First Egg Freezing Cycle: Recovery

My mom drove me home from the egg retrieval and I had lunch, including one of those whey protein shakes the clinic had recommended (see previous post.) I was feeling pretty tired; it had been a short night because I had needed to get up so early for the procedure. It’s possible that I was also feeling lingering effects of the anaesthesia. I took Tylenol to ward off pain (as suggested on the instruction sheet from the clinic) and went to take a nap. I was expecting to wake up in an hour or two, but I slept for four hours! I completely missed a football game I’d planned to watch. The clinic phoned while I was asleep; I awoke to a voicemail stating that they had been able to freeze 11 eggs. Out of the 13 that had been removed, one was immature and one was “not a good egg.” I later learned, when reviewing my medical records, that the “not a good egg” had been damaged. I was a bit upset that the count was now down to 11. But what could I do? At that point I knew it would be a good idea to do another egg freezing cycle if I could swing it financially, and that is what I am working on now.

I learned from the instruction sheet that I should avoid sex and exercise until my next period. Sex would be no problem what with the lack of boyfriend and all, but I was disappointed that the torsion risk still existed even after the egg retrieval. Apparently everything pretty much goes back to normal when you get your period but until then, the ovaries may still be enlarged.

I was not seriously worried about OHSS (Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome) despite the warnings from the clinic, because I knew that I hadn’t had all that many eggs removed. The more eggs removed, the higher the risk. Still, I was on the lookout for symptoms, which include fever above 100 degrees, moderate to heavy vaginal bleeding, severe cramping, rapid weight gain, pain not relieved with Tylenol, and difficulty with urination according to the post-procedure instructions sheet. I have read on other egg freezing blogs and discussion boards that your stomach gets really bloated and big, almost like you’re several months pregnant, and painful. Luckily nothing like that happened to me. I continued with the OHSS diet recommended by the clinic, drinking Gatorade and Pedialyte instead of plain water and having multiple whey protein shakes per day. I don’t know if the diet really did anything as I suspect I wouldn’t have gotten OHSS anyway.

I was supposed to take Doxycycline twice the day after the retrieval, but I forgot. I took it the following day instead. Oops! Luckily I did not come down with any infections.

I pretty much felt back to normal the day after the egg retrieval. I was still guzzling Gatorade and whey protein shakes, and avoiding brisk walking, but other than that things were normal.

There was no follow-up appointment or phone call from the doctor. I thought that was a little strange. I would have liked a  follow-on to discuss how the retrieval went, whether she would recommend doing another cycle,  what changes she might make in another cycle to get better results, etc. As I mentioned in a previous post, I didn’t see her at all during the egg retrieval procedure. For all I know the fellow could have done the retrieval. I certainly hope it was the regular, fully trained doctor with years of expertise who did it!

First Egg Freezing Cycle: The Trigger Shot

My trigger shot was to be at exactly 9:30 PM on Thursday, November 21, 2013. Earlier that day, I gave myself the last Ganirelix shot.

I had now been on hormones for well over a week. How was I feeling? As it turned out, I was feeling surprisingly normal. I had been concerned that the hormones would affect my mood and that I might experience strange crying jags or temper flares, but that did not happen. Physically I was also feeling pretty good. I was not particularly bloated, and though I thought I could feel my ovaries, I was never quite sure if it was just a figment of my imagination brought on by the suggestion that I should be feeling heaviness in the ovaries. I was however moving differently than usual, in an effort to heed the nurse’s cautions about the risk of ovarian torsion from certain movements. I was supposed to avoid anything that caused bouncing, so I walked more slowly than normal. I had also started taking the elevator up instead of the stairs up to the clinic. I tried to be careful to avoid twisting movements, though I always toss and turn a lot during my sleep so I’m sure I wasn’t able to completely eliminate twisting motions.

The nurse had suggested that I start mixing up my HCG (the trigger shot) at 9:20 PM, to be sure it was ready for 9:30 PM. When I picked up the box, I noticed it said “For intramuscular use only.” I have picked up from other egg freezing blogs and forums that some clinics have their patients do intramuscular shots for the HCG, but at Stanford we are supposed to do a subcutaneous shot. I certainly didn’t have either the training or the needle necessary for an intramuscular shot. I was concerned that I had ended up with the wrong variety of medication. I didn’t know what to do, so I paged the on-call fellow to ask.

When the fellow called back, it was apparent that she hadn’t heard of this exact problem before. I would have loved her to say, “Yes, I know it says “for intramuscular use only” on the box, but it is fine to do the subcutaneous injection.” Instead, she asked me to read her what it said regarding what kind of medicine was in the box, she told me that it sounded like the correct medication, and told me it should be fine to do a subcutaneous injection with it. An answer, but not quite as confidently reassuring as I had hoped for.

Anyway, I set about mixing up the medication and transferring it out of the vial into the injection syringe. I was able to get around two-thirds or three-quarters of the medication into the injection syringe, but I absolutely couldn’t get the last bits out. I remembered the nurse had taught me how to do it after my last ultrasound, but I couldn’t remember what exactly the secret was. I was running way behind now, between paging the on-call fellow and trying to get more medication into the syringe, it was well past 9:30. I finally decided to inject what I could before it got any later. After injecting myself with most of the medication, I set about getting out the last one-quarter to one-third of the medication which was stubbornly stuck in the vial. I held the vial and the syringe at various different angles, desperately trying to get all the medication out. I finally managed to get most of the remainder and gave myself a second injection (thank goodness the clinic had prescribed extra needles, as you need a new needle for each injection). By this time it was well past 10:00. That’s right, I had managed to screw up the timing of this most-important, absolutely-had-to-be-at-9:30 shot.

I emailed the clinic to explain what had happened and then got ready for bed--I would have to leave for my retrieval appointment around 7:00 AM the next day.

Consents and Exercise

Yesterday I sent off my preliminary consent to be treated to the doctor.

I am also working on getting into shape prior to the egg freezing. I am on week 2 of the RunDouble Couch to 5K program. I need to get my exercise in now because you cannot do most exercise for several weeks during the egg freezing process: you have to stop exercising (except for walking) after the first few days of hormone injections, and you have to stay off exercise for a while after the egg retrieval procedure--until your ovaries shrink back to their normal size. This is because while the ovaries are enlarged from the hormone injections, there is a risk of torsion--twisting of the ovary, which can lead to the blood supply being cut off and could even lead to you losing the ovary. To avoid this risk, the doctors advise you to avoid exercise. During my previous egg freezing cycle, I was told to stop exercise except for walking after the 4th day of hormone injections.