Aw Snap!!!!

I set my alarm for 7am since the drs office was calling between 7-7:30. I then proceeded to torture D out of his dream state. Apparently, if you make little noises in someone's ear it is very, very loud to them. Who knew????? ;P

They called around 8 so by then we were totally awake. We couldn't believe the news.

Now let me preface by saying that in the last 2 cycles the best results we had was 1-8 cell embryo and a couple 5 and 6's and the rest were all 4s. Today, we have SIX - 8 cells, 1- 6cell, 2-5cell and 7-4cell. The criteria for going to blastocyst at my clinic is 5- 8 cells so we are officially going to a 5 day transfer.

I am so stunned at the difference the co-culture has made. I wish they suggested it sooner. (Oh wait, I was the one who suggested it..but I digress.) We only expect to get 2 or 3 blasts to transfer, but the idea is that those will be the strong ones with no age-related abnormalities. Think lots of healthy growing embryonic thoughts will ya?

Day 2

The Day 2 results don't really say much usually. Except.......for the fact that I have this blog and can compare my day 2 results with my previous 2 ivf cycles. BONANZA!

OK so here it is:

IVF #1 IVF #2 IVF#3

......... ......... 1-5cell

2-4cell 1-4cell 3-4cell

3-3cell 3-3cell 5-3cell

9-2cell 11-2cell 7-2cell


Now THESE results are something to be excited about!!! (and also prove that my 2nd cycle with the Lupron protocol totally sucked!) I also just realized that for a cycle I thought had the least follicles of them all, we ended up with the most embryos. Wow! Now we just wait and hope the co-culturing continues to do its stuff and we have a good amount of 8-cells by tomorrow AM. We'll talk to the embryologist then and make the call on a 3 day or 5 day transfer.

Oooooo, did you feel that??? That was another twinge of hope. uh oh!

Go eggers!!!

Originally, I created this blog so that my friends and family could check on my "fertility status" without having to ask me all the time...and so that they could know what goes into this whole arduous process. But....I don't always think in those terms when I'm venting and ranting on a daily basis....it's more a stream of consciousness of my current state of insanity. So, when you see me next, please pretend I did not tell you about my "juicy" ovaries or how much I've been peeing lately! :P

Thanks to everyone who was checking today to see how my retrieval went. I blame the percocet and tylenol with codeine for my inability to put sentences together. The retrieval went well and I'm just resting and a little crampy now. After the past few days, it's a walk in the park. I was very glad to get those little eggers out. I told D I felt like a Jiffy Pop bag ready to burst...but at least I wasn't nauseous anymore!

The anesthesiologist started my pain meds before the doctor came in. First, I felt a little loopy, then I noticed that the lights in the ceiling looked like I was being pushed on a gurney down the hallway, but I wasn't moving. Pretty cool! Next thing you know, I woke up and it was over. I said how I hadn't even seen the doctor. The nurse told me that I had seen him and even said hi....then she corrected and said "actually you said 'Ciao". Em...barrrasssssinnnng!!!!

Apparently, they gave me a new med in my iv that they thought would help with my asthma. The effect was to totally dry out my mouth and throat. When I woke up, my lips were stuck to my gums and I immediately drank 2 full glasses of water. It's been almost 12 hours since the procedure and my voice is still dry and raspy. It's a good time to try out my version of "Betty Davis Eyes"!

Ok, ok, I'll cut to the chase, don't bury the lead I know, I know. So, although it was a lackluster start.....NINETEEN eggs were retrieved!!!! Of course, a bunch of these were more like 10mm than 16mm so they may not be mature enough to fertilize. We'll have the fertilization results tomorrow morning so cross your fingers!

From there, we'll see how they grow with the co-culture and decide how to proceed from there. Go eggers!!!!

CoCulture Smulture

D and I are back from a fantastic week of wine and friends in the Finger Lakes. We had such a great time. The view (and the wine) were totally relaxing. Yesterday was my second day home and also my scheduled co-culture biopsy. I've been pretty nervous about it ever since I read that a 1-2" area would be taken. I remember the tiny sample that was taken during my hysteroscopy and that was not fun.

I'm not sure if it was the new doctor or the percocet, valium and ibuprofen in my system, but it truly wasn't bad at all. I'm so so glad that I opted for this rather than the D&C idea. I KNEW that would be painful. Not to mention, I've read lots of research papers about the increase in embryo quality from co-culturing....some of which were written by my doctor.

So....sigh.....easy peasy lemon squeezy....for once!

Insert witty headline here.

You know that Star Trek TNG episode where they are stuck in the time loop and re-live the same day over and over again? Then, when they start to realize what's happening they can sense all the things they've never done before? That's where I am right now. It's all very familiar, yet different.

I went in for a morning blood test today (familiar) of 12 tubes (not familiar). The last time I had to give that much blood was during my original fertility testing. Half way through I started to get light-headed and the nurse actually used smelling salts on me. (I didn't know that stuff was even real.) So, this time I warned her and we went to a procedure room to lay down. No problem! (and I got some grape juice...sweet!)

So, I talked to the other nurse during my ultrasound (familiar) and found out the scoop on all the blood. Apparently they take nutrients from it and use it during the coculture to "feed the embryos" along with my endometrial lining (not familiar). Sounds gross but I'm very psyched about it! Not only have I read a lot on the internet about this procedure being very good for poor quality embryos and women my age, but one of them was written by my doctor. And, there's only a few states where they do co-culturing...I'm not sure why.

So I'm doing all the same types of things I did before, just for different reasons. I have the IVF process so down pat that it's strange to have to remind myself what to do next this time around.

Oh, off topic..... so then, after the u/s, the nurse almost made me cry. I was telling her that this was my last shot at IVF and she said that maybe it will be my last shot because I'll never, ever have to do it again because I'll be pregnant. Then she said something about having twins and that I deserved a 2 for 1 at this point. Chica, don't you know not to go there? We try not to let our minds go down that road too much, it's too hard to get back on the path of reality if we do.

I'm kind of amazed though and how close it all is to the surface, that one little comment like that can make me tear up. Unless I'm in the middle of a major hormonal drop, most of the time I seem to be going on day to day just living my life, working on my photography business, planning vacations, spending time with friends.....but then I eat a bag of chips and dip for no reason or I drink an entire bottle of wine with not much help from my husband. It's right there just below the surface...all the time. All the time. (very familiar)

the fun continues

All lowercase......nuf said

I'm in NC this week. My brother and his family rented a house here and he asked me too. It's so nice to get away, but it's also hard to get away with the limbo of IVF. I've been on the phone with my drs office countless times trying to coordinate what we should do for our next cycle. One person tells me it's not a problem, the next says "well you're not in town so I'm not sure this is going to work out". Frick people! I need to have a life! I can't just sit at home and wait to NOT be pregnant!

So, here I am. I spoke with the dr on Tuesday. There was a suggestion a few months ago about a new "idea" that doing a D&C could "reboot" your system and make your IVF more successful. Well, I've not been able to find anything out there (aka on the internet) indicating this is true. I've actually found lots of notes saying that the opposite might be true and the risks involved in doing a D&C. Honestly though, it's more of an emotional decision to do that procedure for me. It's not something I ever wanted to do once, but had to....much less CHOOSE to do!

After talking it over with my doctor, he didn't have any concrete evidence that this would help me....so we nixed the idea. I suggested another course of action (yeah I know, shouldn't the doctor be doing that?) and he was all for it. I suggested a doing a fresh cycle, letting all the embryos get to blastocyst stage (120 cells) and doing a co-culture biopsy. OK, in non-ivfer terms here is what that means. Instead of waiting 3 days and seeing if the embryos get to 6 or 8 cells, you wait 5-6 days and see how many make it to blastocysts. Blastocysts are much more likely to implant...but at my age, it's a risk. The other risk is that embryos do much better in the womb than they do in a petri dish. That's where the co-cultured biopsy comes in. In the cycle before my ivf cycle (which is what I'm working on now) they will do a biopsy and take some of my lining. They will freeze this, then put it in with my embryos next cycle to help them grow.

Studies have shown this to be very helpful, but it is still considered experimental. Still, it's much less experimental than a pointless D&C.

So, that's the plan. We're taking a chance that none will make it to blastocyst...but both D and I feel like we need to change it up. What we've been doing feels too much like a shot in the dark and we need to increase the odds. Cross your fingers! Away we go....again!