My Day From Hell - but would like your opinion PLEASE

Hi Ladies,

Today was day 4 of my stimulation cycle. I went in for blood and sono this morning. My blood pressure was up, and it was up last Thursday as well. The IVF nurse said I needed a medical clearance from my doctor or else the Anesteoligist would not put me under for my retrieval. I was frantic. I had high blood pressure in the past but lost a lot of weight and the past year it was good.

Anyway...I quickly got an emergency appointment today after work and my doctor put me on something called Inderal LA ( said they are ok for pregnancy..but do I feel confident about that, no) and said to take it for four days and come in on Thursday for a check. He seemed confident that it will lower it right away and then would give me my medical clearance. Now I am so nervous until Thursday, WHY ME! My retrieval is possibly scheduled for Monday, 1/14.

Back to my appointment...the nurse saw very TINY follicles..is that bad? She said it's not for being on the med for only 4 days so far. They uped my does starting tonight from 150 of Gonal F to 225 of it but my 75iu of Menopur will stay the same. I go back in on Wed again.

My levels went from this to this between last Thursday and today..does this look normal to you ladies? Why is my progesterone so different?

Thursday Monday
FSH - 4.67 10.3
LH - 1.17 1.1
Estradol - 38.9 69.2
Prog - 7.5 .7
*Why is progesterone so much lower...should it be??? Did I hear the nurse wrong? Unless you ask, you don't the blood results, I ASK!

Thanks for listening..I know this was WAYYY TOO LONGGG...

Keri

Re: My Day From Hell - but would like your opinion PLEASE

OK deep breath! Hopefully the elevated BP is just a fluke or is related to the stress of the whole process. If your GP seems confident that it will lower it quickly, I would take his word on it. Hopefully you won't need it during pregnancy.

As for the follicle size, on day 4 I had nada! Sure you could see them, but they hadn't grown much. By day 7- watch out! They woke up and really started growing. Today is day 10 and I have TONS of follies on each side. I was only on 200iu of Follistim and then they lowered me.

Your estradiol level is rising so that is good- it means you are responding to the meds. It will start going up quickly once your eggs start growing (mine went from 1100 to 3000 overnight ). Im not sure what the other #'s mean at this point in your cycle.

I hope they are able to figure this all out for you and you can get back to focusing on your cycle

Re: My Day From Hell - but would like your opinion PLEASE

deep breaths!! The tiny follicles are normal, its still very early.

I'll your blood pressure comes down, the entire process is very stressful, Im sure it doesnt help it.

Re: My Day From Hell - but would like your opinion PLEASE

Tiny follicles at this point are totally normal. Do you normally have a longer cycle? Even if they are giving your meds, if you have a longer cycle (31 days or so) than you will still take longer to grow those follies. But don't worry, they'll grow.

As far as your levels, I'm not really sure how they work. I think you should talk to your RE about the dropping progesterone, although that could very well be normal for all I know. Are they giving you progesterone suppositories after transfer and PIO between retrieval and transfer?

Re: My Day From Hell - but would like your opinion PLEASE

Where were you in your cycle when you had those tests done the first time? Progesterone will drop off around the time of AF through the first two weeks until ovulation, when it will rise again.
Progesterone is made by the corpus luteum after the egg is released. So its possible a little of it was left when you had the blood done last week, but was gone when you had it done this week.

I haven't done IVF, but I'm pretty sure they will put you on progesterone supplements anyway since you won't be ovulating naturally.

Re: My Day From Hell - but would like your opinion PLEASE