Vegas Under the Influence of IVF

I’m sitting at the Las Vegas airport waiting for my flight home to Chicago. I’ve been here since Tuesday and it’s been a really nice break slash bit of work.  Vegas has been experiencing quite a bit of rain and cloudiness, and it only seemed to be that way when we had free time, so alas I’m not coming home with a tan but I did have a great time. My best friend was coincidentally in town so we were able to have a mess of time together and who doesn’t like time with their bestie.  We had tapas, went to the pinball hall of fame, did bits in a 99cent store and ate too much frozen yogurt.  Quality. Time.

Tuesday night I stood in my swanky hotel room (again, it was a gig, so the room wasn’t on my dime) looking out over the glitzy, neon-laden strip and shot ganirelix into my belly.  This made me feel especially…..Vegas-y. Vegas is a place where I have historically been prone to participate in the big party while this time I’ve kind of put myself on lockdown.  So, I pretended that the ganirelix was a full on party drug and that I was super hardcore.  I know, clearly not p/c but I have a fairly active imagination and you gotta make fun where you can…especially when you’re shooting yourself up with fertility drugs in Sin City.

Sidenote – I put the syringe of ganirelix in the bin at the airport along with my note from the doctor figuring I was going to have to explain it.

They.

Did Not.

Blink an eye.

Am I wrong? TSA has stopped me and made a huge production when I’ve tried to go through with a YOGURT….but apparently needles are on the up and up.

Whatever.

By the way, I had to surrender that yogurt.  What a waste.

So on this gig I was with a group of folks and there was alot of “let’s get a drink”……which again is super cool, until you’re the gal who’s been known to drink and then suddenly without telling anyone has pretty much stopped drinking.  I had a small “skinny” margarita the pool, 1/2 a glass of wine at a bar and some sips of samples at a liquor tasting.  Talk about head trips – I felt guilty about all of them. However, The Russian told me within all of this that she believes patients still need “to live” and that as long as things aren’t in excess, it was fine.  So…I figure if this IVF doesn’t work it really would not be caused by a small skinny margarita, 1/2 a glass of wine and some liquor sips.

I just gotta let that one go and not sweat it.  And, that’s the last drinking I’ll be doing, hopefully for quite awhile.

Oh, I met Tom Arnold earlier today on the gig I was doing – could not have been a nicer, more accessible guy. I thanked him for his openness in the media regarding he and wife’s trip through infertility, adding that it’s such a support to the community.  We talked for a bit, he asked were I was with everything and wished me luck.  One of my colleagues nudged me later and asked, “so what were you and Tom talking about?”  I flat out lied to that girl.  I pulled something out of my butt about some movie of his that I liked.  Someday down the road I’ll tell her what the conversation was really about, but for now: lies!

I took my last birth control pill on Sunday night and got my period today, so I go in tomorrow morning for the first monitoring appointment of my cycle.

And then….stims for IVF #2 will start Friday or Saturday.

It begins.

Buckle up.