Now we wait

This morning was our transfer. When the doctor came in we were suprised to see that we had 8 blastocysts. I was shocked.

Day 5 Report:
14 embryos
3 - Grade BB blasts
1 - Grade CB blast
6 - Grade CC blasts
2 = early blasts unable to be graded at this point
2 - arrested

The doctor talked with us a little about the possiblity of twins with higher graded blasts. We explained we know the risks and that was pretty much the end of the dicussion. He did say if one splits we will need to seriously consider a reduction but that was it. I'm not expecting that to happen so we're not even going to discuss it.

We transferred two of the grade BBs and signed for whatever was left to be frozen. The last BB will be and the CB might be able to since the second letter is graded a B and that is the more important grading. The two early blasts may make it to be frozen as well although we tried that last time and they didn't end up making it.

We are so excited that we will at least have one frozen embryo. That gives us hope that if this doesn't work we at least have one more shot with a single embryo transfer.

Now we just wait 9 days and hope it works.

Here's a picture of our BB blastocysts.

Tomorrow is the day

Tomorrow we go in for our day 5 transfer. We will be transferring two of the best embryos we have. Hopefully that will be two blasts graded a BB or higher. That is my hope.

We received our day 3 call about 30 minutes before our appointment on yesterday so we ended up just going in and talking to them. After hearing the gradings I wasn't 100% sold on continuing to a day 5 transfer. Here are the results:

14 embryos:
4 grade 2s
9 grade 3s
1 grade 4 - this one they said wasn't looking so great and they didn't think it was going to make it.

If you remember from our last cycle we had 5 embryos, 3 grade 2s and 2 grade 3s. None of our grade 3s made it to day 5. Two of our grade 2s made it to blast stage, one was transferred and the other was discarded as it wasn't high enough quality (although it was the same quality as the one we transferred) and the last one never continued growing past the early blast stage.

So hearing that we still had a few grade 2s, mostly grade 3s, and now even a grade 4 it pretty much sounded to me like we were in the exact same place as last time only with more embryos. I was heartbroken. I was so hopeful that extra day would improve the quality of my eggs. I haven't heard of a single person my age getting the embryos reports that we have. Most people that have reports that look like ours are in their mid to late 30s.

After meeting with the doctor I knew that in all honesty waiting to day 5 is the best option. I knew this before but it's hard to make those decisions alone when you feel so emotionally attached to everything. We had one of our grade 2s not make it last time. If we had chosen to transfer on day 3 there would have been a chance that one of the ones they chose would be one that wouldn't make it and the other one could have been low quality. The whole goal of this is to put two very much alive and growing embryos back in. To know which ones are the best one we would need to wait. I kept saying I didn't feel like we were changing anything. The doctor kept emphasising that we are. We are putting back two. That increases my chances this time. Transferring on day 3 wouldn't have changed anything.

For those that may not know this on day 3 the male dna starts to take over and is in charge of the egg growing. Up until that point growth is 100% the female dna. There have actually been studies where they poke the eggs (not fertilize them) and high quality eggs will actually grow and divide some even up until day 3. After day 3 if growth stops it could very well be from a severe male factor. Which we know we have as an issue. Sometimes morphology can present not only a fertilization problem but also a genetic problem in that they produce genetically deformed embryos. It is expected that there will be some that do not make it but if a large number were to arrest then it would be an indication of a larger issue. We are very much hoping that this is not an issue for us and we don't expect it to be. It is just another fear that we needed to face by once again moving on to a day 5 transfer.

So pretty much all we can do is hope and pray that we walk in there tomorrow with some better news than we did last time. Last time our best was a B-/C. If that is our best this time I'm not sure how I will be able to handle that. I hopeful for at least a BB based on our crappy quality eggs and sperm I know A anything is highly unlikely. Also it doesn't look like we will have anything to freeze so this is pretty much it for us.

Wish us luck tomorrow :) Thanks for all the support.

Fert Report

So 9:07 am my phone rings and I'm still laying in bed so my first thought was "Who the hell is calling me at 9am after I had surgery yesterday" I grab my phone and see that it is a Walter Reed number. I knew then it was good news because last time when I had a low number of embryos she didn't call until sometime around 2pm. I know for a fact that they start retrievals around 9am when the doctors are done with the clinic so she must have just recently gotten over to the lab.  When I answered Darshna (The nurse who I was crying all over yesterday) was giddy to tell me the news....


I had 16 mature eggs.....

AND..... 14 of them fertilized.

WE HAVE 14 EMBRYOS

I am SHOCKED. I can't believe it. We may actually have something to freeze!!!!!!

I'm guessing due to the doctors impression of some of the eggs yesterday that we may have some that don't make it. That's ok the important part is that they have a chance to survive and WE have a chance to have a baby. Maybe even more in the future if we get some frozen ones.

YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! We go in for our day 3 embryo report and possible day 3 transfer on Sat.

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR THE SUPPORT AND PRAYERS!!!! 

If you read yesterday....you need to read this one...

So we're home. I'm pretty much feeling the same as I did last time except I was in more pain directly afterwards than before. The nurse kept coming in and sort of insisting I ask for more pain meds in an indirect way. I of course being stubborn was not. She finally saw me shaking and hardly able to get up or down and she gave me the good stuff. Within minutes I said something along the lines of "wow that feels nice." They did end up wheeling me out this time. Anyone who has ever been in a military hospital knows that in most cases for out patient things you're walking yourself out. I did last time. This time I was shaky and heavily drugged so the nurse called for a chair. I was in recovery for a very short time...again the military, they kick you out fast. They gave me juice, crackers, had me pee, drugged me up and called for a wheelchair. Now the initial pain has worn off and I'm just sore.

Now for the good news. When the surgeon finally came in to see me I was pretty much a nervous wreck. I had been sitting alone for about 45 minutes just waiting. I was getting more and more anxious by the minute thinking I was losing eggs. So she comes in and starts talking to me. I finally got around to asking to hear her perspective on our drastic drop in E2 and the results of the progesterone tests. She looked shocked.

She said "I had no idea you were aware of that. I have to tell you the lab made an error your E2 was actually in the 6700s." I almost died right there. She was very apologetic and said she couldn't imagine how I had been feeling up until that point. Around that time Patrick walked back in and I told him the news. I just started bawling. I was so relieved to know that we hadn't lost any of our precious eggs. The surgeon actually started to tear up as well as I told her how I thought we'd lost them all. It was a huge relief. I of course was so emotional about it because obviously my estrogen was incredibly high. That often makes women teary. She went on to discuss everything and said with how I handled the last surgery is a good sign and hopefully I will not develop OHSS but that since my E2 is high I have about a 20 to 30% chance of having some form of it. Honestly at that point as long as we weren't facing a transfer cancel I didn't care. I was just so thankful we still had a chance I didn't care that it had spiked again. She said they are not anticipating a transfer cancel but that I will need to seriously increase my salt/sodium intake and down the powerades and gatorades. They will discuss all options as we get past each day.

And now for the not so great news. They were able to get 18 eggs. After having over 36 follicles that's not really a lot. Even worse she said that there weren't that many that looked mature but that they need to assess them after they are washed and ready to fertilize. She didn't give a number but said that she thinks there is more than last time. Which was only 5 so we are kind of thinking somewhere between 7 or 8 based on having 14 eggs last time and only 5 mature. Now they believe that my egg maturity issue doesn't have much to do with the medicine doses last time or this time. My eggs just don't mature like a normal 25 year old. They hope they were able to get more by having more follicles but they aren't sure. This is something that cannot ever be corrected. It's just likely they don't mature. Probably another good reason why IVF is our only option.

Overall the retrieval went better than last time. I did have more pain but instead of waking up terrified of the nightmares I had just had I woke up this time crying and hugging the nurse who had just spent the 10 minutes in the OR talking to me before the surgery. She was awesome. She's also the one who has been doing my blood every morning and is pretty awesome at that too. I kept asking for her when they wheeled me out and when she came back I was crying and hugging her. I vaguely remember it. She was super helpful in the OR though. My heart rate started to really increase right before they put me out and she was a lifesaver being next to me keeping me from completely breaking down. Damn that estrogen.

I'm feeling much better about this time. I'm sad that my eggs seem to be so crappy but I really hope we got an awesome one in there and this is our time. Thank you all for the outpouring of support I have received in the past couple of week and especially today. It means so much to us.

Anxiety is High

I have never been so anxious in my entire life...and I have anxiety so that's kind of saying a lot.

I called this afternoon to check my blood work from this morning. We took our half dose trigger at 9:30pm last night and I was super anxious to hear how much my E2 jumped.

Well....it didn't...before everyone jumps up and says "YAY! It didn't spike again!!!"

It dropped. Drastically. We're down to 4300.

At first I heard the number and thought "Awesome it went down" Then reality set in and I realized just how much it went down. It is never actually good to see a drop in E2 except in a case where there is a serious concern of OHSS. Even then they don't want to see a drop after the trigger. They would rather it drop down before then trigger to get those smaller ones mature. The goal with triggering with a smaller dose is that the levels just kind of level off, maybe rise just a little bit or even a small (less than 10%) decrease can be good. So I immediately asked if there was an issue and the nurse didn't sound overly concerned but I kind of heard in her voice when she read over my previous numbers that it wasn't great. She said she was adding a progesterone check to make sure I didn't actually ovulate everything. I never heard so I guess I will find out tomorrow.

Just to clarify if I actually ovulate then the eggs are lost. The doctors cannot retrieve them unless they are in the follicle. That is why it is such a tricky surgery. Although only about 1% of IVF patients ovulate before surgery it does happen. What happens more often is that they only ovulate the biggest ones (also very likely the best ones) and the smaller ones are left to be retrieved. Then you are stuck with a very likely low number of mature eggs or poor egg quality. Which is exactly where we were before only for a different reason.

So right now I have no idea what is going to happen. We might go in there tomorrow and they do the surgery and we walk out with nothing. If that happens it means that they were all lost or the ones that are left aren't mature.

Everything we have been through in the past three weeks is on the line. All the appointments, blood draws, roller coaster emotions, lack of sleep, pain and anxiety. If we make it to transfer I can at least say we had a chance. We tried one more time. If not...I have no idea where to even begin to heal from that. All I can say is say a prayer for us.

Needing some good luck

Today we had some awesome looking follicles. They were huge but that's not really news to me because believe me I feel them. He said they are on the very far sides of my ovaries which is why I feel it more off to my sides and it's harder to get comfortable. My E2 yesterday was 3113 which is high but not horrible because it didn't go up too much from the day before. Today it was 5614 which is CRAZY high and not good at all. It's great that we have awesome follicles and what looks like a lot more mature eggs than last time but I am at a pretty high risk of developing some form of OHSS. There is a risk of having to cancel the transfer and freeze our embryos. Our hope is that it doesn't spike again. I will trigger tonight with 5,000 units(half dose) of HCG and hope that it doesn't spike again. By not doing the full dose of HCG there is hope that some of the smaller follicles will stop growing all together which will hopefully keep my HCG from rising anymore. The others will continue to grow and hopefully be mature.

There is a chance we will only be allowed to do one embryo again :( I'm sad over this but at this point if I make it to transfer I will be thankful. I understand at this point it is not about their policy but it is about having a safe and healthy baby. If more than one are put back and they both take there is great risk to myself and the babies. At that point OHSS would be increased and an almost certian factor since it increases with HCG and twins would produce more HCG. OHSS that severe is also a great factor in miscarriage. So we're at a point where we have to look at me being healthy and risking having a baby at all. We have come to the conclusion that we would rather put back one and it not take than to put back two and lose one or possibly even both due to OHSS.

So I'm a little scared. Much more than last time. I felt great after the last one. I was only slightly sore. Some sleep and junk food cured that in less than a day. I'm bracing myself for worse this time. The surgery will be Wednesday and I have also taken off Thursday and Friday. The original plan was to only take Wednesday and Thursday but considering my high numbers and the increased risk it is probably better that I take it easy. Hopefully by doing that we can make it through to the transfer.

Tomorrow I go for my last blood work appointment and 7am on Wed we check in for retrival. Surgery will start no later than 9:30am. So wish us luck...we need it :/