Pocket Bebe

Yesterday was Happy Lupron day and I was able to do my first 10 unit Lupron injection in my thigh.  Even though Lucy and her family traveled up north for some real Christmas weather we were still able to connect for the momentous occasion via Skype.  We had one audio glitch in that I couldn’t hear Lucy through the laptop so I got on the house phone while The Husband used my Blackberry to capture us some pictures.  Lucy had to go into one of the public areas where they were staying to get a connection on her computer and ended up sitting on a patio that had snow drifts piled up in the corner, in the freezing temps for at least fifteen minutes.  What a sport! 

I’d been told by Lucy and other surrogates on the support group site that the Lupron injections are not much to worry about and for me it truly wasn’t.  Lucy’s clinic instructed me to do it in the thigh (some women do it in their tummy rolls) so I was a little nervous about that as I have less fat on the top of my thigh than I do on my tummy, but now I can’t imagine trying to do it anywhere but the thigh.  Lucy giggled a little that I used such force for such a  short little needle but I didn’t want to not thrust it hard enough and get a ”bounce back” on my first try, that would have been traumatizing and surely would have mentally screwed with me for all the other injections to come. 

This morning I had my second acupuncture appointment; the first appointment was a consultation back in October.  The reason I am receiving acupuncture treatment is because there have been some clinical trials that show receiving acupuncture prior to IVF shows improvement in the outcome, there are also studies that show that it doesn’t make a difference. Lucy has been through five IVF cycles and the fifth cycle that worked, she received acupuncture.  It may mean something or it may mean nothing at all, but we are not taking any chances.

 Anyway, the doctor informed me that from the Middle Eastern perspective I am very healthy and he doesn’t see much at this point that needs treating.  If he had to find something to nitpick, he said there were very small indicators that a few treatments for my liver would be what would be beneficial.  The liver has many functions and some of the functions are: to produce substances that break down fats, convert glucose to glycogen, produce urea (the main substance of urine), make certain amino acids (the building blocks of proteins), filter harmful substances from the blood (such as alcohol), storage of vitamins and minerals (vitamins A, D, K and B12) and maintain a proper level or glucose in the blood. The liver is also responsible for producing cholesterol.  The filtering of the blood, the storage of vitamins, and maintaining the proper amount of glucose are all important aspects when attempting and maintaining a healthy pregnancy so it made sense to me even though he didn’t go into detail what it was that added up in my oral history that led him to want to focus on the liver. 

The treatment itself was honestly kind-of boring and my nose itched terribly the entire time.  I couldn’t scratch it because the lone needle in my left arm had made the entire arm fall asleep and my right arm had two needles in it that prohibited me from the possibility of resuming a comfortable position should I even move it in the first place.  I will have one more appointment locally before the transfer and a session just prior to implantation on Jan. 27^th.  Something interesting I just thought I might mention (especially since I’m not even sure where my own thoughts lie concerning acupuncture) is that when I got the mail today I received a copy of my blood chemistry/immunology and everything was normal except I have low glucose levels, 60 mg/dl in a reference range of 70 mg/dl – 125 mg/dl.  One of the very things that gets handled by the liver, things that make you go hmmm….

© Pocketbebe, 2009