Ugh...

Take a deep breath, and repeat after me:  


This too shall pass. 
This too shall pass. 
This too shall pass.


Do we believe it yet?

So it's confirmed. I have OHSS - Ovarian Hyper Stimulation Syndrome, a side effect of IVF that causes your overstimulated ovaries to become so engorged with fluid, that the fluid then gets poured out into your abdomen. Apparently refusing to look up OHSS on Google, and being in denial, does not actually protect you from developing it... who knew!

I am on day three of bed rest, and from what my doctor told me today, I have many, many more in my future. She wants me on the couch all day, with the exception of the occassional walk to the bathroom to keep me from getting a blood clot sitting around. She told me today that she believes that the pain I experienced after my transfer was probably one of my giganto ovaries twisting. "Lucky for me," she said, "it twisted back." If it hadn't, she explained, I would have needed surgery.

I am starting to feel like Murphy's law. Let's do the rundown, shall we?

Pregnancy #1 - Elation, followed by miscarriage.
Pregnancy #2 - Elation, followed by childbirth, followed by extreme traumatic loss of child to disease with 1 in 50 Million odds.
Infection leading to Infertility
Infertility requiring IVF
IVF leading to OHSS

Do you see where I am going with this?

I have some of the major risk factors of OHSS. I am young, and produced a huge number of follicles (over 60 per ovary.) The good news is that my little embryos, Emma and Emelio, will not be affected by this. The bad news is that my ovaries are now so large they can be felt ABOVE my belly button, and I am stretched in my stomach like I am 5 months along.

Wait, scratch that. I just checked out a picture of me at 5 months with Peyton, for comparison. Yes. I know. There is no makeup on, and my hair is undone in this pic, but I am posting it anyway.

(Hey, do you all like that hideous wallpaper in the background? Have no fears, that came down during my nesting period.)

So here I sit, typing this two days post transfer, and already I am much bigger than I was in this picture, and not in the cute little basketball way above, but more in an all over bloatey, gross and utterly uncomfortable way. No, don't worry. I won't be attaching any pictures of that.

Apparently there is no "cure" for OHSS, just various attempts at treatment. Well, that's a lie. There is one cure - Aunt Flow. If she comes, OHSS resolves on its own, but she *fingers crossed* is not coming to town, so onto plan number 2.

The doctors have put me on an extremely high salt, high protein diet, and have ordered me to drink Gatorade all day long. Sounds bizarre, I know. Apparently the salt and electrolytes from the food and Gatorade are meant to suck the extra fluid from my abdomen, and into my veins, so that it can be processed out of my body. I even get the joy of peeing into this little top hat looking thing that is now accessorizing my formerly boring bowl, and reporting my progress to some nurse each morning. Sorry... TMI?

If I am pregnant *sticky vibes*, the problem will actually get worse before it is better, and if both Emma and Emelio decide to stick around, the hormones of having a multiple pregnancy will have me floating down the street like a Macy's Parade Balloon. OHSS can, as my RE told me, last through the first trimester, correcting itself only once the HCG levels level off.

So now I wait, and hope for the best. If the fluid gets too high, my doc will have me admitted to the hospital for observation and my stomach drained. During today's exam, they saw blood and fluid in my abdomen (the blood most likely from the Egg Retrieval Surgery) but not enough fluid to warrant draining.

Let's all collectively pray that this gets better, or that I can at least control it with the bed rest and diet. They took a bunch of blood from me today, to get a firmer understanding of all that is going on, but told me my vitals look good, and that that is a good sign. Tomorrow I will get the blood results, and hopefully they will look fine too.

Until then, its soup and gatorade and salt licks for me, as I sit on my couch repeating this mantra over and over...


This too shall pass.