Round Two is a Go!

This morning I had my official baseline ultrasound and lab work to make sure the birth control has done it's job. The tech who was so good last cycle couldn't find the vein in my right arm and gave up after repositioning the needle six times. She prepped my left arm, which is my less cooperative side, but gave up without trying when that vein didn't pop up either. The only option left was my hand which always stings in the weirdest way, but is at least easy to find. 

According to the ultrasound, my ovaries are nice and quiet, successfully suppressed! My lab work confirmed the suppression so we are officially cleared to start IVF number 2!

Fist pumping kitty approves!

Although it's only been about 4 weeks, I think I'll call Reprogenetics for a progress report on Monday. I know the probe won't be finished yet, but it will make me feel better to hear that there's progress happening. 

In terms of protocol, my last birth control pill was yesterday so I'll start stims on Tuesday morning. I've got everything ready to go except my Novarel which I don't need for a couple of weeks. Everything is falling into place and I'm predicting a November 3rd retrieval date.

Deep breath, cross my fingers, and here we go again!

Day 5: TWO Frosties!

It's only 11am here but we've already had a crazy, stressful morning. My phone apparently rang at 7am but E and I were both sound asleep and I didn't hear it. Waking up 3 times a night to pee is exhausting -_- Then E's phone rang a minute later, and we woke up just in time to hear the end of the call vibrating on the night stand. Fully awake now, I jumped out of bed and recognized the number as belonging to the ART center currently in possession of our embryos. Our updates come from Dr. D at a different number so it was really unusual to get contacted directly by the lab.

I called them back right away and got a somewhat frantic woman on the phone - apparently they never sent us the correct paperwork to sign for PGD consent! They can't biopsy our embryos without this paperwork, we're holding up the embryos and she was worried we might be on vacation or might not have a scanner or printer and she wouldn't be able to get a hold of us. Ahhhh!

Luckily we do have a printer/scanner and we've been waiting on tenderhooks for embryo updates so there's no way we'd be far from home right now. She emailed me the paperwork straight away and E and I quickly signed and initialed another 20 pages, scanned them in and emailed them back to her. Phew. This was not the start I was hoping for this morning but I'm glad she caught the oversight in time.

Knowing that we now had at least one embryo to biopsy (!!!) I carried my phone around with me all morning until 9:30 rolled around and Dr. D called! He said that out of the 6 embryos at our last update, TWO were now hatching blastocysts that were being biopsied and frozen! YESSS!!! Two more are early blastocysts this morning so baring any problems, they should be ready to biopsy and freeze tomorrow! Ahh!!!  I know we're not supposed to count our embryos before they're hatched, but we have a very real shot of having FOUR embryos on ice to test!

Original Photo came from here

I am so, so excited for these embryos. There's a good chance that our baby could be one of those hatching blasts in the freezer Right Now. Now we need to decide if we should take a month off or start our next IVF cycle straight away with this upcoming period. It should be starting in about a week or so, maybe a little more or less. If there is any benefit at all to doing back to back cycles I am ready to go and I will stick myself with all the needles all over again. Dr. D said my OHSS symptoms, primarily the fluid retention that is causing all the discomfort, should start to go away when the trigger leaves my system which is about 7-10 days after taking it. Today makes 7 days so I should start feeling better in the next 3 days which is awesome. If there's any lingering discomfort, the 12 days of birth control should take care of it and by the time I start stimming again, I should be feeling normal.

I have heard before that there may be some benefit to back to back cycles and Dr. D seems to be leaning in that direction as long as I feel good. If that is the case, we're repeating the same protocol and I'll need to place my next order with IVFMeds.com straight away.

Please send good thoughts to my two little early blasts, they need all the positive vibes/thoughts and prayers they can get to grow up and hatch tomorrow!

Cycle Acceleration!

While on my way to acupuncture this afternoon, I got a phone call from one of the nurses in the Kaiser infertility office. She had my marching orders for the next couple days and wanted to give me my instructions. I was driving so I had her on speaker and was listening for confirmation of Nurse C's instructions when this phone nurse said something completely different.

To Recap, Nurse C's Instructions:
During my appointment, Nurse C said I would require at least a couple more days of stimulation and had me order 10 more vials of Menopur. She guessed that we would be doing my IUI on Tuesday or Wednesday, and that I would be triggering on Sunday or Monday, with another appointment to check growth on Saturday. I would be continuing with my 6 vials of Menopur.

Phone Nurse's Instructions: 
Take the usual 6 vials of Menopur today and trigger on Saturday, with an IUI schedule for Monday. There would be no need to come in on Saturday.

This information did not at all jive with what Nurse C said. My E2 was good, yes, but with 7 follicles it was not the 200+ per 18mm follicle that we're looking for. It did not seem like a good idea to skip Saturday's ultrasound, this cycle and those follicles are too important to screw up. This also meant that we needed to have our donor vial on hand stat so I called the bank and placed our order over the phone. I'm so glad they store purchase history and credit card info, I never would have been able to place the order if the customer service rep didn't already have all my info in front of him.

When I got to acupuncture, I shared my concerns with my Acupuncturist S. Since she's a Certified Nurse Midwife at Kaiser, who has been there so long that she taught most of the OB/GYNs how to deliver babies (including my OB/GYN who is now the head of the department), she has an excellent relationship with most of the doctors, including Dr. K, and also happens to have her personal number. While I was on the table, having a treatment on my back this time, she gave Dr. K a call and talked over my procedure with her. I'm not sure if Dr. K had missed some notes or if she wasn't completely aware of the instructions given by Phone Nurse, but she agreed with me and S that I should be monitored on Saturday. At the very least, this would give us confirmation of the correct time to trigger so as not to leave viable eggs behind. I am incredibly grateful to have S on my team and feel much better about moving up the timeline as long as we check and make sure my eggs are mature first.

The new plan is to take 6 vials today, which I just did, and go in for another E2 draw and ultrasound at 7am tomorrow. I'm really not going to enjoy leaving the house before 6:30am but it's worth it to me to make sure these follicles are mature. If everything checks out, I have my trigger ready to go for Saturday and E has a rare day off on Monday. If they're still looking a little runty, I have more Menopur ready to go to give them a boost. Our vial will be picked up tomorrow and will be good and frosty for 5 days which gives us plenty of time. Whatever happens, we're prepared.