Queer Conceptions: February 2013 - Page 16

[escher]

Hooray Granite!!!!!

[Twomommyfamily]

Yay Granite!!! 

[carmen358]

Congratulations Granite!!

[SanDiego78]

gooo Granite!!!  congrats on your BFP!

[lea2012]

Congrats granite! 

[KWPX2]

Granite  YEAH!!! DW and I are so super excited for you and your partner! What you said about the sticking was so lovely too!  LOTS and LOTS of sticky baby dust to you!! This will be such a wonderful story of your nailing it on the first go-round. Happy baby making indeed! 

AFM, back from our trip. We had 10 lovely hours in the car to talk babies and such. I feel very NOT pregnant and am waiting to see AF. Thursday will be the official end of the TWW.  I did POAS tonight just for the heck of it, BFN.  I feel like with the sub-par swimmer numbers on this last sample (5mil) we really didn't have much of a chance regardless. I think if I felt any symptoms at all I would still hold out hope but I just don't seem to have one real pregnancy symptom. I think the crampy-ness is from building a sweet uterine lining and all the emotions are from being full of estrogen tabs and progesterone suppositories.

Our plan for the next round is to switch banks and donors. We are moving to Xytex as our RE says in her experience they consistently have 10-12.5 million per sample if not better. Our first choice donor was with Xytex anyway, we were swayed by a lower price thinking if we had to try several times we could more easily afford it. Hopefully the switch was do the trick! Thanks everyone for asking and checking up on me. 

[lizbian]

fmorris I hope AF comes soon for you so we can be insem buddies. I'm looking like 13/14th March. Unfortunately working a lot those 2 days - on the 14th teaching 9am-4pm then again 7.30-9pm so not much time to do an insem!

kwpx2 I know how you feel - that's exactly how I felt as well, not a symptom at all esp as I'm not taking any progesterone or anything so was just the usual AF symptoms. Sounds like a good idea to switch banks again, hopefully that'll get you a better chance and you can have a problem-free insem next go around. Don't give up hope yet though, you never know!

[escher]

So what do you all know about low estradiol (estrogen)? My wife's level was a bit low at CD3, and the nurse who called with the result (50 pg/mL) yesterday felt like that was very low for CD12. Reading online, it looks like it is normal for estrogen to be low before ovulation, and I'm wondering if maybe the RE sees 50 as low for CD12 because they expect her body to be gearing up for ovulation at this point. But we know my wife tends to ovulate later, so it doesn't seem surprising that her estrogen hasn't spiked yet. Am I missing something here? What is the concern with low estrogen pre-ovulation?

KWPX: I hope you won't need to do another cycle, but it sounds like you have a good plan for proceeding if you do have to try again.

Hi to everyone else!

[pokeyAC]

escher-I believe they use estradiol to gauge how the follicles (and how many) are developing because the follicles produce estradiol as the egg matures.  This is totally made up, but I think it would be if one developing follicle produces 50 estradiol then 4 follicles would give a total of 200.  It's normal for it to be low at the beginning of your cycle and then it grows as you get to ovulation and then it drops off again.  Estrogen is also what creates the fertile CM.  Since she's a late ovulator, maybe her spike will come later.  Will they be doing an ultrasound too?

[JustAnotherJenny]

escher: Pokey is correct, one of the things they are looking for with estradiol is its correlation to the number and maturity of follicles.  This is particularly important if you are using a trigger shot.  You don't want to trigger before the follicles are mature.  For every 18mm follicle estradiol should be around 250.  As the follicles mature, that number goes up.

For example, on CD 12, I had estradiol of 339 with two follicles -- one at 12mm and one at 14.  This was a medicated cycle with clomid 50mg.  

CD14, Estradiol was 421 and I had one follicle on the right side that went from 6mm to 12mm and the lead follicle on the left went from 13 to 15.5mm

CD15 Estradiol was 565, and at that point I had 1 mature follicle at 18.5mm , one at 12.5mm and one at 15.5mm.  This is the night that I triggered.  The assumption being that the 15.5 would fully mature to 18mm in the following 36 hours.

I know they also monitor estradiol if there are cysts present on CD3.  If estradiol is high at this point, ovulation is not likely and the cycle is delayed until the next period, when usually, the cyst resolves on its own.

I believe it also correlates to uterine lining thickening.

Good luck! I hope you find some answers soon. <3

[lizbian]

pokey & justanotherjenny wow you guys are so knowledgeable, the wealth of information on here is fantastic, so thanks!

edit -sent a message to a couple of IVF clinics to start the ball rolling for June. Exciting! Does anyone else who is going the IVF route going for a package deal that offers 3 different cycles of trying?

Edited by lizbian - 2/27/13 at 2:00pm

[fmorris28]

Originally Posted by lizbian 

fmorris I hope AF comes soon for you so we can be insem buddies. I'm looking like 13/14th March. Unfortunately working a lot those 2 days - on the 14th teaching 9am-4pm then again 7.30-9pm so not much time to do an insem!

I sure do agree with that! I was up at 610 doing laundry, and was done by 8 and back to laying back down. Boy did I have some UNCOMFORTABLE pre-AF cramps, but still nothing. I hate the fact that she's still able to make you cramp like that with no action! NOT FAIR! The way things are looking now I'll insem around the 20th or 21st. I'll have a better idea when AF comes. Looks like the Inseminators are back on tour...sans Sphinxy (for good reasons though!)

[Sphinxy]

fmorris - No longer on tour, but president of your fan club.  Rock the house, Inseminators!

[fmorris28]

Sphinxy, Hey! Thanks for threadcrashing! I thought of you and put in that bit about the Inseminators lol Hopefully I'll be joining you on the Q&P board soon! Hope all is well! I'll be rocking this cycle.

AFM, Good News! First off, let meeh tell you all I don't feel comfortable talking to anyone else besides you all about mye CM lol! Anyway, I noticed pinkish in mye sticky CM which lets meeh know AF has just about arrived and then I'll be jumping into this cycle feet first! Can't wait!

UPDATE:So I've got this weird thing going on with Countdown to Pregnancy and FF. They're off by 3 days with the same info. I'm not sure what to think. HELP! Top is Countdown to Pregnancy and bottom is FF.

Edited by fmorris28 - 2/27/13 at 6:10pm

[esenbee2]

fmorris -wanted to threadcrash to throw in my input on the the two charts.  That is so strange why FF would mark your O at CD23, so far away from EWCM and +OPK....  Maybe throw in an S on your CM for CD23 and see what FF does?  But you have really high cover line on Count Down.  If it were me, I would go with CD20 as your O date.

[escher]

Hi Everyone,

Pokey and JustAnotherJenny: Thank you very much for responding and sharing your experience. My wife did have an ultrasound, and it showed one follicle at 15mm, so it makes sense from what you all say that since this is an unmedicated cycle and since she doesn't yet (or didn't yet on Tuesday) have a mature follicle her estrogen would still be low.

Fmorris: I agree that CD20 looks more like O day based on CM and the OPK, but I can see that CD23 could make sense based on temps. How confident do you feel about your temps?

Lizbian: It's exciting that you are getting the ball rolling for IVF (although I still hope you get pregnant next cycle and don't need it)! I don't know if clinics around here offer package deals exactly, but some of them do offer "Shared Risk" programs (like this one) that sound sort of similar.

AFM: My wife saw her acupuncturist yesterday, who did some points specifically to help boost her estrogen. I don't know if that helped or if it is just coincidence, but today the clearblue monitor said high (indicating an estrogen spike), so it seems like things are headed in the right direction. She'll go in for another ultrasound and estradiol test on Saturday. Her acupuncturist thinks that we'll end up doing an IUI this weekend or on Monday. Hopefully that ends up happening!

[fmorris28]

Esenbee, You know I wondered the same thing. I stuck in the S nd it took away mye crosshairs. I went ahead and did an override to make O the CD20. I knew what mye body was doing so when I checked it out I had a big  lol Thanks for the input!

Escher, I'm definately more sure about CD20 as well. Mye temping time has been more erratic this month, but I've got the alarm set so I shouldn't have any discrepencies forthcoming. Glad to see that acupuncture helped DW's estrogen. Woo! Good luck with the insem!

AFM, Well finally AFM showed up in full effect this morning!  I was so happy lol...for once! So today is CD1, I'll start clomid on CD5 and will probably be in for a follie scan..date TBD. I'm so excited. Officially back in a cycle :)

Edited by fmorris28 - 2/28/13 at 6:15pm

[JustAnotherJenny]

escher:  Glad to hear that it looks like the acupuncture did the trick! It is so magical and I'm such a proponent!  Fingers crossed the rest of the cycle goes off without a hitch and you have one great looking follie!

fmorris: Woo hoo! for AF!  (One of the rare occasions that we celebrate this little fact, I know!)  You are well on your way!

AFM: I have every symptom in the book, but I generally get them each cycle form the meds.  So, I'm not putting any weight on it.  7dpo today.  The trigger left my system 2dpo (6 days post trigger).  I tested this morning knowing full well it was entirely too early... obviously negative, but I like the reassurance that the trigger really is gone.  Beta is scheduled for 3/7, but I'm sure I'll be testing again on Saturday, just for the heck of it.

[escher]

Goodbye, February! Hello, March!

Come on over to March Queer Conceptions!

(Or should I say "March on over?" )