IVF #1 – Cancelled

At 2:41 pm today my phone rang and it was my nurse telling me that we’ve been cancelled. Needless to say, I’m devastated.

But let’s back up just a bit so that you have the entire story.

I had my second u/s and b/w today to check on how the follicles were growing. My nurse came in and while she was getting everything prepped, I noticed that we had the granddaddy of all u/s machines in the room I was in today. I commented on it and she said that she wanted to use the newer one since it’s better and gives a clearer picture than the older ones. She mentioned that she had seen my results from the last u/s and thought it would be best to use the new one so we could get the best idea of what my ovaries are up to, which I definitely appreciated.

So she started on the right side and right away three sizable follicles popped up. Better than Wednesday, I thought to myself. A fourth one was easily found after that. Then she moved over to the left and there were six or seven visible there and they were of a decent size too. The nurse was obviously pleased and said how much better this was than last time and I immediately felt so much better. She was talking about how they would need to check my blood work and see how it looked, but that things were looking well. I asked her what the estrogen levels should be at this point and she said at least 200. She also asked if my husband has any male factor issues and I told her no. She said that was good incase this didn’t work out, we could convert to an IUI. I completely blew off her comment thinking that with 10 to 11 follicles on day 4.5 of stims there’s no way that things wouldn’t work out.

I left the clinic feeling really good about things, and even posted on my online buddy group about how relieved I was that things were looking so much better. Then my phone rang and the area code was from Iowa. My clinic operates on the “no news is good news” theory, so I was a bit concerned. There wasn’t any chit chatting or small talk; she just spat it out. My estrogen level wasn’t where it needed to be to continue the cycle and I was to discontinue the meds and schedule a consult with the RE. I asked her what my estrogen was and she said 195. What?!? Earlier she had said that it needed to be 200 and I couldn’t believe that they would cancel me for being a measly five points below where I needed to be. When I asked her about it, she said that I really needed to be closer to 400 at this point. She said that the goal isn’t to get me to retrieval, which they could do if we were to continue on. The goal is to get me pregnant, and chances of that just aren’t good with the slow start that I’m off to.

So that’s where we’re at. Cancelled.

On Monday I will call to make our consult appointment with our RE. I really hope that he can provide some insight and a revised plan for our next cycle. At this point I have no idea what comes next. Someone told me to consider the good that came out of this, which is that at least they know how my body responds now and can try something else for next time, which is a great way to find a positive from this situation. But right now I can’t seem to get past the fact that we never even got the chance to get pregnant, and that’s what hurts the most right now.

A slow starter?

I sure hope that’s what I am.

Today’s u/s showed only four little follicles measuring around 5mm each. The nurse seemed very discouraged about that. In fact, while she had the ultrasound wand roaming around inside me looking for any follicles that might be growing, she actually asked me how old I am. That combined with the fact that I wasn’t seeing any pretty black splotches on the u/s screen convinced me that things were not going well before she even said anything.

So she said that I may just be a “slow starter.” She said that most women who are where I am in my cycle usually have 7mm to 8mm follicles and mine are only 5mm. I’m guessing that most would also have more than four follicles at this stage as well.

After a few hours of panic, I realized that it is what it is. It is still super early (I’d only been stimming for 2.5 days at the time of the u/s) and there is plenty of time for me to catch up and they didn’t increase my meds at all, so it can’t be too bad, right? And worrying about it isn’t going to make the situation any better, it will only stress me out more. So the plan is just to stay positive, keep going to acupuncture and hope for the best on Friday.

To Blogroll or Not To Blogroll?

It might seem like a question that doesn’t require a lot of thought. But I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about it lately. There are 17 fertility related blogs in my RSS feed and if I weren’t so selfish, I would not hesitate for a moment to add them to my blogroll. I would love for these women to receive some of the great support that I have from the readers of my blog.

But there’s one small thing keeping me from doing so. Most of the blogs that I keep up with have their own blogrolls. Sometimes I’ll click around other bloggers’ blogrolls and see what they’re reading. The thing that I’m finding is that a lot of those infertility bloggers on the blogrolls are now pregnant. For example, there is one woman who has twelve infertility blogs listed on her blogroll and all but one are pregnant.

On one hand, this should be really encouraging to me. All of those women struggled with fertility somehow, and nearly all of them are pregnant now. That in and of itself should give me hope and maybe there’s some benefit to associating with

On the other hand, I cannot imagine how difficult it would be if six months or a year from now nearly all of the bloggers that I keep up with and listed on my blog were pregnant and I was not. I guess it seems like a scoreboard in some sense…a constant reminder of those who have achieved what they wanted while I could potentially still be struggling.

So to all of those who regularly read and comment on my blog, please know that I’m not trying to slight you. I guess it’s just a self defense mechanism. I’m hoping that someday soon I will feel comfortable enough to be able to add all of you wonderful people to my blogroll.

MIA

So I realized that I’ve been missing in action for a couple of weeks. It was most certainly not intentional, there just hasn’t been that much to update on. I’ve been doing my nightly lupron shots and that’s pretty much all that’s been going on in regards to our IVF cycle, so not too exciting.

In non-IVF related news, Mark and I recently spent some time in Colorado. It was a great break from everything and worked out nicely as a quick vacation before we get into the heart of this cycle. We had originally planned to do lots of hiking and mountain biking, but Mark messed up his ankle pretty bad when we were mountain biking at Winter Park on day two of vacation, so the rest of our plans had to be completely changed. Honestly, this was a little bit of a relief for me since I wasn’t so sure that I would be able to do all of the mountain ascents that Mark wanted to do. So all in all, it probably worked out for the best since things ended up being a lot more relaxing and mellow than they would have been otherwise.

On the way back from the clinic we stopped in Iowa for my baseline ultrasound and blood work. Sheila (our nurse) said that everything looked great on the u/s and said that we would only hear from them if there were issues with the blood work. She gave me my Follistim pen and sent us on our way. On the four hour drive back home, I got a phone call from an Iowa area code and of course my heart sank right away. Since she said they would only call if there were problems, I was immediately nervous. Sheila said that she wanted me to reduce my lupron from the 10 units I had been taking down to 5 units. Since my original calendar showed that I was supposed to take the 10 units all the way through until trigger, I was a little concerned. I wondered if being on the lupron for so long had over suppressed me and that’s what she wanted me to reduce the dosage. I started to worry about it and then realized that I couldn’t do that. I can not obsess and worry over every u/s, blood work result or medication change. I’m sure that there will be a lot of changes and I just need to trust that my medical professional know what they’re doing. They are the experts after all and their success rates speak for themselves.

So for now I’m just cruising along on the lupron but I get to start my stims on Monday! I feel like this has been such a long time coming that I just can’t wait to get to the “good part” of the cycle. Everyone says that once you start stims things go really fast, so I’m definitely looking forward to that.

Unfortunately for me, Mark has to go out of town next week for work so he will be gone for my first two monitoring appointments. I’m a little disappointed in that, but I also know that he will be making some nice money while he’s away, and that will help to us to pay off this huge debt that we’ve incurred. My mom has graciously volunteered to make the two trips down to Iowa with me and my dad will stay here in town and take care of our dogs while my mom and I are gone.

So things are going really well right now. I feel positive and am looking forward to everything that is to come!

The last BCP!

I can’t believe how fast this past three weeks has gone by.  When I started the birth control pills, the end of the third row of pills seemed an eternity away.  But now it’s here and I’ve reached the last one.  From here on out, it’s lupron only and that makes me feel like I’m getting somewhere.

Assuming that my baseline u/s next Thursday goes well, then I’m also only two weeks away from starting stims.  It feels like I’ve come so far already that to think that I still have two weeks to go before we even get to the good stuff is a little disheartening, but I know that the time will pass quickly.

This Friday we are leaving to go to Colorado for a few days and we’ll swing by the clinic on our way back for my baseline.  I’ll start stims the following Monday, so to me it feels like I just need to make it to Friday and then the time will fly by and I’ll be stimming before I know it!

We went to a wedding this weekend, so I had to do my lupron shot at the reception.  It went fine with the minor exception that I completely forgot to do it until 45 minutes after I was supposed to.  I had even set my cell phone alarm to remind me to take it, by my purse got separated from me and it was too loud to hear the alarm anyway.  I think since I’m still on the BCP’s it should be fine, plus it was within and hour of when I was due to take it, so I’m not going to let the lateness bother me.

I also had some kind of illness this weekend.  My allergies have been really bothering me lately and I thought that they were just acting up a lot.  On Saturday I felt miserable from about 5pm on and by about 10pm I was convinced that I had a fever.  I managed to tough it out and we stayed at the wedding until about 11:30 when I just couldn’t take it anymore.

We got home and I used my charting thermometer to take my temp and found out I had a fever of 100.5.  I self diagnosed myself with a sinus infection (though I’ve never actually had one before) and took all kinds of meds and went straight to bed.  In the morning my fever had broken and my headache was gone, but the congestion remained. 

Now I’m feeling just OK and hoping that everything resolved itself soon since it would really suck to be sick in Colorado.  I would imagine that congestion and pressure is just that much worse at elevation, so if I’m not feeling better by Wednesday, I guess I’ll have to make a trip to the doctor.

Other than that, we’re just cruising along, doing lupron injections and counting down the days until Colorado!

It’s Lupron day!!

T minus 15 minutes until my first Lupron shot. I’m so excited, it’s ridiculous! Really, no one should be this excited to give themselves injections.

But I can’t help it! We’re really doing this!!!