Summer IVF Thread - Let the Sun shine through all of usl!!! - Page 14

[auraleigh]

had bw and us today and everything is a go! had 20 follicles and i assume my bw was fine because i didn't get a call.  i also asked my dr about if i would have a period this month, and she said i may not have one after all, because i start stims tomorrow and haven't gotten it yet.  she said if anything i may have some spotting but nothing crazy.  i'm happy with that!

renavoo- good luck! fingers crossed that this month is a lucky one.  can't wait to have hormonal hot flashes in 90 degree weather!  sorry to hear about your work, it's incredibly difficult to have to take off at a moment's notice and go in for the daily bloodwork, etc.  i work for a small company and another long time employee had used my ivf clinic years ago for her surrogacy, so they already kind of knew the routine.  i don't think they were PLEASED that i was trying to get pregnant but they are family men with lots of kids and understood that it was something i had to do.  i made the decision to be extremely up front with them and so far they have been amazingly flexible.  they haven't even deducted sick time or vacation time for the days i needed off for the hsg/orientation.  i will keep my fingers crossed for you that the schedule stays on target! you would think people would be more compassionate. also, how did you like the acupuncture? i went for my first one this past monday and really enjoyed it, surprisingly.  i just felt sedated when i was done and it really calmed me.  

belly- i am a totaly control freak and this is one thing i cannot control! i don't want to annoy them by asking for numbers but it would make me feel so much better to have something to run home and google!

have a great weekend ladies!

[lyndiramos]

Blue- I also have a u/s and bw on monday at 8am I am so hoping we have made progress since thursday and I will transfer this coming week..... we will see!  I also had also of pain on thusday when she was looking for my right ovary.  She said did you loose your right ovary, I said I hope not but that wand is pretty painful right now!!!  She giggled and said oh look you do have a right ovary with not much change from last time.  so more meds and more 75ui Gonal F..  So we will see on Monday!!

Bellybean- I glad that your time seems to be flying by!! and thanks, I am hoping monday is great news!

[gellybeangrl]

Quick question....is anyone else on BCP's? Did you spot while taking them? I am on day 19 of the BCP's...and I would only have 4 more days of them, but they found some ployps and things have been pushed back...so I have about 17 more days on them. Just wondering...I didn't want to get too freaked out by it...just curious if anyone else had this happen to them.

Have a great weekend ladies...

[auraleigh]

gelly-  i didn't spot, i just had cramps the whole time, but if you're not used to the bc pills then my dr said you could have a whole slew of symptoms, including spotting and cramping.  it's probably fine!

[gellybeangrl]

Originally Posted by auraleigh 

gelly-  i didn't spot, i just had cramps the whole time, but if you're not used to the bc pills then my dr said you could have a whole slew of symptoms, including spotting and cramping.  it's probably fine!

Thanks Auraleigh...I'm gonna give my RE a call tommorow just to be on the safe side.

[blueyezz4]

gelly - I wasn't on bcp for my cycles, but I have seen many others that have and I think several of them had spotting w/ it.  Probably a good idea to call, but I think it is pretty common especially if your body isn't used to it.

Lyndi - good luck tomorrow.  You and I will probably be having u/s around the same time tomorrow so i'll think of you and you think of me.  I have to work right after so it might be a little while before I can post an update.

This is the most activity we have had on here in a weekend.  Nice job ladies!! Usually the weekends are pretty dead.

FYI to all:   If you all get a chance to look at that first page and make sure you are in the right spot and if not let me know and I'll change you.  I've probably missed someone somewhere, I'm sure. I'm just trying to stay afloat between work, life, IVF stuff and the puppy, so I apologize!!!

[alphahen]

BLUE:  Thanks for the request for updates.  Would you please move me to In Waiting?  I will hopefully start meds again in mid-August for a Sept FET. 

Wishing everyone a happy week!

[InWaiting]

Blue, you can put me down for triggering today (7/18) and egg retrieval on Wednesday (7/20).  Thank you for updating the thread!

Hello to all-I've been reading along and checking back to see how everyone is doing, but it's so tough to keep up in conversation :)  I hope that you all have a wonderful week!

[bungalowmama]

Blue - I started stims on CD2 - 7/11. How are things going with your cycle?

Sorry I haven't been keeping up on the thread. It's budget season at work and my thesis was due last Friday (please Lord let my advisor like it). Even when I don't have time to post I'll do a quick read through. I'm rooting for y'all!

AFM - I went in for my first monitoring appointment last Friday. After starting stims my clinic only measures eggs that are 1 cm or greater. That day I had two on the left and one on the right and my E2 was 177 so I didn't seem to be overstimulating. I started Ganirelix in with my morning stims on Saturday morning. I was worried that would arrest my egg development too much, but I was assured it was the right thing. This morning the ultrasound showed 9 on the left and 4 on the right with lots just under the 1 cm mark that they didn't count. My doctor wants to see the majority at 1.4cm or larger before trigger, so I'm betting I won't do that until Wednesday night. My husband is having a fresh TESE the day before my retrieval - so probably on Thursday. I'm really praying for lots of eggs to help with the difficult sperm situation. The frozen TESE specimen from three years ago is going to be used for half my eggs, but they won't be motile and it's a 50/50 shot if they're alive or dead. Stressful!

[lyndiramos]

Blue- I did think about you this morning blue!!  Hope you didnt get the mean lady!!!  I had mine at about 830am this morning.  I only improve a little bit I had one that measured 11.  They want it to be at 15 or 16 to trigger.  I have a another and hopefully the last for this cycle on thursday.  Same amount of Gonal F 75.  They think I should be triggering after that and transfer sunday or monday. either day will be fine.  I am taking the whole week off next week so I can lay around! and hopefully not think about hpts all week!! We have 3 frozen and are thawing all three.  They are not great quality so that is why the RE said we should do all three.  So we will see how many make the thaw!!  

[blueyezz4]

Lyndi - Glad to hear that things went okay for you today.  Wouldn't it be funny if we were both there on Sunday for our Transfer??  We would have to have a signal like pulling on our Left ear or something so we would know who the other one was. LOL  I sure wish i had the mean lady.  See update below.

bungalow - sounds like things are moving along for you!!  That is good.  Thanks, I've updated you on the list. 

Inwaiting - good to see your name again. Wow, you are really getting close.  How many eggs are they counting right now with you?  Yay, for triggering!!!!  Keep us posted.

Alphahen -  You are all updated, thanks for filling me in.

AFM -   Oh my..... today was a pain.  Okay, so i go in this morning for my U/S & bloodwork and didn't actually have an appt bc my RE's office called me too late on Friday to make an appt since the U/S place here closes at 4pm. So i was screwed with getting an appt. and i just figured I'd show up and hope they would fit me in.  So that is what I did and the girl at the desk tells me to take a seat and she will try and find my chart.  I sit down and one of the nurses calls me back, but she takes me to like the Drs office and not the normal U/S tech area/bloodwork area that I normally go to.  So I said to her, "I normally go in the back for monitoring, is this something different".  I was so confused, she said no it just all depends on the day.  So i go and empty my bladder and then sit in this room that they tell me to sit in and wait for the u/s room to be cleaned out.  Then the Dr and his "intern" I think she was, took me into the u/s room and told me to get undressed.  Then they come in and the intern is going to do my u/s (totally feeling like a guinea pig now).  She really doesn't know what she is doing and I can tell.  At one point I asked her if she could tell how thick my lining was and she said "yes" and then I said "can you tell me"?  Then the Dr chimed in and said that "they were still measuring everything".  I think it was bc i was the guinea pig and she didn't know what she was doing.  LOL  So then after she measure several follies the Dr said "okay, let me take a look" and took over.  He measured some more follies and then re-measured my lining which he said was like 6.7 or something like that, but last Friday the U/S tech told me that it was at 7.9 so now it is going backwards????  Hello???!!!  Someone is messing something up here....So who knows.  I talked to my RE's nurse later in the afternoon and she said I had like 9 bigger ones and 8 smaller ones just under 10 and I guess today they said my biggest was at 12, but on Friday the u/s tech said my biggest was 11, so i doubt that it would only grow 1 cm or mm however they measure them over like 3 days.  Next U/S and bloodwork is on Thurs morning.  So now i have to order more meds.... Grrrrrrr!!! Oh well!!! It is looking like maybe the ER might be on Sat or Sunday which is fine except for the fact that we are suppose to go to a family picnic at my MIL/FIL's house on sunday which they don't know anything about this, so we will see. Always something.

---

[InWaiting]

Blue...I'm sorry you didn't get the mean lady?  Wow, what a morning!  So I take it the doctor doesn't usually do ultrasounds at your clinic?  I've only ever had ultrasounds by a doctor (either mine or his partner) at my clinic and I wondered if that was standard for REs, but apparently not. 

I asked the doctor that did my ultrasound this morning how many eggies she could guestimate and she said, "easily 20, probably more."  I had a couple of follicles measuring at 20, a few 18s, 16s, etc.  I find myself surprised that I'm already at the egg retrieval phase.  I must say that overall the process hasn't been nearly as bad as I had anticipated.  I had to do all my stims intramuscularly for better absorption, but I get to do progesterone gel instead of shots so I suppose that's a fair trade.  :)

[blueyezz4]

Inwaiting - Thanks...I know, now I wish I never would have complained about the mean tech - i want her back. LOL.  I am being monitored out of state in my home town and then I have all the rest (ER & ET) out of state at my RE's office which saves us money b/c it is so expensive if we have it done at one of our hospitals IVF areas.  So at my monitoring site here normally it has just been an U/S tech that does the measurements and then the nurse will fax over the results and my RE's IVF nurse will then call me with my plan.  If I was actually going to my own RE's for monitoring I think that the Dr might be the one to do it, but I'm not sure.  I had to drive the 5 hrs one weekend time w/ my fresh cycle and he was the one to do the U/S that time, so who knows.  Your numbers sound really good!! Nice job.  I hope they get a lot of eggs w/ your ER!!  Keep us posted!

[Kewpie80]

Blue - what a mess!  I always had the same doctor do all my u/s and that was really nice.  I had a different dr for my retrieval and transfer this time, but the u/s were always with the same guy.  They also tried to always have me on the same machine.  He said they try to keep things consistent so they can check interval growth on everything.  I'm glad they were able to at least work you in.  

inwaiting - congrats on getting to ER stage!  Personally, I prefer the shots to the suppositories.  I know I've complained about the shots in the past, but DH has gotten really good and I rarely feel pain anymore.  When the dr said we were going to extend my progesterone through 12 weeks, he asked if I wanted to switch to the gel the last 2 weeks and I said, "nah." The gel is messy all the time and I think I'd be worried if it was the gel or bleeding I was feeling.  That's just me, though.  

everyone else - I read all your posts faithfully, I just rarely post anymore, but I think of you often and I'm rooting for y'all!!!!

ETA - my avatar only has one baby in it, but don't worry, I didn't lose one.  I had my 11 week u/s about a week and a half ago and baby A would NOT hold still for a good picture and they couldn't get one at all of both together cause A was jumping around too much.  So, I just get to look at B for now.  I *do* have a pic of A, but it's all blurry. haha

[bungalowmama]

lyndi - I hope these last doses of stims do the trick and you're ready to trigger on Thursday. Getting so close! I'm already thinking about HPTs and I haven't even made it to ER yet. It's hard to resist!

InWaiting - It's great to hear your update! It sounds like we're having a very similar response to stims. So your retrieval is tomorrow? You're seriously hardcore for doing the stims IM. My progesterone and trigger are IM, but I'm still in denial about it! Did you give yourself all of the shots? Would you be available to drive to ATL to give me mine? ;-) DH is getting chicken about the IM ones and I'm afraid he's going to do it in slow motion and make it really painful. I'll probably be so tense when he goes to inject that the needle will bend from my buns of steel - HA!

Blue - My lord in heaven. What a morning. I'm sorry you had to put up with that mess. On Thursday you should definitely demand the mean tech. The mean tech at my RE's is also the most detail oriented, so I let her general b*tchiness slide. Doctors never do the monitoring ultrasounds at my clinic and I'm fine with it. Your egg count sounds fantastic! Definitely update us on Thursday with how much they've grown! I'm about to have to order more meds, too. Such a pain!

Kewpie - It's so great to hear from you and to hear that the babies are doing well! That's too funny about baby A being such a wiggle worm. I always wonder if behavior in-utero is a good predictor of babies' personalities. You may have you're hands full with that little one!

AFM - Monitoring again this morning. Haven't heard back about my E2 yet, but I had 18 eggs over the 1cm mark - the largest at 1.7cm on each side. My lining was at 20mm. I'm on stims again tonight and tomorrow morning then I go back for another ultrasound. It's looking like I'll either trigger tomorrow night or Thursday night. I'm getting so excited! DH is getting paranoid about the sperm situation and I'm trying to assure him. Honestly, I want a baby so badly but what I want most is to have him alive and well - the testicular cancer really put that in perspective. The fact that we get a shot to have our own biological child is just a bonus after the incredible blessing of having him cured of cancer. Considering that we love our two dogs like they're children, I have no doubt that we'll bond with any baby we're gifted with, whether he/she shares both of our genes or not. I just try to remember that when the IVF pressure starts to get to me.

[Kewpie80]

I've been wondering.  Every u/s we've had since he/she could move A's been jumping and bucking and kicking.  Baby B is so calm and lightly stretches and rolls gently. It'll be interesting to see how they are after birth.  
 

Originally Posted by bungalowmama 

Kewpie - It's so great to hear from you and to hear that the babies are doing well! That's too funny about baby A being such a wiggle worm. I always wonder if behavior in-utero is a good predictor of babies' personalities. You may have you're hands full with that little one!

[lyndiramos]

Blue- yes that really seems so crazy and sucks!!  I will admit that it is nice to do all of my u/s with the same person through all this and not wonder who will be "probing" me today!!!  I going to guess that you will get better results next time!!!  I also go in on thursday and I soooo hope that this will be my last!!!  I am actually hoping that the transfer will monday but sunday is okay too.  With it being sunday I will have to find a sitter but on monday the kids will be in school so no explaining to anyone why my husband is taking me an hour away for a dr appt.  either way Im hoping to have this part of the process over!!  It would be cool to there together on Sunday!!!  We will have to see what time we are scheduled for!!  We should both find out thursday!!

[InWaiting]

Blue, it’s nice that they allow you to be monitored from a distance.  I complain about my hour and fifteen minute drive to my clinic.  I can’t imagine being 5 hours away.  It sounds like you have lots of eggs on the way!  That’s very exciting  :)  I hope that the scheduling of your egg retrieval works out in your favor. 

Kewpie, I was kind of surprised when they ordered me the gel instead of the shots.  I never asked why I just figured if I could avoid the IM shot I wouldn’t complain because I thought I was going to be able to avoid IM altogether… but then they told me to do stims IM.  Do you happen to know if the gel is worse/messier than prometrium used vaginally?  I was a little worried about the effectiveness of the gel over the shots, but I figured they know what they’re doing.   I am so glad both babies are doing well!  How are you feeling?

Bungalowmama, Hurray for lots of eggies!  We’re really close in our cycles too!  My DH did the shots for me.  I didn’t think I could stand to stick my thigh and I couldn’t see my butt…so he manned up for the occasion :)  They really aren’t bad at all-I had built up dread in my mind and was pleasantly surprised when I couldn’t even feel the needle go in.  The drugs burned a little when injected but it only lasted about 15 seconds (it was probably the Menopur that burned because the nurse warned me that it would, but I can’t say for sure because I combined the Follistim and Menopur in the same syringe).  Make sure that your hubby pinches the skin before inserting the needle.  My hubby forgot once and that is the only one that hurt enough for me to flinch.  I wouldn’t advice the slow motion either  ;)  Do you have a nurse friend or family member that could guide him through the first one?  My mom, who is an RN, assisted with our first so hubby wouldn’t be so nervous.  If you want to drive to Rome everyday I’ll be glad to give them.  Lol.  I hope that the TESE goes well for your hubby.  Sounds stressful indeed.

Lyndi, that’s smart of you to take the week off!  I hope the transfer goes well!

There are lots of exciting things happening here lately.  Good luck to everyone!!

[Kewpie80]

I've never used vaginal prometrium.   Sorry, I'm no help there. 

I'm moving into second trimester now so I'm feeling really good.  Morning sickness has waned and I'm not quite as tired, though I hear that returns in the third.  I'm planning to get my housework caught up and some freezer meals made so I'm prepared for bedrest.  I was on BR through about half of first trimester so I'm feeling the need to prepare just in case. Thanks for asking.  
 

Originally Posted by InWaiting 

Kewpie, I was kind of surprised when they ordered me the gel instead of the shots.  I never asked why I just figured if I could avoid the IM shot I wouldn’t complain because I thought I was going to be able to avoid IM altogether… but then they told me to do stims IM.  Do you happen to know if the gel is worse/messier than prometrium used vaginally?  I was a little worried about the effectiveness of the gel over the shots, but I figured they know what they’re doing.   I am so glad both babies are doing well!  How are you feeling?

[blueyezz4]

Inwaiting - I used the PIO progesterone shots with my first fresh IVF and then switched to the Crinone gel for my FET and liked the gel much better than the shots.  At first the shots weren't that bad, but then after the 2nd week they really started to hurt and it was kinda a pain to have to take them at the same time every day and to fit them into both DH and I's schedule. The other thing was that they tell you not to take them right before bed b/c I guess it is better for the muscles around where you injected to move, so it wouldn't be so sore and evening was the easiest time for both DH and I's schedule.  The vaginal gel was so much easier and I really didn't have much trouble with it at all like some others have had.  I would wear a panty-liner, but that was it.  Good luck.

Lyndi - that is funny that we are both kinda on the same U/S schedule right now.  Fingers crossed for you on Thurs morning.  I'm thinking my ER may be on Sat morning but I'm not sure.  We will see what they say on Thurs.  Keep us posted.

Bungalow - Wow, things sound good on your end.  Keep us updated!   I've got everything crossed for you and your DH that this will work out for you both so you don't have to go any other route. 

Kewpie - yeah for the 2nd trimester!!!  Glad you are feeling some better.  Did you see that freezer meal website I had post a ways back?  You might get some ideas from there.  Good luck!