Hi everyone, Sorry for the radio silence, but I haven’t actually had much to update you on until now. And WHY is that, you ask? Well, I’ll tell you. Ever since we began treatment – my cycle has decided to be ENTIRELY uncooperative. Go figure, right? Many years of tracking and constant reliability and as soon as we start treatment, my body goes, “Haha, NOPE.” This past cycle, my period was 13 days late. THIRTEEN. That’s almost a fortnight. I kept waiting and waiting for it to show up, and finally after about a week I broke down and took...
Hello again. Today was our post-ivf appointment with Dr. Cass, where we reviewed our IVF cycle, how I responded, and what the outcome was. But before I go into that, I wanted to give a quick summary of where we currently are in the IVF process as well as update you guys on what has been going on lately. So, here is what’s been going on – IVF #1 Cycle Status Update: 15 eggs retrieved 10 fertilized 6 grew (and developed normally) 1 embryo arrested, and 1 did not develop a center cell 1 embryo was implanted on 6/2 3 Blastocysts Frozen...
I keep playing this particular scene from Hamilton over and over in my head. It’s in “Stay Alive (Reprise)”. [Philip] I did exactly as you said, Pa I held my head up high [Hamilton] I know, I know. Shh I know, I know, shh I know you did everything just right. The brutal reality of infertility is that you can do exactly as you are told, do everything just right – and still not succeed. There is no magic wand that you can wave, and no amount of positive energy or hope can bring you the outcome that you desire....
I’m sorry for the delay in this post, things have been a little insane! So, I heard from the clinic on Sunday where they gave us our Day 6 Blastocyst report. Remember that we still had 5 in play, as of the day of my embryo transfer (which was Day 3). Of the five embryos, two did not make it to the blastocyst stage. One arrested in its development and thus was not viable to be frozen. The other was of low quality (there was no center mass of cells to indicate that it was a healthy blastocyst). So we...
I needed some space before I posted this update. I’m sure everyone understands. As I mentioned we were waiting and hoping for a Day 5 Blastocyst, and we were waiting to hear from the Embryologist. Well, I heard from them at 9AM on Thursday morning, and the embryologist told me that based on the results they were seeing, that they wanted me to come in that afternoon for a Day 3 Transfer, at 2:30PM. This meant our embryos were not on track to be considered good enough quality to be frozen as blastocysts. Of course, my heart just sank. Of the...
I’m still relaxing in bed, but wanted to get this post out while my memory is still fresh. So, I’m coming to you live from my bed and I am accompanied by my friend the heating pad. Yesterday, we left our house for the egg retrieval and made it there in amazing time because of the Memorial Day holiday. Once we arrived, we filled out the necessary paperwork and they quickly took us to the main procedure room for my pre-op. We go through all the normal questions (and over again what I had just filled out, as is customary)...
As promised, here is my new set of protocol that I need to follow. Look at all the pretty colors! Somebody used every color in the highlighter pack…Anyway. It’s 5/29, so I began taking the Doxycycline which is an antibiotic that I will remain on until my egg transfer. The purpose for this is obvious, after any procedure they will prescribe antibiotics in order to ward off any possible infection. Tomorrow, I will take two tylenol with a small sip of water (this was stressed several times) at 7AM, and we will arrive for the appointment at 8:15AM, actual procedure will...
We had our final appointment before having the egg retrieval. Dr. Cass is very excited for us, and was happy with the growth on both ovaries. My Estrogen level yesterday was 1763, and today it is 1890. Doctors estimate that a mature follicle produces ~200 pg/ml of Estrogen. Meaning, that as of today I have about 9 follicles that would be considered mature. Personally, I was hoping for a higher number than that, but as I understand things, even after the trigger shot my follicles will continue to grow 1-3mm per day. Here’s to hoping that some of these smaller ones turn...
So here we are, on day 10 of stims, and HAPPILY – tomorrow morning is my last day of injections! They told me to take my Gonal-F tonight as normal, and then tomorrow to only take the Ganirelix and Menopur in the morning. Dr. Cass came in and very happily and said we are ‘on our way’! She then told me how her arm gets tired after doing my ultrasound because I have so many follicles on the right hand side. “I cant rest my arm while performing the ultrasound, and there’s so many!” She is now affectionately referring to my...
Another day, another appointment, another ultrasound, another blood test. I feel like I should be walking into the clinic with no pants on, and my shirt sleeve rolled up at this point. Though, I am pretty sure that there are laws against that… Anyway, I finally got to see Dr. Cass! I’ve been having appointments with other doctors because she has not been available each time I am in for monitoring. It was so nice to see her. The other doctors are nice enough, but she really has such a wonderful way about her. Dean and I both feel...
