But that is not the point of this post. I want to talk about preparing for retrieval.
One of my IVF graduate friends had a doctor who called for very low carbs and high protein during the entire stim period - with special emphasis after retrieval. Apparently this has been shown to lower the incidence of OHSS (which she still had a severe case of).
I asked my office about this and they said that it can be good, but didn't not stress it in any way. They just said to avoid caffeine and alcohol (or maybe they just said alcohol!).
I chose to eat healthy, but somewhat normally during the stims.
But I am now hearing that I need to prepare for extreme constipation after anesthesia. Awesome. My first hint of this came from a blog mentioning another blogger's "poop" post and saying that prune juice didn't cut it. Then my acupuncturist asked her secretary to go over the "retrieval diet" with me.
To prevent a painful situation, I am eating as easy-to-digest foods as possible. I forgot about it until after I had bought a lamb gyro last night for dinner. And I kind of forgot when my student offered me a cupcake this morning. But now I'm on track. I even gave away my organic (high fiber) apple.
Mid-morning snack: plain bagel with low-fat cream cheese (I haven't had a plain bagel on purpose in years!)
Lunch: Chicken Noodle Soup
Beverage: Grape G2 (and water)
Dinner: Regular pasta with olive oil (I'll have to see if I have any non-whole wheat pasta!)
I'm probably going to just pretend chocolate is easy to digest for dessert.
Then, no eating after midnight...retrieval is at 10 am. Arrive at 9.
* * * * *
By the way, I REALLY appreciate all the well-wishes! It's really nice to have a sort of "team" cheering me on. Yesterday I had 430 some page views. Incredible! Thanks for the support.
-Sarah
(That's my name! I think I'm going to start using it now... But you can still call me Mrs. Green Grass too.)
