Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Catching up with old friends, infertility style!

I know that I've been gone for a while, but please forgive me because I've been going through a whirlwind. I started this blog as a therapeutic means of dealing with my infertility. As I became more used to the idea of having infertility and we waited to win the lottery (in order to pay for our IVF), there wasn't as much to vent about and less therapy was needed.  But now I have a totally new topic to vent, yell, and scream about. But first let me catch you up.

The last post told you that Kevin and I were planning to do an IVF session in October.  We were able to get our meds at a reasonable price.  We were able to save enough money to pay for the cycle by doing yard sales and borrowing from retirement.  We figured this was a good enough reason to postpone retirement. So we started our adventure on Friday October 18.  We went for a baseline ultrasound and things looked good.  We had a decent amount of follicles and the uterine lining was nice and thick.  Kevin gave me the first shot of Menopur that night.  I had to have 6 vials of Menopur per shot.  We anticipated having to do 12 nights of shots because my AMH was so low. Kevin continued to give me shots Saturday, Sunday and Monday nights. On Tuesday October 22, we went back to the doctor to monitor the progress my ovaries were making. We were doing well.  We had more follicles than we anticipated.  Of course, they weren't all mature but things were looking promising. I had to give blood so they could test my estradiol and progesterone levels.  They called later that afternoon and told us that my progesterone level was too high.  It was 2.3. They told me to start the Ganirelix to prevent me from ovulating. I had to go back to Dr. D's office the next day to have my blood tested again. If my progesterone level rose at all, we would have had to cancel the cycle.

Why is the progesterone level so important? Progesterone is the hormone that thickens the lining of the uterus.  When your progesterone gets to a certain level, it signals your brain to "ovulate."  Well, obviously, in IVF we don't want my body to listen to itself. We want it to respond to the commands of the medicines.  Since we were only 3 days into the cycle and didn't have nearly enough mature follicles we didn't want that progesterone level to go up another smidge.

On Wednesday October 23, my progesterone levels went down to 1.4. Whoooooooooooooooo HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  Kevin and I were so excited because that meant that we could keep going. So we continued both the Menopur and Ganirelix until Friday October 25. We went for what ended up being our last ultrasound.  We had great follicles and a lot of mature ones at that. Again, we tested the estradiol and progesterone levels. The progesterone level was up again.  It was 2.7.  Now remember that we were a couple more days into the cycle. So if the level stayed at 2.7 for the rest of the cycle that would have been fine. But I had to go back Saturday October 26 to test again.  That day it was back down to 1.9.  Speaking of Roller Coaster... So Dr. D told us to go ahead and trigger that night and get ready for the retrieval on Monday October 28. (Side note: The trigger shot is 10,000 units of HcG (aka the pregnancy hormone) that starts the ovulation process.  It is very time sensitive and must be done as close to a specific time as possible.)

Monday morning: We went for the retrieval. They were able to retrieve 13 eggs.  We were super excited because that exceeded all of our expectations. In fact Dr. D said "it was a stupendous day."  They called us the next day to tell us that 10 of those 13 eggs fertilized and they were able to do conventional fertilization.  (Conventional fertilization is when they put 50,000 sperm on each egg and let them fight to the death.  May the best sperm win!) They expected because of my low AMH to have to do ICSI but luckily they didn't have to. (ICSI is when they suck a couple of good looking sperm into a straw and insert one sperm into each egg. Basically, the embryologist is a million dollar  matchmaker.) After waiting 5 days, we went to Dr. D's office for the transfer. Before we got there I had to drink 32 ounces of liquid so that I would have a full bladder.  Otherwise, they wouldn't be able to see where to put the embryo. We found out that we had 5 embryos left.  It's natural to have fewer embryos on day five than what you start with on day 1.  Ending up with 50% of the embryos that you started with is a pretty good percentage. We decided only to transfer 1 embryo. After the transfer I had to lay there for 20 minutes.  With a full bladder!!!!  I only made it 10 minutes.  But I climbed back on the table to lay the remaining 10 minutes. Then we had to wait, AGAIN!!  We had to wait 9 days to find out whether that one embryo decided to "stick" around. 

Finally, Monday November 11! PREGNANCY TEST DAY!! I went to have my blood drawn that morning and they would call later that afternoon with the results. When they finally called, I was terrified.  You would think that someone who has been waiting to be pregnant for so long would break their neck trying to get to the phone.  But quite the opposite, not this chicken. I heard the phone ringing and just ignored it.  I was scared to death that the nurse would say "I'm sorry but negative." Finally, I found Kevin and we called the nurse back.  We sat on hold for 10 minutes waiting for the nurse.  It just seemed fitting.  As if we had not waited long enough!  She finally came on the line and told us that she was so happy to tell us that we were PREGNANT!!!

We were elated.  We couldn't believe it.  We drove straight to the grocery store to buy a HPT so that I could see a positive.  Funny thing is that when I went to check on the HPT results, my heart started pounding and I was scared that it would be negative even though the Dr's office had already confirmed. We drove to tell friends and family.  It was impossible to keep it a secret because everyone knew that we were doing the cycle.  After a week of being pregnant, EVERYONE I knew knew we were pregnant. The had to wait a week and go back for another pregnancy test. Because the miscarriage rate was so high still we had to go make sure we were still pregnant.

November 19, 2013.  I went for the normal morning blood draw.  We waited for the normal afternoon phone call. Kevin and I were both working. So when I got the phone call, I let it go to voicemail and called Kevin to come up to my office.  Once he got there, we listened to the news. 

Then I cried!

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