Egg Retrieval and Update

So, egg retrieval was Wednesday morning. The weather called for 4-8 inches of snow, so we left nice & early. Thankfully we didn't get the snow they were calling for, so we got to the office early. I had to be there at 7:30 am. I got back to the IVF area and got my IV in (which went in wonderfully by the way!). They took be back for ER just after 8 am I believe. I don't remember much after the anesthesiologist turned on the drugs to put me under. The next thing I remember is IVF nurse Kathy telling me they got 21 eggs! Holy crap, 21 eggs. I couldn't even believe it. No wonder I've had such a full feeling! The most eggs I ever got was 11 eggs and that was with Hank's retrieval. When retrieval was over, Dr. Griffin talked to Casey to tell him what they got and that we would decide later whether we're going to shot for a fresh or a frozen transfer. The earliest we would transfer though would be day 5 which is Monday. I wore a t-shirt made by a friend to the ER. And the other picture is me after I was allowed to eat something haha!! Overall I was pretty achy yesterday which is normal after ER. I rested up a lot and took advantage of the pain meds :) 

So today I'm feeling much better. A little sore here & there, but not much bloating which is definitely nice!! Out of the 21 eggs retrieved, we had 13 fertilize and 9 are normal and growing good. The doctors think I should do a frozen transfer but are letting me be a part of the decision making process based on how I'm feeling. They're treating the embryos the same right now whether we transfer fresh or frozen. I'll hear from the doctors again tomorrow to see how I'm feeling and how the embryos are doing. The only problem they said is OHSS many times won't even kick in until a week after transfer. And that my lining might not be ideal right now because my E2 was so high. So I don't really know what we'll end up doing at this point. Either way, I'm feeling hopeful that we'll have embryos to freeze. At this point I still want to do a fresh transfer. I don't know, it's hard. I'm ready to just move forward. Apparently OHSS can get worse with pregnancy, but I might not even get it at all. My lining looked great on Monday at my last appointment, I'm unsure what it was yesterday or if they even measured yesterday. It's the what-if that's the hardest for me. I don't know what to expect at all. I got a BFP on both fresh cycles I've done and never had any make it to freeze, I think that doesn't help with how I'm feeling. I certainly wouldn't lie to them on how I'm feeling and I really want to take it day by day. I'm super anxious to hear from the doctor tomorrow and talk to them some more. I've heard many success stories of transferring fresh with this many eggs retrieved, so it gives me a lot of hope! :) So please continue thinking of us over the next few days and weeks to come :)

Night Before ER and Update

Woah, so it's been a crazy couple of days. So my last update was as of Saturday. On Sunday I had blood work and ultrasound. Below is the top 5 follicles on each side, growing nicely. On Sunday afternoon Dr Crickard called me to tell me that my E2 was very high at 5,800 and that we would most likely have to freeze the embryos and transfer at a later date. I was heartbroken. The reason is because I'm now at risk of OHSS (Ovarian Hyperstimulation Syndrome) which can become very dangerous and apparently it can sometimes get worse after the embryos are transferred. OHSS doesn't happen until after ER so we'll see how I'm feeling in a couple days, the unexpected definitely makes me nervous. I might or I might not end up with OHSS, who knows how my body will respond to this as I didn't have this issue with Hank. I was told to stop the Follistim & LH and only do the Lupron shot that night, and to come back on Monday morning.

Of course, on Superbowl Sunday night (Woo Patriots!!!) it started snowing like crazy and they were calling for a foot of snow over night. So Casey made the call that he would be driving me up to Buffalo & Hank would be accompanying us. We hit the road for Buffalo at 5:30 am, it was AWFUL. The roads were absolute crap and of course there were tons of idiots on the road. We finally made it at 6:45 am. It normally takes us like 50-55 minutes to get up there, so it was definitely a slow drive. Thankfully my ultrasound showed that I was ready to trigger. Below is a picture of one of my ovaries, the other one looks very similar. As you can see, I have a lot going on. I got a call in the afternoon that my E2 levels have now risen over 7,000 (we were hoping they would go down a little with the decrease of the drugs) but unfortunately not. I did my Ovidrel trigger shot last night at 8 pm.

So egg retrieval is tomorrow morning. We have to be there at 7:30 am, for 8 am retrieval. I took my doxycycline (antibiotic) tonight, and cannot eat/drink after midnight. We're planning to leave right around 6 am because wouldn't you know, we're expecting another 4-8 inches of snow overnight tonight. We got so lucky with our trips up to Buffalo last week with the weather, of course it's hitting us now. Thankfully Casey is a lot more comfortable driving in the bad weather than I am.

I'm very anxious to say the least as I really don't know what to expect. Yes, I've been through ER two other times, but it's still very nerve-wracking and I really have no idea what to expect from my eggs. No idea how many we'll end up getting and how good they'll be, etc. I don't know when I'll know for sure if it's a frozen cycle or not. It makes me so nervous because I've never had any embryos make it to freeze. But they do always transfer the best embryos, so who knows, maybe Hank would have frozen if we didn't transfer him. I know the doctors will do what is in my best interest though, so we'll see what happens! I am praying we can do a fresh transfer this cycle, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Please think good thoughts and for lots of good quality eggs that turn into some awesome embryos!!

Box #1 of Fun

I received my first box of meds today!!!!! Every day something new happens, it gets even more real that we're about do to IVF again!!

I'll start with yesterday's "excitement" though first. I received a phone call from my IVF nurse that Lupron is no longer covered by my insurance, but she was unsure why as it's always been covered by the Empire Plan. I of course called up the pharmacy & my insurance and was passed around to probably 10 different people, who knew it would be so hard to figure out why that drug wasn't covered. It turns out that as of 1/1/15 (go figure), Empire is no longer covering Lupron for infertility reasons. Why you ask? I don't know!! The only thing I can figure is because Lupron isn't originally intended for infertility, so I'm wondering if they're considering it an experimental drug, which isn't covered. It's intended use is for prostate cancer, some hormone issues in pre-teens, and for the treatment of endometriosis. So I got a price quote from Freedom (see last post) and I can get it for $149 out of pocket. Sucks, but oh well. So my OOP price just went up to $300; I really cannot complain though for the amount of meds I'm getting!!

Anyways, so in today's box #1 of fun, I got the drug that is going to do the magic, Follistim!! I've always responded very well to this drug, so I'm really hoping that's the case this time as well. I also got doxycycline (which I despise because it makes me sick) which is an antibiotic, this is taken the night before my egg retrieval (ER) if I'm remembering correctly; medrol which is a steroid that I take for 4 days after ER; and Endometrin which is a progesterone suppository to help the embryo(s) stick! I'll be receiving Lupron on Friday (which I start on Monday) and Ovidrel on Saturday (that one I have to sign for, so had to make sure it was delivered on a day I would be around). So excited to get started!!

I decided to video opening it for the heck of it, I even had a little helper :)

The Official Start of my IVF Cycle

Ahhhh the time has come, it's the OFFICIAL start of my upcoming IVF cycle. What starts the cycle, you ask? Birth control pills!! Hahaha, so funny, right? Did you know that a typical IVF cycle is 6 weeks?! Gosh that feels like such a long time haha, I kind of just want to fast forward ahead to February! LOL. No, it's all worth it of course :D So I started my pack of birth control pills tonight and have received my official calendar.

The course of events is as follows:
12/27 -- Start birth control pills
1/1 -- Call insurance to activate IVF coverage
1/2 -- Mock transfer
1/12 -- Start Lupron (1st injectible medicine)
1/16 -- Last active birth control pill
1/19 -- Baseline blood work and ultrasound
1/23 -- Start the injectible medicine to stimulate my ovaries to grow follices (Follistim)
1/26 -- Blood work to check estradiol levels
Week of 1/26 -- more blood work & ultrasounds
Week of 2/2 -- more blood work & ultrasounds; then when my follicles are the appropriate size we will stimulate ovulation (ovidrel) then have the egg retrieval!
5-7 days after egg retrieval is the embryo transfer -- the plan is to transfer 2 embryos
Then we WAIT! AHHHH!!!

I'm really excited but I'm also super nervous as well. We've never had many great embryos in the past so this makes me nervous, all it takes is one though (Hello, Mr Hank <3)!! So hoping for more embryos this time, would even be nice to have some to freeze. IVF is a very emotional process, so I'm not really looking forward to that. And last time I didn't have a toddler running around keeping me busy too so I'm sure I'm going to be extra tired. I always make sure to schedule the earliest appointments so I can get back to work so I don't have to use any time. So that means leaving my house around 6 am (yuck!). So that'll be hectic with daycare and what not too. Normally I take Hank to daycare at 8 am, but Casey will have to take him before he goes to work on days that I have monitoring up in Buffalo, so he'll have to go at probably 7:15 am to give Casey time to get to work. So I think we'll all be tired for that couple of weeks there! Keeping the end goal in sight will definitely help us all! I am so excited to hopefully give Hank a little brother or sister!! :D Keep us in your thoughts & prayers please over the next 2 months, we will really appreciate it!!

Egg Retrieval to Embryo Transfer

So Friday was the egg retrieval and we collected...drum roll please...11 eggs!! This is 4 more than last time, so definitely much better!! On Friday, I was very sore and rested all day. On Saturday morning just before 9 am, I got the phone call that 7 of the eggs fertilized, and 4 were normal and growing strong! Yayyy! Doctor was very pleased as we only had 1 viable embryo last time. Even with 1 embryo, it did turn into a pregnancy, so we're hoping this time is successful as well and the baby stays put for 9 months! On Monday morning, we transferred 2 top grade, beautiful embryos! One had 10 cells and the other had 8 cells! We still have 2 more embryos that are growing and hopefully will be able to freeze. We will know more about these ones and if they make it to freezing within the next few days. Yesterday after transfer, I rested all day! I'm back to work today and now we enter the dreaded wait where I'll analyze every little thing over the next couple weeks to see if this works! So we're keeping our fingers crossed that this works for us! Please be thinking and praying for us. Below are pictures of our beautiful embryos!

 Here is the 10-cell embryo

Here is the 8-cell embryo

Egg Retrieval Day

Below are some pictures from today! Baby shirt for good luck, my IV, me after the procedure looking gorgeous lol, & Amber's comment when I told her the good news (that's why she's one of my bff's! Haha). PS we got 11 eggs!! Yayyy I'm so excited! Can't wait to hear how many fertilize!! :)