You're a Poem of Mystery

The last 6 weeks have been rough for me. This last round of fertility treatments has done a huge number on my body. A little recap...

My follicles were a little sluggish responding to the medication, growing slowly and requiring larger doses. It seemed that there wasn't a follicle that wanted to take the lead, so we just kept plugging along and increasing the dose or the number of days I took a certain dose. Till the bitter end, not one claimed the leadership role. Finally I had 3 that were large (mature) enough to release an egg, the problem was that I had no less than 6 and possibly 9 others that were borderline mature and could possibly ovulate as well. Dr. K reiterated the risk of having multiples, but we again hedged our bets since we've faced that risk before and come up empty handed. We decided to go for it and did the insemination.

That weekend I went with a group of girls to San Diego where we spent our days relaxing and being lazy. It was refreshing and a little alien to not have anything to do. However I was feeling a little self conscious next to these beautiful twiggy girls since I was noticeably bloated. I didn't think too much of it and it seemed to go away once I got back to L.A.

The following weekend was Ragnar. Ryan and I had been training (not too intensely) for this 200 mile relay race for the past several months. We were excited and admittedly nervous. Neither of us had ever done a race before, but we heard it is a lot of fun and less about running than it is about the experience. We borrowed vans from Toy Bombs and Gardner and decked them out in true Rompompachop (our team name) style. Everything was green light go...except for my belly. I was bloated again! It was even worse this time!

My first leg I prepared by taking popping 800mg of Ibuprofen before my run to muscle through the pain and avoid any headaches that I'm notorious for. Things went fairly well, but something definitely had to be done about my gas because Gas-X wasn't working. At least that's what I thought was causing the bloating. Maybe I was constipated and the gas couldn't get through the road block.

Before my next leg, we stopped by the store and bought some Ex-Lax, and suppositories. I would flush it out and be good to go! The Ex-Lax worked like a charm and I felt 75% better. I was able to rest comfortably before our next leg. I spoke too soon! By the time it was my turn to run, I was bloated again! Good thing it was a shorter leg. I popped another 600mg Ibupofen and was on my way.

Next solution...the dreaded suppository. It worked to say the least and I felt a bit better, but not was well as after the Ex-Lax. There is no possible way that anything was blocking gas from getting out now, but I was STILL bloated! I was so bloated that I was short of breath and looked more and more square. Although painful, I popped another 400mg Ibuprofen and suffered through my last leg to the end without adding too much to my anticipated time.

We finished the race behind schedule, but with high spirits. It was a lot of fun and would do it again next year...as long as I'm not bloated.

As it turns out it wasn't gas. Remember OHSS? Yep. This time it was for real. Yeah, last time I was pretty much a wimp. This time it was the real deal. I kept getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger. I called Dr. K. at 1:30am because it was so painful I couldn't sleep and I was having a hard time breathing. He scheduled an ultrasound the next morning and it confirmed that it was indeed OHSS and my ovaries were 5"x7"....or the size of oranges. They were so large that they were pressing on my innards and diaphragm and making it hard for me to breathe. Sure breathing was a concern, but a bigger concern was making sure my ovaries didn't twist on themselves and cut off blood circulation, essentially killing the ovary. I also had to carefully monitor my fluid balance. When ovaries are that large they get "leaky" and leak fluid into the abdomen (ascites) which is very painful and can cause electrolyte imbalances that need to be corrected in the hospital. If I collected too much fluid too quickly in my abdomen they would have to aspirate some of the fluid out with a needle....Yikes! At this point Dr. K told me to take it easy and limit my physical activity and avoid Ibuprofen. Wait. WHAT?! I just ran a race! I told him that we had just finished a race not more than 36 hours earlier and I was popping ibuprofen like it was candy and his facial expression was the equivalent of him shitting his pants. The average person wouldn't pick up on it because Doctors are masters at masking emotion (it's part of the job), but being a nurse I have developed a keen awareness to subtle twitches and stiffness that betrays the calm they portray. I knew it was pretty serious by his response.

Apparently if you are attempting to become or already are pregnant you should stay clear of Ibuprofen. I did not know this...and I'm a nurse! What the hell? Is this common knowledge? I asked around the unit at work, and not a single person knew this...unless they had recently been pregnant and only because their OB/GYN gave them a list of meds to stay away from. Geez it would have been nice to know BEFORE hand that Ibuprofen is a no no! Before anyone gets on their high horse about how I should have known better or looked it up in Drug Handbook...I'm sorry I don't have time to look up every medication, and I thought my MD would for sure give me a list of medications to avoid, especially since I've asked before if there was anything I should stay away from.

As far as the swelling was concerned, Dr. K could only recommend Tylenol and heat packs. If the pregnancy test was negative they could give me a medication for it to go down more quickly, but if I ended up pregnant then I was looking forward to having a swollen belly for weeks to months.

No working for me for a couple of weeks. Good thing it was slow at work and I kept getting called off.

I could hardly breathe, gained 10 lbs of water weight, was in a lot of pain and looked 6 months pregnant. This better be worth it!

That was the first 2 weeks....