1/12/2011- ER Day!

Of course the day of my retrivel happens to end up having a huge blizzard. Since my company decided to close for the day, at least I do not have to worry about calling in sick. We already have a foot of snow on the ground and cannot make it out of the driveway. Great. Instead of risking driving in the snow (both ourselves driving and worrying about the other drivers), we decide to take the train into Boston.

It was a fairly quick train and subway rid into the city. Neither the train nor subway were affected by the blizzard. There is a T stop right across from the MGH so we just had to cross one street. These are some pics taken from the 10th floor of MGH (the floor the fertility center is on).

 Here I am reading my book while waiting to be called in.

 Shortly after this pic was taken the anesthesiologist came in to start my IV. They took me into the operating room, transferred me to the table and that was about all I remember. They were able to retrieve 12 mature eggs ! Woo-hoo !

1/5/2011- 5 Days In

Today will be the 5th day of stimming with Gonal-F & Repronex. I do not yet "feel" anything in my overies so I hope it's working ! I had my first monitering appointment yesterday. I had 7 follicles on my left side and 20 on my right ! My E2 ( estrogen) level was 108. I go back tomorrow to get checked again. It looks like I will be going every-other-day, now, until I trigger.

 

I'm not going to lie, my stomach is in pain. The Lupron shots were a breeze but these others are not fun at all. The worst part is that they end up creating a red welt. I'm so glad that it is not the summer as I would not be seen in a bathing suit with all these red welts on my stomach ! Not only do they look bad, but they hurt like hell ! Even just accidently brushing my hand against my stomach causes them to hurt. The wort part? Because of the size of the welts, there isn't much room left for the injections. I end up having to either use a spot twice ( once for the Lupron & then the stimms) which end up making it tough to inject, or I have to inject something into one of the welts. OUCH!

 

It pains me to think that so many women can get pregnant naturally ( or accidently) and here I am having to cause myself pain in order for a 50% chance. If you poll the women out there with kids, they will all say that they want their babies. I understand that. However, this child will be the most wanted one ever ! If I am willing to do all this to bring them into this world, I hope they always know just how much both their father and I want them and just how much they are loved. Heck, I am not even pregnant yet and already love my child that is not even there yet.

 

Ok. Back to work. I'll update in a few days as to my progress.

10/15/2010- Brief Background

We have been trying for a baby for some time now. In May 2010, I decided that I could not stay at my place of employment any longer as it was an extremely unhealthy environment. I moved to another company and low and behold, they had some Infertility coverage ! I am also very lucky that there is a Reproductive Endocrinologist in the Outpatient Center in the next building over.I made an appointment for the beginning of June to start our testing and discuss our options.

 

We went through the whole battery of tests ( u/s, b/w, HSG, SA, etc) and it came back that my thyroid was the culprit. I was diagnosed as hypothyroid several years ago, so it did not come to that big of a surprise. Not many people realize that your thyroid gland regulates almost every function of your body. If it is too fast or too slow, it can not only cause miscarraiges but also prevent pregnancy in the first place.

 

I was originally having my PCP treat my hypothyroid issues but I did not feel like they were doing a good job. After some research, I found a very good endocrinologist that was not too far from my work. Note: I had been going to an endo. before but switched to my PCP when he shut his business down as he was being accused of murder.

 

This new doc is very "on the ball." She knows everything there is when it comes to thryoid problems and infertility. She has been monitering me very closely and my thyroid is now in a normal range. Also, she was the first doctor to test me for anti-thyroid hormones. The test came back positive for Hashimotos which basically means my body is attacking my thyroid gland (as it thinks it's a foreign object) thus causing it to slow down.

 

After the doctor determined the primary cause of my infertility, we started treatment. I started with clmiid + ovidrel ( trigger shot) + IUI. It did not work. Not only that, but the high dose of clomid caused my endrimitriol lining to become too thin. Also, at this same time, my TSH level skyrocked in 2 weeks. They are unsure if it was just a freak occurance or related to the medications. Because of this, we had to take a break to get my thyroid under control. It was so frustrating to finally have an answer and a plan, only to have to take a break.

 

After a month break, my TSH was just borderline normal. Since we did not want to waste a "chance" or the money, we decided to do a lower dose of clomid & TI. This did not work either. At this point, my thryoid was under control. I met with the actual RE to discuss another game-plan. She wanted to only do 1 to 2 more IUIs ( depending on the response) before moving onto IVF. The IUIs cost appx $1K and had a 6% chance of working. IVF is far more expensive ( appx $10K-$15K) but have a 50% chance of sucess. So, we went for another IUI. I stayed at the lower dose ( due to my lining issues at the higher dose) but was not responding well. I was threatened with canceling my cycle when my overies decided to actually do something. I was not all that surprised when this IUI did not work. So, now we were stuck as a rock in a hard place. The higher dose caused my lining to be too thin and the lower dose caused my overies not to respond too well. At this point, it was recommended that we move right onto IVF.

12/15/2010 - Starting IVF

So, here we are...starting the IVF process. I constantly feel like I am on a roller coaster of emotions. One minute I am excited, the next I am nervous. We have a 50/50 chance of this working. All this time, money,physical and emotional pain for basically a coin flip.

According to the IVF guidlines, for someone my age, they only recommend putting 1 embryo back in. Now I feel like my chances are less. We are going to be putting all our eggs into one basket for this embryo. We are planning on seeing what the actual doc that will preformthe transfer thinks, as we want to try to convince them to put back 2. Sure the risks of both of them "sticking" are there, but we would rather have 2 chances vs. none.

As soon as my period showed, I called up the RE and they started me on BCPs. Later that day, I was faxed over my calendar and they claled in the prescriptions for all my meds. Once I got my calendar, I call up my ( regular) endocrinoligist to let her know. She had me come in to check my thyroid again. If it is even the slightest bit "off", we will have some time to correct it before I start the injections to stimulate my overies.

Here is a picture of all my meds:

That is a whole lot of needles !!!! The only one's that really scare me are the IM one's. Thankfully only the PIO ( progesterone in oil) is IM, so the others are all injected into my stomach ( vs. my butt).

I'm not going to lie, I have had several nightmares the IM shots. I will not have to do them until after ET ( I think?) but it will still be at least 14 days of IM shots.

The things we do to try to have a baby !!!

Switching services

I originally was using Google Sites to blog but like this format much better.  I will be moving over my posts so that they are all in one place :)