Seventeen!!!!!

That's right, they got 17 eggs!!! Yay!!! As of Saturday, I only had 13 follicles that were measuring up, BUT he got 17 eggs!

I am so excited. I feel like this is a really good, strong number. I'm praying for some perfect, H.I.P (High implantation) embryos.

I'll be having a 3 day transfer of 2 embryos on Thursday. They'll call me tomorrow with the fertilization count. All this waiting...it drives me mental!

I was thinking this morning that the official 2 week wait starts today, but I'll wait for the transfer and then annoy you all with my countdown.

I also wanted to say "THANK YOU!" to all of my friends (online and offline), and my family for all of the encouragement and love. I couldn't get though all this without you.

Trigger!

They finally called me at around 2:00. My estrogen was 2880, and I have 13 Follies, which I knew, all over 15 and I triggered at 7:30pm tonight. That means that I have to be at the clinic at 7:00am Monday morning for my egg retrieval....Yay!

I'm just sooo ready. And it'll be nice to not have to do a shot tomorrow night. My first IVF, with Wyatt, I triggered on a Saturday night, too.

So, here goes. I'm praying those eggies are getting even more mature and they'll be in fantastic shape on Monday.

I'm looking for some opinions. Should I do the acupuncture again with the transfer? I just can't decide.

Hi from Barnes and Noble...

Things are progressing fantastically! As of this morning, I have 7 follies on the right and 6 on the left. I'm not sure the exact measurements, but I am waiting for them at this very moment. I had a 10:00 appointment at the clinic, which is about 1 1/2 hours from my house. I can't do the off site monitoring on the weekends. So, here I am, waiting for my results at Barnes and Noble. I am hoping they trigger me. The reason I'm still here waiting is because I am out of Gonal F, and I have such a high co-pay that there was no way I was going to order it if I didn't need it. The pharmacy is up here, too. So.....I wait.

I'm really feeling great about this cycle. I know I keep saying that!!! Lucky 13....right?

Stims Day 5

Hi all! I know I've been quieter thus cycle, but honestly, it's because I am so freakin' busy! It seems like everything is swirling around us right now. I'm in the middle of a major change as the tenant who's been with my husband's family the longest (45 years!!!) is moving and I've been showing the space to new tenants, we have numerous other issues with our other properties that I'm also trying to iron out, I had to finish our personal taxes and I still have to finish my grandmother's tomorrow! And, oh, did I mention taking my father-in-law two Doctor's appointments already this week and it's only Tuesday? And then there's work, too. Oh yeah, and I'm on day 5 of stims!!! Yippee!!!

I had blood work and ultrasound on Monday. Here's where we are at: Estrogen 320- last cycle I was only 90 on day 3, first cycle I was 225. So, this seems to be good. There were three measurable follies on the right- 1 @20mm (the nurse said this is a left over from last month?) 1@ 14mm, 1@12mm. And there are multiple not measurable yet. On the left there are multiple not yet measurable. Multiple means at least 5 and up to 10. This is sounding good. Of course C is worried about OHSS, but I'm not even going there! He did drop my Gonal F to 300, and kept luveris @ 75, and lupron  @ 5. I have blood and ultrasound tomorrow. I'm very anxious to see where I'm at. I wonder how long I'll stim for.

I know I keep saying this, but I have a good feeling about this cycle! Go follies!!!!

Egg Retrieval

Today was a good day, aside from the fact that I couldn't sleep last night and I had to get up at 5:30.

Sooo...when Dr. B came in to talk about how many eggs they were looking at he said that he would have liked to see me get more follicles on the left. There were 6 mature follicles total (5 mature on the right and 1 mature on the left.) and some smaller ones as of my ultrasound on Monday morning. He was hoping for about 6 eggs, but he said it might be only 5. C was very upset. Dr. B said that it was a good result and all we need in the end is 2 good embryos. C is ALWAYS the glass is empty guy.

Well, guess what....he got 10 eggs!!! He said that some more had come up on both sides!! Yay!We were really surprised. And now we just sit tight. They'll call tomorrow after 3 to let us know how many fertilzed and to tell us when to come in on Saturday. I just realized that 14 days from today, I will know if I'm pregnant or not!!! I'm very excited.

I am still exhausted from the anesthesia and the complete lack of sleep, so I'm already in bed.
Can't wait for Saturday. I haven't decided if I'm going to do bed rest, but I think maybe just for the weekend.

Trigger!!!

At the ultrasound this morning, I had another one on the left. That makes 2 left and 6 right. That one on the left came up literally overnight, so, who knows there may even be a few more by Wednesday. That's right, I said Wednesday!!! They told me to trigger tonight at precisely 10:00pm. I made C do it (Ovidrel 250) at exactly 10:00. I was so nervous for some reason. I checked the syringe a million times because first I was nervous that it wasn't in the box, then I started to freak out about the huge air bubble in it. Is that normal? It is by the way, I watched the video and the one they were using had it, too.

And now for some reason I'm in panic mode. I feel nervous about everything. I'm nervous about Wednesday, and then I'll be nervous about the eggs fertilizing and the embryos growing. Ugh. I find myself thinking the worst. I'm going to try to focus on positivity tomorrow. I know that I need to go into this with my head straight. Just imagine what I'm going to be like during the two week wait!!! 

I'm exhausted, maybe from all my worrying? More tomorrow...

Hmmmm...

Just a quick update. I went for blood and ultrasound today, and I still only have 7 measurable follies, but she did say that there are some coming up in size that may get in there. The one on the left has gone from 12.5 to 15.5, so that's good. And on the right they are now ranging up to 18.5.

I think I get what the doctor is doing with this cycle. I know last time that I was slow to rise in the beginning and now that I'm remembering, I'm pretty sure he increased my Gonal f and then I went in for an ultrasound and surprisingly I was told to trigger that night. Then, three days after the embryo transfer, I suddenly started having incredible pain on my right side and ended up in the hospital. They couldn't definitively say it was my ovary without a cat scan, and my white blood cells were off, possibly indicating an infection. I refused the cat scan, it would have killed the embryo, and there would have been no chance for that cycle to have worked. C was amazing. There were a few times I almost gave in, because of the pain, and I was scared. They also had me on some crazy drug that is like ten times stronger than morphine, so I was also out of my mind! Even though my ovaries were enlarged, and there were multiple large cysts on the right one, they insisted on keeping me overnight. They wanted to do exploratory surgery when I refused the cat scan. I refused that, too! They discharged me later the next day and I was ok in a few days.

Anyway, my husband was very emphatic with the RE that he needed to do everything he could to avoid this again, and the RE confessed that I rose really quickly in the end. So, I'm guessing that he's taking the slow and steady approach this time. That's fine with me. I have no intentions of going into the hospital again until it's to give birth to a live baby!!!

Today.....

Why is it that the people at my lab suck so much at drawing blood? I look like a drug addict with my bruised arms. And the lady who's been doing my ultrasounds is just plain mean. She seems annoyed that she has to do them. Can you tell that I am grumpy today? I don't go to the IVF Clinic for this stuff, because it's an hour and a half away, but they are so much nicer there!!! And good at the blood drawing.

And now, for the results!...I have 6 follicles on the right side ranging 14-17.5, and one on the left at 12.5. She said there are a bunch more that are still small on both sides, but they could measure up. They've got me coming in for an ultrasound and blood again on Sunday. Which means that I get to go to the clinic. Long drive, but at least it'll be a nice environment.

I have no idea how many I had last time. I must have had this idea that it would work, period. I had no idea what was good or bad, or how many eggs I should want. They only did 2 ultrasounds last time, and I'm pretty sure the first one wasn't until day 7 of stims, and then one on day 9. I was triggered on day 9. I do remember the RE saying that I started out slowly, but rose very quickly in the end. Somehow I seem to think that there were 12 measurable follicles when they did the retrieval. I know they got 8 eggs and 5 fertilized with ICSI. We transfered 2 and froze 3.

Of course, C got me all nervous today with asking all his usual questions. He can't believe that I don't remember about last time's numbers, and he's worried that we won't get enough. In my mind we only really need two in the end. So enough so that we could freeze 1 or 2 more would be great. I'm sure it'll be fine. I would like to have enough frozen so that we could do a thaw and be relatively certain that we would get 2 out of it. My RE was very discouraging about us thawing the 3 we had left for this cycle. He said I have much better chance of getting pregnant with the fresh cycle, like a 25% chance with the frozen compared to 50% with the fresh. He also said that a lot of the time when you thaw out 3, there's a chance that only one of them will survive them thaw. We plan to try again for baby number 3 after this baby, and then we will use the frozen embryos.

Sooo...I'm thinking that I might get triggered Sunday! If not Sunday, then Monday. Just a note...if they trigger me Monday, the baby's due date will be my birthday!

I'm thinking all good thoughts and like my friend D said today "Picture it happening!".  And I am.