CD9, My Advocate, Myself

Today was my first u/s for this cycle, and so far so good. As of today I have 4 follicles on my right ovary and 6 on my left. The biggest ones on the right are at 8mm. On the left 2 are at 11mm and one is at 10.5. Last cycle on cycle day 9 I already had 5 follicles between 15mm and 16mm, so things are going a little slower this time. Which is good.

My lining last cycle on CD9 was 6.5. This cycle I convinced my RE to put me on estrogen, to "fluff" it up, even though he seemed to think it wouldn't do me much good. So today on CD 9, after 7 days of estrogen, my lining is...

wait for it...

6.5!

So, no change. Score one for the RE.

But, here's the thing: so my lining is the same as it was last cycle, but the big difference here is that last cycle I was told to trigger 36 hours after my lining was measured at 6.5 and then I had the IUI on CD12. This cycle, because my follies are growing more slowly, I have to go back on Monday, CD12, for another u/s, and my guess is my follies might still need a little more growing time. I'm guessing my IUI will be Friday, CD16, meaning my lining will have 4 more days to thicken than it did last cycle. And all I want is 8mm... so I'm hopeful.

Oh, and I saw the third RE today. Yes, the mysterious "third" RE. She is technically in charge of their egg donor program, so I don't think she consults with the infertiles much. I've only seen her once before. She's very nice. Anyway, she asked me about the gonal-f and I told her I'd started injections on day 4, that I was told to do 4 days of injections, and that my last injection had been Wednesday night.

"Wednesday night?" she said. "You didn't do an injection yesterday."

"No, I was told 4 days of injections, starting on day 4, so Wednesday was the 4th day of injections."

"That's not right. You should be doing injections every day. Well, it won't make a difference in the end, but you should do an injection every day."

Which, by the way, is exactly what I was thinking when Dr. Young told me "4 days of injections." He had given me these instructions before my period started. He told me to stop the BCP, and he predicted I'd either get my period on Thursday or Friday, and I knew that if I got my period on Thursday there would be a gap in injections. I thought it was weird, but I didn't really challenge him on it.

So after seeing the "third" RE today, I started thinking that maybe I'd misunderstood his directions. Maybe he never said to do injections for 4 days, maybe he'd just said start on day 4. But I really don't think it's possible that I misunderstood because I wrote down his instructions. He was giving me a lot of instructions that day and I kept repeating back to him what he was saying to make sure I understood and remembered, until finally he asked me if I wanted to write it down. So, what I wrote was:

Day 4 - gonal-f 75
5
6
7
Come back Jan 15th.

And I wrote it right in front of him.

Grrr... It just pisses me off because I thought it sounded wrong and yet I didn't say anything.

I must be my own advocate.
I must be my own advocate.
I must be my own advocate.

I'll get it eventually.