Starting the new year with a bang

2012 was a tough year. After 5 failed IUI cycles and 1 failed IVF cycle we are ready to start 203 with a bang. I spent the last 3 days waking up early for monitoring appointments. For those of you who know me, you know I am not a morning person. Anyway on January 1st I got the call that I would be triggering that night at 8:30pm and that egg retrieval would be the morning of the 3rd. What a great way to start the new year!!! My E2 was over 2100 and I have 16 follicles on my right and 14 on my left, most were ranging from 18-20mm in size. I am ready for the Easter egg hunt to begin. I am pretty bloated and they are worried about OHSS, so I stocked up on Gatorade and have cut back on my water intake.
I have to arrive at the surgical center at 6am on Thursday and it is an almost 2 hour drive so it looks like it will be an early morning for me. At least I will be able to sleep the rest of the day. I will of course update you on how many eggs we get. This time around we decided to do ICSI right from the start so hopefully we will have lots of fertilized eggs on Friday morning.

Everyday I'm monitorin'!!!

Well after my appointment on Sunday where we now had 17 follies on the right and 14 on the left and an E2 level of 791 we are to the point where we have a monitoring appointment every morning until I trigger. At my Monday morning appointment the ultrasound tech told me I would be on the meds for at least 2 more days because the aren't doing any procedures before Thursday or Friday. I just hope my eggs aren't over mature by that time. My lead follicle is at 19 and I have about 10-12 that are in the 14-16mm range. Not sure what my E2 level is at today but I am willing to bet it is over 1000. Well it will be back in tomorrow morning for another check and hopefully I will know when ER sometime soon.

Good morning

Early wake up this morning in order to get in for a quick monitoring appointment before the festivities of my brother in laws wedding. Things are looking good in my ovaries. We still have about 12 visible follicles on my left and it looks like my right side woke up since now there are about 14 visible follicles. Each side has about 4 measurable between 11mm-14mm. I'm still waiting on my E2 levels which I hope are good, but it looks like I will be going back in on Sunday for another check.

Back to it

It's the day after Christmas and I am back to it. I had a nice little break with 4 days off. I never got to sleep in any of my off days as we were up early on Saturday so we could head to Shrek the Halls (the coolest ice sculptures ever!) Then on Sunday I had to go in for my suppression check (all was good so I started stims that night). Monday was up early to do prep work for Christmas and then of course Christmas itself since I was hosting 14 and had created an elaborate menu to include popovers and prime rib.
Today I am back at work. I had to wake up extra early since I had a monitoring appointment before hand. After 3 days of stims my lining is at 8.2mm and I have 8 follies on my right and 12 on my left but none of them are measurable yet. My E2 came back at 121, so the nurse called and said we will do the same 150iu of Gonal F and 75iu of Menopur and then back in for another visit on Friday morning. This is exactly the way things should be going so I am really happy about it. Lets just hope things continue the way they should.

Another last

Today marks the day of another last. Today is the last day that I take BCP. Woohoo!!!! It has been a long 21 days but we are finally done and I am so excited. I started Lupron on Saturday morning and things are so far so good. I keep doing the Lupron until Sunday when I go in for my monitoring appointment/ suppression check. If all looks good on the 23rd I will start stims that night. Yeah I can't wait!!!

Gift under the tree

So when I got home Tuesday from work there ways a box sitting at my back door. Woohoo all my meds for IVF#2 have arrived. I felt like a kid on Christmas, all I wanted to do was open that box and check it out. I headed in to the living room and to my surprise I noticed that my tree had face planted. All that hard work to make the tree look pretty for nothing. I was so worried because the hubby and I have always purchased an ornament to remember every vacation we have been on, I didn't want any of those to be broken because there would be no way to replace them. I knew that the tree clean up would be a two person project and since the hubby wouldn't be home until late I dug into my box full of meds. Turns out that my dosages will be lower this time around so there wasn't as much as last time. I put all the meds away and now I wait until Saturday to start the Lupron.
All is well with the tree now. It's back to it's upright position and looking as beautiful as before with only a few casualties but luckily none of the vacation ornaments.

Little freak out

This morning I get an automated phone call from the OBGYN office reminding me that I need to come in for my annual check up. I am supposed to start Lupron in 4 days. Then I remember reading somewhere in my packet of paperwork that all cycle will be canceled if all testing is not complete by a certain date. Then my panic sets in that Christmas is only 2 weeks away and the offices won't be open like I need them to be. Oh and not to mention that I should be getting my period sometime next week. Ugh!!! Why me???
Anyway after a quick call to Nurse D she reassured me that even if I don't get my pap done right away they will not cancel this cycle. ::::wipes sweat from my brows:::: then I contact the OBGYN and was able to get in on the 18th. Now lets just hope that AF doesn't show up before that date. Nurse D told me to expect it around the 20th so let's hope she knows her stuff.

Weekend update

Had another great weekend. Friday was the company Christmas party which is always an interesting event. It is an employee only function and this year they had an ugly sweater contest. Sorry no pictures but you can only imagine the ugliness. Tacky might actually be the word. Lots of lights flashing and some even played music. Wowzers! These people have too much time and way too much room in their closets for junk.
Anyway, Saturday we went to St. Michaels for the Christmas parade and to walk around the town. It is such a cute little place. If you are ever in the area you should go and check it out. That afternoon we went tree hunting. We were looking for a very special tree this year since it needed to be tall and skinny since we don't have a lot of room for it if we intend on having 14 people over for Christmas dinner. As you can see the hubby and stepdaughter are in front of the tree we selected. Ugly I know!! But after we cut it down and then removed the bottom 4 feet of the tree we ended up with a perfect tree. As you can see the finished product, I think we did a great job decorating it.

There is a plan

Sorry it's been a week since I last updated you. Well we have a new plan. I started BCP on 11/27 and I will be on them for 21 days. On 12/15 I will start Lupron and then on 12/23 I will go in for a suppression check to make sure everything looks good to start stims that night.
For those of you who have been around for this whole journey I will be on the same meds Gonal F and Menopur. I think the dosage will be lower this time. I am nervous about the change in adding Lupron and getting rid of Ganirelix but I am willing to give it a shot.
Well things will probably be pretty quite around here until my meds arrive on the 11th, only 8 days away. Come on time can you please move a little faster???

Where do we go?

Well after the bad news on Friday I surprisingly woke up in a good mood. A new day and a new start, right? I had a very productive day of shopping only to be capped with the late night arrival of AF. At least this means we can move on. But where do we go? I called Nurse D this morning and left her a message. She called me back about 30 minutes later to tell me how sorry she was that this didn't work. We started to talk about where to go to next. She emailed the RE and told him we need a new protocol for me. So basically we are waiting to find out if I will be able to cycle right away or will I go on BCP again so that I can start stims around Christmas for an ER after New Years. I really am okay with either route. I just want to know where I go next.
If any of you have experience with back to back IVF cycles what did you do? BCP or no?

Beta or Bust

As I mentioned before we decided to go beta or bust. Meaning that we would not test at home and just wait for the phone call from the RE to know our fate. As it turned out our second wedding anniversary was our beta day. This had to be a good sign!!! We decided to hit the RE's office and get the bloodwork the go to the mall to do some Black Friday shopping and then enjoy a nice lunch at a steak house. As we sat there and enjoyed our lunch I got the phone call. I turned out to be the worst moment ever where we got the news that IVF was a bust. I was unable to maintain my composure and cried throughout the remainder of our meal. We decided that we should probably go home and nap since I didn't really know how to face the world. After a few Aleve and a three hour nap I felt a little bit better. Now we wait until Monday to follow up with my nurse and RE to see what our next step will be.

Nothing New

Just dropping in to say there is nothing new going on here. I am anxiously awaiting my beta day which is Friday. It's a short work week for me and that makes me very happy. In addition to Friday being beta day it is my two year wedding anniversary. We scheduled the blood draw at 9 am then plan on walking around the mall and maybe heading out for a nice lunch.

I'm PUPO!!!!!!

Today was the big day. We had our embryo transfer. We transferred two embryos, a four cell and a six cell. The experience was not too bad except for the fact that they want you to have a full bladder when the do the procedure and then they push all over your belly with the ultrasound and all you can think about is how bad you want to pee. After the transfer they make you lay down for five minutes and then they let you finally go to the bathroom and then they send you home to be on bed rest for 24 hours. So that's where I am now! Laying on the sofa taking it easy so that these little embryos can snuggle in. You may wonder what PUPO means and for those of you who don't know it is Pregnant Until Proven Otherwise. Here's a picture of my precious embryos.

Fert Report Part 3 and 4

This morning I missed yet another call from Dr. M. He left me a voicemail and told me that he was happy to report that we have 3 two cell embryos. I am sad that my Rockstar is gone but, Woohoo the groupies are still here!!!
I was surprised by another call from Dr. M later in the afternoon. Wow twice in one day I feel so special. Anyway he gave me the afternoon report on the embryos and said we have one 2 cell, one 3 cell, and one 4 cell. He then talked about doing the transfer tomorrow. He doesn't seem to think that we will have all 3 around tomorrow but he feels very confident that we will have 2. So the plan is to use assisted hatching and transfer back 2 embryos. The transfer is scheduled for 12:30pm on Friday.

Fert Report Part 2

This morning I got the call from Nurse D. I was a little in shock that she was calling me since she has been out of the office for pretty much my entire cycle since her father is dying, but it was nice to hear her voice. She told me that as of today we have 3 around 1 cell and 1 with no change from yesterday. I was very confused by what this meant and asked her to explain. She said that she believes that the 1 unchanged from yesterday is my rockstar, she said that it is very possible that it still is with us and that it just hadn't changed since the last report. She said that the other 3 were the ones that we were able to rescue with the ICSI. She said that she would give me a call back tomorrow to give me another update on my rockstar and groupies and that she would be giving me my transfer time for Friday.

I tried asking her some more of the questions that I had put together  but they are questions that would be better answered by Dr. M. She tried to get me to make an appointment to come in to talk to him about that but I really feel like we could do this over the phone much faster, so I asked her to send him an email and have him call me back. I am still waiting for a return phone call and I hope I hear from him soon. The most pressing questions I have for him at this point are:

1. Are there any tests that can be done on the eggs that diid not fertilize to find out why they didn't?
2. When we spoke yesterday you had mentioned something about a possible auto-immune issue, is there testing for this that we can get done now so that if we have to move on to another cycle we are already ready?
3. If this cycle does not work with I be put back on birth control?
4. Will we do the same protocol except ICSI won't be a rescue technique it will be the primary technique?

I am sure there will be much more to talk about, the longer it takes him to call me back the more things pop in my mind and I wonder should I ask him if this is an issue or is that an issue. (I know I should stay away from Dr. Google, but it is just so hard).