Yesterday I was concerned about not having enough of a flow to go in for my baseline ultrasound. When I told the nurse I was only spotting, she said I might need to cancel my appointment since they couldn't count it as day 1 unless I was really bleeding (and miserable). I shouldn't have wasted a second fretting about it.
Today I was popping Advil like tic-tacs. I usually only need two to control cramps for about 8 hours, but these seemed to break through after only 2 hours. As long as I was consistent they weren't too bad, so I took another two before I went to bed at 2:30am and figured they'd be enough. BIG HUGE MISTAKE.
At 6:45am I woke up to absolutely horrible, body twisting cramps. I haven't had cramps like this since High School and back then they used to keep me home, in bed, in a ball. It took another bunch of Advil over 3-4 hours and a heating pad on high to get them down to a manageable level, and I may have told E mid cramp that I would not be having his babies naturally after all. He laughed at me and said Duh so we'll see how that goes when (not if!) we get there. I'm pretty sure I have the progesterone to thank for these wonderful cramps, I'm definitely not looking forward to it this month.
Once the afternoon rolled around, it was time for my appointment! I went nice and early but ended up losing my advantage to the 30 minutes it took to find parking -_- There was street cleaning today so half the parking was unavailable and I had to park 4 blocks away. No fun when you have to run back and feed the meter.
Since today was just a baseline ultrasound, my appointment was with Nurse C instead of Dr. K. I had been looking forward to chatting with Dr. K, since she had forgotten our previous meeting, and I had practically cried over having to go through the whole thought process again. Luckily, she ended up leaving detailed instructions for my cycle that matched our previous plan so all was well. We saw at least 6 little antral follicles and I would love to see those turn into 6 mature eggs. The new plan is:
CD 2 - CD 11 - Birth Control Pills
CD 12 - CD 14 - No Meds
CD 15 - CD 18 - 8 vials Menopur, divided into 2 doses daily, E2 Ultrasound
CD 19 - CD ? - More Menopur
CD ? - Trigger
CD ? - IUI or Egg Harvesting, probably IUI
We're hoping that suppression with birth control first will help my eggs develop at a similar rate. Usually, your body selects 1 egg as the dominant follicle each month, but we'd like to get many more than that. The birth control should stop that one egg from getting a head start so hopefully the smaller ones we saw last cycle will be able to catch up and mature too. Then we're going all out with the max dose of Menopur to see if we can wake these lazy ovaries up.
Friday, May 30, 2014
Thursday, May 29, 2014
The Fuzzy, Bed-Snatching Scratcher
The little terror enjoying our memory foam bean bag/Milou's claimed bed. E is still holding a bit of a grudge over my scratches, but how could you be upset with that face??
Wallowing
Since our BFN yesterday, I've allowed myself to wallow a bit in the disappointment. I cheated on my diet with some In-N-Out yesterday, WITH a chocolate shake, but it was woefully unsatisfying. I think my taste buds may have changed since I started this crazy diet, the shake felt gross in my mouth and the fries were like oily cardboard. Boo.
I couldn't let my self pity end on such a disappointing note, so today I went for something with a solid track record; a coffee bean Ice Blended and a beef-lamb doner wrap from Spitz. Both were delicious and I'm satisfied that my wallowing has come to a successful, timely end.
Also right on time was my period, I stopped the progesterone last night and started spotting this afternoon. I have my next baseline ultrasound and consultation appointment tomorrow but I'll have to cancel it if the spotting doesn't turn into a full blown period. It's incredible that you spend so much of the month hoping your period stays away but once that test is negative, you can't wait for it to show up. This infertility journey is a crazy one.
For the discussion tomorrow, I'm weighing two different options:
Option 1 - birth control to suppress, the max dose of Menopur to stimulate, and either IUI or IVF depending on the follicle count.
Cons: People with Fragile X premutations are notoriously poor responders to stimulation. We'll be spending about $3500 on the medication and might still only get one egg. If we did get enough for IVF, which would run about 20-30k, the probe for PGD would be very, very difficult to make. Not many genetics labs work with donors because blood samples are almost always unavailable. The one I spoke with would need blood and genetic profiles from me, my sister, and my mother. They would also need 2 vials of sperm from our donor and I think we'd need pre-approval from Kaiser. We wouldn't be able to switch donors for any reason once this was done. Our eggs might not fertilize, the embryos might arrest, they might not survive biopsy, they might all have Fragile X, they could not implant.
Option 2 - A less medicated cycle with letrozole or clomid and IUI
Cons: I don't know how I'll respond to less stimulation. I could potentially not respond at all, although that wouldn't be much different than how I respond to the stronger drugs. IUI only has a 20% chance of working. It could fail again or it could work but the child could have Fragile X and we'd have to terminate.
I'm not sure where my head is at the moment. I think I'm leaning towards doing option 1, one more expensive, super medicated cycle to see if it's possible to stimulate me to make a lot of eggs. If that doesn't work and I only make a couple, I'd feel more comfortable scaling things back and trying a letrozole cycle. I don't see any reason to continue paying thousands for 1 egg when I can get the same result for less. Thanks ovaries.
I wish there was a guaranteed or proven method out there but they don't exist. I keep hearing that us Fragile X carriers do better with IUI but the idea of having an actively dividing, healthy embryo to put back is a tempting one.
I couldn't let my self pity end on such a disappointing note, so today I went for something with a solid track record; a coffee bean Ice Blended and a beef-lamb doner wrap from Spitz. Both were delicious and I'm satisfied that my wallowing has come to a successful, timely end.
Also right on time was my period, I stopped the progesterone last night and started spotting this afternoon. I have my next baseline ultrasound and consultation appointment tomorrow but I'll have to cancel it if the spotting doesn't turn into a full blown period. It's incredible that you spend so much of the month hoping your period stays away but once that test is negative, you can't wait for it to show up. This infertility journey is a crazy one.
For the discussion tomorrow, I'm weighing two different options:
Option 1 - birth control to suppress, the max dose of Menopur to stimulate, and either IUI or IVF depending on the follicle count.
Cons: People with Fragile X premutations are notoriously poor responders to stimulation. We'll be spending about $3500 on the medication and might still only get one egg. If we did get enough for IVF, which would run about 20-30k, the probe for PGD would be very, very difficult to make. Not many genetics labs work with donors because blood samples are almost always unavailable. The one I spoke with would need blood and genetic profiles from me, my sister, and my mother. They would also need 2 vials of sperm from our donor and I think we'd need pre-approval from Kaiser. We wouldn't be able to switch donors for any reason once this was done. Our eggs might not fertilize, the embryos might arrest, they might not survive biopsy, they might all have Fragile X, they could not implant.
Option 2 - A less medicated cycle with letrozole or clomid and IUI
Cons: I don't know how I'll respond to less stimulation. I could potentially not respond at all, although that wouldn't be much different than how I respond to the stronger drugs. IUI only has a 20% chance of working. It could fail again or it could work but the child could have Fragile X and we'd have to terminate.
I'm not sure where my head is at the moment. I think I'm leaning towards doing option 1, one more expensive, super medicated cycle to see if it's possible to stimulate me to make a lot of eggs. If that doesn't work and I only make a couple, I'd feel more comfortable scaling things back and trying a letrozole cycle. I don't see any reason to continue paying thousands for 1 egg when I can get the same result for less. Thanks ovaries.
I wish there was a guaranteed or proven method out there but they don't exist. I keep hearing that us Fragile X carriers do better with IUI but the idea of having an actively dividing, healthy embryo to put back is a tempting one.
Wednesday, May 28, 2014
IUI #1 Failed: BFN
I went in for my beta today and to no one's surprise, it was negative. I was expecting it after the negative urine test yesterday but it still hurt. If it had been positive, the baby would have been due on my birthday. At least I get to stop the wretched progesterone.
Once the progesterone is stopped, my period should be along shortly. Then we start the cycle all over again, labs and another baseline ultrasound. Hopefully that tiny cyst should be gone. I expect birth control should follow, for at least 10 days, and then back on the Menopur I go. My wallet is already crying.
I also woke up to Cillian accidentally scratching the crap out of my face. So much for positive thinking.
 |
| Boo :( |
Once the progesterone is stopped, my period should be along shortly. Then we start the cycle all over again, labs and another baseline ultrasound. Hopefully that tiny cyst should be gone. I expect birth control should follow, for at least 10 days, and then back on the Menopur I go. My wallet is already crying.
I also woke up to Cillian accidentally scratching the crap out of my face. So much for positive thinking.
 |
| Thanks Cilly |
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