Thursday, October 31, 2013

Beta #1 is in

Beta #1 came back at 14.6.  Not as high as I'd like, but it does mean that I am indeed pregnant.  The nurse reassured me that the number is not as important as the beta doubling in 48 hours.  So now it means I have a long 4 day wait for beta #2 on Monday, since my clinic won't order betas on the weekend.

I am trying to remain positive and focus on the fact that as of right now I am pregnant and my beta confirms this.  I can understand why some clinics don't give out beta information until after the second beta. It is hard not to focus on the number.

I stocked up on FRERs and a box of digis.  Hopefully I will continue to get positive HPTs and this will help keep me from going completely BSC this weekend.

I really need this baby to stick, I am in love already.

Wednesday, October 30, 2013

7DP5DT I dipped a FRER and ...

BFP!  OMG this really worked!

Now for the full story.  After staring at a faint ghost line on a wondfo all evening yesterday (yes, I am that crazy), I decided that I would pee on a FRER.  I never use a FRER because I hate the thought of wasting an expensive test on a BFN.  I bought them to confirm a positive on a wondfo.  So I wake up at 4:00 am and have to pee, so I grab a FRER and a wondfo and pee in a cup.  I dip the wondfo and watch the test develop.  It looks like a BFN, but then I could see another hint of a super faint line.  I felt like this can not be a real line, since it's still so faint and doesn't seem to be getting darker.

I decide to go ahead and dip the FRER just to confirm my suspicions that this cycle was a BFN. I watch the test start to develop and the control line pops up and then a faint second line pops up.  And it starts to get darker.  Cue the four letter words (I think the exact words that I said to myself were HOLY F*CKING SHIT, IT'S POSITIVE).

So telling the hubs... After over 2 years of TTC, 4 IUIs, and 2 IVFs; all plans for a cute announcement went out the window a long time ago.  So once I came out of shock of getting a positive test, I ran across the hall and flipped on the light in our bedroom (remember this is like 4:15 in the morning) and without waiting for him to fully wake up I yell, "What are you doing July 11th?" In his state of sleepiness says, "I don't know."  I reply "How about having a baby, boom!" And hand him the FRER.  Romantic right.  He looks at the test and agrees that he sees a second line (Not that I needed confirmation with this one.  My line eye is good, but I can't imagine that good of a line.).

The one worry point is that I never really tested out my trigger, but since I am 14 days past trigger and for all my IUIs my trigger was always out by 11ish days past trigger, I am pretty positive that this is not the trigger.  Plus this is a pretty decent line on a FRER.

Now the obligatory pee stick photo (The line is darker and pinker in real life):



Tuesday, October 29, 2013

6DP5DT

Still seeing super faint lines on wondfo tests (both this morning with FMU and this evening when I got home from work).  Part of me wants to be excited, but part of me thinks that these are just evap lines.  I think at least some of the lines were visible around the 5 minute mark, which is the time limit for reading a wondfo.  I mean if it were the real deal wouldn't the lines be getting darker?  DH said that he saw the line on the test this evening, so I'm not completely crazy.  Or if I am crazy at least my husband is right there with me.

I am going to take one of my FRERs tomorrow morning.  I guess if I get a line on a FRER, then I will have to call it a BFP.

Monday, October 28, 2013

I need to stop peeing on things!

So when I realized at lunch that I hadn't peed at work yet today, I made the decision to hold my pee so I could POAS when I got home.  Because logically taking a test 12 hours after you already took a test makes complete sense.  I had to stop by Walmart on the way home, so I was ready to pee my pants by the time I got home.  I take another wondfo and another super faint barely there line.  I am pretty sure it was there before the 5 minute time limit, so I am hoping that this is not an evap line.  It could be the trigger still, though because it is super faint.  I don't know what to think at this point.

5DP5DT

I didn't think it was possible, but an even lighter ghost line than yesterday.  I am probably the only person in the world that can see it, which means that it might not even really be there.  I am assuming that this is still the trigger shot, which is cruel 11.5 days after the trigger.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

4DP5DT

I still had a super light ghost of a line this morning, that or I have serious line-eye.  I don't think it's possible to get a lighter line, so I am calling my trigger out of my system.

Now for the scary part, looking for the BFP.  It's weird, testing the last few says wasn't scary or nerve wracking, because I knew it was my trigger.  Now it's the real deal, I'm looking for my BFP.

I was so positive and calm the first few days after my ET.  We transferred a good quality early blast and had a good shot at pregnancy.  Now the closer we get to beta day, I am feeling less positive.  I just feel like there is no way that this worked.  Out of two IVF cycles we had 14 eggs retrieved and 8 fertilized normally.  Of those 8 only 3 were decent quality (fragmentation and # of cells) on day 3 and only 1 made it to blast.  What are the odds that this one lonely embryo is chromosomally normal and able to implant?  I just feel like the odds are against us.

To make it worse, I haven't really had any symptoms.  Maybe a little cramping, but it could also have been bloating/gas pain.  My freaking boobs haven't even been sore.  I've had more "symptoms" on Clomid  cycles, when I didn't even supplement with progesterone.

Maybe I am just preparing myself for the worst.  Since we didn't have anything to freeze, if this cycle fails, we'll be starting over with a third fresh IVF.  Of course I will do whatever it takes, but financially we can only do so many fresh cycles.  I am also afraid of what my RE will have to say if this cycle fails.  Our cycle results so far have pointed to an egg quality issue.  Is there even a point to trying again with my own eggs?

Please let this cycle work.

Saturday, October 26, 2013

3DP5DT

Today I am 3DP5DT (3 days past 5 day transfer) or 8 DPO.  I am testing out my trigger shot.  The trigger shot is the injection I took Wednesday October 16th to make my follicles mature and get ready for ovulation.  The trigger shot contains the hormone HCG, which is the pregnancy hormone.  This means that after the trigger shot you will get a positive HPT until the hormone from the shot leaves your system.  For 10,000 IU HCG triggers (like I took), it usually takes about 10 days from the trigger to be completely out of your system.  Today is 10 days and I still have a squinter of a line.  Hopefully the line is gone tomorrow or gets darker.  I would definitely prefer it to get darker. :)

Thursday, October 24, 2013

No Frosties :(

I got an email from the lab today, none of our remaining embryos made it to freeze.  Oddly enough I feel ok about that.  It would have been nice to have a few frosties as insurance, but the fact that we had a good quality blast to transfer makes me happy.  We are still in the game this cycle, where last cycle we were already watching from the sidelines at this point.

I've also come to accept that we probably have some egg quality issues.  Our fert rates are always a bit lower than average and our embryos seem to be a little slower to grow and more fragmented.  The good news is that my eggs + DH's sperm can make a decent quality blast, which is an important step in making a baby.  I've also come to accept that we probably won't ever have a ton of embryos and may never have a stash of frosties.  That's ok though.  I just need one good embryo.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Transfer complete!

We made it to transfer!  We had one beautiful grade one early blast to transfer.  My husband was really upset that we didn't have two to transfer.  I had to remind him that transferring two doesn't increase your odds by much, it mostly just increases your odds of twins.  While I wasn't opposed to twins, it is not necessarily something I am wishing for.  I have a twin sister and my mother had pregnancy complications.  We were born several weeks premature and spent weeks in the NICU.

They are watching the rest of our embryos to see if any will make it to blast tomorrow and can be frozen.  Three of the four remaining haven't grown much since Monday and probably won't make it to freeze.  The fifth is at the compacted stage, which is the stage before blast so it has a chance.  It is only a grade 3 though, so I'm not sure if it will be high enough quality to freeze.  They will email me tomorrow to let me know.

The worst part about transfer is having a full bladder.  I was good through the transfer, but my clinic has you lay there for 20 minutes afterwards.  It was pure torture, I thought my bladder was going to explode.

Oh and I decided to name our little blast "lucky."  I noticed that I started this IVF cycle on day 777 of TTC and according to my retrieval date, if this cycle is successful, my estimated due date would be 7/11.

Here is a picture of our little Lucky:


Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Tomorrow is the day!

Tomorrow is our scheduled transfer day and I am alternating between super excited and absolutely terrified.  I know we have 5 embryos in the running, but in am still nervous that they have stopped growing and we will get canceled like last cycle.  At least I have some distractions tonight.  My favorite show (Chicago Fire) is on tonight and we are having doctor prescribed sex tonight (apparently it makes a more natural environment for the ET).  DH is super excited since we haven't had sex since I started stims 2 weeks ago.  It's sad but I think that he might be more excited about the sex than he is about the ET.

I am praying that my phone stays quiet tomorrow!

Monday, October 21, 2013

Day 3 Embryo Report

Finally some good news!

After a few hour of anxious waiting, I got my Day 3 report this morning.  The nurse told me that all 5 of my embryos are doing good.  That's right my fifth embryo that they weren't sure would fertilize normally made it and is growing!

Before I go into the details on my little embabies.  I explain about embryo grading on Day 3.  My clinic looks at two things when grading an embryo, number of cells and fragmentation.  On day 3 embryos should be 6-10 cells, any more or less could be a sign that they are not chromosomally normal.  As for fragmentation, my clinic grades each embryo on a scal of 1-3, with 1 being little to no fragmentatio and 3 being significant fragmentation.   The thing about fragmentation is that it is not always an indicator of a poor quality embryo.  In fact, my clinic doesn't see any difference in success rates for grade 1 or grade 2 embryos.

Here are the deeds on how my embryos scored:

The fantastic four
2- 7 cell grade 2 embryos
1- 6 cell grade 2 embryo
1- 5 cell grade 2 embryo (ok he's a cell short, but it think he could just be a slow poke like DH)

The fifth little embie that could
1- 8 cell grade 3 embryo (he might be grade 3, but he's my over achiever in cells)

This is so much better than last cycle where in Day 3 we had three grade 3 embryos (two 4 cell and a 3 cell).  The nurse also gave me some additional scores for some of my embryos, but I am not sure exactly what they mean.  Our two 7 cell embryos were scored 85 and 65 and our 8 cell grade 3 was scored a 50.  She said that they have seen pregnancy with as low as a score of 30, so this sounds good to me!

My transfer is scheduled for Wednesday at noon.  The clinic will check the embryos again Wednesday morning, but will only call if they have to cancel the transfer or push it back a day.  So after a morning of willing the phone to ring, I am hoping to not hear a peep from my clinic on Wednesday.

Now I just need these embryos to keep growing and make some pretty little blastocysts for transfer on Wednesday!

Saturday, October 19, 2013

Staying Strong


Fert Report

I got the call with our fert report this morning.  While it wasn't the "you have 8 perfectly fertilized embryos" that I hoped for, we are still better than last cycle.  Out of the 8 eggs retrieved, 7 were mature, and out of the 7 mature, 4 fertilized normally and they are watching a fifth.  So right now we have 4 or 5 fertilized embryos.  At this point last cycle, we had 3 embryos.

My clinic only does day 5 or  day 6 blastocyst transfers.  There are two schools of thought when it comes to deciding when to transfer embryos.  One side feels like the embryos will do their best in a natural environment, so transfer on day 3 to get the embryos into the uterus ASAP.  This camp may push transfer to day 5 if there are enough embryos that they are confident that some will make it to day 5.  The other side of the coin is that waiting until day 5 gives you the best chance for success because most aneuploid embryos will stop growing before then.  It is any easy way to weed out some the bad embryos, so that your odds of transferring a good embryo are higher.  My clinic falls into the latter category.

The hardest part of being pushed to a 5 day transfer is knowing that there is a chance that none of the embryos will make it to blastocyst and you will have nothing to transfer.  I can tell you from experience that going through all of the meds, injections and retrieval only to not even have a chance at success sucks.  I just want to make it to transfer this time, I want a chance at getting pregnant.

Friday, October 18, 2013

Egg Retrieval Day

I had my ER today.  I was hoping for 10 eggs, but we ended up with 8.  The good news is that the doc said that 7 of them looked perfect and the other one looked really good.  I hope that this means that most of my 8 will be mature.  The next big hurdle is fertilization.  Last cycle only 3 of our 5 mature eggs fertilized.  Hopefully our fert rate this cycle will be a little higher.

I was a little sad that they forgot my Valium.  It really helped me relax and was the highlight of my last ER.  I am not going to let them forget my Valium for ET next week.  I am also finding out that I don't come out of anesthesia well.  I end up really dizzy and light headed.  Luckily I don't get sick, but I had to have help standing, getting dressed and walking.

Overall  I feel really positive about our 8 eggs, I think they are going to make some kick ass embryos.

Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Triggering Tonight

I had my second monitoring appointment this morning.  It looks like my lazy left ovary decided to join the game.  I had 8 decent sized follicles on the right and 4 on the left.  The RE thinks that we should get 10-12 eggs and hopefully 8-10 will be mature.  My lining also thickened up nicely and is now just over 11.

I am triggering tonight at 11:30pm for ER at 11:00am on Friday.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

First Monitoring Appointment and Intra Lipids

I suck at blogging right now, luckily my 5 followers can get their updates from FB or the bump if they are interested.

I had my first monitoring appointment Monday.  I had 11ish measurable (greater than 10mm) follicles and several less than 10.  It's hard to keep exact counts because the RE calls out the numbers so quickly.  Most were around 13, so I am going back tomorrow (Wednesday) for more monitoring.  The RE thinks that I will trigger either Wednesday or Thursday for ER on Friday or Saturday.  While part of me would love the day off work Friday, another part is hoping for Saturday, so that maybe a few more small follicles will have time to catch up.

I also had my Intra lipid infusion Monday.  It was ok, but I didn't have the worlds greatest nurse.  She had my hand on my thigh when she started my IV and when she stuck my vein it started dripping blood everywhere.  It got all over my new jeans and to top it off I had to go back to work afterwards with the giant blood stain on my pants.  Then the nurse talked about her kids the entire time.  Apparently she has 16 year old twin boys that like to beat the hell out of each other.  Of all the topics of conversation to pick, this is the one you go with when treating a bunch of women going through IVF?  I am not sure she was the sharpest tool in the shed.

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

I've officially lost my damn mind

I did something today that I never do, I cried at work.  I managed to avoid a complete ugly cry, but tears were definitely shed.  I think the combination of work stress, hormone shots, and the beginnings of a cold have cracked me.  I think I have lost my mind.  I have never felt that crazy in my life.

The worst part about crying at work is that we have an open office plan.  It is sort of like really short cubes. I'm pretty sure evryone in my department saw me .  Then once I started, I couldn't stop.  So I literally sat at my desk most of the afternoon sniffing and blowing my nose, trying to hide the fact that I was crying.

Luckily my boss was really nice about it, which he should have been it was me getting pissed and yelling at him that set off the whole fiasco.  He's basically told me that if I need time off, to take it and not worry about work.  I just can't let me taking time off to cause us to miss our deadline next week.  Fate intervened tonight and one of our servers is getting ready to crash.  They have to take it down and move everything to a new server, which means a forced break tonight.  While a little relaxation time is nice, it also means more work for tomorrow.

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Starting Stims Tomorrow!

I've sucked at blogging the last few weeks.  I start stims tomorrow.  This is where it starts to get fun.  Once you start stims things move along pretty quickly (or so it seemed for IVF #1).

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Day 8 of IVF #2

I'm never sure how to number my IVF cycle days.  If you count from the day I officially started the cycle according to my clinic, today is day 8.  If you are counting days since my last period, today is day 2.  Either way today was also my last Lupron shot, hopefully this means my insomnia will let up some.  Tomorrow is my first ganirelix injection, which I have heard can cause some side effects too.  I guess I'll have to wait and see.

I also scheduled my Intra lipid infusion today.  It was supposed to be Friday October 11th, but the infusion center is booked.  My nurse gave me the go ahead to schedule it for Monday the 14th, which is also my first day of monitoring.  That also kicks off a really busy week for me at work, so this cycle should be interesting.

My baseline ultrasound and blood work is Friday and I should start stims on Monday.  I can't believe how quickly this cycle is flying by.  My egg retrieval will be here before I know it which scares the crap out of me.