. Went to Easter service and then enjoyed a great dinner with Jason’s mom and grandma! The dinner was simple and yet good; they were so sweet in bringing a few things so I wasn’t in the kitchen cooking. I tell you, it was hard to just move w/o being sore. And then my stomach started to bloat so bad that week too and by the weekend I was ‘miserable’. Other than my colonoscopy, I never talked so openly about stomach problems with Jason! Although it didn’t feel the best, I tried to make light of the situation and tease our dog Pickles that I had more eggs than she did when she had her litters!

Monday morning the 5th came and Jason and I were so excited. We went in, they prepped me and started the anesthesia. What takes about 15 min or less for other patience, took the doctors 40 minutes for me! As I came to, I started to cry at the excitement of becoming a mommy… I felt the pain, but it wasn’t awful… yet… About 3 hours after the surgery it hit… the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my entire life. Before Monday, the worst pain I’ve had dealt with was from my intestinal problems in which my intestines and stomach muscles spasm and contracted for 30 min straight; took my breath away and left me in pain for a week afterwards… This pain yesterday was worse than that even. I couldn’t sit or lie down in any position and all I could take was Tylenol which didn’t help. The doctors warned me about the pain and actually said they were worried about it. Normally women don’t feel like this b/c they don’t have so many eggs… as the doctor says, it’s like stabbing your arm 60 times; it will become painful and swollen. Except this is my internal organs… which makes it that much worse. Ugh, so I’ll stop with the details and share that I did start to feel some what better this morning. All day today though has not been fun at all and I’m in continual prayers that God takes the pain away. I hope each day gets better and better and my health increases instead of developing Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome.

I’d also like to end saying that I am so thankful for my wonderful husband who has been so sweet and has taken wonderful care of me! Also, thank you to those who have been so sweet in sharing your prayers and kind words. For now I’ll try to keep my eyes focused on Him and our sweet little babies! Saturday morning will be the big transfer day!!