All Your Eggs In One Basket

Someone mentioned the saying "Don't Put All Your Eggs In One Basket" today.  I accidentally snorted out loud.  I don't think any other phrase could better describe what we do with IVF.  I'm definitely feeling today that all my eggs are in 1 basket - that being the lab at my clinic.

We got the fertilization report today.  Out of our 12 eggs, 10 were mature, and 6 have currently fertilized normally.  Compared to the 1 we had left at this point last time that is a huge win.  They have tentatively set us up for a Day 3 transfer which would be Sunday morning.  They will check on the embryos again that morning and if 5 or 6 are still developing as they should be they will push us to Day 5 (Tuesday).  The statistics and odds are against that happening, but I am praying so hard for all 6 of our embryos.  And I'm so grateful for the improved results that we've seen this cycle so far!  I trust that God is watching over our little embabies and have faith that he will take care of them.  I can tell you that my load has been much lighter this cycle by making the conscience effort to turn my worries and fear over to Him.  Every time I start to to feel overwhelmed by all of the bad things that *could* happen I have stopped and given it all to Him.  For that relief alone I am so grateful.

One more milestone down.  Now it's praying praying praying that our babies are growing strong and getting ready for this next step.

IVF #2 Trigger

I had my second ultrasound yesterday and the majority of my follicles were measuring 17mm so I got the all clear to trigger last night.  We did the HCG shot at 10:30pm and retrieval will be tomorrow at 9am.  I am ready to get things moving.

I wish I could put in to words how I"m feeling this time compared to last.  Some of it is much the same and some of it is completely different.  I am definitely feeling hopeful and excited but in a different way than the first time.  This time I know what we are up against and while the more aggressive protocol seems to have improved our results so far, I also know now that I won't rest easy until we get the fertilization report.  There's just so much that can go wrong happen between retrieval and transfer.  And even if by some miracle we happen to get a BFP I've had 2 blog friends just this week who's 2nd Beta came back lower and they experienced chemical pregnancies.  I know we all talk about this a lot but infertility seems to completely rob you of the joy and bliss that SHOULD come with pregnancy.  Because we know so much it seems impossible to shake the worry and fear.  So this time I am really trying to focus on taking one day at a time.

My mom recently sent me this amazing gift and I've been wearing it since starting STIM drugs.

The one thing I did learn from our first failure with IVF is that I'm stronger than I thought.  I survived the disappointment and loss and we picked ourselves up and tried again.  And I will do that again if I have to.  Not to say that I won't be devastated and heartbroken because I will.  But I also know deep in my heart that I am MEANT to be a mother.  And I'm not ready to give up yet.

So for now I'll hope and pray for a successful retrieval of LOTS of healthy mature eggs.  I will be strong for myself and for D.  I will be positive and believe that this will work for us.  And I'll look forward to our future and not behind at our loss.  And regardless of the outcome I will go on.

Cycle Day 9 Ultrasound

~*~*~*~*~*~* 18 Follicles!!!! ~*~*~**~*~*~~*~

Oh my gosh I can not believe that I'm even writing this.  This morning I had my ultrasound to see how I was responding to the stim drugs and there were 18 (!) follicles!  I am in complete shock.  Me, with my rotten eggs and my "poor responder" diagnosis.  Wow.  I'll back track and tell you about the appointment.

I had told D that he didn't need to come with me today.  He's missed so much work due to all of these appointments and he'll need to be off again for retrieval and transfer.  I felt good about that decision last night but as I was driving to the clinic this morning I started to get really nervous.  I reminded myself for the 1,000th time to give all of my doubts, worries, and fear to God.  So I tried that all morning and even though I was still nervous it did help.  I just prayed and tried to keep my thoughts as positive as possible.  Finally they called me back for the ultrasound.  I confessed to Jolene my nurse that I was feeling a little nervous.  She told me that with this protocol the follicles might be slightly smaller than the last cycle and that was expected and good.  The goal is to grow more and at an even rate.  So I was glad she told me that.  Then Dr. H came in and we got down to business.  I heard him say that my lining was at a 8, which is where it needs to be so that was good news.  Then he found my right ovary and started rattling off numbers.  I had a 20mm follicle and a 17mm and then he started saying 15, 15, 13, 13, 13, and he just kept going.  There were 13 follicles on the right side.  So amazing considering I had 5 on the right side and 4 on the left last cycle.  Then we moved to the left side, which is evidently my slacker ovary.  There were only 5 follicles but they were all 13mm.  So that gave us a total of 18!  Once again I'm just in shock and so thankful and filled with hope that this cycle will be better than last time.  I know we still have a ways to go.  Not all of the follicles will  have eggs and not all of the eggs will be mature.  But I'm hopeful to have more embabies than last time if we have more eggs to start with.

So I'll go back for another ultrasound tomorrow morning and they acted like we might trigger Tuesday night for a Wednesday retrieval.  I guess we'll see where we are tomorrow.

Once again it's not in my control so I will turn it all over to God and trust in his plan.  If you have any extra prayers to give this week I'd appreciate you sending them our way!

The Devil Drug

I'm officially renaming Menopur "The Devil Drug".  I love how the instructions my clinic provides state "There could be mild stinging when injecting".  Mild my a$$.  It should tell you that it feels as if you are pumping fire directly into your stomach.  Seriously I can't believe I'm saying this but I think I'd rather do PIO shots over the Menopur any day.  Of course if it's actually working and doing what it's meant to then it's all totally worth it.  But that doesn't mean that it's not the still The Devil Drug.

So it's day 5 of stimming for me.  On Monday I'll go in for my ultrasound and see how things are progressing.  I'm hopeful for more follicles than we had last time since we are on a more aggressive protocol, but I think I'm mentally prepared to also have the same amount as before.  If it's less than our first cycle I'm sure there will be a total breakdown right on the table, but we won't think about that now.  As I feel worse and worse every day with the bloating and just being generally uncomfortable due to the drugs my emotional state seems to improve.  I am getting more hopeful and positive about this cycle and the possibility of it actually working.  I was so disappointed after our first round and I know due my diagnosis that I'll never be one of those girls who gets a million eggs.  But I'm hopeful that we can eek out a few more and have a couple more be mature and a couple more fertilize normally.  I've been focusing on having 2 quality embryos to transfer and hopeful to have 2 to freeze.  I would be unbelievably thankful for those kind of results and I"m hoping they are realistic.  Once again only time will tell.

Being a crazy type A control freak it's very hard for me not to look forward past this cycle if it doesn't work.  There are a couple of paths we are considering, all depending on the results of this "more aggressive" protocol.  We have discussed what I've learned about CCRM through the blog world.  It seems to be the general consensus that this is the best fertility clinic in the country.  I think if we were to try again we would look into going there.  However if our results are as poor as our first cycle I feel as if it could be time to look into donor eggs.  D was surprised that I was considering that.  And while it would be a very hard and I would definitely mourn the loss of having a biological connection to our child, I do think that I am the right type of person for that situation.  It's not for everyone but it definitely could be for me.

Obviously we can't make any decisions until we get through this cycle so I'm definitely trying to focus on where we are now and have positive successful thoughts.  And while there's a big part of me that's completely terrified, there's another part that is hopeful and has faith and is ready for whatever the next week brings.

F is for Follistim

Happy Monday Everyone!  This COLD Midwest Monday brings the start of my stim drugs for IVF #2.  This new cycle has included a switch from Lupron to Ganirelix,  Delestrogen IM shots every third day and last night I started estrogen suppositories.  Tonight we add in 600 units of Follistim to hopefully help my follicles start to grow. (Has anyone else ever been on this high of a dose of Follistim??)   For those of you who are familiar with Follistim you know that it's administered in a pen and that the cartridge holds 450 units.  Which means for tonight and tomorrow I'll have to stick myself twice to get the complete dose.  Yuck.  Then on Wednesday we throw in the Menopur to hopefully help the eggs growing in the follicles mature.

I'm feeling pretty peaceful about things right now.  I'm hopeful and optimistic but I don't feel as if I'm over-obsessing about the entire process.  Although I haven't been able to completely keep my "crazy" in check (I definitely used an IVF calculator to see when my due date would be if this cycle works) I am focusing on turning it all over to God.  With our first cycle we got 8 eggs, only 5 of which were mature, and only 1 that fertilized normally.  I'm REALLY hoping for some better results this time around.  I'm REALLY hoping that we have 2 good quality embryos to transfer and some to freeze.  I'm REALLY hoping that this cycle results in a viable pregnancy.  I'm REALLY hoping this is all God's will.  Only time will tell.

So here's to this week FLYING by.  I'm looking forward to Superbowl Sunday and time with my family this weekend celebrating my youngest nephews birthday.  I'm looking forward to lots of snuggle time on the couch with D and the puppy (my self proclaimed Happy Place).  And taking one day at a time.

Happy Monday friends.

Pre-Menopause

Happy Pre Menopause Day!

Tomorrow I start my Lupron shots back up for IVF #2.  This is really the easiest part of the whole cycle.  The Lupron has to be taken in the AM and at the same time every morning, but it's a tiny needle and is easy to measure out the dosage.  I am planning on continuing to work out until I start STIMS on the 27th.  I am hoping that will help me feel better as I go through this.  My side effects from Lupron weren't terrible last time.  I did have some hot flashes and some trouble sleeping but overall it was very minor.  I go in for bloodwork on the 22nd which will be a week after we start the Lupron and then as long as everything is looking good on the 23rd I will switch to one of our new drugs the Ganirelix and we'll also begin to add in the E2V (estrogen) injections every three days.  I'm definitely going to have to pay close attention this cycle as we've got three additional meds and many more dosage changes than last time.  Hopefully it will be what it takes to get us a few more eggs to work with than last time.  

No other major news here.  I'm working hard internally to try and get my mind in a positive place for this cycle and I'm seeing some improvement.  Though I definitely don't have the blind hope that I did the first cycle I also have to believe that the doctors and expert wouldn't put me through this if they didn't think the increased protocol would yield results.  I also am working hard on turning all of my doubts and fears over to God and just finding peace that this is out of my control.  

One of the most comforting things anyone said to me after our BFN was that there's a baby out there for me and D and the first cycle just wasn't the right one.  We are (anxiously) waiting for that special child that's meant to be ours.  I really hope that he or she finds us in this next cycle.  We're here!  We're waiting!

Moving Forward - WTF recap

Well we had our WTF appointment on Friday.  I needed a few days to absorb before I posted about it.  Let's start with the good news - we've been approved to move forward with Feb. cycle.  I'm very grateful for this and I mentioned that if we had to wait I felt that would bring on some major emotional issues for me.  However the appointment with Dr. H. was very hard to stomach.  Overall he provided us with a great deal of information.  He walked through the fertilization process with each of my 5 mature eggs and explained what happened with each of them.  He also gave us more information about my specific protocol as far as the meds and why he made the decisions he did.  He told us that I was on a L6 protocol.  The "L" means we are using Lupron as a suppression drug to keep my body from ovulating.  The number ranges from a 1 - 10.  He started me on a 6 because my elevated FSH level indicated there is a potential issue with my ovarian reserve.  He then provided us with 3 different options.  Basically we could do the same protocol again since it did yield results.  However he informed me that I'm what they call a "poor responder".  Basically they were expecting more eggs and obviously a higher percentage of fertilization than what we got.  So that signals that I most likely have both a quality AND quantity issue.  Ugh.

So the next option he offered was we increase my protocol to a L8.  So we'll add estrogen suppositories into the mix (as estrogen proves helpful with follicles/egg production in "poor responders") and one other fertility drug to hopefully help us get more eggs to better our chances.  The third option he brought up was donor eggs.  As I've spent hours obsessing, researching, and basically absorbing any information related to infertility I wasn't completely shocked by this suggestion.  Although that didn't make it any easier to hear.  I'm just not ready to accept that having a baby that is biologically both me and D is not an option.  Luckily out of the three options my doctor's recommendation was #2 - to try again but with a more aggressive protocol with more drugs.

So this is where we are.  I'm back on birth control and baby aspirin and we'll start with Lupron suppression on Jan. 15th.  That means we'll start Stim drugs on Feb. 3rd.  I've struggled a lot feeling pretty low this weekend.  With the news the doctor gave us it just made me feel like it's all hopeless.  I tried to comfort myself when we first got diagnosed that at least we knew what the issue was with me and it wasn't "unexplained".  But I've come to understand that none of us have it better or easier than anyone else.  We are all facing the same struggle and battle and honestly it just sucks.  So I had myself a pity party this weekend and now I"m forcing myself to shake off the negative and try to be positive.  I know that having a negative, hopeless attitude will not help my chances at all.  (Even though I'm still feeling pretty hopeless).  So I'm going to be grateful for another chance, for science and medicine, and for options.  I feel as if my faith is being put to the ultimate test.  I question why God would do this to us.  But I have to believe there's a bigger purpose and have faith in His plan.  I just pray that this next round is our time.  We are so ready.