My husband pulled into the parking lot just as I was walking down to the doctor's office - talk about perfect timing. :) In the waiting room today, we only saw a few purple folders. And one orange folder - wonder what that means?
We were both really happy to see Dr. Williams back in the office - he was in Florida last week with his wife and mother-in-law. Of course we haven't had much interaction with the other doctors in the office and I'm sure we're biased - but we prefer Dr. Williams by far!! It was kind of random how we ended up with him. When I first called Ohio Reproductive Medicine to schedule our first appointment they asked if we wanted a female or male doctor. I requested a female doctor, but Dr. Kennard wasn't available for a few more weeks - so I said that we'd take any doctor if someone else was available sooner. And we ended up with Dr. Williams and we are very happy with him. Anniewho, back to my appointment!
We also talked about my high estrogen levels from Saturday. I asked him what an acceptable level would have been for Saturday - but Dr. Williams said that my level was still within the acceptable range. We also found out that my level was actually 1671 on Saturday, so the substitute doctor's recollection of my level was a little low. We asked him what a "good" level would be for me to have today and he said about 3500. He didn't seem too concerned about my estrogen level and told us that they are most worried when women with a bunch of small follicles have high estrogen levels. But since my follicles are "nice and big" - we're still okay. He did mention that based on my blood test result he may have me come back in for a blood test tomorrow and apologized for that in advance. I told him we were fine with it either way! ;) I was more relieved about my estrogen levels and glad that I didn't get all upset about it this weekend for nothing.
We met with Penny, the IVF nurse, before we left. She just made sure we had all of our egg retrieval & embryo transfer forms in our purple folder. She also said that they were going to hold-off on filling out all of our forms with the plans for the Thursday egg retrieval date - just in case the plan changed based on the results of my blood test. She said that I should get a call from her between 1-5pm today.
This afternoon Penny called me on my cell phone and I was all ready with my purple folder to fill out the forms for our January 27th egg retrieval date. Unfortunately, my estrogen levels were up to 4054! Penny said that they get a little concerned about the risk of OHSS when it's over 4000. She said that Dr. Williams wants to lower my nightly dosage of Gonal-F from 187 to 75. And that I should not take any Gonal-F in the morning, just the Lupron. She also said that he wanted to see me again for another blood test and ultrasound tomorrow morning, just like we did today. Since my level was so high, she also asked me to start tracking my weight once a day (at the same time each day) - another symptom of OHSS is a significant weight gain. So she told me to let them know if I notice a 7 pound or more weight gain overnight. I usually weig After I got off the phone with her, I started to feel hot and my cheeks flushing. And at first I thought it was probably because of my super-high estrogen levels - what else could it be? But of course that is silly since the blood test results were from this morning and I felt fine all day - up until I got this phone call. :) So my nerves got the best of me for a little while and of course I googled a few more articles on OHSS to try to understand it a little better. Here's a link to an article that I thought was good - it helped me understand that OHSS is something that could affect me after the egg retrieval or in early pregnancy. But again, that's why they are monitoring me so closely now - to try to prevent that from happening.
After I got home from work, my hubby reminded me how Dr. Williams had said hat my follicles were "nice & big." And that if there was really something to be concerned about, they probably would have me stop the Gonal-F altogether. So after talking about it here's what we're thinking... since my estrogen levels were high, Dr. Williams wanted to lower my Gonal-F dosage. Since he lowered my dosage of Gonal-F, maybe he just wants to see me again to make sure the follicles are still growing to get me to the 18-20mm goal. Either way, I felt better about it after talking to my husband and look forward to seeing Dr. Williams again tomorrow. I'm sure we'll probably have to wait until tomorrow afternoon for the blood test results before any decisions are made - but hopefully things will continue to move in the right direction.
Before the afternoon call, I was thinking how I liked January 27th as our egg retrieval date. You see, our anniversary is August 27th - so I thought 27 has to be a good number for us. And not that we celebrate our monthly anniversaries but this Thursday will be our 5 year, 5 month anniversary. What better date to have our egg retrieval? Of course, if they bump us to Friday the 28th - that'll be fine, too. Just wanted to share my crazy train of thought about the dates.
Despite the fact that my blood tests indicate that my hormones are raging - I still feel pretty normal and in good spirits and my normal mood (which is pretty pleasant for those that don't know me). I felt slightly bloated yesterday - but that may have just been too many snacks the night before. :) Despite my hot flashes following the blood test results this afternoon, I feel good and am ready to get this show on the road! Maybe tomorrow we will get my egg retrieval date! Good night!!