Trigger Happy (stim day 11)

Thank frickin' god!

PDLAMBLATI* kitteh's

At our ultrasound yesterday morning, we found that the majority of our follies had grown to about 16-18mm. I had gotten pretty darned uncomfortable, and was DREADING the possibility of waiting another day to trigger. Dr S hadn't decided for certain what to do solely based on the oves, and wanted to wait to see what our e2 was doing. His theory was that things were getting pretty darned cramped, and that while the eggs inside the follicles were continuing to mature, the follies were simply running out of room to grow. The PCOS convention going on in my belly was at capacity, and little more could be done.

Click-arino

My e2 came back at 2670, just slightly lower than the day before, and we were given the green light to trigger that night. While I'm *slightly* nervous that it started to drop, it's nowhere near the plummet we experienced last time, and seems on par with his explanation of limited room for expansion. Triggering seemed the right way to go at this point, and definitely improved my mood :)

We triggered in the same restaurant bathroom that we did with IVF #1, which we were amused by. I stayed home from work today, and am so glad I did. I ended up running two quick errands, and could barely walk to/from the car. I can only imagine how awful it would have felt to sit at a desk all day.

My mom drove up today to stay with us through transfer, helping out and keeping the dogs and cats entertained and us fed while I recover from retrieval. So, so, so thankful she's here!

I'm not super nervous going into retrieval anymore. Still slightly, but not as much as I was before. I guess we're at a point where it is what it is. We have done absolutely everything we can to get to this point in as good of shape as possible, and it's just up to chance for fertilization and egg growth. And awesome embryologists. But yeah, our part? Nearly done.

In less than twelve hours, I'll be back home napping off the anesthesia...

"You have shamed me by removing my fur"

(Hannah got a haircut yesterday. We switched over to her summer 'do just in time, as the forecast for the weekend is going to rise into the low 100's this weekend)

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* PDLAMBLATI- Please don't look at my business look at these instead

Yes I would like cheese with that (stim day 10)

I really hate complaining (who am i kidding i love complaining and i'm good at it), but hot damn I'm uncomfortable. It really started setting in yesterday, and combined with a wanding this morning, I'm positively done. I'm mentally done stimming, done waiting, done hoping it all goes well. Done taking 12 doses* of meds each day, done being sore and sedentary and out of energy. Done not being able to poo, not being able to pee without taking breaks for my oves to re-adjust, done done done.

Whiny Mc Whinerson

But whatever. Based on the u/s and b/w, we should be triggering tomorrow. I can make it until Saturday. Somehow.

Follies, follies galore!

My oves are large and in charge, with tons of good sized follies on each. They're generally 14-16mm right now, and giving me an e2 of 2682. We like these numbers. We like them a lot. We're going to squeeze in another visit with Mr Wanderful tomorrow, and hopefully will trigger tomorrow night. I'm not wholly convinced the trigger is going to happen, but Dr S seems to think that a) they're going to grow like weeds overnight, and b) there isn't a whole lot of ovarian real estate for them to get much over 18-19mm anyways since there are so damn many. I get that. And I can get behind that plan :)

Clickity Click Click

They tested my progesterone today too, to make sure nothing was popping off on its own. It came back at 0.9, which was a good indicator that the ganirelix was doing its job at keeping everyone in place. Funny enough, the ganirelix also gave me a large itchy red welt this am, so I think I shall fire it after tomorrow. Hopefully.

PDLAMBLATI**- more oldies but goodies!
(come on, a girl can only find so many fun socks!)

Wish us luck tomorrow... I can only take this for so much longer!!!



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* am: synthroid, C0Q10, follistim, ganirelix
   eve: menopur
   pm: prenatal, extra folic acid, fish oil, melatonin, metformin, baby aspirin, C0Q10

** PDLAMBLATI- please don't look at my business look at these instead

Back on track (stim day 9)

I'm almost afraid to say it for fear of jinxing it, but we're finally at a place where we feel comfortable with our progress! After Saturday's e2 came back so low for the number of follies we had growing, my mind definitely went to the dark place of "all the follies are empty my eggs are crap why even bother and whythehell are we starting ganirelix already." It was not a fun place to be.

Instead of dwelling, we did lots of fun things this weekend. Like this:

Nom Nom 6-Year Anniversary Dinner

And this:

See Wicked. It's amazing.

Unfortunately, distraction technique number 1 backfired, and kept Dr Boy in the bathroom for about 50% of distraction technique number 2. Oooops. So I mostly sat in our awesome seats solo while he was in and out of the back of the theater. Yeah, feeling really guilty about that. Not that I *forced* him to eat the medium rare steak... but still....

Sunday was more relaxed, and involved a lot of this:

Why read when  you can love me?

I may or may not have read that entire book in one day. I plead the fifth.

Distraction technique number 4 was dinner with friends. And froyo. Which, incidentally, makes everything better.

Oldy but goody PDLAMBLATI

Our appt went well Monday morning, so huge sigh of relief. We still have tons of follies growing, generally between 11-13mm. My lining is a plump 10mm, ready and waiting. My e2 came back at 1137, which is finally in the range of what makes sense to me. The Fear is finally gone, and I have hope that this may actually turn out alright.

Click Click

We're guessing at a Saturday retrieval now, though Sunday is a contender still as well. Based on everything, we're still holding our 150u follistim and 2 vial menopur dose since it seems to be doing the job perfectly. We have pretty much EXACTLY the right amount of medication left for a Sat retrieval, so I'm hoping for that. Also? The oves are getting cranky. They yelled at me all day for letting them get poked at with Senor Wanderful, and then screamed later when well, yeah. That. Guess we're done for a while :) I've also noticed the crankies creeping in- I've had a very, very short fuse since the weekend, and I'm blaming it on the meds. I actually even annoy myself with it.

So. Yeah. Hope. Funny thing, eh?

Getting Better-ish (Stim day 6)

Indeed, Menopur. Indeed.

That's one of the caps you, well, flip off the menopur bottles before mixing the powder and saline. My mature hormone-addled brain could NOT. STOP. LAUGHING. when I saw his written on it. I blame it on the, well, menopur :)

We had our stim day 6 visit today, and had way better results at the ultrasound. We're moving along, with nice clusters of follies on both ovaries. Each measured around 9-10mm, with around 17 on righty and 15+ on lefty. Dr S is kind and didn't poke around too much to get to my annoyingly high and painful to wand left ovary, especially this early when a general idea is good enough.

I forgot socks this morning... ooops!
We had a case of the dreaded "bare-feet-in-stirrups." Ick.

The e2 results that came back later in the afternoon were still a bit disappointing, though. We're only up to 311 today. Which, as you recall, is still 1/3 of what it was two stim days EARLIER in the cycle last time. I'm getting worried that we're growing lots of empty follies, that my true PCOSey nature is coming out. I am not super thrilled by this, but I guess we'll just keep chugging along and count on it all turning out ok.

Based on all of that, we're going to still hold the dose of 150u Follistim in the am, and 2 vials of Menopur in the pm. We were also incredibly lucky enough to have the lovely hyper-stimmed EndoJourney give us some of her leftover follistim and menopur, as another retrieval will NOT be in the cards for her after a case of extremely severe OHSS. I had a couple of other incredible women offer as well, and am continually amazed by the support and generosity of this community. Dr Boy and I are truly so, so lucky to be a part of it. I know we all say it, but we truly couldn't get through it all without all of you.

Oh, and we're starting the Galirelix tomorrow, too. Dr S said he's actually seen someone prematurely ovulate with follies as low as 12mm, so yeah. Do NOT want that to be us.

It looks like retrieval will be pushed back to Saturday or Sunday, but we'll see how it goes next week. Whatever we have to do.

Next check is on Monday. Good. Times.

PDLAMBLATI from Thursday's appt...
When Pigs Fly!

My Ovaries Suck. (Stim Day 4)

I know we've established this fact on many, many occasions, but I still need to put this out there- my oves suck big fatties. It's just today, when they were supposed to put on a good show for me and Dance! Dance my pretties, dance! they didn't.

We had our first ultrasound today for the Redux, and didn't see much. Lots of littles, with the biggest around 7mm max. Honestly, Dr S didn't even measure them and continued calling them "antral" follies. But fine, it's only stim day 4, I can handle that. We didn't even have an ultrasound until day 6 last time, so I didn't have anything to compare to.

Then my e2 results came back- a big, fat, whopping 62. Last time on stim day 4? We were 892.

Now before you get your panties all in a bunch and tell me that every cycle is different, I KNOW that. I know not to expect the same results, because clearly we don't WANT the same results. Last cycle didn't exactly work out the way we had hoped, so different is good.

It just seems (to me at least) that this is a bit *too* different to be good.

Dr S believes that the near-six months of birth control and FET's suppressed me more than we thought, and it's taking a little longer to get going. He doesn't believe that this will do anything other than delay retrieval by a day or two. Suck-tastic!

We were conservative with ordering meds since we cut doses so quickly last time, so now I need to order a ton more. We're going slowly so we don't end up with too much, but still. I had some incredibly generous donations from Lauren at Not Just An Army Wife and Jamie aka The Womb Warrior, which cut our medication bill WAY down. Thank goodness, because that part is going to get much more expensive than we had bargained for. And I'm cheap so this makes me angry.

Sigh. We're holding doses and re-checking on Saturday (rather than upping the dose and yo-yo-ing around with super high e2's that will probably come anyways).

Click Me! Click Me!

For you IVF vets out there- what were your e2 results on day 4 of stims? And how many days did you end up stimming for?

Infertility Bitch

My Bestie N made me this. Sums it up perfectly!

She really is a big fatty bitchface.


In other exciting news, so is Aunt Flow. Apparently she is embarrassed by the fact that she only has 4mm to shed, so has been forcing uterine cramping since yesterday like it is going out of style. Hopefully, like I say every time, it indeed WILL be going out of style for the next 9-12 months, give or take. Hopefully.

The redux begins... ish...

PDLAMBLATI* from my SIL- red hot ovaries!

Dr Boy and I went in this morning for our baseline ultrasound for Round Two this morning. I have been all over the map as far as emotions go this week and last, as the weight of this next cycle has really begun to settle in. I keep writing posts in my head, but honestly, I'm tired of being whiny, depressed, and just don't want to post things that I know will make other people hurt. It's been pretty hard to manage the jealousy, and Why Not Me? feelings lately. Really hard. I'm having a big case of Fertile-Infertile Jealousy, and I feel like a complete bitch-face for even thinking it. I mean, the goal is to get pregnant, right? So what if "all it took" was one round? Who cares if you retrieved one egg? It should work. Period. There is no such thing as "infertile enough," or deserving an embryo into sticking. I don't think people should have to go through a set amount of heartbreak before they are successful, so why am I unable to keep my brain from thinking such awful things?

We were just unlucky.

Three times.

So now that you all think I'm a spiteful c-word, our appointment went well this morning. Antral follicles were numerous, at least 20 on each side. (thank you pcos) I still haven't hit CD1, but am expecting to do so tomorrow. Dr S thinks it'll be a pretty lame period, as my BCP suppressed lining is only a whopping 4mm right now. No complaints here.

The only change was to delay starting stims until Monday. I'm not entirely sure why, but I believe the thought is that we're going to hit retrieval a bit faster than last time, and they want to stick as close to the June 15th estimate as possible. We decided to go with the "all in" approach discussed at the WTF appointment. Basically, we are trying to avoid at all costs the eleventh hour estrogen drop off that we experienced with IVF 1. While we were given every assurance that it wasn't the cause of our failures, we'd still like to NOT have it happen again. To do so, we're going to refrain from dropping off quite so much on the stim meds as we progress, allowing my e2 to get high, and keep our fingers crossed that OHSS stays away. If I do develop a moderate or severe case, we'll do a freeze all. Clearly THIS is not preferable either, but we'll take it as it goes and hope beyond hope we squeak out ok.

Anal-retentive chart, to be updated through the cycle

We'll see what happens. I'm finding it hard to find hope this time. We had SO MANY things go right last cycle, so many things that pointed to near-certain success along the way, and even 8 frozen embies! After transferring 6 (between the fresh and frozen cycles) and discarding 4 that failed to thaw, it's hard to muster up hope.

But we'll get there. Because it HAS to work sometime, right? Maybe the fourth transfer's the charm. Maybe.


*PDLAMBLATI: Please don't look at my biznass look at these instead.