My cycle went relatively easily and stayed on the original schedule. I had my first ultrasound the end of February 2010 to make sure all looked good to start. It did. I took 10 tablets of Letrozole on Feb 28, along with my first Follistim injection and low-dose hCG injection. Yep, that’s right, two shots a night. Those shots continued for nine days. On the 6th day, though, we added a third injection medication (Ganirelix) to the nighttime routine for those last three nights. I had internal ultrasounds every other day during this time to watch the follicles grow and determine when the right time for retrieval would be.
On Mar 8, my ultrasound showed it was time. I had two mature follicles on the left ovary (measuring 18mm and 16mm) and four mature follicles on the right ovary (measuring 18mm, 2 @ 17mm, and 15mm). Tom injected the hCH “trigger” shot on the night of the 9th. This shot makes the body ovulate within 36 hours. It’s timing is important, as our retrieval was scheduled for 30 hours after the shot is given. So, I got the shot, then waited.
I had my egg retrieval on Thursday, March 11, 2010. After we returned home, I received a call from the clinic letting me know they had retrieved five eggs. The retrieval process itself was pretty quick and simple. I was a bit crampy the rest of the day and bloated, too, but nothing horrible. Tom was a great help and took Allan out of the house for the day to let me rest up. Then we waited for the next morning.
The next day, we received a phone call from a nurse with the fertility report. Sperm is put with each egg about four hours after retrieval. They’re then checked the next morning to see how many eggs fertilized. Our report was great. Four of the five eggs had fertilized. Then we waited until Day 3 for the next report.
We received a phone call from a nurse on Sunday, March 14, 2010 letting us know all four of our eggs were now at the 8-cell division, which was perfect for Day 3. Since we knew we wanted to transfer 2 embryos, we were going to let them all grow another two days and pick the best ones available.
On Tuesday, March 16, 2010, we went to the RE’s clinic for the transfer. We met with the embryologist first, who explained two of the eggs had progressed to the blastocyst stage (which is exactly what we want to see at 5-6 days). So, we went forward with transferring those two blastocysts. Then we waited for the next morning.
We received a call the next day letting us know the other two eggs had made it to blastocysts, also, so we had them frozen for reserve! You couldn’t ask for better! Six follicles. Five eggs. Four fertilized. Four made it to blast! Two transferred. Two frozen. All great news!!! Now the real wait began. Our next step was the scheduled blood test on 3/25 to determine pregnancy.
The clinic tells all patients not to test with a home pregnancy test. Anyone who’s been on this journey, though, knows most people do not follow those directions. I am one of those people! I began peeing on sticks two days after the transfer! Well, five days after the transfer, Sunday, March 21, 2010 I saw the line! The faintest of lines, but a line none-the-less! We were pregnant! It had worked.
On Tuesday, March 23, I started spotting. I couldn’t believe this was happening again. There really must be something wrong with my insides that I just cannot carry another child. I called the doctor’s office and asked the nurse to let me come in the next day instead of waiting until my scheduled appt the following day. She agreed and tried to remind me that spotting is quite common, especially in IVF patients. I tried to remind myself of that, but after my history, any blood was never a good thing to see.
I had a blood test done on March 24, and the hCG level was 167. This is good news, but means nothing by itself. Two days later, I had another test. The doctors want to see the number double in 2-3 days. They want to see at least an increase of 66% in two days. My level on March 26th was 389. More than double. This was great news. Of course I wasn’t convinced all was ok, so I had another test three days later. My level on March 29th was 900. More than double again. Perfect! And the even better news was the spotting stopped. Could it be everything was actually ok this time?!
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