JellyBear
LIF Infant
Member since 6/10 260 total posts
Name:
Thinking positive thoughts!
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Sharing my ongoing IVF Journal in case it can help anyone! UPDATE: STARTING IVF ROUND 3!
I decided to copy and paste my ongoing IVF journal since it might help others who are just starting the process or who are contemplating it. I included links to how to take the mentioned injections and tried to give a good overview of the process. Please feel free to FM any questions. Good luck to everyone!
MY IVF JOURNAL
And… action! As in the kind of action I never in a million years thought I'd be taking! But mama wants another baby, dammit! After three failed IUIs, here I am — IVF territory. Today marks the official beginning of the process for me. It begins with my period, right here, right now on Jan. 14. Consents are signed, mammo and gyn papers sent, doctors have given clearance… I'm so ready, let's do this! Now, what do we do first? Nothing? What? We wait for ovulation to pass...
Ugh! I hate waiting.
Jan. 31, CD 18, ovulation is confirmed and I start popping Estrace once a day. It will make sure everything is quiet before stimming begins. My advice: Don't Google it! The first word that you'll see is CANCER. Of course I Googled it! The regrets and second guesses begin immediately.
Estrace every night until my period.
Feb. 9, CD 1… Now it really begins.
On Feb 10, CD 2, I go in for blood and sono. Starting stim meds tonight. Exciting! Terrifying!
I will take two injections, Follistim 300 and 2 vials of Menopur, for the next four nights and then go for blood and sono again to find out my next move. I'm taking this one step at a time because the whole picture is TOO DAMN OVERWHELMING. They tell me to expect to be on stim meds for 10-12 days. Aight. Bring it.
Injections done with trembling hands, and yet, it wasn't as bad as I was anticipating. AT ALL.
My retrieval is currently estimated to be around Feb. 21, but it all depends on how I respond to meds.
Feb. 14, my Follstim is lowered to 225. I didn't ask why specifically and immediately regret it after I hang up. Then I decide to just enjoy being in a fog of ignorance for once.
Feb. 15, I wake up in the middle of the night with a death virus. Stomach cramping, major bathroom issues, aches, chills, total weakness… Yep, I'm definitely dying. "I knew I shouldn't have messed with all these meds" is my first thought. I skip my monitoring appt. because there is no way in the world I can make it there without a diaper.
Can I even take meds tonight? I'm so devastated by the idea that I might not be able to carry through with this cycle. I call the nurse, who assures me 1.) this really is a stomach bug and has nothing to do with the meds and 2.) that I can take injections as long as my fever is under 101. I take the injections.
Feb. 16, I muster up all my "I am woman, hear me roar" power and get my sorry ass to monitoring. All looks good. I say a special thank you to God for helping me not to poop on the table. I have five follies, all close in size. Five? That sucks. How big are they? No idea. I suppose that would have been nice to know, but I don't care what size! I just want to get the hell out of there and back into bed. I'm told to start Ganirelix. I take it as soon as I get home. I later get a phone call telling me to take a second Ganirelix injection.
Feb. 17, back at monitoring. Follies — there are now 7 — are measuring (Right side) 16 ½, 15 ½, 15, 14 and (Left side) 15, 14, 14.
Feb. 18, back at monitoring and feeling almost like a real person again. Follies — there are now 8! — are measuring (Right side) 17 ½, 16 ½, 16 ½, 15 ½, 12 ½ and (Left side) 18, 13, 11 ½. I'm told to take the trigger shot at 9pm exactly. What??? Momentarily panic that doc is rushing it and I'm going to wind up with too many immature eggs, then calm myself by remembering I never went to medical school.
Okay, so it was the dreaded butt shot tonight — I was wondering when I'd be encountering this part! I was seriously about to melt-the-eff-down before injecting it. My husband was on hand to help, but my anxiety level was so high, I knew no matter how well he did it, I was going to be screaming at him. Oh no, this control freak needed to plunge that needle into her muscle her damn self! And you know what, turns out it really was nothing to freak out over. Don't be fooled by the long-ass needle, it probably looked much worse than it felt.
Feb. 19, back at monitoring for blood only.
Feb. 20, retrieval day! 10 eggs retrieved. Woo!! Where'd they all come from?
Feb. 21, fertilization report. 8 out of 10 eggs were mature. 7 out of 8 fertilized (3 of 3 with ICSI and 4 out of 5 without). Still so sore and have so much gas, it feels like I'm recovering from major surgery. I definitely wasn't expecting this.
Feb. 23, day three! All 7 are still thriving and are in the process of being frozen. I now have to decide if I'm going to do genetic testing on this lot (whatever makes it to day 5) or wait to send out for testing until I have more embryos and therefore do another round of IVF first. Statistics show only 30-50% of embryos make it to day 5, which is where they need to be for testing. That means I might only have 2 or 3 embies to send out for testing if I don't do another IVF cycle first. Tough decision.
Feb. 24, frozen in time! All 7 embies were successfully cryo-preserved. Leaning towards doing genetic testing without doing another IVF cycle first.
Feb. 25, forgotten about and angry. So I spoke with my doctor two days ago regarding whether or not I should do another IVF cycle before sending my embryos out for PGS. I asked him if there is any information about how they're doing at day 3 that would help give him an idea of how many will likely survive to day 5. He said the detailed report would definitely give him a good feel for what might be come day 5 and that he'd call me the next day (yesterday) with that information since he didn't have it in front of him. Well, he never called. I just called the office and was told he is now on vacation. I guess he's really invested in my success. So angry right now.
So my doctor just called FROM VACATION! He was totally apologetic about forgetting to call me yesterday and he clearly was genuinely upset about it. He gave me all the information I was looking for and really took his time on the phone with me, which I really appreciated. I'm leaning towards sending out this batch for PGS without doing another IVF cycle first.
Feb. 29, finally recovered. It took ten days, but I think I finally feel back to normal since the egg retrieval.
March 3, CD 1. During this cycle genetic testing will be done on however many of my 7 embryos make it to day 5, I'm just waiting to get my scheduled slot time for the testing. The hope is that next cycle I will have a frozen transfer.
March 17, embryo samples are currently being tested. I got the news today that out of our 7 embies, only 2 made it to testing. Feeling disappointed and discouraged and of course now wishing I would have done another round of IVF before having embies tested. I know the odds are against us here, but please pray we have at least one normal ebryo.
March 28: One. Normal. Embryo. We have a normal embryo, folks! We only had two make it to blastocyst stage so that's all we had to send for testing. With only two to test, chances seemed pretty slim we'd get a normal one back at my age (40!), but we did! Now we're scheduling a FET.
March 30: Endometrial biopsy. I was terrified of this test and it was actually totally fine. Not nearly as bad as I was anticipating. I took FOUR Advil an hour before the procedure, so that helped.
April 12: CD 1. Finally! I will be doing a natural transfer this cycle. 
May 1: CD 20. Had my natural FET today. Praying this works. I start Endometrin 3x a day tomorrow and continue baby aspirin and prenatal as well. Pregnancy test is Friday, May 13th--you can't make this up!
Haven't been on in a while, but the above IVF cycle ended with a chemical pregnancy. The cruelest outcome if you ask me because for a couple of days I was actually pregnant.
Anyway, moving on now to IVF #2.
June 29: CD 18. Started Estrace. Will take until period shows up. Then go for monitoring on CD 2.
July 7: CD 2. Started the first of four consecutive Ganirelix injections.
July 11: CD 6. Started stim injections. Gonal F 300 and two vials of Menopur, both taken at night.
July 15: CD 10. Went to monitoring this morning and so far they're only seeing three follies. that more appear at my next monitoring session.
July 23: CD 18. Retrieval. It's a long and really unfortunate story, but due to the incompetence of the sono tech at my doctor's office, my retrieval was scheduled too late (lead follies were already 27mm and 28mm). I am devastated and angry to say the least. We ended up getting 7 eggs, only 5 were viable and 4 fertilized. All 4 were successfully cryopreserved. Onto the next cycle!
IVF NO. 3
Okay, so I'm shaking off the unfortunate events of last cycle and am optimistically looking forward. This will be another FREEZE ALL cycle. I have four embies in the bank and will build on that as much as I can before I do PGD and then hopefully a FET.
August 22: Today is CD 18 and I'll be starting Estrace until my period. The plan is to do a freeze all and move right to another cycle of IVF in November after which I hope to have lots of beautiful embies to send for PGD. This is such a long road.
Sept. 4: CD 2. I went in for monitoring and started stims. 300 Follistim and 2 menopur.
Sept. 7: CD 5. Monitoring. Continue with 300 Follistim and 2 menopur. Back in on the 9th for monitoring.
Sept. 9: CD 7. Monitoring. We've got follies, people! Right ovary: 14, 13, 11.5, 10 and five more smaller ones. Left ovary: 14, 13.5 and four more smaller ones.
Sept. 11: CD 9. Monitoring. Right ovary: 31(?) 18.5, 18, 15, 13. Left ovary: 15.5, 14, 10.5.
Sept. 12: CD 10. Monitoring Right ovary: 19, 18.5, 18, 13. Left ovary: 19, 18.5, 15.
Just got the call that tonight is HCG trigger night and retrieval will be on Wednesday morning. Prayers up!
Sept. 14: CD 12. Retrieval day. We got 10 eggs, praying for a good fertilization report tomorrow.
Sept. 15: Feritilization report. Out of 10 eggs, 7 were mature and only 3 fertilized. I'm so crushed by that number and just don't understand why such a low percentage fertilized.
IVF NO. 4
Aug. 26: CD 1
Aug. 27: CD 2: Monitoring. Started Ganirelix for four consecutive nights.
Aug. 31: CD 6: Started stims. 300 Follistim. 2 vials Menapur.
Sept. 3: CD 9: Monitoring. Seeing four follicles so far. Told to keep taking Follistim and Menapur and add Ganirelix. Back to monitoring in two days.
Sept. 5: CD 11:
Message edited 9/3/2017 4:10:30 PM.
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