Crying at the blood draw station

Yesterday was our u/s #2 after starting follistim. I did not want a repeat of Sunday's blood draw, so I've been trying to drink, drink, drink.

I'm not a huge water drinker, but after the draw on Sunday, I knew I needed to try something to make future blood draws better. On Monday I drank 7 cups of water. Tuesday morning, between 5:15am and 7:40am I drank 5 cups of water. I wanted to make sure my veins were big, plump and juicy. Unfortunately, I don't think it really helped.

I got to the clinic and, not surprisingly, needed to pee. I got called back by the CNA (the same one that drew me on Sunday) and we walked to the blood draw station. She asked if I had an arm preference, and I told her, "whichever one doesn't do this" and showed her my arm. She tried to get my blood on my left arm (the same vein she keeps trying and can't get anything from, and the same one that got over-tapped this past summer). After being unsuccessful, she said that we would do my u/s first and have Dr. P draw my blood afterwards.

I was shown to my exam room and awaited Dr. O. I expressed that I was getting anxious about the blood draws, and he said that from now on only the pros would do mine and that Dr. P was GREAT at blood draws. I'm not sure how that's going to pan out, but we'll see. Lining has increased to 7.5mm and is still triple-layer, but there are no measurable follicles, and none that appear to be breaking away from the rest. I was really hopeful that there would be something measurable by now, but no such luck. I'm super-duper hopeful that there will be something to measure at my next u/s, as this morning I've been noticing some aches in my ovary area; hopefully those are growing pains!

After getting dressed, I headed back to the blood draw station where CNA told me that as soon as she saw Dr. P she would send her to me. I needed to pee, again, and upon return to the blood draw station the IVF coordinator was in there and appeared to be prepping to draw my blood. She asked which arm I preferred, to which I immediately thought, "How do I explain this?" I explained what happened, we sat down, she really took her time (she's drawn my labs once before--in the summer--so knew to expect this). This was all fine, but by then the anxiety had hit me and I began to cry. Not the loud sobbing, but the silent falling tears. I just couldn't help thinking, "What's going to happen if they can't do the blood draws? How are we going to do treatments if they can't monitor my hormone levels? Are we going to have to stop treatments because of this?"

I sat with IVF coordinator while she perused my left arm. During this time, she did a great job trying to keep me calm. She shared that it was up to me if I wanted her to keep looking or wait for Dr. P. Eventually, she thought that she could get a vein in that arm, but not the one that had already been poked. I asked her how confident she was--70%. I told her I'd like to wait for Dr. P. Her response: I'm the best one in the lab. As I sat there, trying to keep calm and pondering what to do, she shared that my vein was looking better, so I gave her permission to do the draw. It was hardly painful at all, it was quick and there's NO BRUISE! She told me that I could ask for her from now on for my draws if I wanted to. I think I will be taking her up on that.

I got to the car and I was just exhausted from the anxiety about this blood draw, as well as future ones. We'll see what tomorrow brings. My E2 results came back at 445.9, 125 units of follistim Tuesday and Wednesday and another u/s and E2 on Thursday.