IVF Update

I apologize for not posting more this past week! A lot has happened and I'll try to sum everything up so everyone is up to date.

I started stims on 1/4. Initially I was on a dose of 75iu Menopur/225iu Follistim/5 units of Lupron. After my 3rd day of stims I got some bloodwork done and my levels were a little low, so they doubled my dose of Menopur. That was pretty unexpected and cost us an additional $800, but I'm glad they caught it early. So the rest of my stims were 150iu Menopur/225iu Follistim/5 units of Lupron. I've also been taking a prenatal with DHA, baby aspirin, and 600 mg of CoQ10.

I was trying to do the Avocado diet but honestly I just can't eat Avocado every day. I probably ate it 3 times during stims. But I ate mixed nuts every day and tried to put olive oil on all of my salads so I still had a good intake of monounsaturated fats. If you'd like to learn more about this diet, click here.

Overall this process really hasn't been so bad. The injections burned terribly, which I've been told is the Menopur. But as far as side effects go, I haven't really had any. I mean, besides the bloating of course. I was getting a few mild headaches but nothing that Tylenol couldn't take care of.

I stimmed for a total of 10 days. On my day 10 follicle scan, my RE was on the fence about whether or not I was ready to trigger. It seemed that half of my follicles were just a little too small. He told me that he would wait for my blood work to come back before making a decision. Later that day, I got a call from the IVF Coordinator that I had to take my last dose of stims "right now!" That was at 3:30 in the afternoon, so I had to leave work to go home and give myself the last injection of Follistim and Menopur (no Lupron this time). She said that I also needed to trigger at 7:30 pm that night and that we would do the retrieval as scheduled on Thursday.

So Thursday came around and I was the first patient scheduled for retrieval that day. I talked to my RE right before the procedure and told him I was worried about the Endometrioma interfering, and he told me not to worry and that he had a few tricks up his sleeve. Well apparently he did because he was able to retrieve a total of 30 eggs! I was in shock! Even the Embryologist was surprised. Of course not all of them were mature, but I was happy to have a good starting point.

The rest of the day after retrieval I just relaxed at home with a heating pad and I took a 3 hour nap. I've had some difficulty urinating and was feeling really tender but I've been told that's all normal and should go away after a few days. I was back to work on the next day.

I was anxiously awaiting the call from the Embryologist on Friday to find out how many eggs had been fertilized. I got the call around 1:30, and she told me that 18 of the 30 were mature, 16 had fertilized, and 14 had fertilized normally. I felt so happy and relieved! A part of me was so scared that we wouldn't have very good fertilization rates, so this was a huge relief. I'll get another update tomorrow to see how our embryos are doing. They'll be day 3 so hopefully we have at least half of them still developing normally.

We are scheduled for a 5 day transfer on Tuesday. I'm nervous but extremely excited. I'm really feeling positive and hopeful. I know that there's no guarantee, but I'm just trying to put good intentions into the universe and hopefully get a positive outcome. I've also been doing the Circle + Bloom IVF/IUI Mind-Body Program and that has been helping me immensely. I would highly recommend it (link in sidebar).

Now I'm doing nightly PIO shots and I added the estrogen patches today. I'm hoping my body is ready to host a little miracle in a few days! I'll update again after the transfer.