Drumroll please

Introducing, five of our six embryos!

On Friday, I went in for my baseline and got the all clear to start FET prep. We also got to see pictures of our embabies (somehow my doc didn't have a picture of the 4th day 5 blast, but that's ok). We were both in awe and completely blown away by how in love we are with our little bundles of cells. We had to wait a bit for me to be shown how to do my estradiol injections and while we were sitting there, I told DH that I missed them already. He jumped up and went and told one of the nurses that I was already having separation anxiety and asked her for copies of the pictures. I was so excited and the whole way home I kept staring at our little peanuts.

They are grade 2 (on a 1 to 3 scale) expanded blasts and my RE said all of them look great, especially the first one which he said was beautiful (it takes after me ;) )

At this point I am doing estradiol injections twice a week and next week I'll start my doxy and shortly thereafter my medrol and progesterone. Transfer is tentatively scheduled for 7/9!

SIX!

On Wednesday, my nurse called to inform me that only four of our embryos had made it to blast on day five and were frozen. I was pretty sad. She said they were going to let the rest continue to grow to day six, just to see what would happen but she didn't sound very optimistic.

Four is under the projected average for my age. Four means only two FETs. These four are our only shot. We can't afford another round of IVF, this was our only chance.

Thankfully, my nurse called back on Thursday morning and said that two more had made it to blast over night and were frozen that morning. PHEW! I don't know why I am so relieved by six instead of four but I am. I am so happy with our six!

The only thing I am unhappy about is that we have never spoken to the embryologist and we have to wait until my baseline appointment, after I get my period (hopefully today) before we find out the grades and quality of our frozen little peanuts.

But for now, I am reveling in our six and hoping that these cramps mean AF will be here ASAP.

10 Little Peanuts

I wanted to blog right after ER and all weekend but this OHSS is no joke, ya’ll. I have barely been able to move and have been in some serious pain, even while on pain meds. But right now, I can finally sit up for about a half hour at a time so I thought I’d take this time to get an update up!

Friday, ER DAY!  Doc came in before our ER and very cutely rubbed my leg while he told us the risk of OHSS is too high to do a 5 day embryo transfer. He said we needed to do a freeze all but promised that I could do my FET the very next cycle. I cried, DH consoled and they shoved the IV in my arm and knocked me out. J 45 minutes later, they were done and we had 21 beautiful eggies.

On Saturday we got the call that of those 21, only 15 were mature (probably due to the fact that I had a 5000 iu trigger, rather than a 10,000 iu trigger due to my OHSS). Of those 15, all were fertilized with ICSI but only 11 fertilized normally. I was sad for the loss of our four.

Yesterday, we got the call that we still have 11 peanuts but that one of them is a slow grower and it doesn’t look good. So for now, we have 10 beautiful little embabies, growing away. We will get another call on Wednesday afternoon, after the freeze, with our final total.

When my nurse calls, she said she’ll set up a phone consult with the doctor for Thursday and he’ll go over all the grades and we’ll discuss my FET and how many we will transfer. Right now, we are set on two but if quality is an issue, we will transfer up to three, unless my doc can make a compelling case as to why it would be beneficial to transfer more. Hopefully, we have quality on our side and will just be able to stick with two.

I was pretty devastated that I don’t get to reunite with my embabies tomorrow as planned but I’m still so uncomfortable, the idea of a full bladder right now is terrifying so I know it’s for the best. 

An update on our cycle!

This is a long time coming, sorry I haven't given any updates yet. To recap, we're in the midst of our first IVF cycle. I've been taking 225 of Gonal F and 75 of Menopur (oh the burning!) along with 10 of Lupron, every day for the last 12 days.

Last Saturday I went in for my first monitoring appointment. There was a lot of activity on my right side but none of the follicles were very big. I think my largest on the right side was only 12 at that time and l the left side was rocking some 13s and 14s. So the nurse practitioner decided to cancel my Sunday appointment. I was kind of bummed because we had decided to stay in Reno for the whole weekend due to the fact that I had appointments on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. We talked about just going home but since we had already paid for our room, we decided to just stay til Monday.

As far as the Reno trip went it was pretty fun, we didn't do a lot of gambling because we don't have a lot of extra money but we each had $20 for the weekend and played a lot of penny slots and pretty much broke even. We each lost and then won enough to make the $20 last the whole trip! :)

At Monday's appointment the NP upset me because she seemed to be suggestimg, at first, that nothing had changed on my right side. She should have kept her mouth shut until she finished checking all of the follies! I had 14 on my right side between 10 and 15.5! A bunch of smaller ones had grown a lot so she thought the first few that she measured were the original larger follies from Saturday's scan. On my left side I had 6 between 15 and 17. By this time I was already pretty uncomfortable and the discomfort along with the inability to sleep in the hotel beds made me pretty emotional. I was also really upset by the way the nurse had, at first, made it sound like things weren't going well. Plus, Monday was supposed to be my trigger day and I was sick if poking myself, I just didn't want to do it anymore, so by the time we got to the car I was sobbing. I couldn't contain myself, I just cried and cried. Poor DH was shocked because the overall tone of the appointment was that things were going great!

Since we only had the hotel room until Monday and we really needed to get back for our company I had to drive back to Reno on Tuesday morning for another scan. Things were still progressing great but my RE wanted to give it one more day so we could try and get every last follie. So it was back home, (two hours) only to return again on Wednesday. Thanks to some donated meds, I had enough of everything to get through Tuesday but not enough Menopur for Wednesday so the clinic gave me a vial instead of making me order it. I was SO appreciative! The cost of driving back and forth all the time has really added up and we are down to only pennies left.

At this point I am SO uncomfortable. And emotional. And a bit overreactive. But I made the drive again, early this morning and it was worth it. My RE was super excited and kept saying that everything is perfect during my scan. He even said that he wished all of his patients' ovaries looked like mine. He said I have 16 ready to go and another eight or nine that could be mature by Friday morning. This was praise and news I really needed to hear! I am finally ready to trigger!

My nurse brought me into her office to go over trigger instructions, douching instructions, when to take my medrol, doxy and when DH needs to take his cipro. When she looked at my chart she said, "holy crap! have you seen these numbers? All of your follies are between 16 and 20 you've had a textbook perfect response!" She said she has only very infrequently seen a response this good. I was grinning ear to ear! It felt really good to hear because I was still (stupidly) clinging to the negativity of the NP on Monday. Which, btw, I know is ridiculous but I just haven't been able to shake it.

Insert total side note here, the NP on Monday, also insinuated that I was smoking while stimming. Which, I most certainly am not. I only smoked socially but quit when we started TTC. DH was in the room and still smokes. He is quitting and only smokes a couple cigarettes a day (down from two packs a day). He has an annoying habit of smoking half a cig, putting it out and then putting it in his pack to save for later. It STINKS but I don't say anything because he is working really hard and it's something I am just sucking up because he's been smoking for 20 years and he's having a rough time quitting. Anyway, he had one of those in his pack in his pocket so I'm sure she smelled that but it's pretty obvious it was him and not me. She went on and on, while measuring my follies about how smoking while stimming ruins your eggs, stunts their growth and makes ER almost impossible for the doctors. I told her four times that I don't smoke and quit years ago and she just kept giving me a look that said, yeah right. Grrrrrr, can you tell it's still bugging me?

Anyway (I just needed to get that out), back to today! I'm triggering in a half an hour and ER is at 8:30 on Friday morning! I am excited and anxious to get these eggs out of me. The crappy part is that when my nurse called, she said that my E2 is through the roof. She said it's in line with what they would expect, being that I have so many follies but that they are concerned about OHSS.

OHSS terrifies me. Scares me shitless. So I've been banned from drinking water until further notice, clan only drink gaterade and whey protein shakes and I had to run out to the pharmacy to pick up cabergoline, which I'm to shove up my hoo hah, starting tonight. Hopefully, all that will keep the OHSS at bay. So say a prayer for me or send me some non-OHSS vibes because I am really scared!

Final thought of the night before I run off to trigger. The loss of Rosa Kimberly is weighing heavily on my mind and heart. I pray that her mom and dad find comfort and strength to get through this tragic loss.