Head First

I received an unexpected call from the IVF nurse on Wednesday morning. She had the results from the blood draws we had last weekend. Good news: we are both free of infectious diseases! Bad news: one of my hormone levels was elevated. Boo.

This particular hormone was borderline when I had my first diagnostic blood draw in May, albeit still within the normal range. Dr. NFB prescribed the Kryptonite anyway. The problem with my most recent blood draw: she was giving me medication to make it go down and it went up. Dr. NFB doesn't like to be crossed.

She decided that she needed to look at my pituitary gland before proceeding with IVF. Unfortunately, you don't just open wide and say, "aaahhhh" to look at your pituitary gland; MRI required. Thankfully they were able to schedule it for Thursday morning. MRIs actually aren't bad. I might even consider them relaxing - warm blankets, headphones with music, not at work! Just ignore the room size machine that's pinging magnetic waves at your brain. Also ignore the fact that you are there because a doctor suspects there could be something wrong with your insides.

Honestly, I wasn't that worried about the results. Yes, my levels did go up, but they really weren't that far out of the normal range.

We received the results Friday morning - everything is fine. We are proceeding with our current schedule.

The worst part of this little hiccup: she doubled my Kryptonite intake. I was taking it every other night; now I have to take it every night. People, there is a reason we call it Kryptonite. If I do the following then it's not bad: eat a snack, go straight upstairs and swallow the pill, get into bed, fall asleep within 30 minutes, stay asleep for at least five hours, six is better. I should add that I brush my teeth before getting in bed, but I don't think that has anything to do with avoiding the side effects.

However, if that process breaks down I can kiss a good night sleep and a decent morning goodbye. I usually fall asleep fine, but I tend to wake up a couple hours later. The Kryptonite stuffs up my sinuses so I can't breath through my nose. It also confuses the heck out of my temperature sensors. My insides are hot, but my skin is cold. Covers on = too hot, covers off = too cold. Then there is the inevitable, "dang it, I should get up and go to the bathroom while I'm awake." The second I ponder whether my bladder will let me go back to sleep or not, that's all I can think about. It's not worth the energy to decide; just go. 

The Kryptonite must lower my already low blood pressure because I'm pretty dizzy when I first stand up. And then the nausea hits. This continues until about 8:30 or 9:00 in the morning and in the meantime left me tossing and turning the rest of the night and made it unpleasant to get ready for work. I can't wait to be done with this medication. But, I'm thankful everything is fine and we are on schedule with IVF.