Attempt #3 began yesterday, and I'm fairly certain that I was not mentally ready for it. Some aspects of the kick-off of our final pre-paid IVF cycle were at least easier than previous cycles. The Tallahassee office now has a full-time nurse on staff, which meant
Hello! I realized I'm overdue for an update when all of my friends started to ask me about the next steps in the process.
In terms of writing about the surgery and post-surgery, this was a hard post to write. It's now a month post-surgery because I simply wasn't able to write a blog post earlier ... So here's my compromise: a post of "What I wish I had known before my laparotomy/abdominal myomectomy." It's still long, but I hope it's useful to those looking for information as to what to expect.
Remember that surgery I was supposed to have tomorrow? The reason why I've worked my butt off for the past three weeks to get all my work done without leaving my clients in a lurch...
Yesterday was the pre-op check with my doctor and my husband. Essentially, that means I was poked, prodded, and given an inordinate amount of information, including a list of all the horrible things that can go wrong.
In my last post, I wrote about how Round 2 of IVF was a bust. We were able to create a single highly-graded embryo, but genetic testing showed that it was not viable due to chromosomal abnormalities. (There's nothing quite like bad news right before the holidays to see how good I really am at compartmentalizing things.) Instead of diving right into our third -- and last pre-paid -- round of IVF, I wanted to talk with the doctor to see what he thought. The office was able to schedule me for a phone consult three days after I received the bad news.
Typically, the results of PGS testing come in 7-10 business days after the biopsy is sent out. Last time that wait was almost unbearable by the time the second week of waiting rolled around. This time, I was prepared. I knew that I'd receive results by Friday, Dec. 15 and waited semi-patiently until then (it helped that I was insanely busy during that two week wait). Except that the results did not come in on Friday.
The IVF process is a lot of waiting, do something, waiting, receive news, wait some more, and then maybe do something else. It requires a lot of patience and a lot of avoiding the "what if" game because each step is highly dependent on the results of the previous step. I'm not good at patiently waiting and I'm definitely not good at trying to ignore the "what if" game, but I'm trying to be better and take it one step at a time. Today was the second step (again) in the long road to an embryo transfer: learning whether either of the fertilized eggs made it to the blastocyst stage.
Two days ago was Retrieval Day -- when I'm put under light sedation and the doctor on duty attempts to retrieve eggs from the multiple follicles that grew because of the daily hormone injections. In Round 1, they were only able to retrieve 3 eggs because I metabolized the "trigger" injection too quickly and ovulated too early. This time, my medicine was changed up a bit to prevent the breakthrough ovulation, but the doctor was
Since we made the decision to do Round 2 of IVF in November, I've been stressing about Thanksgiving. I'd resigned myself to not spending it with family, but I was hoping that we'd at least be able to celebrate Thanksgiving with friends instead of by ourselves at the Cracker Barrel located next to the hotel in Jacksonville.
Today is Day 8 of Round 2 of IVF, which means I should be more than halfway through this round of injections (Round 1 was 14 days, most people go 8-12 days). After driving out to Jacksonville last Wednesday for a Thursday morning appointment, I started injections when I got home that evening. I'm on the same dosage as Round 1, but the doctor added a third injection -- a growth hormone called Omnitrope -- that has been suggested to help with egg quality, which would hopefully lead to better genetic testing results (if we even make it that far again).
After a weekend of unsuccessfully trying to be anti-social and a week of trying to recover from the funk I entered after learning both embryos were abnormal, I think I'm finally ready to start thinking about what comes next in this whole IVF process. That's good, because I start round 2 of IVF next week.
After a brutal two weeks of waiting, I finally received a call from the fertility clinic this morning with the results of the PGS test. I wasn't expecting good news because statistically, a woman of my age has only a 40% chance of having a chromosomal "normal" embryo, but I was hoping for good news.
One week down, one week to go until the PGS (pre-implantation genetic testing) results are supposed to come in. Years ago one of my younger cousins told her parents that "patience is not one of my virtues," and that phrase has been floating around in my mind frequently over the past week. There's absolutely nothing I can do to speed up the results, so I just have to pretend to be patient and wait for the call from my doctor.
Note to self (and to anyone using this blog to get an idea of what IVF is like): make sure you count days correctly when anxiously awaiting important news.
After an egg retrieval, there are a few hurdles to pass. The first hurdle occurs on the second day after retrieval: whether or not any embryos have formed. Thankfully, the doctor called fairly early in the day with the report so I could stop checking my phone for missed calls every 5 minutes.
At my Thursday morning appointment in Jacksonville, the doctor determined I was finally ready to be triggered as I had multiple follicles that had reached the necessary size to presumably produce mature eggs. I no longer needed to inject any stimulating medicine nor anti-ovulating medicine. Thursday evening, I injected the first trigger shot, and exactly 12 hours later on Friday morning, I injected the second trigger. I had to fast starting at midnight Friday, and was at the clinic (still in Jax) bright and early Saturday morning.
Today was supposed to be simple. I'd wake up earlier than I like, drive the 2-1/2 to 3 hours to Tallahassee (again), have the routine ultrasound done, learn if I'll be triggered tonight or tomorrow night, drive home, go to trivia, sleep. Instead, about 20 minutes into my drive, I had to pull over on the side of the highway because of severe abdominal pain, nausea, the "shakes," and because I broke out in a sweat. A few conversations with my fertility clinic later (bless those nurses), I learned my doctor wanted me to go to the ER in Albany to make sure my ovaries hadn't gotten twisted from being so enlarged.
According to some fertility clinics, it usually takes about 8-12 days of IVF medicines (daily injections in the morning and evening) to "force" multiple follicles to grow large enough that when they're finally triggered (yet another shot telling the body it's now time to ovulate) there is a greater chance of getting multiple healthy, mature eggs. Apparently my body wants to take things slow and steady, and will require at least 14 days of stimulation meds.
The medicine regime I'm on requires taking the (refrigerated) medicine around the same time every day. For example, I'm supposed to take my morning Cetrotide injection -- the med that prevents ovulation -- around 8:30am each day. That seemed a reasonable time to do the shot as I'm usually awake and still at home around that time.