(hee hee, it sounds like “whore money.” Okay, I’m my age again.)

Whatever the doctor saw in my blood in yesterday morning’s blood test made them call me and move my next appointment, previously scheduled for tomorrow morning, to this morning. They didn’t scare me, they said “Your hormone levels are fine, but we want to see you tomorrow instead of Wednesday.” Today, I met the third doctor in the clinic (also very nice, like my male doctor I’d originally started with, and the female doctor who took most of my ultrasounds after that), and he performed my ultrasound. I clearly saw large round black circles in my ovaries. Yup, the follicles are expanding. He measured only the large ones, 8mm-10mm. There were medium and small ones he wasn’t interested in, but there were probably 5 or so large ones per ovary he measured. Mr. W gaped at the monitor and said, “Wow, they’re big! Do you feel that?”
I said, “I don’t feel anything.” (Really. Not even psychologically.)
The doctor said, “Not yet, but you will.” I guess I’m gonna expect bloating soon. We asked if we could take a photo of the monitor screen, and he said he’ll just print us out an image:

See that upside-down skull-looking thing on the upper right of that image? That’s my ovary with the giant follicles (sac of fluid with an egg inside). You can see 3 large follicles and one medium, and one small. Freaky, huh?
The doctor also explained that the reason they brought me in early for ultrasound is because my estrogen levels measured a little high in Monday’s blood test, so they want to check on the eggs. He likens what we’re doing to cooking; you’ve got a pot boiling on the stove, and the heat is turned on by the medication, but you don’t want to overcook the pot, so if it starts to boil too hard or fast, you turn down the heat to adjust. If it’s not boiling, you turn up the heat. He said they’d let me know after this morning’s blood test how the hormone levels look to determine whether my doses need adjustment. I hoped they would adjust down cuz this morning’s pricks hurt! My little Lupron prick felt like two jabs going in, and Mr. W’s large Menopur dose hurt with the stab and hurt a lot with the administration of the meds, and even hurt with the removal of the needle. I thought maybe it was because I worked out so much the last 2 days that my ab muscles are swollen and sore so maybe that affected the injection site, but he later confessed that he had the needle held at an angle where it was manipulating my skin a little.

I got the call just now. My estrogen level when I was just on ovulation-suppressing Lupron was less than 20 (“Okay, your estrogen IS properly suppressed, so we can start the other medication now.”). They didn’t tell me what the estrogen level was from Monday’s blood draw, but this morning’s blood draw, they said it was something like 271. So that’s high, as I knew it would be, cuz the evening Follistim dose of 225 iu just seemed high to me. Their new instructions: Drop this evening’s Follistim dose to 200 iu, then drop tomorrow (Wednesday) evening’s Follistim dose to 175 iu. They’ll see me Thursday morning for another blood test to see how that’s going. Also for Thursday, they tell me to NOT take Menopur in the morning and to bring it to the appointment. If they determine I need it, they’ll administer it for me then. Good, the painful stuff is being reduced. They’re keeping my morning Lupron the same, but I’ve never minded Lupron.

The doctor’s office has been really good about booking my appointments (now becoming almost an every day thing as they monitor closely) at 7:30a in the morning, so we can get to work by about 8:40ish. That means for me, as court doesn’t start until around 9a, that they really don’t miss me and don’t have to find a relief clerk to fill in until I got to my desk. Other clerks come in regularly at 9a anyway. My supervisor has been very understanding and cooperative, just asking for a heads-up on days when I MIGHT be a little later than usual.