Saturday, September 17, 2011
Trigger Complete!
Just injected my Lupron Trigger!!! Hooray for only having to give a SQ shot instead of IM for trigger. 36 hours and counting!!!!!!! 9am on Monday cannot come fast enough!!! Also took my first Dostinex with dinner. Started drinking protein shakes, gatorade and eating saltier foods, too! Trying to avoid OHSS! Taking DS to the Children's Museum tomorrow on my day off from appointments and injections! Woot!!! Sooooo excited!!!
Triggering Tonight!
So the past 2 days have been crazy!
I was SO certain I would be triggering on Friday night to have ER a day early, on Sunday, but that was not the case! Boo. I was bummed b/c I wanted to get to go home a day earlier than expected! Oh well! I'm over it!
Yesterday's monitoring appt: My E2 was 2698 and I had 36 follicles!!! 22 on my left, and 14 on my right.
Today was my last monitoring appointment as I'm planning to trigger tonight! My E2 was 5400!!! I had 37 follicles. 22 on my left still, and now 15 on my right! Though based on the actual measurements, only about 21 are mature. That is good I guess. I mean, I want as many as I can get to have a better shot of getting some normal girls, but I do not want TOO many b/c my RE is concerned with having too high of an excess of eggs.
The plan is to fertilize all of the eggs and wait until day 5 (blastocyst stage) to biopsy and freeze them. Biopsies will be sent to Genesis lab for full-panel PGS screening. They said that within 24-48 hours I should hear the official news of how many normal boys and girls I have!!! Let's pray that I get a good amount of normal XX eggies!!! I told Jay to start "thinking pink"!!! I know that I have been calling my follicles "The Girls". Maybe a bit optimistic, but a girl can dream, right?
Unfortunately, Dr. T is not the "on-call egg retrieval doc" for Monday... so Dr. E will retrieve the eggs instead. According to my nurse, she is an "excellent egg sucker"! So I hope she wasn't "just sayin' that".
Tonight I take my Lupron trigger shot and tomorrow I have NOTHING!!!! No doctor's appointments... no shots... Nothing!!! Just a free day to spend with my husband, my baby boy, and my helpful father! I think we're going to go to the Children's Museum nearby.
After ER on Monday, I think I have to take it easy, and then I get to GO HOME on Tuesday!! YAY! I miss my puppy and my bed and my house and all my stuff!!! I surely hope all of this has been worth it and I get a beautiful baby girl in the end!
Oh, and here is a picture of my lovely left ovary full of 22 "girls"!
I was SO certain I would be triggering on Friday night to have ER a day early, on Sunday, but that was not the case! Boo. I was bummed b/c I wanted to get to go home a day earlier than expected! Oh well! I'm over it!
Yesterday's monitoring appt: My E2 was 2698 and I had 36 follicles!!! 22 on my left, and 14 on my right.
Today was my last monitoring appointment as I'm planning to trigger tonight! My E2 was 5400!!! I had 37 follicles. 22 on my left still, and now 15 on my right! Though based on the actual measurements, only about 21 are mature. That is good I guess. I mean, I want as many as I can get to have a better shot of getting some normal girls, but I do not want TOO many b/c my RE is concerned with having too high of an excess of eggs.
The plan is to fertilize all of the eggs and wait until day 5 (blastocyst stage) to biopsy and freeze them. Biopsies will be sent to Genesis lab for full-panel PGS screening. They said that within 24-48 hours I should hear the official news of how many normal boys and girls I have!!! Let's pray that I get a good amount of normal XX eggies!!! I told Jay to start "thinking pink"!!! I know that I have been calling my follicles "The Girls". Maybe a bit optimistic, but a girl can dream, right?
Unfortunately, Dr. T is not the "on-call egg retrieval doc" for Monday... so Dr. E will retrieve the eggs instead. According to my nurse, she is an "excellent egg sucker"! So I hope she wasn't "just sayin' that".
Tonight I take my Lupron trigger shot and tomorrow I have NOTHING!!!! No doctor's appointments... no shots... Nothing!!! Just a free day to spend with my husband, my baby boy, and my helpful father! I think we're going to go to the Children's Museum nearby.
After ER on Monday, I think I have to take it easy, and then I get to GO HOME on Tuesday!! YAY! I miss my puppy and my bed and my house and all my stuff!!! I surely hope all of this has been worth it and I get a beautiful baby girl in the end!
Oh, and here is a picture of my lovely left ovary full of 22 "girls"!
Thursday, September 15, 2011
1st RBA Appt!
So I had my first monitoring appointment actually AT RBA in Atlanta! It went well! My E2 today was 2156 and I had 27 follicles (9 right, 18 left).
We discussed dates for my FET and we plan to start using THIS current cycle. So, assuming I have a healthy XX to transfer, I will begin Lupron on 9/28 and ET will be sometime around the end of October/Beginning of November.
We discussed my current number of follicles, and he is not planning to freeze any of my eggs at this point. He said he really only considered if it I had gotten way more than 20 eggs, but since I'll probably get 20 (give or take) we are going to fertilize ALL of the eggs and give them all a fair shot at becoming my future baby girl! I was SO relieved to hear that we will be fertilizing ALL of them! I was very skeptical of the idea of freezing my eggies.
I discussed my insomnia (which has been out of control, I got maybe 2 hrs of sleep last night) and he was amazing and wrote me a script for Xanax to take at night. I hope this helps me to finally get a good night's sleep! And best part is that he said it will not negatively impact any of my eggies for me to take the Xanax for sleep. Whew! I wouldn't risk it if that were the case!
What else? Hmm... I think that covers pretty much everything from today! I'm going to go try to take a NAP! ZzZzZzZz
We discussed dates for my FET and we plan to start using THIS current cycle. So, assuming I have a healthy XX to transfer, I will begin Lupron on 9/28 and ET will be sometime around the end of October/Beginning of November.
We discussed my current number of follicles, and he is not planning to freeze any of my eggs at this point. He said he really only considered if it I had gotten way more than 20 eggs, but since I'll probably get 20 (give or take) we are going to fertilize ALL of the eggs and give them all a fair shot at becoming my future baby girl! I was SO relieved to hear that we will be fertilizing ALL of them! I was very skeptical of the idea of freezing my eggies.
I discussed my insomnia (which has been out of control, I got maybe 2 hrs of sleep last night) and he was amazing and wrote me a script for Xanax to take at night. I hope this helps me to finally get a good night's sleep! And best part is that he said it will not negatively impact any of my eggies for me to take the Xanax for sleep. Whew! I wouldn't risk it if that were the case!
What else? Hmm... I think that covers pretty much everything from today! I'm going to go try to take a NAP! ZzZzZzZz
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
CD 6 Appt
Just got back from my CD 6 appt (4 doses of Gonal-F 225u given thus far). I will update later what I know what my E2 and TSH levels were... assuming they actually drew the TSH this time. I'm a bit skeptical b/c she only drew 1 vial of blood and I think she would have drawn 2 if she had gotten the order to draw a TSH today as well. Whatever! They'll draw it eventually I'm sure!
OK, so my follies!!! I had 16 so far today! 10 on the left and 6 on the right. They ranged in size from 9mm-15mm. Most of the were 11 or 13. A few 9s and I think 2 or 3- 15s. Which she said is normal to have a couple of "lead follicles". So according to the nurse I am exactly where I should be after 4 shots! Which was good to hear! She predicted that I'll have around 20 follies when I go for ER since there were a few smaller ones that she did not bother measuring. Whew! What a relief to hear that I am responding and everything is going well! Lets hope the blood work comes back good as well.
And on a side note... nobody ever mentioned how PAINFUL it can be to have them measure your follicles! I swear she was prodding me so hard with that u/s wand. My toes were curled as I bit my tongue and tried to bear it. lol. At least next time I am prepared!
UPDATE: Just got the news that my Estrogen level was 839. I don't know much about that so I'm trusting the nurse and she said I was "right on track"!
She didn't mention my TSH level, so I'm going to assume the local RE didn't see the order they faxed and thus didn't draw it. SO I still have no idea what my thyroid is doing right now. Hopefully they won't cancel me last minute based on those results! But since I'm responding well and I'm NOT transferring an egg this cycle (freezing all) I do not think it's a big deal. Maybe I'm just being optimistic! lol
SOOO I started Ganirelix (like, literally, she said take my 1st shot as soon as I finished reading the email... so I did.) and I take that daily in the morning. Staying on the same dose of Gonal-F still in the evenings. And I do NOT need a monitoring appointment tomorrow (YAY!) but I will need to be IN ATLANTA for my appointment on Thursday with RBA. So we are driving up tomorrow! YAY! It's getting more and more real every single day!
OK, so my follies!!! I had 16 so far today! 10 on the left and 6 on the right. They ranged in size from 9mm-15mm. Most of the were 11 or 13. A few 9s and I think 2 or 3- 15s. Which she said is normal to have a couple of "lead follicles". So according to the nurse I am exactly where I should be after 4 shots! Which was good to hear! She predicted that I'll have around 20 follies when I go for ER since there were a few smaller ones that she did not bother measuring. Whew! What a relief to hear that I am responding and everything is going well! Lets hope the blood work comes back good as well.
And on a side note... nobody ever mentioned how PAINFUL it can be to have them measure your follicles! I swear she was prodding me so hard with that u/s wand. My toes were curled as I bit my tongue and tried to bear it. lol. At least next time I am prepared!
UPDATE: Just got the news that my Estrogen level was 839. I don't know much about that so I'm trusting the nurse and she said I was "right on track"!
She didn't mention my TSH level, so I'm going to assume the local RE didn't see the order they faxed and thus didn't draw it. SO I still have no idea what my thyroid is doing right now. Hopefully they won't cancel me last minute based on those results! But since I'm responding well and I'm NOT transferring an egg this cycle (freezing all) I do not think it's a big deal. Maybe I'm just being optimistic! lol
SOOO I started Ganirelix (like, literally, she said take my 1st shot as soon as I finished reading the email... so I did.) and I take that daily in the morning. Staying on the same dose of Gonal-F still in the evenings. And I do NOT need a monitoring appointment tomorrow (YAY!) but I will need to be IN ATLANTA for my appointment on Thursday with RBA. So we are driving up tomorrow! YAY! It's getting more and more real every single day!
Friday, September 9, 2011
First Injection Complete!!!
WHEW! Just finished my FIRST Gonal-F injection!!!! I swear, despite having given thousands of SQ injections at work in the past, I was shaking like a leaf getting ready for my injection!!! The kit they gave me had this cool tiny square ice pack and I placed that on the spot for a few minutes before injecting and I swear that thing was a miracle-worker! I didn't even feel it!!! Yay!!! My first injection is done!!! So excited!!! 1 day down... 10+ more to go! lol
Initial Visit!
So I had my initial visit this morning with the local RE. They sent all of my results to my actual RE at RBA and I just got the call from my nurse! My Estrogen was 33. Which she said was normal. My pregnancy test was negative (whew!). And I had no cysts on my ovaries. She forgot to add my TSH to the orders, so I am not sure what that is, but she did not seem too concerned with it. She just said Dr. T would want to see it come down some. So I guess it is no biggie!
I get to start my Gonal-F 225u SQ tonight at 9pm! I repeat this every night and my next appointment is Tuesday at 7:15am with the local RE. After this appt they will decide if I need to come up for the following appt (CD 7) or if I can go one more time to the local RE. But for sure I will need to be in Atlanta starting CD 8 and up until after embryo retrieval (tentatively Sep 19th).
Giving myself a SQ injection for the first time ever tonight!!!! Yikes!
I get to start my Gonal-F 225u SQ tonight at 9pm! I repeat this every night and my next appointment is Tuesday at 7:15am with the local RE. After this appt they will decide if I need to come up for the following appt (CD 7) or if I can go one more time to the local RE. But for sure I will need to be in Atlanta starting CD 8 and up until after embryo retrieval (tentatively Sep 19th).
Giving myself a SQ injection for the first time ever tonight!!!! Yikes!
Thursday, September 8, 2011
Let The Fun Begin!
AF has officially come to visit!!! That means today officially starts DAY ONE of my first IVF cycle!!! My initial monitoring appointment is tomorrow (9/9) at 9:45am! (that's a lot of 9s!) My tentative Embryo Retrieval date is Monday 9/19. I am well aware that this date is subject to change based on the maturity of my follicles, but it still feels crazy to be talking actual dates!!! I am planning to take my dad with me to Atlanta starting next Wednesday night (9/15) and we'll stay until ER is complete. Jay will be joining us during the weekend and possibly staying until ER. However, if ER keeps getting pushed back then Jay will have to return home to go to work. He can miss 1-2 days, but cannot miss an entire week! I am SO nervous about spending a week alone with just my dad and my 15 month old son! More than anything, I am nervous about trying to survive a 5-6 hour drive with DS in the car. He is a HORRIBLE car-rider. I guess I just have to keep the end-result in my head and try to stay calm and flexible!
The next big question will be... WHEN will we go back for our FET? I, myself, am wondering the SAME thing!!! Of course I would love to go back as soon as possible! However, several weddings are getting in the way. One of which is out of state for me. It all depends on whether or not my RE can "manipulate" my next period for timing purposes. If I can start AF in time I could possibly squeeze one FET in before the Nov 5th wedding. We shall see. I cannot wait to be pregnant with my baby girl! It seems like such a dream, but to make it a reality seems crazy!
Oh, and I forgot to add, I still have to get my TSH re-drawn tomorrow. If it is still too high I guess they might cancel my cycle. How bad will that suck after getting SO excited about everything? SO BAD! FX that does NOT happen!!! lol
The next big question will be... WHEN will we go back for our FET? I, myself, am wondering the SAME thing!!! Of course I would love to go back as soon as possible! However, several weddings are getting in the way. One of which is out of state for me. It all depends on whether or not my RE can "manipulate" my next period for timing purposes. If I can start AF in time I could possibly squeeze one FET in before the Nov 5th wedding. We shall see. I cannot wait to be pregnant with my baby girl! It seems like such a dream, but to make it a reality seems crazy!
Oh, and I forgot to add, I still have to get my TSH re-drawn tomorrow. If it is still too high I guess they might cancel my cycle. How bad will that suck after getting SO excited about everything? SO BAD! FX that does NOT happen!!! lol
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