Went in for our last blood draw this morning.
Results:
E2: 797
LH: (not posted yet)
P4: (not posted yet)
So it's confirmed... tonight we trigger. I talked a little yesterday about how this delay has me feeling. Mostly I am scared that we may have lost our big follie (round here we're now referring to the follies in size order by letters of the alphabet A through E. "Number 21" sounds so impersonal, so 21mm = A, or Allen, or Alice or any name beginning with A, 17mm = B, or Bob or Betty, etc). I WISH I knew how they were looking today, but I think it's probably best that I don't know.
The last few days I've spent a lot of time talking to them, and singing to them, and eating really well to make them strong - loads of protein shakes, willing them to grow and willing A to quit growing. This part freaks me out because after Thur there is nothing more I can do. After Thur it's all on them. They will mature or not mature. They will fertilize or not fertilize. They will divide and grow or not. And if any make it to transfer, they will either implant or not implant. From here on out it's all up to them and it scares the hell out of me!! I am really praying for some miraculous great news and a shock of 4 strong embryos on morning of transfer, but I will be satisfied with 2. I just want to do better than last cycle.
Was advised by the nurse that we're not the only couple in surgery this time. There will be one other couple who are ALSO doing TESE and retrieval. I never see anyone on the blogs talking about TESE, so I guess it will be nice to see another couple who are dealing with the same thing. Of course she's probably going to be ridiculously normally fertile and like 22 years old with a bumper crop of 20 eggs.... Hey, at least Mr. R all hopped up on Valium might try and behave himself instead of running around flashing his naked butt at the nurses like last time. Seriously... can't take him anywhere!
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Monday, July 7, 2014
Monitoring # 4
Monday morning and here I sit in the doc's lobby waiting for my u/s. I'm bloated to the point that I am running out of pants to wear comfortably... And I am gassy as all hell which pairs wonderfully with the other fab side effect of all this estrogen... Ridiculously high sex drive. This weekend I could barely keep my hands off Mr R! I think it helps to know that after trigger we're going to have to go 3 weeks without. I am a master of the lean-sit, push your hips to the front of the seat and lean back I to the chair back so your lower stomach is almost straightened out. It's super fun when you consider that I am just under 6feet tall and most of that height is legs so I look ridiculous but I don't care. I am super uncomfortable. How? HOW? Do those of you with normal ovaries and 12 large follicles deal with this?? These 4 are too much for me!
Today I plan on noting the sizes as she calls them out. Yesterday when measuring my right side the nurse gave me a measurement of one of the follies around 10, but when I logged in to my portal for the exact measurements it showed nothing on the right. In fact all of yesterday's measurements were "off" so today I am taking notes.
I still have such a positive feeling about this cycle. I find myself driving along and singing to my ovaries and talking to my eggs - willing them to grow. I'm starting to have flashes of images in my head of how my life will look with a baby - something I've never been able to do before. I hope that all this positivity doesn't burn me in the end. But I'm going to go with it. Last cycle I could not have been more negative and look how it played out...
Phew! This post is already super long... Can you tell I was WAY early for my appointment and no one has blogged this morning so I have nothing to read.
Back from u/s and waiting to hear... My 20 is now a 21, my 17 is still 17, and my 14s are also pretty much unchanged. And I confirmed... on the right, we're still sitting at just under 11mm... so he's no longer a contender. We MIGHT delay trigger another day, all depends on my blood work. I am completely okay with whatever decision the doctor makes at this point. Mr R would prefer to trigger tomorrow, retrieval on Thursday because then he'd get Thu and Fri off (recovery from TESE) before the long weekend. I just want to trigger whenever we're likely to get the best return on investment. I was really hoping that my right and the 5th on my left would show up, but now that that seems unlikely and we're looking at 4, with 2 of them probably being immature at retrieval... argh... I dunno....
Portal is not yet updated and I haven't received my instruction call, so I will close this out and add when I know more.
Back from u/s and waiting to hear... My 20 is now a 21, my 17 is still 17, and my 14s are also pretty much unchanged. And I confirmed... on the right, we're still sitting at just under 11mm... so he's no longer a contender. We MIGHT delay trigger another day, all depends on my blood work. I am completely okay with whatever decision the doctor makes at this point. Mr R would prefer to trigger tomorrow, retrieval on Thursday because then he'd get Thu and Fri off (recovery from TESE) before the long weekend. I just want to trigger whenever we're likely to get the best return on investment. I was really hoping that my right and the 5th on my left would show up, but now that that seems unlikely and we're looking at 4, with 2 of them probably being immature at retrieval... argh... I dunno....
Portal is not yet updated and I haven't received my instruction call, so I will close this out and add when I know more.
EDIT TO ADD:
FINALLY had the call now. We trigger tomorrow night. My E2 is up in the 600s now and my LH is rising so we're out of time.
Follie Measurements: LT: 21.51, 17.81, 14.84, 14.32 RT: 10.88
Endo Thickness: 10.5mm
Bloods:
E2: 623
LH: 2.1
P4: 0.55
Retrieval is now set for Thursday morning. Oh PLEASE let those 14s do something amazing tonight!! (And please don't let the big guy go too far). I talked earlier today about how positive I was feeling about this cycle. Suddenly I am freaking out... I feel like we're going to wait too long on the 21mm and lose it, and the 14s will continue to stay put leaving us with just the 17mm in the lab. One fert, one transfer, BFN.
Sunday, July 6, 2014
Monitoring #3
We aren't triggering today. Let me back up...
It seems that measurements yesterday (or today) were off... On my right today they don't see any over 10mm, whereas yesterday they saw 2 at 9 and 10.
On my left it seems the big 20.33mm one from yesterday is now 20.47mm, not much growth over night. The others are: 17.69, 14.59, 14.26 - so some have shrunk? Or measured differently? I don't know. At any rate our doctor feels -- and I agree -- that it's worth waiting for those 14s to catch up a bit so while I could have triggered today, we're going to wait another day and see what we can do with the little'uns.
So we're looking at 4 mature eggs in a best case, but possibly will have to sacrifice the one (I am told that anything over 23 is probably "over-ripe"). I want those 14s over 16mm for best chance at maturity.
Bloods:
E2 414
LH 0.21
P4 0.45
Back for more monitoring tomorrow.
It seems that measurements yesterday (or today) were off... On my right today they don't see any over 10mm, whereas yesterday they saw 2 at 9 and 10.
On my left it seems the big 20.33mm one from yesterday is now 20.47mm, not much growth over night. The others are: 17.69, 14.59, 14.26 - so some have shrunk? Or measured differently? I don't know. At any rate our doctor feels -- and I agree -- that it's worth waiting for those 14s to catch up a bit so while I could have triggered today, we're going to wait another day and see what we can do with the little'uns.
So we're looking at 4 mature eggs in a best case, but possibly will have to sacrifice the one (I am told that anything over 23 is probably "over-ripe"). I want those 14s over 16mm for best chance at maturity.
Bloods:
E2 414
LH 0.21
P4 0.45
Back for more monitoring tomorrow.
Saturday, July 5, 2014
Monitoring #2
Looks like we've got a couple of new friends from the right ovary showing up to play... Maybe... Two more! Okay so they're still pretty small with one hovering around 10mm, but they're there.
On the left our forerunner is already at 20 (growing about 6mm in two days) with the other 3 following a little behind at 15 and under and 1 more still less than 10mm.
They want me back tomorrow to take another look. The question is... Do we trigger tomorrow and waste all the little ones, or do we sacrifice the big one and trigger on Monday so we can reap the rest in their prime? We'll find out in the morning I guess. :/
Edited to add specific measurements:
Left: 20.33, 15.81, 15.20, 11.67
Right: 10.16
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Numbers
Finally, 30 minutes before Doctors office closes for the weekend, I get my results...
E2 158
LH 2.9
P4 0.34
Per my (stand-in) nurse my (stand-in) doctor says that these levels are consistent with the number of follies we're seeing and also look like we're going to have some time to stim a bit longer and try to get another straggler or two to catch up with my top 4 follies.
At this point it really is sounding like we won't trigger until Monday, but I won't really know for sure until Sat monitoring appointment.
Meds will remain unchanged.
OH PLEASE! OH PLEASE! OH PLEASE! Let one or two more catch up!!!
E2 158
LH 2.9
P4 0.34
Per my (stand-in) nurse my (stand-in) doctor says that these levels are consistent with the number of follies we're seeing and also look like we're going to have some time to stim a bit longer and try to get another straggler or two to catch up with my top 4 follies.
At this point it really is sounding like we won't trigger until Monday, but I won't really know for sure until Sat monitoring appointment.
Meds will remain unchanged.
OH PLEASE! OH PLEASE! OH PLEASE! Let one or two more catch up!!!
Clearly I'm a Nutjob
Four. That's all I have.
My right ovary decided to go on vacation. I had 6 antrals on that side, but not 1 decided to join the party. Left side had a better response with 4 out of 5 growing, but still... of 11 possibles all I have are 4 at this point.
Sizes: 13, 11, 10 and 9. The 5th is hanging around 6 and COULD still show up for me, but it will be a ways behind the others and probably not mature. On the right side all 6 are between 4 and 5 and highly unlikely to show up.
Game plan for this weekend is to work on my stress levels, do my fertility yoga for blood flow, guzzle protein shakes and Mr R's big plan is to focus all the shots on my right side... I've explained that this won't make a difference, but I will let him focus on what he thinks will help at this point.
Next monitoring appointment is Saturday, possible trigger on Sunday night, but she says it's likely that we'll wait till Monday to trigger and push the retrieval back a day to Wed 7/9.
Okay, so let's focus on the positives? Last cycle I had 3 follies, 2 on the right which measured 20.52 and 14.87 at retrieval and 1 on the left measuring 14.07 at retrieval. Only one was mature (obvs the 20.52) and while the other two matured over night, they failed to fertilize and arrested on Day 2. This cycle they are closer in size and it's likely that I will have more than 1 over 18mm at retrieval which means a higher likelihood of 4 MATURE eggs and hopefully then 4 fertilized eggs.
Premature question of the day?
IF we have 4 embryos,
1) Do we risk going to day 5 and losing some?
2) And if we have 4 do we still put 3 back? Or do we transfer 2 and save 2?
I need to quit thinking about this.... Meh.
My right ovary decided to go on vacation. I had 6 antrals on that side, but not 1 decided to join the party. Left side had a better response with 4 out of 5 growing, but still... of 11 possibles all I have are 4 at this point.
Sizes: 13, 11, 10 and 9. The 5th is hanging around 6 and COULD still show up for me, but it will be a ways behind the others and probably not mature. On the right side all 6 are between 4 and 5 and highly unlikely to show up.
Game plan for this weekend is to work on my stress levels, do my fertility yoga for blood flow, guzzle protein shakes and Mr R's big plan is to focus all the shots on my right side... I've explained that this won't make a difference, but I will let him focus on what he thinks will help at this point.
Next monitoring appointment is Saturday, possible trigger on Sunday night, but she says it's likely that we'll wait till Monday to trigger and push the retrieval back a day to Wed 7/9.
Okay, so let's focus on the positives? Last cycle I had 3 follies, 2 on the right which measured 20.52 and 14.87 at retrieval and 1 on the left measuring 14.07 at retrieval. Only one was mature (obvs the 20.52) and while the other two matured over night, they failed to fertilize and arrested on Day 2. This cycle they are closer in size and it's likely that I will have more than 1 over 18mm at retrieval which means a higher likelihood of 4 MATURE eggs and hopefully then 4 fertilized eggs.
Premature question of the day?
IF we have 4 embryos,
1) Do we risk going to day 5 and losing some?
2) And if we have 4 do we still put 3 back? Or do we transfer 2 and save 2?
I need to quit thinking about this.... Meh.
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
Am I Insane?
Last cycle I was largely unaffected by the stims - aside from the daily headaches and one awful migrine, but we think this was the Lupron. Other than that, and a little bloating, nothing. And of the 17 follies I started with, I had only 3 develop, with one of those being a giant leap ahead of the others.
This time is different. Different meds, different protocol and totally different reaction. But I am a little concerned that this might all be in my head. I'm still getting the daily Lupron headaches. But I swear I am feeling bubbling and twinging in my lower abdomen. I am also...well here it is folks... I am super gassy, peeing constantly and super bloated, but continuously thirsty. Today my hips are hurting, like a LOT. It's killing me not knowing what's going on in there. I only had 11 antrals, which really isn't much compared with these ladies who have like 20-40 follies growing, so it's weird to me that I would have this strong of a reaction. I am sure that this must be in my head. My E2 reading gives nothing away.
CAN'T WAIT TILL TOMORROW! I need to see them. I need to know what's going on in there.
This time is different. Different meds, different protocol and totally different reaction. But I am a little concerned that this might all be in my head. I'm still getting the daily Lupron headaches. But I swear I am feeling bubbling and twinging in my lower abdomen. I am also...well here it is folks... I am super gassy, peeing constantly and super bloated, but continuously thirsty. Today my hips are hurting, like a LOT. It's killing me not knowing what's going on in there. I only had 11 antrals, which really isn't much compared with these ladies who have like 20-40 follies growing, so it's weird to me that I would have this strong of a reaction. I am sure that this must be in my head. My E2 reading gives nothing away.
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