IVF Buddy Update: My IVF Buddy and her hubby had some good news to share today! They received a report from the embryologist regarding their 18 eggs that were retrieved yesterday. Of the 18, 10 were fertilized and they're watching 3 more to see if they will continue to divide. Very exciting news! They will get their next update on Saturday. Let's hope they get a lot of embryos to freeze!
Tonight at promptly 9:30pm, my husband gave me the 1mL shot of Novarel using the 1.5 inch long needle (see photo). This shot is an intramuscular one - so he had to administer it in my lower back / upper bum area on my right-hand side. You definitely feel the poke when the needle goes in, but it's so quick - it's not really bad at all. There's nothing else for us to do until Saturday morning - except to hope and pray for the best. We're trying to be cautiously optimistic - but I have a feeling after the procedure on Saturday that my hopes will probably sky-rocket like they always do. We are thankful for the good follicle report today, excited for the procedure on Saturday, and hopeful for good news in a couple weeks.
IVF Buddy Update: My IVF Buddy and her hubby had some good news to share today! They received a report from the embryologist regarding their 18 eggs that were retrieved yesterday. Of the 18, 10 were fertilized and they're watching 3 more to see if they will continue to divide. Very exciting news! They will get their next update on Saturday. Let's hope they get a lot of embryos to freeze!
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Good Morning! I must have been a little anxious about taking the pregnancy test this morning. (We want the test to be positive to show that HCG, from the shot last night, is in my system - it doesn't mean that I'm pregnant so don't get too excited.) I usually sleep pretty soundly right up to (and sometimes past) my alarm going off. But I found myself lying in bed wide awake thinking it had to almost be 7:30am - but I looked at the clock and it was only 5:30am. So I tried to go back to sleep - checked the clock again at 6:45am. Totally not like me. I ended up getting up around 7:25am and decided to hold my pee (even though I really had to go) until after I got ready or as long as I could stand it. I wanted to give the shot a little more time to show up on the test. :) I took the test a little before 8am and then kept getting ready while we waited. The good news is that two lines appeared - although one is super-duper faint. But they said that faint is okay as long as there are two lines. Yay - another step in the right direction! I called the IVF department and left them a voicemail saying that it was faint, but positive.
It's kinda weird that I won't be getting any shots today. I've been getting at least one shot every day since January 2nd. But it won't last long - after the retrieval tomorrow I will start up on daily progesterone in oil shots and those will continue until they tell me to stop. Happy Egg Retrieval Day Eve!! At 10:40pm, right on the dot - my husband gave me the 1mL shot of Novarel per the doctor's instructions. The intra-muscular shots feel a little different than the sub-cutaneous ones, but it wasn't painful - just a little poke and you can feel it being injected. Mission complete!! Now back to the Ohio State & Purdue game.... Go Bucks!!
My beloved purple folder :) This morning started off just like Monday! My husband gave me my Lupron shot, no Gonal-F though. I went to the lab for my blood test and received yet another Garfield band-aid. They have been using my one & only good vein (a tiny one on my left arm) for all of the blood tests - but today she used a tiny one on my right arm. She was worried it would bruise too much to do that left arm vein again.
Next up was the ultrasound with Dr. Williams! (Did I mention how nice it is to have him back?) He said that we're paying him to be over-compulsive at this stage and did apologize for having us come in again. Of course we don't mind at all and appreciate his care/concern. He told us that the high estrogen level made him a little nervous - which is why he asked me to come in for another blood test. And he explained that sometimes when you lower the Gonal-F dosage, the follicles get mad and just stop growing. I said, "Oh, because they aren't getting their fix..." And he laughed and agreed. :) He measured the lining of my uterus - he said they want to see it at 6 or more (I think it was somewhere around there) and mine is at 12. Then we went to check the ovaries - the good news is that my follicles continued to grow as expected even with the lower dosage of Gonal-F. He found 5 follicles on each ovary that were all in the 18-20mm range - which is exactly where we want them for the retrieval. :) Dr. Williams did warn me that once they take all of the eggs out that I will probably be pretty sore after the retrieval and not to assume that if I'm in pain that it must be OHSS. He said based on the ultrasound alone, we would be ready for a Thursday retrieval. But again, he wanted to wait for the blood test results to make his final decision. He said if the levels are okay - then we would go ahead with the Novarel (Hcg) shot tonight and the retrieval on Thursday (36 hours after the Novarel shot). If the levels jumped too high again, then he would have me "coast" - which means stopping the Gonal-F shots and waiting until Wednesday night to do the Novarel. He also said that they could adjust the dosage of the Novarel as needed based on the blood test results. If I were a betting woman (which I am sometimes in Vegas - roulette is really fun), I would've bet that they were going to call and tell me that my estrogen was high and that we were coasting for another day. But I was mistaken! Penny called this afternoon and said that even though my estrogen did go up (to 5636 to be exact), Dr. Williams still wanted to do the "trigger shot" tonight and do the retrieval on Thursday morning at 10:40am. Hearing that we actually have an egg retrieval date and we're really moving forward was really exciting and kind of scary in a good way. We're really doing this!! She asked if now was a good time to go through my egg retrieval and embryo transfer plans and I said, "Of course!" Then she said that she was going to give me the instructions for me to fill in my forms, then I would have to repeat them back to her. I work in a cube with not much privacy, so the having-to-repeat-them-back-to-her part was a little concerning. I told her that I needed to go somewhere else and she quickly offered to give me a call back in 5 minutes when I was all situated. I ended up going down to the cafeteria with my purple notebook tucked into my work notebook. She gave me my instructions for the entire process - but here are my instructions for tonight and Wednesday:
Even though we're moving forward, there is still concern about OHSS. So in addition to monitoring my weight each day (and letting them know about any overnight 7 pound weight gains) they want me to start taking a scoop of Whey protein each evening. I didn't think to ask her what the protein does to help and tried googling tonight, but haven't found a good answer - just recommendations of increasing protein and drinking more Gatorade. I'll have to ask them in the morning. But I got myself a can of whey protein (vanilla flavored) and will enjoy a scoop of that tonight with my milk. The risk of OHSS hanging over me is a little scary (from what I've read online, it can be pretty painful) - but I'm positive that Dr. Williams is doing everything he can to prevent that from happening. And if I do get it, then we will just work through it. It'll just make me stronger, right? :) I'm feeling excited and a little nervous now that we actually have our egg retrieval scheduled. We are very thankful that things have gone well so far and hope that things will continue to go that way. It's been a long road - but the IVF journey (thus far) has been pretty smooth. Tonight I went out to dinner with my IVF buddy - so nice to catch up with her face-to-face. She had some funny stories to share about getting to fly to Chicago today and having to give herself Gonal-F shots in the airport bathroom - lucky girl! And she treated me to dinner tonight - which was very sweet of her. Thanks, IVF Buddy!! :) Less than an hour until my Novarel (HCG) shot tonight - I have the alarm on my phone set for 10:30pm to give us some time to head upstairs and prepare for the shot. This is the first intra-muscular one - so my husband will have to do this one in my lower back/upper bum area. He gave me this shot last winter during our IUI (artificial insemination) procedures - so I know he'll do a great job. My plan is for us to have the shot all ready to go and then right at 10:40pm on the dot (based on our phones) - have him give me the shot. The timing is super-crucial - so thank goodness I married a very punctual man!! Alrighty, I'm going to go have my 1st scoop of whey protein - yummy!!! Today was my first bloodwork and ultrasound appointment since I started the ovulation stimulation shots last Saturday. The lab was pretty busy today - but the girl that drew my blood was very nice and complimented me on my LOFT shirt. :) Then I went down a couple suites to Ohio Reproductive Medicine for my ultrasound and picked up my husband in the parking lot along the way. My normal doctor, Dr. Williams, was on vacation this week - so I saw a different doctor today. We were pretty anxious to see what she would show us on the ultrasound screen. The first thing she showed us was how my lining is thickening - which is what we want to see. It shows that my estrogen levels are rising - but of course they still have to do the blood test to be sure. Then she moved over to show us one ovary and within the one ovary - we could see 3-4 darker circles. Since we've done a couple rounds of IUI (artificial insemination), we have seen the follicles before and were able to recognize them as follicles. She moved over to the other side and the other ovary had a similar look with about 4 darker circles within it. The doctor said they were all very small still - but that's to be expected since I've only been on the stimulation meds for a short amount of time. I asked if I was correct in seeing 3-4 follicles on each ovary (I really wanted to know how many) and she said that was right but that it's still too early to start counting. She also told us that we will do great and that she has a good feeling about it based on the good scan today. Yay! :) I also mentioned to her that I feel fine and she said that I probably wouldn't get "super-hormonal" until it gets closer to egg retrieval - so we'll see what happens!
After I got dressed, we met with one of our nurses. She mixed our Novarel (HCG medicine, the one that triggers ovulation right before the egg retrieval) for us. Since the HCG shot is such a crucial step of the cycle - they want to be the ones mixing the medicine together to eliminate any unecessary heartbreak due to a mixing error. After it is mixed, it also has to be refrigerated - so my husband took it back home with him. We don't know when the egg retrieval will be, but they asked us to bring in the Novarel today so they could mix it. So now at least our Gonal-F pens have some company in the fridge. :) This afternoon I got a voicemail from the IVF department. She said that my estradiol (estrogen) levels are rising just like they want them to be. Today my level was at 433 - a big jump from the 17 from last Friday! (I looked up estrogen levels during IVF online and it looks like they will want it to get to 1000 right before the egg retrieval.) She said that they want me to keep the same Gonal-F dosages and to come back on Saturday for bloodwork and an ultrasound. So far, so good! Now I will explain the purple folders. When we started our IVF cycle and met with them to review our protocol and schedule (back on December 28th), we were given a purple folder that contained a bunch of injection instructions, helpful material, our calendar, and a bunch of forms to help guide us through the process. I'm actually using one of the forms right now to log all of the daily shots. Anyway, today in the parking lot I saw 2 women with purple folders. And in the waiting room of the lab I saw about 3 more purple folders. We might as well have a big sign on our foreheads saying "IVF." You would think that we would all talk - but it's kind of an awkward thing since you don't know them and don't know how they would react to you. Maybe they should give us a pink folder if we're open to chatting about our IVF experience with co-patient strangers - so that we can know who wants to talk and who doesn't. :) For now, I just give a big smile if I happen to catch the eyes of any of them. Hoping for good results for all of my fellow purple folder peeps. Oh, and I came across this link on my doctor's office website - looks like he was voted Best Infertility Doctor back in July 2010 by his doctor peers. Here's a link to the article and video for those that are interested. Alrighty - enough IVF talk... it's time for American Idol!! :) The new year is here and we are hopeful that this year will FINALLY be our year to become parents. :) We've been trying since 2008, so there have been many Christmases where I thought for sure NEXT Christmas I would have a baby or at least be pregnant. 4 Christmases to be exact - since I was super optimistic and started these thoughts in 2007 - little did I know! But I remain cautiously optimistic that in-vitro will be our answer. :)
Here is a little recap of our journey thus far. In 2008, we started "not preventing" and just tried it the good ole-fashioned way. That year we moved from Charlotte, NC to Columbus, OH. So we just kinda chalked it up to a lot going on and tried a few ovulation kits, but didn't seem to work. We were living with my sister and her husband while we sold and bought our houses - and got lots of first-hand newborn experience when our nephew was born in October of 2008. In 2009, I talked to my ob-gyn about how we hadn't been successful in our baby attempts. We spent that year doing all of the initial tests. All of my bloodwork for the various tests came back normal. My husband's sperm count was good. I also did the HSG test where they inject blue dye up to make sure the tubes were open and everything was fine. In the summer, my doctor started me on Clomid (the lowest dose since I wasn't having any ovulation issues) and we tried that for a few months. In the fall, we decided to keep trying without Clomid until Christmas and then move to the next step and talk to a reproductive medicine doctor in 2010. In 2010, we scheduled our first visit with our reproductive medicine doctor. We learned about all of our options and decided to try 3 rounds of intra-uterine insemination (IUI, also known as artificial insemination). This process involved me having a couple ultrasounds so that the doctor could check in on how my follicles were doing. When the time was right, they told us when to do the HCG (Novarel) shot to trigger ovulation. Crazy to think they let just anyone do this - but my husband did a good job. About 30+ hours from when I received the shot, we went in to the doctor's office for the actual procedure. My husband had to give a fresh collection that they washed and prepared. Then the doctor injected the "washed" sperm up in my uterine cavity with a catheter. I could feel a little pressure, but it was just kind of like having a pap-smear. Then you just wait two weeks and hope for a positive pregnancy test. Unfortunately, my test was negative and my period showed up a few days later. We were really disappointed when the first round didn't work - I always thought that once we got "a little help" - that would do the trick. We decided to go through with another round of IUI and my friend actually ended up giving me the HCG shot this time, since I was out-of-town visiting some friends. When that round was also unsuccessful, we decided not to go through with the 3rd round. We went back to discuss our next steps with the doctor in May. Since we were still classified as "unexplained infertility" - there was an out-patient surgery that I could have done to see if there was anything else causing issues like endometriosis. Knowing the result of this laparoscopy surgery would help us better decide whether to do in-vitro or the fertility drugs with another IUI. We decided to go this route and I had the surgery done in June 2010. The doctor just went in through a small incision below my bellybutton with a camera to look around and made another small incision above my pelvic area for the tools to move things around as needed. Work was kinda crazy in the spring, so I was excited about my day of bedrest after the surgery. :) The results of the surgery were that everything looked fine. We were relieved that nothing was wrong with me, but we still didn't have any answers. We went to Japan in July and then met with the doctor after we came back and decided to move forward with in-vitro. We had 5 weddings in September/October and some other planned trips that fall - we are what some would call social butterflies. So we decided to keep trying on our own for the rest of 2010 and then start in-vitro after the holidays. And here we are - the Lupron shots start tomorrow. Good night! |