Revenge of the Pincushion

I've been a little....grumpy this week.  A couple of factors are to blame - lack of sleep (allergies - argh!), lots going on at work, and vacation hangover.   It's important to note that I am not one prone to hysterics, public fits of crying, or snapping at medical professionals.   I consider myself a fairly well-adjusted person who, having worked in various fields of customer service, goes out of my way to be polite to anyone in that field.   All this by way of saying - I think I may have scared my nurses at the clinic this week.

I think I've explain my blood draw woes here before.  But for those of you who don't remember...I have the saddest little veins you ever did see.  Because I'm sadistic, I counted up how many times I've had my blood drawn in a year - 26.  Twenty-six!  I would say once out of every four times, they are able to get a vial on the first try and without blowing a vein.  Frankly, I'm surprised no one I work with thinks I have a drug problem based on the near constant bruising on my arms and hands.

I am 99% certain that the nurses at the clinic draw straws to see who gets to deal with me.  Below is a re-cap of my most recent experience.

Nurse: Okay, Sarah - did you drink a lot of water before you came in?  Remember, that helps!
Me: Yep!  (Gold star for me!  Also, I am going to float away in my attempt to get an A in water-drinking)
Nurse:  Let me take a look at your veins.
Me: The right elbow is useless; there's one you can get on the left side but it's sort of hidden. 
Nurse: :::Pokes my left arm repeatedly::: Hmmm....it's really hiding, isn't it?
Me: :::Nervous laughter:::
Nurse: Okay, I think I found it.  I think.
Me:  :::Panic rising:::  You know what?  Why don't we just take it from my hand?  Really, it's okay. 
Nurse: No, I think I've got it.
Me:  (thinking to self - don't be a hero, nurse!  Take it out of my hand!) Okay! (trying to be cheerful and optimistic) You can do this! (I've taken to giving my nurses pep talks)
Nurse:  Alright, here we go... (dig, dig, dig)...I think I see it...(dig, dig, dig)
Me: :::Trying not to faint:::
Nurse: Oh, dear.  That didn't work.
Me: ::::tries not to scream I told you so!:::  Well, guess we should go with the hand.  Here's the vein on the hand that works the best.
Nurse: Nope, I don't like the looks of that one.  I am going to try and get this one to work.  :::Points to sad looking vein:::
Me: Um, are you sure?  
Nurse:  Of course!  I've been doing this for years.  Trust me.
Me: Um, okay.
Nurse: Here we go again!  Okay, I'm in.  See -  I told you!
Me:  Yay?
Nurse: Oh, dear.
Me: What?
Nurse: Your veins aren't cooperating; the vial isn't getting filled all the way.
Me: :::screaming in head:::
Nurse:  I'm going to call in Other Nurse and see what she thinks.  Maybe this is enough for the test.  (Ed.note - almost all of my blood draws involve calling in Other Nurse for back-up and consultation.  It typically ends with both of them clucking in dismay over the sad state of my veins, which I KNOW.)
Me: Why don't we go ahead and try the other hand?  I've got a really great vein on that one.  :::Points to awesome vein and wiggle my hand in an attempt to attract their attention:::
Other Nurse: This is not enough blood.
Nurse: Well, let's check.  ::::clearly has given up and wants to be done with me:::: (to me) You can wait, right?
Me: Um, okay.
Other Nurse:  Hey, are you the person that Other Other Nurse did a blood draw on and she blew your vein really bad?
Me: That would be me. (infamy!)
Other Nurse:  Wow - she was so scared after that, she couldn't draw blood for a week!
Me:  I am not sure what I am supposed to say to that.
15 minutes later
Nurse: This is not enough blood.
Me: :::on verge of breakdown, but trying not to lose it::: Okay, let's do this!
Nurse:  Other Nurse, why don't you try this time? (Nurse has clearly lost her blood draw mojo)
Other Nurse: Okay, I choose this sad looking vein on your other hand.
Me:  Not this really good vein that works every time?
Other Nurse:  No, I like this one.
Me:  ::::screams in head::::
Other Nurse: Okay, here we go.   Oops, I blew that vein.

I'll end the dialogue here because at that point, I had been there for 45 minutes, was late for work, and just started crying.  Which I never do in public, which is fairly indicative of just how frustrated I was.   And while I am poking (ha!) fun at the nurses here, I really do love all of them and they've been very good to me...I think they're all scared of my veins and I'm scared of the draw and none of that makes anything go any smoother.

On this particular day, the draw culminated in my tearful claim to the nurses that "I...(sniff, sniff) told you (sniff, sniff) so....."  I think they took pity on me and decided that there was enough drawn to get the tests done.  Which there must have been because later they called and said my levels (estradiol aka estrogen and FSH) were fine.

In other news,

• (Okay, I promise this is the last needle reference!)  Stims started yesterday.  It's interesting to see how laissez-faire I've become to the injections.  When I first started doing them, we had calendars and reminders and alarms and this time, it was like 'oh, hey - I've got to go stick myself.  Be right back'.  Except I'm on a new follicle stimulating drug called Bravelle.  It's far more complicated to prepare (lots of vials and powders and such).  I ended up calling Uncle and had Nick come help me.  He's good at this type of stuff.  At any rate, follicles are officially being stimulated!  Huzzah!
• Last night, we went and saw Hunger Games. (Finally!  I was so sad to miss out on going to the midnight release with a group of girlfriends last week)  It's so rare that I like a movie as much as the books but in this case, I do.  Nick made me dig up the second and third books in the series when I got home so he could find out what happens next. :)

Alright, my friends.  I'm off.  My momma will be here soon.  We are co-hosting a brunch bridal shower tomorrow and we have a date with some quiche. :)

Proof I Haven't Lost My Sense of Humor

Not really sure that I have enough going on in my world to warrant a full post, so instead - you're getting a post full of random thoughts.  It's like a peek inside my brain.  Be scared.

• a friend recently dubbed my 'support group' the YaYa Sisterhood of TTC (trying to conceive) Friends...she needed a fertility drug question answered and came to the infertility mecca - me and my infertile friends.   I have laughed (out loud, no less) about this repeatedly.  Mostly because when the book and subsequent (horrible) movie came out, Nick would just yell out "Yaaaa-Yaaaa!" at random intervals.  Sort of like he had a tick or something. 
• she also dubbed me the Obi Wan of IVF.  I'm not much of a Star Wars buff - do I get a light saber?
• It's only in the last couple of months that I have found a lot of infertility humor on the Internet.  I know - infertility doesn't seem that funny, right?  Wrong!  Turns out it is EXCELLENT comedic fodder.  This will probably not be funny to you fertiles out there, but trust me...it, as well as this totally kills with the infertile crowd.
• I make it a practice not to discuss work on here (because you know, I value my job), but without getting into all the details, work has just been unbearably bad the last couple of weeks.  HR issues that I never imagined myself having to deal with fell into my lap and I've been navigating murky waters ever since.  The issues have stressed me out, caused me to lose sleep and just generally give me a headache.  Fortunately, there is an end in sight.  One of my favorite bloggers use to be in HR.  She recently posted an excerpt from her soon to be released memoirs and this post made me laugh so hard I snorted my lunch out of my nose.  Gross, I know, but true. 
• I'm guessing you probably want to know what's going on with our IVF cycle, too.  Geez, you people are so nosy.   All of our paperwork is complete and my medicines were delivered to the office this week.  I start the stims on March 30th and the retrieval is schedule for either April 10th or 11th with the transfer to occur five days after that.
• I was commenting to someone the other day (probably a Ya-Ya) that my excitement for each cycle has proceeded sort of along these lines.
• Cycle 1: YAY! I am so excited to be doing IVF! Look - needles! I'm going to have me a babbbbbyyyyyy!
• Cycle 2: I am still very excited to be doing this.  It is going to work I just know it!
• Cycle 3: I am cautiously optimistic.  With no exclamation points.
• Cycle 4: Again?  Really?!
• In more exciting news, Nick and I are off to Boston this weekend to visit friends.  We both really, really need a break.