Decisions, decisions

The last several days have been extremely excruciating. We were told by the clinic that we might want to consider switching to an IUI given that we only had 3 follicles. After a lot of agonizing, we decided to go ahead with the IVF anyways. The feeling being that at least we would have some more additional information about my eggs, and that it really might only take 1 to be successful. Also, my husband being the rational person he is finally said – “its just money”, and he’s right. We have coverage for 80% of the drugs, and the rest is out of pocket. We have a little bit of money set aside for this, and it just didn’t feel right to stop the whole process.

Retrieval was today – it came a bit earlier than planned because they didn’t want my big follicles to get too mature. As of Saturday I had 3 mature follicles, with 3 more lagging, but getting close to a minimum size.

I am happy to report they got 6 eggs – and every follicle had an egg, woohoo! Originally, 6 might have sounded low to me, but faced with going through with only 3, 6 is a blessing.

The retrieval was actually not too bad. I was completely anxious about it, and it turned out to not be as bad as expected, or as bad as I had read about on some other blogs. However, I did let the f-bomb drop when he froze the first side of my cervix. It was also very, very fast, maybe 10 minutes altogether. I suppose all the drugs helped.

Not to say I had an easy time of the whole thing. When the nurse gave me my IV in the prep room, I started to feel really queasy and light headed – my vision was blurring, and I was pretty sure I was going to faint. It started getting worse, so finally I whispered to the nurse that I was feeling faint. She gave me a cold cloth for my head, and then another nurse came in with something to “calm me down”. Turns out it was an Ativan, I wonder if I can get some more of those for this week.

All in all, I am really happy that my husband and I made the decision to go forward with the IVF.

Bloated

A quick update and question for the community out there. I went in for my day 6 blood and ultrasound today. I was feeling hopeful because I am so bloated – which I took to mean I have lots of good sized follicles.

I just picked up my message with my results and I have 3 follicles total that are more than 1 cm – 1.4, 1.6, and 1.6, and the rest are smaller than 1 cm. They never tell me the size of follicles less than 1 cm, but I know that my Day 0 ultrasound showed 15 total small follicles. They didn’t ask me to change my protocol at all, so I have to assume all is on track. Also, my estrogen is at 1772.

My retrieval is tentatively next Wednesday, and now my mind is racing with thoughts of the cycle being cancelled or only having 3 follicles to retrieve. Does anyone have a sense of what size follicles “should” be by Day 6, I’d be interested to hear others experiences?

Thanks!

Back in the Stirrups

Well ICLW is over for September - I was not as "attentive" as I had hoped to be, but I read some interesting blogs, and gained a few followers – thanks ladies! My time off is quickly approaching, which will leave me with lots of time to catch up on all of your blogs and contribute to mine.

I’ve already posted to October ICLW in the spirit of being organized. I had to think about my 3 key words – this month they are “first IVF, 2 week wait, and infertility”. My two week wait will be at the end of October, coinciding with ICLW.

As a short update – today was my Day 0; I got my blood and ultrasounds and met with the IVF nurse. It looks like I have about 15 follicles total – I have no idea if that’s average, or a lot, or a few. Once they confirm everything is OK later today, I will start Menopur tomorrow – yeah! My husband is such a pro now with the needles, I hardly even feel them anymore.

I also paid my fees in full - $7,700 for the IVF, ICSI and assisted hatching, and $1,000 for the meds for the first 5 days. All together this little endeavor will cost about $10,000 from my estimate. I paid for it all on my credit card – air miles here I come – and will pay it off using my savings from the last several months. I have been putting money aside from every paycheque to cover this, so at least I won’t be paying interest on this major purchase.

It is all starting to feel very real now. When I was getting my ultrasound this morning, I started thinking about the diagram of the “wand” with the long needle that retrieves the follicles – and then I started to panic a little. I have been getting needles pretty frequently since I was a kid (weekly allergy shots for years), but I still get pretty nervous and anxious about these things. It’s funny, after all this time talking to people in support groups, online, etc. I never thought to ask about the actual “procedure”.

For those of you that have done IVF, how did you find the retrieval? I’m interested to hear people’s experiences, but no horror stories please!