So, I meant to keep a journal of our IVF experience... but I will just summarize that here since it is over!!!
We started stim's in early August. Lupron certainly did a number on me. I was a complete bitch-on-wheels, I hated it. Needless to say, M did too. Although he kindly says that it wasn't that bad. I remember a meeting at work where I had to work really really hard to hold my toungue at the things that were being said. The next day my boss asked me if anything was wrong during the meeting - since my face was getting so red!!
We continued on to menopur and bravelle - 5 vials total a night. I figured out that I was injecting about $260 into my stomach each night! M wonders why I was upset if he over-primed the needle! He got very good at it since he prepared all of the injections for me - such an awesome guy and a good way for him to stay involved as much as he could be. M also insisted at going to all of the monitoring appointments too.
Retrieval day came on August 15. It was a Sunday. I was told that I should rest the day of and that I could resume normal activities afterward - WRONG!!! I took another day off of work because I could barely bend, let alone button my pants. The pants were getting very uncomfortable before the retrieval (downright good reason too with 16 eggs retrieved!!) but afterwards it was just painful. I finally went back to work on the next day (Tuesday), but it took a full week before I felt somewhat 'normal' again.
We had day 5 transfer of 2 awesome blasts!! Grade A all the way! We were so so lucky to get 5 snowflakes out of the process too. I think a mix of A's and B's, but I am not quite sure of the mix.
11 days later on the Monday the 30th of August we went for our first blood test. I was sure that it was going to be negative, since all the HPT's I had taken were negative. It just shows that you shouldn't trust the Dollar Store HPT's!! We had hcg levels of 38 at 16 dpo. We didn't see a line until Tuesday afternoon on the tests. Good news, hopeful news, but not great news. We were told to be cautiously optimistic since the number was so low and to come back on Wednesday. So on September 1st, we went back and found out that our number had more than doubled to 88 at 18 dpo. Happy, but still cautiously optimistic. At the first blood test it was found that my progesterone was quite low. So in addition to my bajingo sticks (slang for crinone!), and estradil (by injection every 3 days), I not had to get injected with the dreaded projesterone-in-oil that I have heard so much about. It's not too bad if you ice the area, to me it just seems like the day-after-day injections in the limited area where you are allowed to inject makes for pretty tender butt cheeks. M was again his awesome self as he prepares almost every injection and then gives them to me since I can't see what the heck I am doing back there. It may not be pretty, but it doesn't matter. If it needs doing, I will do it.
I was also hit with tiredness several days this week. Just a hit-the-wall-at-noon kinda tiredness. I was also a little light-headed and thought that these were great signs. 4 days later on September 5 we went back again and found that our numbers almost multiplie by 10 to get to 817 at 21 dpo. Hcg is supposed to double every 48-72 hours in the first few weeks, but instead of x4 increase, we saw ~x9 increase!! Looking back, I am convinced that both blasts' were thriving. The extreme tiredness continued until Wednesday of that week. Then it was gone. I was still tired, still needed more sleep than normal, but I was getting the during-the-day hit-the-wall kind of tiredness that I had been. On September 9th we had another blood test that resulted in 3986 hcg values. Still awesome at the doubling in the appropriate amount of time, but not quite as much as before.
It was just around this point where I started feeling the effects of the projesterone as more than just slightly sore boobs. Usually after I ovulate, my boobs are extremely tender and I get ravenous. When we were going through the IUI's and I had to take the projesterone suppositories, I was getting all of that plus random nausea that would hit pretty bad and some BIG food aversions. Something would be great one day and I couldn't even stand to look at it the next. I was finally starting to feel this! It had taken forever here and it was worrying me, especially since I know that my progesterone started out low.
We finally got to see our little bean-poles on September 14 at 6wks 2 days. We had one strong heartbeat at 141 bpm in a 3.4mm long bean-pole. There was one slightly smaller empty sac. Dr. Lee gave it a 20% chance of catching up.
We were ecstatic! Epecially since te risk of miscarriage dropped by a lot once the heartbeat was seen. The PCOS already give me a higher chance for miscarriage, so I wasn't believing that it was quite as low as Dr. Google was telling me, but it was still lower.
Then last friday night, September 17, I spotted at 10:30pm. It was dark red, starting to turn brown. It was only about 4 wipes-worth and that was it. We were concerned... but not too concerned. We decided to wait until Sat morning to call the office.
It turns out that no one was in the office on saturday. We learned later that we had made a mistake in dialing the extension to page Dr. Lee. We learned that after we tried paging him again that night because I started gushing blood. Totally freaked us out. I thought that was it. Dr. Lee called us back and told us that he wasn't too concerned, that it was most likely a false alarm. I didn't really believe him. What was he going to say on the phone, sorry but your screwed? Of course he was going to be positive. He promised to call on Sunday morning when he got to the office and was able to review our chart in more detail. He said that he would most likely have us come in for another blood test and see what that was. I didn't think that it was good enough. It had been over a week since our last blood test and there is such a huge range of 'normal' that how would he know if the numbers were continuing to go up, or had been up higher and were now coming down. There were not enough data points!!! Darn being a complete geek. We went home and I spent the entire day on the couch. I was able to complete the rest of the day sans bleeding.
I was taking it really slow and easy on Monday. Elevators and all. I was spotting around noon. I was ok with that, relatively speaking.... Then around 2:30 the gushing began again. In about 15 minutes, 2-3 gushes later, I had just about soaked through and overnight pad. I quickly left work at 3 and headed to my couch. The only day in 4 that I had not bled was the day that I spent on the couch. I called Dr. Lee's office and they scheduled an ultrasound for 7:30 this morning (21 Sept.). We went in and found that we still have a strong heartbeat!! Although it wasn't measured this time. The embryo is measuring at 9mm - a little small, but still within the range of 'normal'. They were hoping for closer to 12 mm, but it is still good. It looks like the empty sac is now a blood clot. I am proud of our other blastocyst. I believe that a valiant effort was made on its part even though it didn't make it. It sounds like that may or may not be the source of our bleeding. It would, but it was in the uterus above the embryo and Dr. Lee couldn't see a way for the blood to get out. Overall he said that this pregnancy has about an 80% chance of success. I think that is pretty good for 7 wks and 2 days.
I went through today with light spotting in the morning and then nothing in the afternoon!! M called me at 5 to arrange when we should go home. As soon as I hung up, I stood up, and gush! ARGH! Almost made it home! It wasn't a terrible one, and was only a single gush (how bad is it that I am measuring stuff in gushes...).
That is where we are at. I guess you could call us pregnant, but with everything going on, I am still trying to take it day by day and calling it 'cautiously optimistic'. I did feel a lot better today after seeing the heartbeat again!
