Eight is my new favorite number.

I haven't posted much about this IVF cycle. Well haven't posted anything about it. I feel like I talked SO much about the last cycle that it made it so consuming. Then having it fail, learning of my DOR diagnosis, and   having to tell EVERYONE that we talked with about it that it didn't work made me go into the closet with this one. My interwebz friends know what's going on as well as a very few select and wonderful people in real life. And that was enough for me this go around. I just didn't want to update everyone every single day and talk about it non stop. I think it would have made me batty.

So here's my update all in one post! We maxed out on stims from day 1. And lemme tell ya, that's a lot of drugs. LOTS. Thank goodness for insurance cause I probably blew through $8,000 in drugs this cycle. Yikes! Things started out slowly- but started improving relative to last cycle. My e2 levels were rising better, my follicle counts were higher, my attitude was better. We triggered Tuesday and had retrieval today.

8 eggs! Holy Shit! 8! I was hoping for anything over 4, but I was so relieved when the nurse told me 8. I'm in quite a bit more pain today than last time, but I'm taking my vicoden and rolling with it. I'm going to go into work tomorrow and just see how I feel. I should get the fert report tomorrow as well. At my last monitoring appointment on Tuesday they were all really close in size so I'm hoping that will lead to high numbers of mature eggs. J was also scheduled for a surgical extraction of sperm as a back up this morning and based on the SA from yesterday and the fact that we have frozen sperm as a back up- it was cancelled and we were told it wasn't necessary. So far- all good news. We're planning for a 3 day transfer on Sunday unless we hear otherwise.

Cross everything. Everything you have. I'm dangerously hopeful.

Ohhhhh...so THAT'S what those look like.

Yes, this is mine. But it's just from trigger. I just wanted to see what one really looked like. I've never seen one before. I thought they were fictitious like unicorns and leprechauns. 

Triggered!

Just triggered! Egg retrieval is scheduled for 8:30am Saturday.

I'm feeling much better. After the medication debacle, I went in this morning and had 6 good follicles. 6! 6 sounds amazing compared to 4. I felt much better. So many girls have been telling me amazing success stories about cycles with poor response or low numbers of eggs/follicles. So I'm feeling more hopeful after that.

And just in case you thought this was all going smoothly- here's what happened tonight. This cycle is seriously like a total comedy of errors. The only drugs I got yesterday was my Lupron Trigger. Today (at 5pm) when the nurse was giving me instructions she is talking about 10,000 iui's of HcG. I told her I only had Lupron and all along I was told I'd be triggering with Lupron. Well apparently the RE changed his mind today and wanted me to use HcG. The nurse calls in a script to the only local pharmacy that has these drugs which is 7 miles from where I was and they closed at 6. Well in DC rush hour speak- I wasn't sure I was going to make it. I dragged J out of the restaurant where we were meeting for Valentine's Day dinner and drove like a bat out of hell through traffic. 7 miles took me 45 minutes.  And I got there just under the wire. Unreal. This whole cycle is a total cluster fuck! It really will be a miracle if anything works out on Saturday. 

Long Overdue Update

I've been in for monitoring every day since Thursday. There are only really 4 follicles and they are growing super slow. My e2 is still rising, but still very slow. After having a total break down with the nurse on Saturday- I talked to my nurse on Monday and told her I wanted to speak to the RE. So Tuesday J and I went into another office and the RE did my ultrasound. He told me he thinks I have DOR (duh!) but he encouraged us to move forward with the cycle. He said he thinks we'll get 5-6 eggs (hopefully) and that we still have a chance at success. So we decided to move forward. Based on this morning's ultrasound, I will most likely trigger tomorrow for a Saturday retrieval.

If all of this wasn't craptastic enough- I realized last Friday that I was running out of meds. I called the pharmacy which I didn't know was located in Boston and already shut down because of the snow. I had to go to MD and pay $1500 out of pocket for drugs. I called Monday to get a refill of Gonal F and Menopur and to order my trigger shot. They ordered them to be delivered today. When I picked up the box- all that was in it was the trigger shot. So now I'm left with not enough Menopur to make it through tonight. I really have been holding it together through all this and now I can't stop crying. What if this is the thing that just throws this whole in the shitter? I just want ONE thing to work out. I don't need all of them, but just one would be great.

I talked to the nurse on call at the RE and she called the on call doc. They assured me that I'll be fine, but everything else has gone wrong, so now of course I'm sure this isn't helping. I'll know tomorrow what time we'll trigger and if we are definitely set for retrieval on Saturday. 

Trigger!

Late last night- 12:45am- this is what was going on in my house.

<------First we drew up meds. On the left is the Novarel (hCG) or Trigger. On the right is the special sauce (my husband's name for it) that you mix with it. You can see our sheet of instructions in the background. Never have I ever mixed meds before so I think we were both a little nervous.

And then we broke out the needle. Whoa. That sucker was big. I'm very used to injections- I get one once a week for arthritis meds, but those are teeny tiny sub-q needles. This was a big fat intramuscular needle. Ouch. ----------->

<-----And there is my J with my trigger all ready to put that bad boy right in my butt. Ha ha ha. Well for real, though- it did go kind of in my butt- more like the lower hip/upper butt area. He did a great job. It didn't hurt hardly at all. We were right on time at 12:45.

I went in this morning to see if things were working out as they should and Dr. P (partner of Dr. G) who will do my retrieval this weekend says my follie is big and perfect. Everything is looking exactly as it should.

PHEW.

So tomorrow we go in at 9am. J will give his sample prior to retrieval to check for good sperm. If we're all clear there (please please please please) then retrieval will be at 10:45.

Somehow this all feels like the very first cycle. Like this is our first REAL chance at having a baby.