Cycle Update

This cycle has gone better than I ever could have imagined. I am so, so happy I decided to go with SIRM and Dr. Peters. I haven't posted anything since the baseline so let me catch you up:

- I did 8 days of stims. Last week was a little rough because I had to drive to Jersey and back three times. But it was totally worth it. I am impressed that the Doctor does all the ultrasounds to check on follicles himself. He was great about explaining everything to Garry and tell us how big each one was. The two follie checks I had at SIRM were the best I have ever had.

- At the egg retrieval on Thursday they got 11 eggs! (as a reminder I got 4 eggs on IVF #1 and 10 on IVF #2.

- Of the 11 eggs 8 were mature, that is amazing for me! IVF #1 only 1 of the four were mature, and IVF #2 only have four mature eggs. I guess we found the right mix of drugs to get the best results out of my crappy ovaries.

Today is day 3 and I just got the call from Dr. Peters with our update. We have four 7 cell embryos growing today! SIRM has a grading scale from 1 to 3 with 1 being the best and 3 being the worst. Three of our embryos are grade 1 (yay!) and one is a grade 2!

We talked about doing the CGH genetic testing, and since we only have four embryos we decided to skip it. Dr. Peters explained that with three or four embryos it is not worth the cost because more than likely at least one or two of those will arrest by day 5.

So the plan from here is the embryos will continue growing until day 5 If all four embryos make it to Day 5 than we will transfer the best two and wait to see if the other two make it to freeze. If we have three left on day 5 then Dr. Peters, Garry and I will have a serious discussion about whether or not to transfer all three. The idea of triplets scares the ever living crap out of me. I think we could handle twins, and I am sure we would figure out how to handle triplets, but the idea of being out numbered by babies is really scary. I know the odds of all three implanting in me are slim, but there is still a chance.

I feel great about this cycle. Even if it doesn't work and we don't get pregnant I know that we tried everything, got great care from SIRM, and there was nothing else we could do. But I gotta admit, I am feeling very hopeful today.

It's go time...

So I had my second, and it turns out final, follie check today. I won't lie, I was a little disappointed today. As you will recall I had 8 solid follicles with 2 more that could have been something on Friday. Today I have 7 solid follicles and the other three stopped growing altogether. I was really hoping that I would have over ten follicles today. But my stupid left ovary has failed me once again. All three of the follies that puttered out were on the left side, there is only one half decent follie on leftie.

Don't get me wrong, I am happy I have any follies in there at all, because I know there is no guarantee. But I went into this thinking I would be a pretty decent responder, so I am a little disappointed to find that I am not as decent as I thought I would be.

This doesn't mean that this cycle won't work though. And I am trying my best to stay up beat and optimistic. I have heard lots of stories of women who have retrieved under 5 eggs and still gotten pregnant and gone on to have beautiful babies, and I absolutely believe that could happen to us as well.

So tonight is go night. The 7 follicles that are left are ready to go. I trigger at exactly 10:30pm this evening and go in at 10am Wednesday morning for the retrieval. I am very nervous and excited to get this part of the process underway.

The good news is that the raging case of diarrhea I had over the weekend seems to be resolving itself. I am not sure if my stomach problems the last couple days are meds related, Crohn's related, or just a bug that I picked up. Whatever it was though, it sucked! Although I did lose 5 pounds over the past three days so that is a bonus. That makes my official weight loss 68 pounds and 9 BMI points. Not too shabby.

Ok, the next update will be post Egg Retrieval. Everyone send as many Egg-cellent Egg vibes my way as you can muster up! Thanks!