Fert Report Results

25 Eggs
21 Mature
19 Fertilized

Hooray! I have 19 embryos growing in the lab. I won't hear anything again from the clinic until Monday when they call to set up my transfer. I am able to call them if I want to check-in on the embryos but am thinking I don't want to do this. Too much stress worrying about the day to day results and what they mean. I'll either have embryos to transfer on Tuesday or I won't. Stressing about it all weekend isn't going to change the results. (I'm zen now but we will see how I'm feeling this weekend)!
Thanks for all your support thus far. It's been amazing.

They Got Some Eggs

25 to be exact. We are thrilled and hoping for an amazing fert report tomorrow! I'm at home resting but feeling really good. Tomorrow can't get here fast enough.

Retrieval Scheduled

It will be Thursday am. Still lots of follies today. The biggest was around 20 and most fell into the 17-18 range. E2 was 2100 yesterday--apparently gan.irelix is supposed to lower e2. I'm wondering if I should be nervous...
Onto trigger this evening. The nurse gave us a nice big mark to put the shot into. Can't believe that I'm finally here...dang it's been a long haul.

Trucking Along

These follies are growing slow! My RE keeps telling me that its common with the protocol I'm on and that all my follies are close together which is awesome. I guess Gani.relix will slow the largest ones down. Apparently my ovaries are kicking this cycle, which was nice to hear. I've got 15 around 17-18 and 9 right behind at 15-16. I'm going for another appointment tomorrow to see where we are at. At the earliest retrieval will be Thursday but it's looking more likely that it will be Friday.

Wanted to send a congrats to my fellow BT'er Stinky who found out today that she had a healthy embryo to transfer and is now PUPO!

Milestone Passed

I am actually going to get to retrieval! All went well today. I've got a lot of follicles....I'm not sure exactly how many because I was so excited seeing them all I forgot to ask. I think it was somewhere around 16 plus about 7 more measurable but smaller. So, we'll see. Either way RE said this is not a good or adequate stim but an excellent stim (from lil old me)! Apparently my body just did not like the suppression from the long l.uteal protocols. One more follie check appointment on Monday and it's looking like retrieval will be on Wednesday!

This may be the protocol for me!

Today I had 13 follies between 10-11 and at least 6 right behind at 9. RE is much happier with my response this time and said we seem to have found the protocol that works for me. We still have retrieval scheduled for Tuesday (retrieval--can't believe I may actually get there) but it's more likely to get pushed to Wed or Thursday. Happy to have gotten this far and hoping the follies keep growing. Next appointment is Saturday.

After 4.5 days of stims

I have 16 follicles in the running. They are all right around the same size 7-8. There may be more or there may be less--apparently it's difficult to tell when they are at this stage. Either way, it sounds like I'm at least at or above the results of my previous cycles. So, yay for that and may the follies continue to grow.

I also had blood drawn for my e2 levels. I'm not super concerned about them as I'm on gan.irelix this go round and from what I've read this can screw with e2 results. So far, so good.

One patch and a pregnancy test later..

I started my estrog.en patches yesterday and will head in for a pregnancy test tomorrow (no doubt it will be a bfn). Then I head off to my first appt of this ivf cycle for ultrasound #1 and a shot of gan.irelix. Stims officially start on Friday with a retrieval happening in mid-November. Hoping that my ovaries do what they are supposed to do this time and that all of my resting follicles grow--rather then just a few. This is it for chances with our insurance so hoping for the best.

I'm Really Doing This Again

I just got my new calendar. I promise blog followers that I will actually get to retrieval this cycle--even if my RE isn't happy with the number of eggs. After much back and forth, I decided to switch my insurance (this will allow for 1 more covered ivf). The new insurance kicks in January 1st, so this cycle all must be done before then. Mr. F wants us to have another shot with my eggs if this cycle doesn't work. After 2 tries--if they both fail--then he's ready to move onto to donor egg. It's good to have a plan--though this process has definitely taught me that any plan in re fertility needs to be flexible.
This cycle will be a bit different then the others. I will be starting Climara patches next weekend and Ganirelix/Stims a few days after. The hope is that my body will respond a bit better to this type of stimulation. We shall see I guess--I'm just crossing my fingers that I get at least the response I was receiving from my previous tries.

It's been awhile

Wow, it's been awhile since I've posted. Mostly, because nothing is going on...I'm still just trucking a long waiting for the next ivf to start. I'm in the midst of my natural tracking cycle. I'm still a little unclear on how the next cycle is going to work. Apparently I'm doing late luteal phase---I used dr. g.oogle and didn't find much. Right now, the best guess is that I will go in for retrieval sometime in November.
Mr. F and I have been struggling over whether or not we want to switch insurance (so that we can give this another try if necessary). With co-pays & pgd it would probably cost us around $5k to do another cycle. This may sound strange--but I'm not really sure that I would want to spend the $5k on my eggs again. I'm leaning more towards just keeping the same insurance and if need be putting that $5k towards a donor egg cycle. Does that sound logical to anyone else? My open enrollment ends in a few weeks...so a decision needs to be made rather soon.

Getting Back on Track

I'm finally starting to feel a bit like my old self again. I stepped back considerably from the ttc/infertility issues that are such a big part of my life. What that means is I've devoted less time to thinking about it and less time to blogging and participating in online communities. I've been doing a lot of soul searching.

I've mentioned before that I've gained quite a bit of weight--this is primarily after my BT was discovered and during the subsequent treatments. Even though I've known that it's not healthy and I need to lose it--a part of me has held back. One, I stress eat so eating has helped calm me. However, the perhaps bigger revelation is that I think I'm doing it on purpose. When trying to figure out why I was no longer getting pregnant, the thing that always came to mind was my weight. Really, it's the only thing that's changed in the last year. Plus, I'm just so frustrated with my body--it's not able to do what comes so easy to the majority of the population. So, I'm beginning to think that eating and generally not taking care of myself was part depression (obviously) and part getting back at myself/preventing myself from potentially getting pregnant again. I mean who really wants to get pregnant when the most likely outcome is a miscarriage. After all, I'm four for four now.

That's why I'm proud of myself now. I'm pulling myself out of my funk. I'm eating well--or should I say like I normally did before all this crap happened. I've lost some weight and I'm consistently working out. I'm starting to feel better and better about myself. Really, it's about time. While getting pregnant still scares me--really it's more the potential outcome that scares me--I want it to happen. I feel like I'm in a better space overall. I think my hope is back and I'm hoping I continue to hold onto it.

Delayed Again

I feel like every post of mine for the couple of months has included the words delayed or cancelled. Because Mr. F and I have decided we are not going to let this rule our lives....we have been busy planning trips and vacations for the fall. Of course, ivf was supposed to be done twice by now so little did we know these trips would affect what is still our first shot at ivf. Sigh... Well, my body has decided not to cooperate and ovulate when it's supposed to and has now delayed the October cycle. We are looking at November now. I'm starting to feel like this just might not be in the cards for us. It's just been one thing after another. All I can think about is all these months we've wasted on treatments. Maybe, if we hadn't went this route, we would already be pregnant naturally. Instead I've been in a constant loop of various hormones and bcps. All of which have done nothing for me but make me gain so much weight I look like a small whale. I guess there's really nothing I can do at this point except wait. Wait for the next AF to start a new cycle tracking and then wait for the AF after that to hopefully start an ivf cycle in which my body will actually cooperate. Hopefully this will all be done before the holiday season so that my life can get back to some semblance of normal.