The Protocol

I survived the drain (Trevor thankfully picked up my Valium, not sure it helped during the procedure, but I did take a nice 4 hour nap when I got home). The clinic didn't want to waste any time, in case another cyst wanted to develop or something else crazy decided to happen, so I started my cycle the very next day.

As I mentioned before, I do what is called a Lupron Flare Protocol. For two days I had to inject a small amount of microdose lupron once in the morning and once in the evening. On day three (last Sunday) I added in follistim and low-dose hCG. That makes two injections each morning and three injections each night. The pictures below illustrate my nightly routine:

First I wash my hands and lay everything out on a clean paper towel.

Above is a closer shot (no pun intended, ha). The vials on the top are the microdose lupron and low dose hCG. They are injected using the insulin needles (with the orange caps). The follistim is injected using a follistim pen (the yellow and blue pen-looking cylinder).

Above is a close-up of the needles, lest I seem like a tough guy, I just wanted to show you how tiny they are. Nearly all of my shots are injected into the subcutaneous fat in my stomach, so the needles don't need to be very long. At first it was kind of psychologically hard to give myself the shots (back in August 2005, during my first cycle, I can't believe it has been that long) but physically speaking, the needles are so tiny, you can barely feel them.

Although tiny, they still leave a mark. I can't believe I am posting this for all to see, but the above is obviously a picture of my pin-cushion stomach earlier tonight, not even half-way through this cycle. Good thing I have a nice big stomach over which to spread out these shots!

So, that is the routine it all its glory. Wednesday I went to the lab to check my estrodial (estrogen) level, which was sufficiently high enough to continue this cycle (if it was too low, I was in danger of being canceled due to poor response). Angie also got her levels checked on Wednesday and she is right where she needs to be. Maybe she will post one of these days with an update and her belly shots (c'mon, Ang, all the cool kids are doing it).

Tomorrow morning is my next appointment, at which I will get blood drawn and also have an ultrasound to check out my ovaries and do a follicle count. Each follicle should (but doesn't always) contain an egg. The doc will monitor the size of my follicles and the amount of hormones (estrodial) in my blood to determine the rate of growth of the eggs, and will adjust my future doses of drugs accordingly (although the doses are about as high as they go, so hopefully everything is looking good).

If everything goes as planned, based on my last few cycles I will probably continue on this 5-shot-per-day plan for six more days. Will post more after my appointment tomorrow. Please pray for lots of follicles!