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.

Tuesday, March 25th

The last few days have felt like a blur. Everyone has been so nice to us. Our family has been looking out for us. Friends have called to check on us.

DH and I have decided to go back to looking into adoption. We went to 2 meetings with one agency last year. We also met with another agency yesterday because DH and I had the day off. We know the whole adoption process can be very long, so we're trying to start things. We figure we'll meet with a few agencies and then choose the one we like the best. We will probably look into domestic adoption, but I'm open to international as well. We'll see.

Our test was negative. We're not pregnant.

We are so sad right now. I don't even know what else to say.

Waiting

I had my blood test done an hour ago.

Now I'm just waiting for the phone call.

One More Day...

Tomorrow is our beta blood test.

DH and I both had stressful days. We couldn't help but worry.

14 Days Past Retrieval

It's so hard waiting.

Yesterday I had so much to do - I helped organize and run a huge art show for my school district. It was great - I spent the evening talking to students and parents. But here we are again today and I'm back to waiting....

11 Days Past Retrieval/Ovulation

I'm not going to lie - I took a pg test yesterday morning and this morning.
Both tests were negative and it's very early to test. It's just that I read about how so many people get early results and I wanted to be one of those people for once. (Who am I kidding - I just want to be one of those people who gets a positive result, early or not.)

I had a blood test done this morning to check on my progesterone and estrogen. I take an estrogen tablet every night and I also have to be given an injection of progesterone each night. I thought that the other shots were not so bad - not a picnic, but not too bad. These shots are something else.

Progesterone shots are intramuscular, so instead of the medicine going just under your skin you are injecting it directly into muscle. The needle is big and long and it hurts going in, while it's in, and as it is being pulled out. The PIO (progesterone in oil) is also very thick - it's the consistency of vegetable oil (I think it's actually in sesame oil, I remember right.) Not the easiest thing to inject into a muscle.

I have also had a lot of pain at the injection site and around it. I think the PIO must move through the muscle as it's absorbed. I am very sore and tend to lean over when I sit to avoid sitting on my bruises.

We found out today that the 5 fragmented embryos we had definitely did not make it to cryopreservation. I knew that the possibility of them making it was not good, but a tiny part of me hoped at least one would survive. We will have to completely start over with a new IVF if this one doesn't work and that probably won't ever happen.

To say I'm sad about this is an understatement.

I'm going to try to keep busy today. I think I need to be distracted for a while.