After 3 days of stims...

After 3 days of stim shots (Bravelle and Menopur or Repronex), I had an ultrasound (u/s) and bloodwork (bw) done. My u/s showed 11 follicles. All are less than 10 right now. My estradiol was at 161.

I go back in tomorrow (Saturday) morning for another round.

I talked to the nurse about my reaction to the Repronex. She said it's common. She suggested I dilute the mixture with a tiny bit more water and then ice it after. If that doesn't work I can do intramuscular shots (hmmm....let me think about that....no thanks!) or I can reorder the Menopur since the backorder is done.

I'm trying the first option for now!

No more headaches really...well, the little ones I've had I've managed to take care of with Tylenol. Still having hot flashes. Oh well.

I'll try to post tomorrow with an update on my estradiol and follicles. :)

This is what one day of meds looks like with a Microdose Flare protocol. I do two injections of Lupron - one in the a.m. and one in the p.m. I also do one shot of 3 Bravelles and 2 Menopurs mixed with one cc saline.

Oh, and one baby aspirin in addition to my prenatal.

Side Effects

I am just a barrel full of side effects - Lupron has given me major headaches, irritability, and hot flashes. Last night my head hurt so bad that I had to try to sleep while sitting up. Even that didn't work.

I started my stim shots last night and gave Repronex (instead of Menopur) at try. I have an itchy spot on my stomach about the size of a half dollar. I also have a bruise on my stomach from one of the Lupron injections.

Today is Lupron Day

I was supposed to stop my birth control pills on Wednesday, but I took one Thursday night by accident. I had to wait an extra day to start my Lupron. So my bloodwork and ultrasound was this morning. I'm all set to start my Lupron injections tonight. Tomorrow and every day after I will be doing 2 Lupron shots a day. On Monday I will start my stim shots - So I'll be up to 3 shots a day at that point!

The ultrasound tech called me to tell me my estradiol is good - 30.5. I can start my shots tonight without a problem. I asked her about my lining and she said at this point it's too early to tell. I asked her if I should worry at all about it since none our 3 embryos had implanted during IVF #1. She said no. She said that during ER the doctor checks the lining and will prescribe something if she is worried about a patient's lining. She said mine was fine all through my last cycle and it's so hard because we don't know why they didn't implant.

It was nice that she is so understanding. It's hard because I know they know what they are doing, but I still couldn't help but wonder if there was anything else we could do to help our situation.

Friday is right around the corner....

I go in for an ultrasound and bloodwork on Friday morning. I also start my Lupron shots that day, too. I'm excited, but I'm sort of nervous, too. Not nervous about doing the shots - been there, done that - but nervous about the whole cycle not working. How can you not be, right?

Anyone know of ways to really stay positive and calm through the whole cycle? (Maybe that's impossible! How about ways to stay positive and calm on some days throughout the cycle!)

My Drugs Are On Their Way!

Well, my IVF meds are on their way! I should be getting my box o' fun on Friday. My sister has said she'll pick it up for me at the RE's office. They close before I can get there.

I also received my protocol:

May 27th - Last birth control pill
May 30th - ultrasound and bloodwork. Start Microdose Lupron 20 units/twice a day.
Take baby aspirin, too.
June 1st - Begin Bravelle 225 (3 vials) and Menopur (2 vials) for 10-12 days.
June 13-20th - Somewhere in here will be my egg retrieval and embryo transfer.

The fun begins...

I had my cd3 bw and u/s today. They said my estrogen was 53.7 and my FSH was 6.7. When the tech checked my follicles, she said I had 7 under 8mm. I'm wondering if 7 is kind of low and if this is my official antral follicle count. (Questions I should have asked then, but didn't.) I start bcp tonight. The IVF nurse is out of the office until May 5th, so when she gets back she'll write up the rest of my protocol and give it to me. I'll most likely be on bcp for about a month before I start any actual shots.

Cycle #22 and Waiting...

I'm still waiting for my next cycle to start. Once that starts, I can start taking birth control pills to begin the next IVF cycle.

This whole waiting thing is not easy.

Spoke with RE's office

We may be trying IVF one more time. We did not get approved for the study, but our RE is going to try to work with us on our next IVF. Her office manager is reducing some of the fees for us. We were happily surprised - We both feel like we're being given another chance and we need to try it. It looks like it may be the June cycle.

Follow Up with the RE

We had our follow-up appointment today with Dr. K.

She told us that out of the patients that had negative results this cycle, she was shocked that we were one of them.

She said at one point, I had a dip in my estrogen level but that it could have been an error with the machine that reads the equipment. (It said my estrogen had dipped from roughly 2,000 to 1,000 but then next bloodtest it was back up to over 2,000.) She wasn't really concerned because I still produced follicles and they were growing and at the right size. I know at one point they upped my estrogen, too, so that's probably the day she was referring to.

She said that she was surprised by the lower number of follicles/eggs that we got. I had 12 follicles and only 8 eggs. She said that could be due to statistics or it could be due to my age. She said the same thing about our other 5 embryos not making it to FET. She was surprised that we didn't have any make it.

I asked her if she thought I had problems with implantation. She said it's hard to know. My tests for my lining were fine. She said that there is research being done right now on implantation and what things might be indicators of problems, but there's still a lot they don't know.

She said that she thought we should try again if we wanted to and that we have a very good chance of it working. She started to mention about me participating in a study, and I told her I was going to ask her about that, too. She said they might have a couple studies coming up, including an internal study where they would be looking at hormone levels. She said we would still have to pay some fees but the overall fee would be reduced. We said it was definitely something we would consider.She mentioned possibly increasing my Menopur (and maybe the Bravelle) or doing something called micro dose flare which I think she said is a different Lupron dosage.