Part 34: The Waiting Game

After a long weekend of feeling very cooped up (which was mostly fine since the weather wasn't all that great), I was actually looking forward to going back to work.  Beta #1 was set for May 7, so I was eager to be distracted from obsessing over it.  Work itself was pretty uneventful, but it did help to occupy the hours.  It was a little weird to not have any appointments that week - especially after the craziness of the stimulation period.

The tech had given us an ultrasound picture of the embryo (which we had named "Flash") landing in my uterus.  I kept it with me all the time and whenever I would start to get nervous about the upcoming beta, I would pull it out.  Just seeing it had a calming effect on me.  Here is a pic of the pic - not the best quality since I took it on my phone camera, but you get the idea!

Here's Flash on transfer day - the horizontal line is the catheter 

and the bright "flash" at the left end is our embryo!

My medications were all going as well as could be expected.  The Endometrin was still as gross as ever... Let's just say I should have bought stock in pantyliners!  Other than that, my derriere was starting to get a little sore and bruised from the PIO shots.  It didn't hurt all the time, but I would do something like, bump into a corner or sit on the arm of my desk chair instead of the seat (I'm super clumsy) and think, "Huh, that really kind of hurt."  And then I would finally remember about the bruises.

The first part of that week, I felt really great - the best I'd felt in a long time actually.  I was trying really hard to not to obsess over symptoms and whatnot, especially since so many of them could be linked to side effects of my drugs.  I still felt a little bit bloated from time to time, and my pelvic area around my ovaries was still a little tender to the touch.  But I was able to wear work pants again so everything seemed to be fine.  I was following all the rules still, eating lots of salty foods and trying to drink stuff with electrolytes instead of plain water.  I'm more of a salt fiend than a sweet tooth, so I really didn't mind.  

And then, things started to go downhill a bit...  Wednesday, I woke up feeling a bit more bloated.  I weighed myself and my weight was the same as it had been on retrieval day.  We don't actually own a scale and had just borrowed one from my in-laws, so I didn't have anything to compare with pre-stims, but as near as I could tell I hadn't gained much (if any).  I figured I would just keep an eye on things.  I weighed myself again Wednesday night and Thursday morning and it was stable.  However, I was pretty uncomfortable at work Thursday.  I made a point not to drink any plain water and bought spicy V8 to sip throughout the day.  Thursday night there was still no change in weight.  Friday morning, I woke up feeling really bloated and uncomfortable.  I weighed myself again and was actually down a half a pound from the night before.  I headed to work and, as the day wore on, felt more and more bloated.  I also noticed that I was getting short of breath just walking from one building to another on campus.  Even sitting, it felt like I couldn't take a deep enough breath.  And after lunch, I actually had to unbutton my jeans at my desk because they were so tight across my abdomen.

With the weekend approaching and my feelings of discomfort increasing, I decided to just call and talk to one of the nurses.  I didn't think I fit the criteria for OHSS (ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome), but the fact that I had felt great and then started to feel worse again just didn't make sense.  Something was not right...