Embies - Day Three

Sorry I didn’t update my blog yesterday, believe it or not, I’m still not feeling like myself.  I have an ache in my lower back that’s causing me to lose sleep, and if I move a certain way it leaves my back and goes to my lower abdomen.  I think it’s because everything isn’t fitting inside me like it normally would with my enlarged ovaries. 

Onto the important stuff-- My embryologist called yesterday morning bright and early; I flew out of bed when I heard the phone ringing, and tried not to sound like I was still sleeping! She told me that she just left the lab and all 10 embryos were still dividing, which is great news.  I asked her the grade of them, but she said she didn’t really look into that, just looked to see if they were still dividing.  She said not to be concerned with that on day 3.  Kind of frustrating because of our small number of embryos on day 5 last time, but maybe it is better not to think about it. 

I’m heading up to Birmingham tonight for my transfer tomorrow.  Unfortunately, Anthony can’t get out of school because it’s his last week of this course and he needs to have enough flight hours to test on Thursday.  This means I’ll be taking a taxi to and from my transfer so that I can take a valium.  It’s not ideal, but I’ll do what it takes to change the outcome.  To be honest, I’m more concerned about giving myself a progesterone injection tomorrow night, than I am about taking a taxi! For some reason they have been SO painful this time around.  I cried last night it hurt so badly! Anthony thinks the gauge of the needle is a lot bigger than the ones I used last time so I’m going to see if I can get smaller ones that will still inject the thick oil.  I can’t imagine doing this every night for 10 weeks if I get pregnant!!  I’ll be staying in Birmingham until Wednesday morning so I can get some rest for my little embies before driving home.  I’ll update you again tomorrow after my transfer! xo

From twenty-three to ten...

I just got the call from my IVF coordinator, and I’m kind of bummed...actually I'm really bummed.  Of my 23 eggs, only 16 were mature and 10 fertilized with ICSI.  Last time we had 11 that fertilized with 20 mature eggs, so I shouldn’t have been so hopeful.  A normal person would be happy with 10 fertilized, but knowing about my egg quality issue, and what happened with my embryos last time is getting me down.  I'm really hoping all 10 continue to grow into perfect day 5 blastocysts, but I also know that's not likely.  I’ll get another update on Sunday morning from the embryologist on how they’re doing.  Please pray for our little embies.   I’m still wondering why God gave me the eggs of an old lady. Excuse me while I spend the rest of the day mad at the universe.  

Egg Retrieval

I’ll start by saying that yesterday they retrieved 23 eggs! That’s 2 more than last time!! I’ll find out how many fertilized with ICSI sometime today, I’m anxiously awaiting the phone call!  I wanted to give you all an update yesterday, but my retrieval was not nearly as easy as my first one, and I couldn’t bring myself to get on a computer, let alone put thought into a post!

I couldn’t sleep the night before my retrieval, I had so much anxiety that I slept from midnight to 3am, and maybe again from 5 to 6am.  I don’t know why I was so nervous, especially because my first retrieval was so easy.  I think the anxiety was more around what was going to happen during the procedure, rather than how I would feel- what if I ovulated before retrieval and there were no eggs, what if none of the follicles had any eggs in them, etc.  Finally, morning came and we got ready and headed to the clinic.  Once I was prepped, and it was nearing my retrieval time, they led Anthony off to do his sperm collection.  As soon as he left me, I could hear the girl in the surgery room screaming “OWWW” every couple seconds.  This definitely didn’t help my anxiety any. I do not remember anything from my last retrieval, and definitely do not recall it hurting at all.  Once they brought her out, there was only a curtain separating us, and she kept moaning in pain.  When the nurse came to get me and asked me if I was ready, I told her I was until I heard the other girl screaming! She just said that everyone responds differently to the pain meds and anesthesia.  Once we were in the surgery room, she immediately gave me meds that made me not care about anything, and then more medicine that sedated me.  I’m not sure how much time had gone by or how much of the retrieval they’d already done when I could feel EVERYTHING! I kept telling them it hurt so badly, and then I heard, “We have 15 so far”.  They said they were giving me more meds and I remember the excruciating pain for a few more minutes or seconds (who knows) and then finally the next thing I remembered is them telling me they were all finished.  Thank GOD! They brought me to recovery where Anthony was waiting for me.  I was still in pain, but so glad to be done with it.  After a half hour or so, it was time for me to get ready to leave.  Anthony had to help me get dressed because I could barely walk.  One of the nurses wheeled me down to wait as Anthony got the car.  We had planned on going to lunch after, but I told Anthony that I didn’t think I could.  We went to Walgreens to fill a prescription for pain meds and nausea medication and after I took the pain meds, I felt like I could go to lunch and was really hungry since I hadn’t eaten since the night before.  We went to PF Changs, and right after we ordered, I felt the sedation of the pain medicine.  I was SO tired; I thought I was going to fall asleep at the table. I ate my soup and a few bites of food and was already full.  Our server took FOREVER to do everything and all I could think about was getting to the car to go to sleep on the drive home.  Finally we were on our way home.  I started feeling weird, so I took the nausea medicine and not more than 3 minutes later, I was vomiting into a little plastic pan they had given me in case I got sick.  After I filled that, I asked for Anthony to give me his sweatshirt that was in the back seat so I could try and save the car, nope didn’t work.  Poor Anthony was trying to help me, and safely get off the highway to a gas station.  He hit a bump and my vomit pan spilled onto my leg and the car mat.  I think we spent a good 30 minutes at the gas station.  Anthony wins the husband of the year award for cleaning everything, while I changed and tried to wash my hair with shampoo and bottled water! When we finally got on the road again, I wasn’t nauseas at all, I was just so tired.  Every time I would fall asleep, there would be a subtle movement in the car, such as Anthony switching lanes or braking a little and I would wake up startled.  After the three longest hours of me falling asleep and immediately waking up, we were home!  I went to sleep right away, and woke up 2 hours later to eat, then went back to sleep again.  Talk about a long day!  Needless to say, I am praying that was my last egg retrieval!

Today I am feeling better; still extremely sore, but that’s normal and I know it will get better each day.  I am working from the couch today, and I’m thankful to have my little cuddle buddy with me, and a husband who keeps texting me to find out if I’ve heard from the doctor. :)

Ready for Egg Retrieval

I made the three hour drive to Birmingham yesterday morning and had a good monitoring appointment.  The nurse measured the largest 9 follicles and said most of them were mature.  She said she thought that’d I’d be able to trigger, but I’d have to wait to until later that afternoon when my blood work came back to be sure.  I asked how many she thought there were total, and she said she saw at least 10 in my right ovary (yeah!) and not as many in my left.  I’m hoping that this means we’ll get more than 11 eggs, and that they’ll be mature, baby making eggs!  I’m going for quality over quantity this time around, since last time we got 21 eggs (20 mature), and still only ended up with two embryos to transfer and one to freeze.

I received a call on my way home from my IVF coordinator letting me know that my blood work came back and I was ready to do my trigger shot. I made it through stims!! So, last night at 9:15pm, as instructed, I mixed up my HCG and Anthony injected the huge 1.5 inch needed into my upper buttox/hip area.  I was freaking out again since it’s been a few months since I’ve had to use those needles, but it wasn’t too bad.  I better get used to it because daily progesterone injections begin later this week with the same size needle.  Egg retrievals are scheduled 36 hours after the trigger shot, so my retrieval is set for 9:15am tomorrow.  Anthony and I will be heading up to Birmingham in an hour or so to stay the night since we have to be there an hour before the retrieval.  I wish I could enjoy my one night of zero shots, but I have to do an enema instead.  I think I’d rather do an injection!  I’ll update you all tomorrow to let you know how many eggs were retrieved.  Wish me luck; love you all!

Stim Day Eight Update

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! We had Anthony’s brother Kevin here, and our Army friends over.  I spent the entire day cooking, and then cleaning it up after we were done eating, but it was so wonderful to spend the day with Kevin and our Army family since we didn’t go home to California.  I didn’t have to go in for another monitoring appointment until yesterday, so we had the entire weekend to have fun with Kev! On Friday we went to lunch and shopping in Panama City Beach, and Saturday we went to the Iron Bowl in Auburn.  The fans are diehard, like nothing I’ve ever seen! They go all out for their teams. I wish I would have taken more pictures around campus so I could show you what I mean. 

Yesterday morning we said goodbye to Kevin, and headed to an early morning appointment in Birmingham (Montgomery is closed on weekends).  Thankfully, we spent the night in Montgomery, so we only had to drive a little over an hour.  The appointment went well; the nurse didn’t count all of the follicles, but she measured the 9 largest ones and from what I saw it looked like there were more than 11-- fingers crossed!  My estradiol and progesterone are still on track, and my endometrium is looking great. She said it’s looking like my retrieval will be on Thursday.  I have to go back for another monitoring appointment tomorrow and unfortunately my main nurse in Montgomery (the good one, not the one I don’t really like) had a family emergency and is going to be out.  This means another trip to Birmingham tomorrow, and for my retrieval later in the week.  Lots of driving, but hopefully it will pay off with positive results!

11/23: Stim Day Four- First Monitoring Appointment

11/23: Stim Day Four- First Monitoring Appointment

Last Wednesday I went in for my first monitoring appointment.  It was only day four of stims, which is a little early, but because of Thanksgiving it worked out best.  I was a little discouraged because the nurse said she saw 6 sizeable follicles in my right ovary, and 5 in my left.  There were others, but she said they were still the size they would be at a baseline check, and most likely wouldn’t grow.  In my first check of my last cycle, I had 18 sizeable follicles so 11 is definitely not what I was hoping for.  I don’t particularly like the nurse that checked me because she never seems sure of herself, so I’m hoping that she was either wrong about the count, or about saying that the others were not going to grow.  After all, it was only day four and my last cycle I got checked for the first time on day six. My estradiol was 189 and my progesterone was .5; they said that’s exactly where it should be on day 4, so at least I have that going for me!  I almost wish I had nothing to compare it to, since many women would probably be happy with 11. 

Here we go again!

I actually wrote this last Tuesday, but things got crazy with Thanksgiving and I never posted it!

11/22:

I’ve been going back and forth about whether or not to blog about this IVF cycle, but I finally decided that I should.  To get you all up to speed, I went in for my baseline appointment on October 12^th.  I had one cyst that they weren’t concerned about and my FSH was 6.2, down from 15.5 from my last cycle! 6.2 is in the normal range, so I’m hoping that the DHEA I’ve been taking has actually improved my egg quality.  Some studies say that you have to go by your all time high FSH, but I’m going to take this as a sign that this cycle is going to have a better outcome! 

Most cycles start off with birth control, but if you remember, my very first cycle was canceled when they saw a cyst at my suppression check.  They attributed it to the combination of Lupron and birth control.  So my first complete IVF cycle, and this cycle, they’ve gone off of my natural cycle.  Because it’s off of my natural cycle, they needed to check my progesterone for ovulation indication during my mid-luteal phase (menstrual cycle day 22) in order to start Lupron.  I went in for my progesterone check on October 31^st; the test results indicated that I had ovulated, and I was able to start Lupron that night.

I continued with daily injections of Lupron from the 31^st through the 16^th when I went in for my suppression check.  I was so nervous about getting canceled because of the cyst they saw in my baseline check, but it went great! No cyst and low estradiol, they said I was good to start stims this past Sunday.

So, tonight will be my third night of taking stimulation medicine! I do two injections a day- one of Lupron (smaller dosage than when I was only taking Lupron), and one of Follistim and Menopur mixed.  I go in tomorrow to see how many follicles I have and how big they are.  I’m not feeling bloated yet, but I don’t think I really felt anything until day six or seven last time. 

Now you’re all caught up!! I had such a good break from the infertility craziness that I almost forgot how involved an IVF cycle was.  Overall, I’m feeling hopeful, but worried about what’s next if this doesn’t work because we can’t afford to do another cycle any time soon (by any time soon I pretty much mean forever).