May 1, 2024 • 17 mins
When your follicles don't respond to hormones, you pump up the volume and keep injecting. Meredith has to keep up the routine this week in anticipation of the egg retrieval and symptoms have really started kicking in! Belly bruising, foggy brain, and increasing shot pain...oh my.
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Read the full blog post for this episode - https://backupplanpod.com/32-egg-retrieval-injections-week-2/
---
I'm becoming a single mother by choice using a known donor; I'm so stoked to be having a baby with my gay best friend. After a few tries with the turkey baster in 2023, I turned to IVF in Spring of 2024.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Remember last week how I was like estrogen priming
was the worst and injectionswere like totally fine.
Estrogen priming was terrible,but injections have gotten worse
.
In college, my gay best friendand I joked that if we hadn't
found love by 40, we'd have ababy with each other.
20 years later I'm pulling theripcord From deciding on solo
(00:21):
motherhood to choosing IVF.
I'm Meredith and this is theBackup Plan.
Last week I went through myupdates day by day, and I think
I'm just going to kind ofcumulatively talk about the
whole week because it's a loteasier that way.
Things have gotten a lotfuzzier since I started.
We'll get into it.
I think this is like cumulativedamage that's happening on my
(00:42):
belly.
I think because I have beenpoking and poking and poking
every single belly.
I think because I have beenpoking and poking and poking
every single night, I think thelast I counted I'm up to like 40
something injections.
I think that because there isfollicle bloat, I think there's
just like a lot less room inthere and so it just hurts more.
But you know what?
Let's talk about nice thingsbecause that's more enjoyable.
(01:06):
My dreams have still been wildlyvivid.
I had a dream the other nightthat I had a baby it was a girl
and then I also adopted a babyat the same time.
She was like three and she wasreally cute and she, everywhere
she walked, she was like alittle ballerina and my mom took
care of the baby.
And then I took care of thethree year old to like acclimate
(01:28):
her to the situation andeverything was fine, except we
had no baby socks.
That was the like drama.
So I found baby socks and thenI was like this is easy.
I had another dream in which myhigh school boyfriend decided
to like give us a go again, andI was thrilled and I've had this
dream before.
He ends up ghosting me everytime.
(01:51):
But then I had to act in ascene with Adam Driver after
that and I was like fine, I waslike at least I have this.
And Adam Driver was like makinggoofy faces at me and I was
like well, I'm friends with AdamDriver, so I guess things
aren't too bad.
And then I had another dreamwhere I was in a play with
Andrew Garfield.
I dream about a lot ofcelebrities.
(02:12):
He and I were in a showtogether.
So I have theater dreams prettyregularly.
They're kind of similar to thedreams you have where, like you
haven't studied for an exam andthen suddenly you have to take
an exam.
Except my theater dreams arethat I had to be in a show but I
haven't gone to any of therehearsals and I don't know any
choreography and I don't knowwhat my lines are.
This was the opposite of that.
I came to the show that nightand they were like, hey, can you
(02:35):
stand in in this role oppositeAndrew Garfield?
And I was like, of course, Iknow all the lines, I can do it.
And like there was an expositionpart of the play that like the
spotlight would cut to us and wewere supposed to be like
cuddling, but he was like likefutzing with my hands a little
bit and I was like, oh, I thinkwe're going to make out at the
cast party, like I was soexcited.
(02:56):
And then I saw my dad in theaudience and he was laughing at
me, but like in a good way, likeit was nice.
So that was a cute little dream, so all that's been fun.
Um, I love my goofy, vividdreams I keep having and I have,
like I'll have like flashes ofthem later in the day and it's
this like weird familiarity Iget and then it goes away and I
(03:19):
totally forget what the dreamwas about.
But there you go.
That's been the most pleasantpart of all of this.
Let's talk about less pleasantparts, like medication changes.
There is a big change that camethat I'll talk about towards
the end of today's episode, butthe funny thing that I want to
mention is that my trash cansmells like a hospital, much
(03:42):
like Jen Shaw.
You open the drawer that mytrash can is in.
It's just this like whiff ofalcohol that comes out, because
there are so many alcohol swabsand alcohol wipes that I'm using
that.
It just smells very clean inthere, which I don't hate.
It's a nice little side effectof everything that I'm going
through.
I use the last of my Zomactin.
(04:03):
If you remember from my lastvideo, I accidentally threw away
a couple of doses of Zomactin.
I met a girl actually as causeI have to keep going back for
checkups to see where my levelsare at and everything Right and
in the waiting room of the RVit's not really a room, it's
just the waiting section of theRV I met a girl who threw away a
(04:24):
lot more medication than I didand I really felt for her.
But I also felt a lot betterfor myself.
So I finished up the Zomactinand they told me I didn't need
to order more that.
The amount that I got reallykind of did what it was going to
do, and that is to increase thequality of the eggs that are
going to come through.
So we will see.
Still going to be nervous aboutthat until I get some good old
(04:48):
embryos from all of this,because I will forever think how
different things would be if Ihad never thrown away that
sumactin.
I started Ganorelix this week.
It is the shot that I take inthe morning.
It hurts, um, so we'll talk alittle bit about side effects.
Now.
The Ganner relics is it's ablunter needle, um, so it's a
(05:14):
little tougher to go in, butreally not that bad, and the
injection itself doesn't hurt,which is wonderful, but
afterwards hurts.
What I do like about theGanorelix, though, is that it's
all in one box.
You open the box and it's apre-filled syringe ready to go.
I don't have to mix anything, Idon't have to measure anything,
it's just a wham bam.
(05:35):
Thank you, ma'am.
Which is very nice in themorning time when you're groggy
and don't want to be thinkingtoo much about anything.
Also, it makes me very foggy.
I have felt in the past weekjust a little bit kind of like
I'm moving through a fog kind of.
It gave me a pretty wildreaction the first time I took
(05:57):
it.
I got kind of itchy and red andthe side effects on the box it
says if you get itchiness or arash, call your doctor
immediately.
And I called them and they saidit should go away in 20 minutes
.
And I was like it's been 20minutes but two hours later it
went away and I haven't reallyhad the reaction since then.
So it's a good thing.
(06:19):
It's still the menopure thatreally hurts and like, as you
can see from all the bruises onmy belly, like the menopure
hurts worse now than when Ifirst started it and I don't
know if it's just because it's,like I said, kind of a
cumulative reaction or what, butlike it hurts so bad.
Last night I wanted to take itout, give myself a second and
then continue with the injection.
I don't know if that would begood or bad.
(06:40):
It's probably not good, nomatter what but I didn't know if
it would be a bad thing.
So I just grinned and bared it.
But it it hurts a lot worse.
I find myself sitting with anice pack on kind of like all
night and then the next day whenI do the Gannarellix, I have a
little belly band ice pack thatI put on as well and just kind
of go about my morning for twohours and then take it off and
(07:04):
I'm fine.
And then I'm fine.
I've had a little bit of changein appetite.
I am for the most part avegetarian, but sometimes I
lapse and I've really beenwanting chicken sandwiches.
This week I ordered two friedchicken sandwiches and felt very
satiated by them.
At the same time, I also havehad like a little bit of a loss
(07:27):
of appetite.
In some ways.
I did the other night but Ithink that was in regards to the
information I got, which we'llgo over in just a second I just
didn't want to eat to theinformation I got, which we'll
go over in just a second I justdidn't want to eat and when I
finally did eat, it all feltvery heavy and I felt kind of
gross and nauseous.
I get a little nauseous atnight sometimes through all of
(07:48):
this, but, honest to God, like Ireally haven't had side effects
that I can like really reporton as saying are, like, truly
terrible.
I thought I was definitely goingto have hormonal swings and
imbalances.
No, I've gotten emotional aboutsome things, but that's because
they were things worth gettingemotional about, like, for
(08:09):
instance, the checkup that I hadon Monday.
I thought Monday's checkup wasgoing to be uh, let's go.
We're going to do an eggretrieval on Wednesday, but my
follicles are not responding asquickly as we'd like and my
estrogen level is half of whatit should be, which really
(08:31):
pisses me off, because I did allof that hard work during the
estrogen priming phase and nowit's just kind of low.
And I am a type A front row ofthe classroom kind of gal who's
really good at everything shedoes and I don't have control
over this.
I can't help this.
(08:55):
I am like stuck with the whimsof what my body has to offer and
I'm mad about it and I'mfrustrated and I just thought
you know I go to the doctor andI always get a clean bill of
health, even when I go in, andI'm like I should lose a little
weight.
They're like it's after theholidays your dad died, it's
(09:17):
fine, you'll get over it, you'llbe fine.
Everybody's always thrilledwith my blood pressure, so this
is hard, this is difficult, andeverybody that I'm seeing is
kind of like, yeah, no, it's,it's par for the course for
(09:40):
where you're-ish years.
There's been a lot of loss oflife around me and you know,
covid and my dad and I've hadfamily members and pets and jobs
that have all left me, andthere was a lot of hopelessness
that I was facing and I went onantidepressants and things got a
(10:01):
lot better and so I don't feelas hopeless and full of despair
as I have in the past and Idon't know how I would cope with
anything that I'm going throughright now if I still had those
thoughts running through my head.
So this just feels more like aphysical manifestation of
mortality grappling and lesslike an emotional one.
(10:24):
So I went through the emotionalone.
Now it's time to go through thephysical one, I guess Right,
and there's nothing that I canreally like be worried about
until we come to the end.
We come to the end, and I don'tknow what the end is, because
so much of what I'm goingthrough is you know, figure out
how you're going to jump overthat hurdle Once that hurdle
comes to you.
I wish that over the last coupleof years I knew where my
(10:48):
fertility was and when it wasfalling.
I found out this week.
My mom told me that when I wasabout 30, my dad asked her if
they should push me to have myeggs frozen and my mom was like
nope, meredith is a hard no onthat one.
And I was, because it reallyfelt like a I don't know a
racket.
(11:09):
It felt like something thatpeople were trying to sell to
women and I knew the numbersthat kind of came along with egg
freezing that not all of theeggs that are frozen unfreeze
and not all of them turn intoembryos and stuff.
So to me it just felt like aploy, a sales pitch to women and
(11:30):
there's no way for me to goback in time period.
But there's no way to go backin time and convince myself
otherwise Because the way thatit was all being sold through
Facebook ads and like I had aperiod tracker app that I really
liked and then all of a suddenit was giving me push
notifications with littlesnowflake emojis saying like
(11:52):
talk to our company about eggfreezing and I was like fuck you
, I just want to track my period.
I just wish that In going tothe doctor and getting like
annual physicals and stuff.
That fertility checking was apart of it, because then I would
have seen with my own eyeswhere my levels were at and
stuff, and my thought processthe whole way has always been
(12:15):
like well, my mom had kids late,so I'll be fine, and maybe I
will be fine.
Maybe this is nothing, maybeall of this means nothing will
be fine.
Maybe this is nothing, maybeall of this means nothing.
But I guess if you're youngerand listening to this, I would
encourage you to just get yourfertility checked, just check it
out.
If kids are something you wantin the future, if you've had any
(12:36):
desire to be a parent, just getyour fertility checked and just
to see where you're at, and,you know, check it again in a
year.
And just to see where you're at, and you know, check it again
in a year.
You know, I remember talking tomy GP about some stuff and I
and she said, oh, we don'treally worry until you're after
40 because things have kind ofchanged.
So the age used to, the age ofconcern, used to be 35 and now
(12:58):
it doesn't really matter untilyou're 40 and it does kind of
matter.
I wish I just knew again.
Maybe, maybe it's for nothing,maybe it's for nothing.
Speaking of my checkups, I dowant to make an addendum to
something I said earlier.
Uh, my ultrasound technician.
She had this analogy about likefollicle stimulation is like
(13:20):
having a party and uh, you're,you're giving your guests drugs
so that they can enjoy theirstay.
And I asked her something aboutplus ones and she was like,
yeah, sometimes plus ones showup.
Your follicles aren't going torelease two eggs, but like an
extra follicle that theywouldn't have seen in the first
place sometimes just show up,which is what's happening to me
right now, because we hadcounted 12 follicles and now I'm
(13:42):
at 14, I think Not all of themare growing as big as we would
hope, but sometimes little onescan drop eggs too, so we're not
going to get too worried aboutit.
Right, we're not worrying aboutanything, we're just tempering
our expectations, but alsostaying extremely positive.
It's easy.
I will say that during one ofmy ultrasounds this week, my
(14:09):
girl she popped over to my rightside first, and my right side
is really not as reactive as theleft side is.
The left side, the left wing ofthe house is where the party's
at and she said something duringthe transvaginal ultrasound
where she was like, oh, yourlittle nuggets coming from this
(14:29):
side she referred to likeMeredith Jr is over here and I
got like, in relaying the storyI'm not emotional about it, but
I think having a wand up yourhoo-ha just kind of puts you
into a different place and I waslike, oh, okay, so that was
like that was a nice littlemoment to have this week.
And I was like, oh, okay, um,so that was like that was a nice
little moment to have this week.
And, uh, I guess the only thingto share right now is that I'm
(14:50):
not doing the egg retrieval onWednesday.
Hopefully it's going to be onFriday.
I had to quickly order anotherround of medication.
I tried to get it yesterday sothey could overnight it for
today.
It didn't go through, so Icalled them this morning and I
said, oh, they said it's goingto be fine that you can do it
same day.
The woman on the other end ofthe phone at Schraff's was like
(15:12):
what I will give them props for,like working really quick, and
they pushed it to anotherpharmacy that they knew could
get it to me immediately, butthey didn't explain that they
were still going to fulfill myorder for the next day.
So I got the same day order andI opened it up.
There's only half the dose ofall the stuff that I need,
enough for tonight but notenough for tomorrow.
(15:33):
So let me call Trask back.
And they were like no, we'restill fulfilling that other half
.
So a little confusing, but it'sdone, it's all here or will be
tomorrow when the other halfcomes, and hopefully that's the
end of it.
And I go in and suddenly myestrogen is just like through
the roof and all of my folliclesare double digit and we're
(15:56):
ready to go.
And yeah, I just I'm ready forthe next part of it.
I'm ready to have a beer aboutthis.
I will wait.
I will keep drinking my waterand my liquid IV and wait.
Yeah, hopefully next week.
I have lots to tell you aboutegg retrieval.
(16:16):
And we're back to regularlyscheduled programming, although
none of this is regularlyscheduled at this point.
Is it Like it's been hard?
This week's been hard.
I cried a little bit about justlife, liberty, the pursuit of
happiness, and yeah, I'll leaveit at that.
(16:37):
You know how to find me online.
It's back at plan pod orMeredith K eight and you know
like subscribe, share, review,meredith K eight, and you know
like subscribe, share, review.
Uh, what have you?
It helps and um.
Thank you again for your wildwishes and and I'll see you next
week with smaller follicles.
The backup plan is created,produced and hosted by me.
(16:57):
Meredith Kate Julian Higgins ismy co-producer.
You can find us on social mediaat BackupPlanPod.
The best place to get updatesis to sign up for our newsletter
at BackupPlanPodcom, where wealso post all episodes, show
notes and transcripts.
Thank you for listening.
Remember last week how I was like estrogen priming
was the worst and injectionswere like totally fine.
Estrogen priming was terrible,but injections have gotten worse
.
In college, my gay best friendand I joked that if we hadn't
found love by 40, we'd have ababy with each other.
20 years later I'm pulling theripcord From deciding on solo
(00:21):
motherhood to choosing IVF.
I'm Meredith and this is theBackup Plan.
Last week I went through myupdates day by day, and I think
I'm just going to kind ofcumulatively talk about the
whole week because it's a loteasier that way.
Things have gotten a lotfuzzier since I started.
We'll get into it.
I think this is like cumulativedamage that's happening on my
(00:42):
belly.
I think because I have beenpoking and poking and poking
every single belly.
I think because I have beenpoking and poking and poking
every single night, I think thelast I counted I'm up to like 40
something injections.
I think that because there isfollicle bloat, I think there's
just like a lot less room inthere and so it just hurts more.
But you know what?
Let's talk about nice thingsbecause that's more enjoyable.
(01:06):
My dreams have still been wildlyvivid.
I had a dream the other nightthat I had a baby it was a girl
and then I also adopted a babyat the same time.
She was like three and she wasreally cute and she, everywhere
she walked, she was like alittle ballerina and my mom took
care of the baby.
And then I took care of thethree year old to like acclimate
(01:28):
her to the situation andeverything was fine, except we
had no baby socks.
That was the like drama.
So I found baby socks and thenI was like this is easy.
I had another dream in which myhigh school boyfriend decided
to like give us a go again, andI was thrilled and I've had this
dream before.
He ends up ghosting me everytime.
(01:51):
But then I had to act in ascene with Adam Driver after
that and I was like fine, I waslike at least I have this.
And Adam Driver was like makinggoofy faces at me and I was
like well, I'm friends with AdamDriver, so I guess things
aren't too bad.
And then I had another dreamwhere I was in a play with
Andrew Garfield.
I dream about a lot ofcelebrities.
(02:12):
He and I were in a showtogether.
So I have theater dreams prettyregularly.
They're kind of similar to thedreams you have where, like you
haven't studied for an exam andthen suddenly you have to take
an exam.
Except my theater dreams arethat I had to be in a show but I
haven't gone to any of therehearsals and I don't know any
choreography and I don't knowwhat my lines are.
This was the opposite of that.
I came to the show that nightand they were like, hey, can you
(02:35):
stand in in this role oppositeAndrew Garfield?
And I was like, of course, Iknow all the lines, I can do it.
And like there was an expositionpart of the play that like the
spotlight would cut to us and wewere supposed to be like
cuddling, but he was like likefutzing with my hands a little
bit and I was like, oh, I thinkwe're going to make out at the
cast party, like I was soexcited.
(02:56):
And then I saw my dad in theaudience and he was laughing at
me, but like in a good way, likeit was nice.
So that was a cute little dream, so all that's been fun.
Um, I love my goofy, vividdreams I keep having and I have,
like I'll have like flashes ofthem later in the day and it's
this like weird familiarity Iget and then it goes away and I
(03:19):
totally forget what the dreamwas about.
But there you go.
That's been the most pleasantpart of all of this.
Let's talk about less pleasantparts, like medication changes.
There is a big change that camethat I'll talk about towards
the end of today's episode, butthe funny thing that I want to
mention is that my trash cansmells like a hospital, much
(03:42):
like Jen Shaw.
You open the drawer that mytrash can is in.
It's just this like whiff ofalcohol that comes out, because
there are so many alcohol swabsand alcohol wipes that I'm using
that.
It just smells very clean inthere, which I don't hate.
It's a nice little side effectof everything that I'm going
through.
I use the last of my Zomactin.
(04:03):
If you remember from my lastvideo, I accidentally threw away
a couple of doses of Zomactin.
I met a girl actually as causeI have to keep going back for
checkups to see where my levelsare at and everything Right and
in the waiting room of the RVit's not really a room, it's
just the waiting section of theRV I met a girl who threw away a
(04:24):
lot more medication than I didand I really felt for her.
But I also felt a lot betterfor myself.
So I finished up the Zomactinand they told me I didn't need
to order more that.
The amount that I got reallykind of did what it was going to
do, and that is to increase thequality of the eggs that are
going to come through.
So we will see.
Still going to be nervous aboutthat until I get some good old
(04:48):
embryos from all of this,because I will forever think how
different things would be if Ihad never thrown away that
sumactin.
I started Ganorelix this week.
It is the shot that I take inthe morning.
It hurts, um, so we'll talk alittle bit about side effects.
Now.
The Ganner relics is it's ablunter needle, um, so it's a
(05:14):
little tougher to go in, butreally not that bad, and the
injection itself doesn't hurt,which is wonderful, but
afterwards hurts.
What I do like about theGanorelix, though, is that it's
all in one box.
You open the box and it's apre-filled syringe ready to go.
I don't have to mix anything, Idon't have to measure anything,
it's just a wham bam.
(05:35):
Thank you, ma'am.
Which is very nice in themorning time when you're groggy
and don't want to be thinkingtoo much about anything.
Also, it makes me very foggy.
I have felt in the past weekjust a little bit kind of like
I'm moving through a fog kind of.
It gave me a pretty wildreaction the first time I took
(05:57):
it.
I got kind of itchy and red andthe side effects on the box it
says if you get itchiness or arash, call your doctor
immediately.
And I called them and they saidit should go away in 20 minutes
.
And I was like it's been 20minutes but two hours later it
went away and I haven't reallyhad the reaction since then.
So it's a good thing.
(06:19):
It's still the menopure thatreally hurts and like, as you
can see from all the bruises onmy belly, like the menopure
hurts worse now than when Ifirst started it and I don't
know if it's just because it's,like I said, kind of a
cumulative reaction or what, butlike it hurts so bad.
Last night I wanted to take itout, give myself a second and
then continue with the injection.
I don't know if that would begood or bad.
(06:40):
It's probably not good, nomatter what but I didn't know if
it would be a bad thing.
So I just grinned and bared it.
But it it hurts a lot worse.
I find myself sitting with anice pack on kind of like all
night and then the next day whenI do the Gannarellix, I have a
little belly band ice pack thatI put on as well and just kind
of go about my morning for twohours and then take it off and
(07:04):
I'm fine.
And then I'm fine.
I've had a little bit of changein appetite.
I am for the most part avegetarian, but sometimes I
lapse and I've really beenwanting chicken sandwiches.
This week I ordered two friedchicken sandwiches and felt very
satiated by them.
At the same time, I also havehad like a little bit of a loss
(07:27):
of appetite.
In some ways.
I did the other night but Ithink that was in regards to the
information I got, which we'llgo over in just a second I just
didn't want to eat to theinformation I got, which we'll
go over in just a second I justdidn't want to eat and when I
finally did eat, it all feltvery heavy and I felt kind of
gross and nauseous.
I get a little nauseous atnight sometimes through all of
(07:48):
this, but, honest to God, like Ireally haven't had side effects
that I can like really reporton as saying are, like, truly
terrible.
I thought I was definitely goingto have hormonal swings and
imbalances.
No, I've gotten emotional aboutsome things, but that's because
they were things worth gettingemotional about, like, for
(08:09):
instance, the checkup that I hadon Monday.
I thought Monday's checkup wasgoing to be uh, let's go.
We're going to do an eggretrieval on Wednesday, but my
follicles are not responding asquickly as we'd like and my
estrogen level is half of whatit should be, which really
(08:31):
pisses me off, because I did allof that hard work during the
estrogen priming phase and nowit's just kind of low.
And I am a type A front row ofthe classroom kind of gal who's
really good at everything shedoes and I don't have control
over this.
I can't help this.
(08:55):
I am like stuck with the whimsof what my body has to offer and
I'm mad about it and I'mfrustrated and I just thought
you know I go to the doctor andI always get a clean bill of
health, even when I go in, andI'm like I should lose a little
weight.
They're like it's after theholidays your dad died, it's
(09:17):
fine, you'll get over it, you'llbe fine.
Everybody's always thrilledwith my blood pressure, so this
is hard, this is difficult, andeverybody that I'm seeing is
kind of like, yeah, no, it's,it's par for the course for
(09:40):
where you're-ish years.
There's been a lot of loss oflife around me and you know,
covid and my dad and I've hadfamily members and pets and jobs
that have all left me, andthere was a lot of hopelessness
that I was facing and I went onantidepressants and things got a
(10:01):
lot better and so I don't feelas hopeless and full of despair
as I have in the past and Idon't know how I would cope with
anything that I'm going throughright now if I still had those
thoughts running through my head.
So this just feels more like aphysical manifestation of
mortality grappling and lesslike an emotional one.
(10:24):
So I went through the emotionalone.
Now it's time to go through thephysical one, I guess Right,
and there's nothing that I canreally like be worried about
until we come to the end.
We come to the end, and I don'tknow what the end is, because
so much of what I'm goingthrough is you know, figure out
how you're going to jump overthat hurdle Once that hurdle
comes to you.
I wish that over the last coupleof years I knew where my
(10:48):
fertility was and when it wasfalling.
I found out this week.
My mom told me that when I wasabout 30, my dad asked her if
they should push me to have myeggs frozen and my mom was like
nope, meredith is a hard no onthat one.
And I was, because it reallyfelt like a I don't know a
racket.
(11:09):
It felt like something thatpeople were trying to sell to
women and I knew the numbersthat kind of came along with egg
freezing that not all of theeggs that are frozen unfreeze
and not all of them turn intoembryos and stuff.
So to me it just felt like aploy, a sales pitch to women and
(11:30):
there's no way for me to goback in time period.
But there's no way to go backin time and convince myself
otherwise Because the way thatit was all being sold through
Facebook ads and like I had aperiod tracker app that I really
liked and then all of a suddenit was giving me push
notifications with littlesnowflake emojis saying like
(11:52):
talk to our company about eggfreezing and I was like fuck you
, I just want to track my period.
I just wish that In going tothe doctor and getting like
annual physicals and stuff.
That fertility checking was apart of it, because then I would
have seen with my own eyeswhere my levels were at and
stuff, and my thought processthe whole way has always been
(12:15):
like well, my mom had kids late,so I'll be fine, and maybe I
will be fine.
Maybe this is nothing, maybeall of this means nothing will
be fine.
Maybe this is nothing, maybeall of this means nothing.
But I guess if you're youngerand listening to this, I would
encourage you to just get yourfertility checked, just check it
out.
If kids are something you wantin the future, if you've had any
(12:36):
desire to be a parent, just getyour fertility checked and just
to see where you're at, and,you know, check it again in a
year.
And just to see where you're at, and you know, check it again
in a year.
You know, I remember talking tomy GP about some stuff and I
and she said, oh, we don'treally worry until you're after
40 because things have kind ofchanged.
So the age used to, the age ofconcern, used to be 35 and now
(12:58):
it doesn't really matter untilyou're 40 and it does kind of
matter.
I wish I just knew again.
Maybe, maybe it's for nothing,maybe it's for nothing.
Speaking of my checkups, I dowant to make an addendum to
something I said earlier.
Uh, my ultrasound technician.
She had this analogy about likefollicle stimulation is like
(13:20):
having a party and uh, you're,you're giving your guests drugs
so that they can enjoy theirstay.
And I asked her something aboutplus ones and she was like,
yeah, sometimes plus ones showup.
Your follicles aren't going torelease two eggs, but like an
extra follicle that theywouldn't have seen in the first
place sometimes just show up,which is what's happening to me
right now, because we hadcounted 12 follicles and now I'm
(13:42):
at 14, I think Not all of themare growing as big as we would
hope, but sometimes little onescan drop eggs too, so we're not
going to get too worried aboutit.
Right, we're not worrying aboutanything, we're just tempering
our expectations, but alsostaying extremely positive.
It's easy.
I will say that during one ofmy ultrasounds this week, my
(14:09):
girl she popped over to my rightside first, and my right side
is really not as reactive as theleft side is.
The left side, the left wing ofthe house is where the party's
at and she said something duringthe transvaginal ultrasound
where she was like, oh, yourlittle nuggets coming from this
(14:29):
side she referred to likeMeredith Jr is over here and I
got like, in relaying the storyI'm not emotional about it, but
I think having a wand up yourhoo-ha just kind of puts you
into a different place and I waslike, oh, okay, so that was
like that was a nice littlemoment to have this week.
And I was like, oh, okay, um,so that was like that was a nice
little moment to have this week.
And, uh, I guess the only thingto share right now is that I'm
(14:50):
not doing the egg retrieval onWednesday.
Hopefully it's going to be onFriday.
I had to quickly order anotherround of medication.
I tried to get it yesterday sothey could overnight it for
today.
It didn't go through, so Icalled them this morning and I
said, oh, they said it's goingto be fine that you can do it
same day.
The woman on the other end ofthe phone at Schraff's was like
(15:12):
what I will give them props for,like working really quick, and
they pushed it to anotherpharmacy that they knew could
get it to me immediately, butthey didn't explain that they
were still going to fulfill myorder for the next day.
So I got the same day order andI opened it up.
There's only half the dose ofall the stuff that I need,
enough for tonight but notenough for tomorrow.
(15:33):
So let me call Trask back.
And they were like no, we'restill fulfilling that other half
.
So a little confusing, but it'sdone, it's all here or will be
tomorrow when the other halfcomes, and hopefully that's the
end of it.
And I go in and suddenly myestrogen is just like through
the roof and all of my folliclesare double digit and we're
(15:56):
ready to go.
And yeah, I just I'm ready forthe next part of it.
I'm ready to have a beer aboutthis.
I will wait.
I will keep drinking my waterand my liquid IV and wait.
Yeah, hopefully next week.
I have lots to tell you aboutegg retrieval.
(16:16):
And we're back to regularlyscheduled programming, although
none of this is regularlyscheduled at this point.
Is it Like it's been hard?
This week's been hard.
I cried a little bit about justlife, liberty, the pursuit of
happiness, and yeah, I'll leaveit at that.
(16:37):
You know how to find me online.
It's back at plan pod orMeredith K eight and you know
like subscribe, share, review,meredith K eight, and you know
like subscribe, share, review.
Uh, what have you?
It helps and um.
Thank you again for your wildwishes and and I'll see you next
week with smaller follicles.
The backup plan is created,produced and hosted by me.
(16:57):
Meredith Kate Julian Higgins ismy co-producer.
You can find us on social mediaat BackupPlanPod.
The best place to get updatesis to sign up for our newsletter
at BackupPlanPodcom, where wealso post all episodes, show
notes and transcripts.
Thank you for listening.
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