IVF Ultrasound #5 - Ready to Retreive!

I was waiting for the nurse to call me back for my 5th ultrasound and bloodwork for IVF today, and a friend of ours came into the clinic. I hadn't talked to her in probably 9 months, and knew that they were seeing the same RE as us. I had heard through the grapevine that she had miscarried earlier this spring. I chatted with her for awhile and found that they had done their first IVF earlier this year, got their BFP, and then miscarried in April at 9 weeks. Luckily, they had 6 frozen embryos to use later. She was in the office today to do their FET. So we will only be a week apart! We compared notes regarding our doctor and our clinic. It was nice to talk to someone going to the same clinic for virtually the same thing. If only I had known, we could have carpooled today!

After spending over an hour in the waiting room (highly unusual for my clinic), I finally was called back for the ultrasound. I was hoping for huge eggs all over the place - ready for the plucking. And there were some, just not as many as I had hoped. When all was said and done, we have 11 follicles measuring more than 14mm. Only 2 of those were at the ideal goal of 18mm. The rest seemed to be between 9 and 13mm. I was hoping that there would be a whole bunch at 18mm, but I guess you get what you get. They asked me if I felt bloated, and I said I didn't think so….who knows?! Maybe a little - but I could still be constipated, too?! As for my lining, it is still "gorgeous" and "awesome" measuring at 15.5mm. At least my uterus knows what to do and is ready to take on some eggs!

I asked if I would need more drugs to make the follicles a little bigger or if we were ready for retrieval. After discussing it briefly with the doctor, we're going ahead with retrieval on Sunday, 07/25! My bloodwork came back and that rose from 754 to 1,672! This is also good and we've got "great momentum". This means that the only concern they have right now is overstimulation - as my follicles will continue to grow through Sunday. Sheryl mentioned that the doctor would monitor me on Sunday, and assess my risk for hyper stimulation. If needed, they will give me a different drug to keep that risk at bay. But for today, I didn't have to make a stop at the pharmacy!!

My schedule is to take 5,000 IU of HCG tonight at 11pm sharp. This is half the vial. Saturday night, the anesthesiologist will contact me to go over the procedure. I am not to eat or drink anything after midnight. We are to be at the clinic at 8:30 am on Sunday morning. This means I have to get up by 6am on a Sunday morning to make the drive. Yuck! Then on Monday, I will start the progesterone, which is used to help prepare for and then maintain pregnancy. I have a choice on how to take this. I can either do it by oil, intramuscular injection (lower back/hip) once per day at the cost of about $4 per day. Or, I can take a newer drug called Endometrin. This is taken vaginally, 3 times per day, at a cost of up to $18.00 per day. Mind you, I would have to take this for up to 6 weeks. $168 vs. $756. We're going to go with the injections…at least to start...DH would have to give me the shots though - I'm a bit nervous for that. On Sunday, they will let me know how many are retrieved. Sheryl will tell me on Monday how many are fertilized. Then on Friday, 07/30, I'll find out how many made it to the blastocyst stage, and we'll do the transfer.

Anyway, it's all very exciting, and it should be an interesting weekend!