Estrace

***TMI Warning***

Today I started my Lupron shots, only once daily this time. I'm sure many of my experienced IVFer's can relate, but it seems that the first shot never goes in easily. The needle practically bounced off my belly like my body had some sort of needle force field and was trying to protect itself from the onslaught of injections. I kept pushing and pushing and my belly just kept caving in until finally the needle broke the skin and my belly bounced back to its original fluffy state. I wasn't go slow either, I usually have a 1-2-3 jab method. It's like I have to remind my body that yes, we're doing this again so you better cooperate! And then all the shots after that are fine.

So back to the Estrace debaucle. Yesterday morning I Googled the whole Estrace issue and found that many women do take this tiny pill orally. But taking it orally means that it gets processed by the liver (duh). However, some doctors believe (I haven't found a study to prove the method) that inserting the pill vaginally and allowing the pill to be absorbing directly is a better method. Apparently Dr. P is one of those doctors (either that or he just wants to steal my pride). Does it improve the lining more? Who knows, this is the first time I'm trying it. I don't even really want to know how the doctors came up with the theory because technically it is an oral pill. Many pre-menopausal women take it to bump up their estrogen levels but have no need to stick it up the vagina to increase their lining.

So as much as that sucked, I came up with a game plan. I'll manually stick the damn Estrace up there, then use the progesterone applicator to stick the Endometrin up there and hope that the Endometrin shoves the tiny blue pill in a little farther. Of course, this would only work after I trigger because that's when I start the Endometrin. Up until then it's just the Estrace. Wonderful.

Then I got a call from my old cycle buddy Suzanne (who hasn't written on her blog in FOREVER so I'm not linking it...hint hint!). She called to offer her input because, as I had totally forgotten, she had to take Estrace during her fresh cycles to beef up her lining. She confirmed that yes, the pill is vaginal and yes, it is a manual insertion. She said that Nurse D just told her to stick it as far up there as you can and it should be fine. But Suzanne also mentioned that this is a quickly dissolving pill so I can't really be messing around too long in there trying to get it situated. Just get in and get out. She also said I'll be pulling out a blue finger but at least the shit washes off easily so the proof of my shame won't be obvious to the general public. Thank God for small miracles, right?

But the kicker of this whole situation is that the Endometrin and Estrace can't be taken together, they have to be taken about 3 hours apart! That means I'll be shoving pills up my hoo-ha round the clock! It ain't a pillbox ya know.....or is it?

I didn't want to believe this last part so I emailed Nurse D and asked her. I also suggested she might want to consider a disclaimer for this sort of stuff, just so we know what we're getting into. She did confirm that letting the Endometrin absorb for 6 hours is ideal before inserting another vaginal medication, but 4 hours is okay too. And she said she'll suggest the disclaimer to Dr P. I must also add here that I called Nurse D the other day about this Estrace issue after Brandon and I had a good laugh about how we're going to do this. I was on the phone leaving a message and I was trying to say "Is this a manual thing?" meaning the insertion of the Estrace but all I got out was a very nervous "Is this a...." when Brandon yelled from the other room "JOKE?!?!" and I busted out laughing on the phone because I'm sure she heard it. Yea, she mentioned that she's saving that message "because it expressed the feeling about vaginal estrace application and it made me laugh out loud." I love my doctors.

So now I'm in a sticky situation because the Endometrin has to be taken 8 hours apart and the Estrace every 12 hours. But that's not physically possible with even a 4-hour wait period between the two (I did the math). That would mean I'd be taking the Endometrin every 8 hours and the Estrace would only be about 10-11 hours apart. But if I only wait 3 hours like Suzanne suggested then I can take the Endometrin every 8 and the Estrace will be 12 hours apart like suggested.

So here's my schedule of Endometrin/Estrace in case anyone's interested:
Endo- 6 am
Estrace- 9 am
Endo- 2 pm
Estrace- 7 pm
Endo- 10 pm

It was the best I could do. The Estrace is taken 10 hours apart, Endo is taken 8 hours apart, and there's a 3 or 5-hour wait time between all the pills to allow for absorption

Either way I have concluded that aside from less appointments to attend, a frozen embryo transfer is not easier than a fresh IVF cycle. I'd take the injections over the vaginal pills any day!