Day 6: SIX EMBRYOS Going For Testing!

Both embryos made it! Holy shit! We now have two more hatching blasts to add to our batch, making 6! I can't believe it, after such a crappy cycle and only retrieving two eggs, I never would have dreamed they'd both be strong enough to make it. Taking them to day 6 was definitely the right decision, the embryologist says they look perfect.  We're going to send these 6 samples out for PGD/PGS and hope/pray/wish/cross everything that they're healthy!!

I was planning on putting one embryo right back once we get our results, an early December transfer, but the doctor says I should take a "wash" cycle. Not everyone needs to take a break but most people only take $1800-$4000 in meds for their cycles and do just one. I've been injecting $9200 in hormones two months in a row and he thinks I should have two periods to wash them all out. The first would be the upcoming one, due at the end of this week if I follow last cycle. Then I'd wait a month, have my next period and start the medication for transfer. He's right and it makes sense, I would never rush anything that could compromise an embie's successful implantation, but it's so hard to be patient!

Right now our biopsy samples are probably being packed in liquid nitrogen and readied for their journey to the east coast. I believe they'll be over nighted to Reprogenetics and then as long as all the samples are good, they'll begin testing. We decided to go ahead and add on the aCGH testing for $2250, it seems crazy to go through all this to test for Fragile X, a developmental disability, and then not check for Down Syndrome or other Trisomy problems. I need to confirm whether they run the tests concurrently or consecutively, hopefully we'll have all healthy embryos and it won't matter, but if somehow they're all affected with Fragile X, they should hold off on the aCGH testing. We won't need to go there though, our embryos are going to be strong and healthy and we'll have a healthy baby before we know it.

Day 4: Wishing, Hoping, Itching

Today is day 4 of our embryo's growth and following the traditional protocol, we did not get an update. I'm choosing to take this as a good sign since I'm fairly sure they would have let us know if something happened to our embie babies today. One of the women in my online PGD support group also had two embryos growing at the same time as mine and she lost both of them on day 4. I'm so crushed for her and am now even more worried for our two, this is such a big jump for them to make.

I'm hoping that our next update will be tomorrow, but there's a chance we won't hear from Dr. D until Monday. Last cycle we had 2 embryos biopsied day 5 and 2 biopsied day 6 so these two could be ready on either day. My nerves seriously hope they're healthy and ready for biopsy/freeze tomorrow because I can't take much more of this waiting.

In other news, I haven't been reporting too much on recovery but I'm doing okay. I had so few eggs that I didn't get OHSS this time and only needed some Advil/Tylenol for the first couple days. I've taken an odd one here or there for a hormone headache and some muscle aches as everything returns to normal but overall it's been a pretty uneventful recovery. They didn't even need to give me Fentanyl after the retrieval, just two Tylenol and a hot blanket on my belly. Mostly I'm just exhausted, like can't keep myself awake tired, have to pee all the time and am still crazy bloated. I've been sustaining myself on a diet of Matzo Ball soup (thank you E for repeatedly playing delivery man) and Gatorade/Electrolyte water and feel like I have the flu.

Cillian takes advantage of my exhaustion and bloated pillow belly to get in a good nap

My most obnoxious complaint is probably the bruise on my hand from my IV. The nurse, who was quite experienced and really nice, had to try twice to get my IV in. She tried first on my right hand, which is usually my good one, numbed it up with lidocaine and popped in the IV needle. The needle went in correctly but she was right up against a valve so the catheter couldn't go into the vein. She tried to apply some gentle pressure to open it and then tried to float the catheter in but neither worked. She ended up taking it out and going for my left hand, where she repeated the process and the IV catheter went right in. That site doesn't hurt at all and didn't bruise but my right hand has this nasty, deep bruise that has been surprisingly painful. It was really bad the first day, definitely worse than my sore ovaries, and the bruise is still there and still tender today.

My other big complaint is that somehow, the hivey rash has returned to my stomach. This leads me to believe that I had two separate rashes last time - hives on my belly from the medication, and an allergic rash to E's shaving cream on my bikini line. They were there at the same time so I assumed they were connected but apparently not. The new rash is pretty close to where the old one was on my belly, a little lower, and has to be related to the hormone injections. Just like previous flare up, it itches like a bitch and I have to keep compressing Yin Care, slathering on Cortisone cream and pouring on Benadryl.  Maybe it's related to falling or rising hormone levels or a reaction to the HCG (please don't let this happen when I'm pregnant!) but whatever it is, I really wish it would take a hike.

The Rash Strikes Back!

Just one more day to get through. One more day and then we can move on to testing, find out that all our embryos are magically healthy and perfect and we can start putting them back where they belong. If we're able to do a successful FET in early December we could be bringing home one of these fighter embryos as a baby at the end of August. I hope, I hope, I hope, come on embryos, you can do it. 

Day 3: Quality Over Quantity

Every time I get the morning update I'm floored by how lucky we're getting with our two little embryos. Amazingly, here we are at day 3, and both little fighters look perfect. They are 8 cells each and according to the embryologist, are the highest quality possible. This means that their cells are even and regular, all the same size, and that they have no fragmentation. In short, they look like this:

High Quality Day 3 Embryo

I'm really starting to feel hopeful that these could be our babies. On day 3 last cycle we had 7 embryos - our 4 strong ones that became our frosties, 2 weaker ones that eventually didn't make it and one super slow grower that fizzled out. At this point, those two weaker ones and the tiny one lagging were already noticeably behind the main 4, not so behind as to count them out completely, but not looking fabulous. It gives me hope that our 4 that were growing well continued to grow well, we just need these two to follow suit.

Just twoish more days to go now. Days 4 and 5/6 are the hardest for the embryos, they need to make the big leap from simple cell division to compacting and differentiating. I know this has been a really disheartening and crummy cycle, but these little fighters are strong and I feel like they're going to make it. Come on babies, grow, grow, grow!

Day 2: Cautiously Hopeful

I've been having a really tough time staying positive and hopeful for our two little embies. So much is riding on these little guys making it that it's impossible for me to not be scared of a poor outcome.

Somehow, it appears that our embryos are taking a much more positive outlook on things. The embryologist was feeling quite sorry for us and all our empty follicles, so even though he doesn't usually do a day two check, he decided to look in and see how our embies are growing. The results were really encouraging, both embies appear to be high quality and they're growing strong and even. One was already 5 cells at day 2 and the other was just behind it with 4 cells. At this point last time we had some embryos that were only 2 cells so a 5 and a 4 are really wonderful.

I know I've mentioned before that E and I originally decided to just do two IVF cycles before turning to donor eggs. That plan was based largely on cost, each cycle is $20,000 and two is already an incredible amount of money. But then we had this cycle, and it was so far off that I think E is having to come around a little to the idea that we might need a third.

E has a hard time watching me go through these cycles, even though I think I do pretty darn well with fairly minimal side effects. Watching my stomach bloat up like a balloon and seeing it covered in bruises from all those tiny needles upsets him and he's been pretty set on just two cycles till now. After I woke up in recovery it took a little while for Dr. D to come out and give us our count. I know now it's because he was asking the embryologist to check and double check for more eggs but at the time we were expecting good news. It's hard to remember what happened once he told us we only got two eggs, the anesthesia makes you a bit foggy for a little while, but I know I cursed, turned to E and he told me not to worry, that nothing was off the table at this point and that we'd do whatever needed to be done.

Still, if we do need a third, I don't know where I'm going to find another $20,000.  Before all of this we were saving to buy our first house which is no easy feat in Los Angeles where a tiny two bedroom 900 square foot place runs 600k+. This is another one of those moments where I so, so wish that our insurance would cover IVF, I feel like there would be so much less pressure if we could just focus on the medicine instead of the price tag.

Day 1: Disappearing Eggs

We went into my retrieval yesterday expecting to get at least five mature eggs. Instead, we got two.

Two?

Two :(

Dr. D aspirated and flushed each follicle. They were all still puffy, filled with fluid and drained well. No signs that I could have ovulated early. A mature egg puts out at least 200 units of estrogen and my estrogen was over 1500, an excellent number for all those follicles. So where were they?

Dr. D was so surprised when the lab said two that he asked them to double check the tubes. There's no way I only had two, estrogen doesn't just come out of nowehere, the eggs had to be there. E and I are crushed :( 

I know there are no guarantees with IVF, every step of the process is an exercise in hope, patience and superstition and sometimes things just happen. But where did my eggs go? We know they were there, we have the estrogen has proof of their existence, but they just disappeared. It's like seeing the smoke but you can't find the fire. Dr. D says this happens in less than 1% of cases and he doesn't know what could have caused it. The eggs should have been there.

Our minimum number for proceeding with the PGD testing is six. We need six healthy blasts before it's worth using our PGD coverage and aCGH testing (~$10,000). We really wanted eight but figured just in case, six is still an okay number.

I paced around all morning feeling sick and holding the phone and finally got the call from Dr. D that both of our eggs fertilized. Thank goodness they still have a chance. If both of these little fighters make it, we can proceed with testing. If they don't we're going to need to do another IVF cycle but I have no idea how we're going to pull that off. 

Come on little embies, you can do it. The first step is done, now you just need to grow, grow, grow. 

Egg Retrieval Set

I spoke with Dr. D and as expected, we are a go for triggering tonight. I'll be doing my Novarel (HCG) trigger shot at 12:15am tonight/tomorrow morning and my retrieval will be Tuesday at 12:15pm.

Dr. D went over my follicles with me and made me feel a little better about the ones we've got. He feels that since we got 4 solid embryos from our 4 best follies last cycle that it's perfectly reasonable to believe that these top 4 follicles will have healthy mature eggs in them that could be our next 4 embryos. It's an optimistic viewpoint and I'm choosing to share it and believe that these are the ones.

The prime three are the 20, 22 and 22. The 26 might be a little overcooked but the 17 could catch up between the trigger and retrieval, it's very possible. I'd like to see it at least 18 or 19 on retrieval day but I don't think they bother with measuring, he'll just take everything he sees.

I've definitely got stuff going on in there too, I'm hungry, beyond exhausted, still have that friggin' pressure head ache and feel all sorts of twingey cramping around my uterus. My ovaries don't feel too uncomfortable, no huge grapefruit feeling, so I think the estrogen the follies are putting out is to blame for the random sharp twinges in my lower belly. And I still have to pee over and over.

Now I just need to stay awake for my trigger! I've got an alarm set just in case but I think I'll be okay. I've been trying to nap all day without success so I just keep yawning and dragging my feet. We're so close, we just need to make it through this retrieval, get some healthy test results, and have a successful FET.

Cycle 2 Trigger Time

I slept pretty poorly last night, which isn't a terrible surprise given my nerves, and didn't get to take full advantage of the time change and extra hour of sleep. I think I got up three times to pee (thanks hormones) and finally gave up on going back to bed around 7:30am. I had been worried about how I was going to take my morning meds since my appointment was at 8:45am, I usually start prepping my shot at 9 and inject around 9:25am, but I neglected to take into account the time change. With the extra hour, my shot clock was moved up to 8am and I was able to finish both injections before I had to leave.

My view from the ultrasound table

The clinic was pretty much empty with only a couple other people there for monitoring and I got in to do my blood in a flash. The lady tech was working today and she was able to get my arm vein in one go, giving my poor bruised hand a much needed break. She's gotten pretty darn good at finding that vein, I know certain techs have better luck with different patients, it's too bad she only works over the weekends.

After bloodwork it was on to the ultrasound, where I got to spend a few minutes waiting for the tech and admiring the fake sky ceiling tiles. When all these cycles are done and I'm good and pregnant,  I'd like to go back to Hawaii with E and enjoy some real tropical skies. I think we've definitely earned it and as long as it's safe to fly, I can't see any reason why a little bean couldn't bake just as well on the beach in Hanalei Bay as it can here at home.

The tech for this ultrasound was really thorough, I think she knew I was disappointed with the results we've been getting and she checked and double checked to make sure she wasn't leaving out any potential follicle that could be hiding. I'm still waiting to hear back from Dr. D with the results of my lab work, but from what the nurse said, it looks like we're going to be taking a stab at 4-5 follies - the 17, 20, 22, 22 and 26. Unfortunately the 26 is likely too mature to fertilize and the 17 is probably too immature but I'm not giving up on them just yet. We could still get 4 good eggs that turn into 4 good embryos to add to our batch.

12.6mm lining, nice and thick

My lining has also finally picked up which should be another sign that the follies are putting out a good amount of estrogen and it's time to trigger. I don't have the grapefruit sized ovaries feeling since I have so few follicles but I am still feeling bloated with the same weird temple pressure head ache I've had for a week. S says the pressure is dampness in my body so I'll probably ask her to put those needles in again when I go for my acupuncture appointment before retrieval.

Nervous

Oh man, I'm feeling so nervous about tomorrow. It doesn't do me any good to speculate on the next ultrasound but that logic hasn't stopped me from running through all the "what ifs...?" in my head.

• What if we have even less follicles than yesterday? 
• What if the follicles aren't growing?
• What if all the follicles arrested?
• What if Dr. D wants to cancel the cycle?
• And in that vein, if he does want to cancel, how much will we be out?

I tried to talk over the possibility of having to cancel with E, just as a "what if" since he won't be at the appointment with me tomorrow but he didn't take it well. I was trying to figure out the numbers in my head and led with a figure waaaay higher than the actual amount, making him panic and freak out. Not at all helpful and not at all my intention. Crap.

I'm trying to be positive and hopeful that these 5 follies I have will look wonderful and mature and have healthy, perfectly fertilizing and growing eggs in them. That said, I can't not consider all the possibilities when the cycle looks so disappointing compared to last time. I think if Dr. D were going to cancel he would/should have done so already, instead of letting me stim for almost two weeks, so I don't see this happening. But, if we do have to cancel, the cycle rolls over and we are out the services/medications that we have already used. For this cycle, that would be:

• All monitoring appointments that I've had including ultrasounds and labs
• All medication I've used thus far 

This would leave quite a bit left to roll over:

• ICSI take two which we've already paid for
• Embryo Biopsy
• Egg Retrieval with anesthesia etc 
• Cryopreservation and storage
• Any unused medication, in this case it would be just the Novarel and a day of Menopur
• Any unused money ear marked for monitoring 

So really, it could be worse. If for some reason I walk in tomorrow and they say we need to cancel, we wouldn't be paying for the entire cycle all over again. It would just suck incredibly, but not as much as going ahead and getting no embryos.

Come on follicles. Come on eggs. I need you to be good and healthy in there. I don't think E could take cancelling a cycle and I couldn't handle giving up on getting more embryos to test. I've put too much of myself, my marriage, my heart, my hope, my love, my health, my body, into this to give up on one crappy cycle.

Happy Halloween

I wish I could start this post with better news but it looks like we've actually lost two of the follies we had on Wednesdays ultrasound. The 8 that was hanging out on the right side has basically shrunk to nothing and disappeared and one of the 12s on the left side appears to be arresting - it was only a 10 today. This leaves us with 5 follicles that could potentially have eggs but they're still not big/mature enough to trigger.

I'm telling myself to be positive: quality over quantity, those five follicles could have perfect, mature eggs that grow into five strong embryos. Still, I'd sure feel a lot better if we had 10 fabulous, mature eggs to pick from instead of just 5. I've been feeling really junky lately, a lot of uncomfortable pressure in my temples, one shoulder randomly going numb, sore lady bits and I need this cycle to be worth it. Come on eggs, I need you to grow, we need more embryos to test.  

With the extra Menopur I bought from Kaiser, I have enough to stim for 13.5 days - enough to get me through the weekend. Depending on what my blood work comes back at, my next appointment will probably be way too early on Sunday morning. If the follies are ready then and I have to trigger Sunday night, the pharmacy won't be open so I stopped in at Roxanne after my appointment. 

I don't know what the chances are of me actually triggering soon. I was looking over my old post-its from last cycle and they didn't trigger me till several follies were over 20mm. With these guys growing so slowly, the biggest is barely 18 :(,  I wouldn't be surprised if I had to get more Menopur and wait until Monday to take my Novarel.

 

In better news, I finally found a use for all these obedience classes I've been doing with Milou: Posing her for photos. After Halloween last year I picked up a couple pirate costumes for her on the clearance rack - she's usually a large or extra large in brands that make tiny dog costumes or a medium in brands that make costumes for larger dogs. I think these two came from Petco for a couple bucks a piece and are both larges, definitely a good score. 

 

I think the red and white costume is my favorite, it has a tiny pirate sword sewn to a black belt and is closed with two velcro straps which makes for a nice snug fit. She so sweetly let me pose her sitting or standing and even let me pose a too big pirate hat on her fuzzy head. That bit didn't fit all that well since it's technically my hat, but she put up with me like a champ. I love this girl so much.

Since costumes with straps probably aren't the most comfortable things to wear, Milou wore her second pirate costume to her agility and obedience classes. This one is a soft puppy t-shirt that slips over her head and two front legs and is super comfy. It also glows in the dark which is insanely adorable when we're walking at night - Trick "Arrr" Treat with a puppy skull and crossbones.

I hope everyone has a happy, safe Halloween filled with lots of delicious treats and merriment. If you have a few seconds to send some positive thoughts/vibes/prayers/good juju my way, I would much appreciate it. Happy Halloween!

Less Than Awesome Ultrasound

So this mornings ultrasound appointment was less than ideal. At this point in our first IVF cycle, we had at least 8 follies 10-13mm and a 9th slightly smaller than 10mm. Today we had only 5 follicles in the 10-14mm range, 3 follicles a bit less than 10mm and 2 less than 5mm. My right side, which is usually my best producer, is basically crapping out at the moment and I'm super disappointed in it.

I was hoping for a bit better :(

Every cycle is different so it's really tough to compare one to another but I can't help over analyzing everything I've done differently. For example, I suppressed for two days longer. I took Tylenol for cramps while on my birth control pills and tums for heart burn.  I was late yesterday for my shot by 30 min. I'm taking the higher, correct dose of Omnitrope. I'm using Italian Menopur instead of UK Menopur.

Realistically, I think the difference is probably from the extra birth control but there's nothing I can do at this point. I just have to hope that a few more follies pop up and the ones we can see grow into beautiful, healthy, mature eggs. I'm going to be adding in my Cetrotide tomorrow since the follies weren't big enough today and my next appointment will be Wednesday. Fingers and toes crossed!

Zonked Out

Today I am completely and totally zonked out. I think I felt okay for the first couple hours of the day but since then I've been exhausted. My head and eyes feel so heavy, I feel like I could sleep the whole day away and still be tired.

Although the medication dosages have been exactly the same, I'm definitely getting side effects earlier with this second cycle of IVF.  With the first, it was probably a good week of stims before I felt any different than a slightly poked version of normal. This time, it only took about 2 days for me to start getting heartburn and bloating and now that we're on day 6, I'm so, so tired.  An exhausted, half asleep lump who looks like they swallowed a fat, firm balloon.

I'm so thrown off that I was actually late for my shot this evening. Since starting the IVF process, I've been vigilant about keeping on top of my injections. My alarm goes off at 9am/pm, I immediately grab supplies and prep my shots, and they're done by 9:30am/pm. This evening, I managed to get everything wrong. I was so tired I could barely stay awake so I took Milou for a nice walk in the finally cool, fall air. I came back at 8:40pm, thinking about my shot with a solid 20 minutes to spare, and then got distracted by a phone call from E.

E was on his way home from work and was hungry. I checked the fridges and cabinets but we didn't have anything that could be easily prepared for dinner. I then had the wonderful idea to give my sister L a ride home from her restaurant and bring home Japanese food. Sounds good right? Delicious food, no prep, easy peasy! Except somewhere in there I'd completely forgotten about my shot.  And then my evening shot event was somehow deleted from my calendar, which means no alarm. Whoops.

I was sitting outside L's restaurant, listening to my Harry Potter audio book for the 5 millionth time, when I looked down at my clock and saw 9:30pm. It took a few minutes to click

...huh, it's 9:32, hope she gets out soon, I'm hungry....9:37...huh...FUCK!

I freaked out a bit, called E who reminded me not to freak out, and then shortly thereafter my sister got off work. I zoomed home as fast as I could, skipped getting the delicious froyo I was planning to buy,  prepped the shot and finally got it done by about 10:05, half an hour late. My beef was stone cold by the time I got to it and I'm still upset with myself and completely exhausted again.

How could I forget for even a second that nothing is normal when you're doing IVF -_- Everything runs on such a strict schedule and here I am acting like I can go do whatever I feel like. Blah. I'm going to go sleep now so I don't accidentally miss my morning shot and next appointment.

Easy Peasy Fix and Oodles of Follies!

This morning was my stim day 4 appointment and we got surprisingly good news all around! Since Friday and Monday seem to be the clinic's busy days, there was a decent line for ultrasounds and blood work and I decided to go up to the financial office first. I hadn't received a call back from my contact yet but when I went up to her office she had already listened to my message and was ready to help.

As I already knew, everything on the estimate was incorrect. She took the aCGH testing off first since we are paying Reprogenetics direct and then corrected the third cycle ICSI to the second cycle price. I thought she might go back on her earlier statement about only paying the biopsy fee once but she didn't! She looked up the payment records, saw that we'd already paid it once, and took it right off the bill. I have to admit, I was impressed. I was expecting a lot more push back for what turned out to be a 5 minute conversation. Basically, I was working myself up, worrying about nothing. Whoops.

I would have just paid for the ICSI today since I had the estimate in hand, but our credit card company has helpfully decided to replace my card due to "potential fraud". As one might guess, the potential fraud they're referring to is my charge to IVFmeds.com, a charge that I had already spoken to a supervisor about and approved. This still wasn't good enough for them so I'm now waiting on a new card to come in the mail, and my old one will only work if they're swiping it directly, which neither SCRC nor Reprogenetics would do. Given the hassle, I figure it's better to wait and give them a card they can actually run.

With that all sorted out for the time being, E and I went down to my ultrasound and even more good news. Both my left and right ovary each had 6 tiny follicles, for a total of 12 follies after only 4 (really 3.5) days of stims! The largest on the left was 8mm with the largest right following just behind at 7mm. This means the follicles are well synced and will hopefully continue to grow at the same rate so they can all mature together. If you recall, I wrote about last cycles stim day 4 ultrasound here and I only had 8 follies visible at that appointment. I did an extra two days of suppression for this cycle so I'm not surprised these follies were a bit smaller but I certainly wasn't expecting to have an extra four right from the get go!

What I'm wondering now, is whether or not I'll have to stim longer than last cycle to give these follies more time to mature their payload. Are two extra days of suppression enough to require an additional day or two of stims? I already have to order a third cartridge of Omnitrope, with the adjusted dosage the two cartridges I bought will only last about 8 days and I'm anticipating needing enough for at least 11-12 days. I don't know if I'll get lucky enough to have Kaiser cover this last vial like the did the other two, but it would be seriously wonderful if they could.

Please order more things. I don't have enough boxes!

My next round of ultrasound/labs will be on Monday so in the meantime, I'll try to send lots of positive, growing thoughts to my follies. We want to keep them all growing nice and evenly so they're perfectly mature and ready to be fertilized after retrieval.

The Financial Fuckery Begins

One of the main complaints I've heard about the IVF process is a distinct lack of communication between the actual IVF staff and the financial department. The financial departments of IVF clinics all over the country get slammed for poor billing practices involving incorrect numbers, screwed up payments and noticeably poor communication. Knowing this going in, I spoke extensively with the financial department for each lab/clinic we're working with and quadruple checked my numbers to try and head off any potential problems. I made a valiant effort but apparently it wasn't enough.

When I got home from work this evening around 8:15pm, I found this letter waiting for me from ART, the surgical center in my clinic.

Um, No.

As you can see, there are several mistakes. For starters, it lists my ICSI fee as being for a third cycle - this is only my second. I actually owe them $150 more than the bill says here.

Secondly, they want $3950 for aCGH testing. This is so far off that it's crazy. We did in fact decide to add aCGH testing on, but we're paying Reprogenetics directly and the fee is only $2,250. That's no where near 4 grand and there's no way I'm paying that to ART. All of our dealings with Reprogenetics have been direct, there's no reason SCRC/ART should have any part in fee collecting for them.

Their third and final strike is the $1650 for embryo biopsy. Here the number is correct, but we've already paid it. Before signing up with SCRC, I confirmed over and over again that the fee for embryo biopsy was once due once when purchasing their two cycle plan. As I've already paid them their $1650 when we did our first cycle, we will not be paying it again.

I'm hoping these were innocent mistakes but I admit it really cheeses me off. I went over this with all the different financial departments - SCRC, ART and Reprogenetics and I was so hoping we wouldn't get slammed with the usual financial fuckery. When our first cycle got billed correctly I thought we'd avoided any pitfalls but it looks like I got ahead of myself.  I left a voicemail for my financial contact at ART since it was way after business hours and I sent an email to my financial contact at Reprogenetics.

Your clinic and labs hold all the cards when you're doing IVF - they literally have your embryos, your potential children, the lab has my probe, and SCRC has over $20,000 of our dollars so it's not exactly like we can stamp our feet and refuse to pay if they won't fix the problem. With any luck, I'll get two satisfactory answers tomorrow correcting this estimate because there's no way I can give them another $6,600.

Our Probe Is READY!

Yesterday morning, I went ahead with my plan to phone Reprogenetics to get an update on our probe. I can never manage to catch someone at their desk so I left a message and waited for a call back. They're usually pretty good about returning calls and it only took a couple of hours for their New Jersey caller ID to pop up on my phone.

My rep for our probe process wasted no time in telling me that our probe is DONE! It's ready! We were originally quoted 6-8 weeks but it ended up being less than 4 weeks from the date they got our samples to the date of completion. I was so surprised, this is wonderful news :) I was anticipating a deadline closer to the 8 weeks and was worrying that we wouldn't get results in time to go right into a FET.

Once we conclude this cycle and the lab has received all our biopsy samples, it takes 15 calendar days to get PGD and aCGH results on our frosties.  Those will be two loooong weeks and I'll probably be going crazy but I know we'll get some good results.

(Source)

This is an example of Fluorescent In-Situ Hybridization, or FISH, a quick result type of PGD that we can't use for Fragile X but that is super cool to look at. This one is for muscular dystrophy. Embryo C is a normal male embryo, I believe the light pink is Y, the dark pink is X and since there's only one X in a boy, a single green dot for a normal chromosome. D and F are both normal female embryos, two green dots each, one for each X, the two dark pink dots. A shows a female carrier embryo, one of her chromosomes is affected but the other is okay, two dark pink dots and a single green dot, and B and E show affected male embryos, no green dots.

Hopefully we will have lots and lots of healthy embryos from both cycles but first we need a nice, big haul from this one. I just started up shots again today, this time 4 Menopur and Omnitrope in the morning and 4 Menopur in the evening. Every time I start up another cycle, I forget how much the Menopur burns!

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!

Lucky Break on Meds!

Unlike my last package of IVF meds, todays package came bright and early at about 10:30am! It had the remaining 43 vials of Menopur I'll need for this cycle, all well packed in bubble wrap. I even got an out for delivery notice from IVFMeds.com letting me know the package would be coming soon.

MeRopur!

I emailed their customer service Tuesday night asking about Meropur vs Menopur and their rep called me Wednesday morning. Instead of emailing, he wanted to explain to me personally that they were in fact the same drug by the same company, Ferring. IVFMeds sources their Menopur from several different countries in Europe and as I thought, this batch happened to come from Italy. Thus far, I'm once again impressed with their quality and customer service.

With my Menopur safely in hand, it was time to move on to my Kaiser order! I called them on Tuesday as well to confirm that my prescription was ready for pick up and got the all clear. So I climb in the car, battle through traffic, find a lucky street parking spot, and stand in line. I get up to the counter to pick up my "ready to go" prescription and surprise! it's not ready. The tech tries to tell me that he doesn't have it at all, I insist he does, and he agrees to get everything together if I don't mind waiting.

So I wait. And wait. And wait some more.

He finally calls me up to the counter only to tell me sorry, he doesn't have my Omnitrope. Le sigh. Again, I insist that he does have it, remind him that I got confirmation that it came in, and he's still insisting that he doesn't have it when another tech walks by and says hey, isn't that in the fridge? Oy. So he finds the Omnitrope, huzzah!, tells me he needs to write it up and I need to wait some more. Okay, I'm good with more waiting. And waiting. For another 20 minutes.

This time I get called up to the counter by a different tech, they go through my prescriptions and surprise! they don't have my big mixing needles. She can't seem to figure them out, apparently 22 gauge needles in the same quantity as the other needles is a complicated request, and she eventually decides to just make a new script for them. So again, I wait.

About an hour after I get there, the pharmacy eventually gets everything correct and ready to go! A third tech started scanning all my items, rang me up, and asked for my card to swipe at the station over so I didn’t immediately see the price. When she handed me the bill to sign I just about died - it was only $30!!! Whaaaaat???

My $15 Omnitrope!!

My last Omnitrope order ran me over $300. Whatever they did differently this time, my medication rang up as covered!  I kind of froze because it seemed too good to be true, I didn't want to draw attention to the price in case it was a mistake and I didn't want to pay more so ahhhhh I just signed the bill, took my bag and hightailed it out of there! I don't know how it happened but it was so worth the wait and I am so grateful to whatever they did to get my meds covered. This process is running us a small fortune and every little bit helps!

Cilly and Fuckie confirming via bodily inspection that I have removed all items from the bag

IVF Meds Package!

Look what finally arrived! My first batch of meds for this cycle :) I would have had them yesterday but it was Columbus Day and I completely forgot that there was no mail. Since I have to sign for the package or they won't leave it, I worked my schedule so I could be home today. Then I waited. 

And waited.

Annnnnd waited. 

All Day!

My other two packages from IVFMeds came at 10am and 2pm. This package didn't come until FIVE! I could have done a million other things not the least of which would have been to pick up my Kaiser order which is still sitting and waiting for me at the pharmacy.

This batch of Menopur came in blue boxes labeled "MeRopur". The last batch came in pink boxes labeled "MeNopur", the left overs are in the bottom right corner of the photo. A quick google search told me that it's the exact same medicine, by the exact same company, but its from the lot distributed to Italy where they call it Meropur instead of Menopur. Apparently the word or pronunciation of "Menopur" in Italian translates to something like "Not Yet" which Ferring thought would have a negative connotation. I opened each box to inspect them and make sure none broke in transit and the actual vials themselves appear to be the same vials, with the same med pellet but with different labels. 

The 5 Cetrotide were the exact same as last time, little kits with a vial of powder and a pre-filled syringe. The remaining 43 Menopur vials are on their way from London to New York right now and I'm curious to see whether they'll be Menopur or Meropur. I might call and ask but I don't think it makes a difference either way.

IVF Meds Take Two!

Now that the stim start date is inching closer and closer, I went ahead and placed my order for the next round of IVF! Since we had such good success with IVFMeds.com last time and the meds are SO MUCH CHEAPER, we went with them again. Even with the good amount left over from the extra we had to buy for last cycle I still had to order a tooooon of Menopur.

Thanks IVFMeds.com for saving me a ton!

Last cycle I had some extra Menopur left over from my second IUI and even with that extra, I still used a few of the last minute Menopur order. If this cycle is anything like last time, they expect me to use 90+ vials and stim for at least 11 days so I'm ordering over 80 vials of Menopur. Since I was one short last time, I also ordered 5 Cetrotide injections and hopefully that will be enough.

After the second batch of meds took a bit longer than was ideal to get here last time, IVFMeds.com offered to credit me the difference in cost for the extra vials I didn't use. I was skeptical because come on,  that's really excellent custom service, much more than I would expect from an online company based in another country. Instead of placing my order online, I rang up customer service and got the same wonderful rep that helped me last cycle. He remember me and my order snafu and in just a few minutes was placing my new order with a credit for the difference in the extra vials.  I'm still kind of shocked! It was all quick and easy, I rang them up, rang the bank to authorize the transaction since it got flagged again, and my nurse emailed me the new scripts to upload only minutes later. After all the calling and price checking and back and forthing of last cycle, I never knew the process could be so smooth.  

Impossible to beat these prices!

They're moving like ninjas this time and have already shipped out the first batch of my order, 40 Menopur and 5 Cetrotide. Like last time, I ordered so much Menopur that their pharmacy can't fill it all at once from in store stock so they're shipping it in two separate batches. This order went out on Friday so I'm not quite sure when to expect it. Priority Mail Express International does a lot of things regular Priority doesn't do, it's even delivered by a separate branch of USPS. If the package moves on Sunday, it should arrive in New York tomorrow and will probably be delivered by Monday. If it doesn't travel on Sunday, it'll hit the big apple on Monday and I'll get it Tuesday.  I also have to call Kaiser to authorize them ordering my Omnitrope and needles/syringes. The order was called in on Friday but from past experience I know they won't actually order it until I ask for it.

It doesn't make a difference protocol wise if the Menopur arrives on Monday or Tuesday since I don't need it just yet, but since I have to be here to sign for it in person, I have to plan my schedule around the delivery. Kind of a pain but well worth the savings!