Monthly Archives: November 2009

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As Expected

Beta on Monday confirmed the negative pee stick. Sorry I couldn’t update earlier. Family obligations have had us traveling to various places during the week and this was the first chance I had to get onto a computer.

We have a followup appointment with the RE on Dec 10, but we can start another FET as soon as my period shows up if we want. Not sure if we’ll wait to talk to the RE first or just try again ASAP. The clinic shuts down from Christmas to New Year’s so if my period doesn’t show up in time, we might not be able to cycle again until January anyway. Not sure what the cut-off for my period would likely be to fit in a transfer before the end of the year. There hasn’t been much time to think about what we’ll do next, let alone call the clinic to ask questions. I don’t even know how I feel about having not been successful this cycle. I’m sad and disappointed, of course, but I also feel like I had been really lucky with my fresh cycle and really couldn’t and shouldn’t expect to be lucky again for #2 on only our first try at a FET. I had to get my bloodwork done at a lab I had never been to and it helped that the phlebotomist who took my blood was a fellow infertile (DOR, one successful pregnancy resulting in a now 2nd grader). She initially reached out to me with a few tentative comments saying just the right things one would say to someone who might be going through a first IVF cycle. I had been a bit apprehensive about getting my beta done in a place that might not be dealing with infertiles getting their beta every day. Wasn’t really in a mood to deal with any insensitive comments that morning so it was nice to have gotten someone who understood where I might be coming from.

I probably won’t update again until we get home after Thanksgiving. To those who observe it, have a Happy Thanksgiving!

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1 embryo a no go, 3 still on ice

POAS’d this morning (9dp5dt) and still only one line. Disappointed and sad but not surprised. Beta tomorrow to confirm that this cycle was a bust.

Not sure if we’ll be able to fit in another transfer before the end of the year since the clinic shuts down for 2-3 weeks in December. I hope to find out when I get a call from the clinic tomorrow afternoon when they call with my beta results.

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Testing

I’m sending this post via email to test the email a post function. We will be out of town soon to spend Thanksgiving with my family and I’m scheduled to have my beta a few days before Thanksgiving and I want to be able to post the results but not leave traces of my blog on my parent’s computer. Hoping this works.

The other bit of testing news. I POAS’d today. Just got a single line. I’m not too surprised. It’s 4dp5dt, so definitely early. I decided to test early to see how crazy it was going to make me to see a negative before my beta and in the times when I things are quiet and I have time to think about it, I can feel the crazies wanting to be let out. So, my plan is not to test again until at least Saturday because I think I will be less crazy if I don’t test daily.

Of course, the call of 5 unused pee sticks can be quite loud, especially in those early morning hours right before I get out of bed!

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One (precious) cargo on board

We wanted to do a single embryo transfer to avoid twins so we asked them to thaw one embryo at a time.  Luckily, they only had to thaw one.  According to the embryologist it (a blastocyst) looks really good and started hatching without any assistance.  So, one embryo was transferred on Friday with 3 still on ice.  Since then, I have been trying to keep my feet up as much as possible and Mr. W has taken over most of the child care duties.  It has been nice to just sit and watch DVDs and knit, but I miss being around my little boy.  There are still times when I feel like I have to pinch myself as a reminder that I have a son and when I hear him playing in the next room, laughing at who knows what, I can hardly believe I am hearing my son.  This time “away” from him also reminded me of one of the major reasons I decided to quit working.  He is changing so much day by day and there is so much to miss.

One more day of resting and then it’s back to what is normal and routine now for me these days.  Can’t wait.  Beta is scheduled for 11/23, but unlike last time I am going to POAS as soon as I can to find out if this took or not.  Except it’s been so long, though, I don’t even know the earliest I should test is!  So, I’m asking for help again.  How long after transferring blastocyst FET can I POAS without getting a false negative?  5 days? 7 days?

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Transfer day

Going in for transfer in less than 2 hours.  Not sure when the clinic starts thawing the embryo before transfer, but we’ve gotten no calls this morning (they’re supposed to call if they had to thaw more than 2) so I’m hoping that means the thaw, if it has happened/is happening is going ok.

I’m going to try to do as much as the prescribed 3 day bed rest as possible.  Actually, it’s Mr. W’s idea.  I have told him studies show that it really doesn’t matter, but he is insisting.  And hey, it will give me a chance to just sleep and relax.   So, I don’t know when I will post again to update on the transfer.  Will try to sneak in a post when I can.

Wish us luck.

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Going forward

Thanks for your comments and emails.  The RE’s assessment of the cycle is that u/s #2 measurements were likely off and he doesn’t think the cysts or the lining reduce our 30% chance of success with transfer of one frozen blast.  After hearing what he had to say, I feel much better about my cycle.  I think it makes sense that the lining check at u/s #2 may be off since I have never had a 8mm lining so soon in my cycle before.  And although they would rather see 8mm, 7mm (and triple stripe) is not bad and with the delestrogen shot and one more day until I start progesterone, he thinks that it will get my lining close if not to 8mm.  I got a lot more estrogen side effects after getting that shot, so I feel like my body is responding to the meds like they should.  That was another reason the results of u/s #2 made me feel so uneasy.  I had expected the cysts to shrink, but now I suspect that not only was my lining “measuring” more than it was, but also that the cysts were actually smaller than they thought at u/s#2.

After writing up my previous post and seeing your comments, I realized I needed to figure out if I would regret going through this cycle if it didn’t work.  Stats wise, this cycle has more of a chance of failing than being successful even given the best the most ideal circumstances.  And just as Sarah mentioned, I need to go into this cycle feeling like it has as good of a chance of success as possible.    After giving it lots of thought I realized that the two things that were most disturbing things about my cycle were that my cysts did not seem to get smaller at my 2nd u/s and that my lining this week was measuring less than what we saw last week.  And after hearing my RE’s explanation as to why he thinks this cycle is still a good one to go forward with (i.e u/s #2 is off, not my cycle), if I just go with what we know from u/s #1 and u/s #3, then my lining is not that far off from my previous cycles.  As for whether those cysts will give me problems, they took my progesterone at each of my u/s starting with my baseline and there was no indication that I had ovulated and the E2 at baseline also did not show that the cysts were “active” as they put it.  I forgot to mention in my last post that I did an SHG about 3 weeks before my baseline u/s and there was a cyst present and so that is the origin of one of those cysts, at least. 

If I just discount u/s #2, I think I agree my RE’s assesment that all the rest of the u/s and bloodwork say this cycle is a go.  I also trust my RE and my clinic not to push ahead with a cycle they don’t think has a good shot at that successful 30% and I have much better feelings about my cycle, now.  I don’t feel like my cycle is “off” like I did a few days ago.  And, despite the cysts, I feel like we are going into this cycle with a good shot at that 30%.  So, started my progesterone Saturday and transfer is still on for Friday.

Thanks again, for your opinions.  Although the overriding consensus was to cancel, the reasons for cancelling gave me a lot of food for thought and helped me reach the decision to go ahead.  I so appreciate hearing what you thought.

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What would you do?

U/S #1 on day 3: 15mm cyst on left side, ~9mm cyst on right side, 4mm lining (prior to this, was on BCPs for 3+weeks and had breakthrough bleeding).

U/S #2: 15 mm cyst on left side, right side still 8-9mm, 8.4mm lining and triple stripe!  Told to stay on synarel to suppress ovulation in case cysts were ovulatory.  Bloodwork showed no progesterone being produced, however.

U/S #3 (Today): 9 mm cyst on left side, right side small and not measured.  Lining only measures 7 mm (took several measurements, and same NP who did U/S#2).  Waiting for bloodwork results and RE suggestion as to whether to proceed with transfer.   Got a delestrogen (?) shot to try to boost building of the lining.

My question is, should I push for cancellation even if the RE feels it’s ok to proceed?  If we go ahead with transfer on the 13th, I start progesterone Saturday so my lining only has a couple more days to thicken.  And why the difference in measurements from last week?  I had been at 8mm (which I thought was unusual since in two previous monitoring cycles, I was 6mm and 7mm at that point).  Was that measurement just wrong?  Or has my lining thinned since last week?

This cycle has just felt off from the beginning ever since I had the breakthrough bleeding on BCPs.  I would rather cancel and try again next cycle since the 4 embryos we have will be our only shots for a sibling and I want to give them the best chance possible.  

So, what do you think?  What would you do?

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All is well

Sorry for the long silence!  Thanks for the emails and comments wondering if I was ok. I am!  Just can’t seem to find much time to get on the computer these days and when I am on, I’m trying to catch up on other people’s blogs or people on FB.  This SAHM thing is both easier/better and harder/worse than being a working mom and the one of the things that is harder is not being able to carve out some “me” time.  And not much “me” time means not much blogging time.

One of the “easier” parts of this SAHM thing is that it also doesn’t give me much time to obsess and worry about my FET cycle which I started a couple of weeks ago.  The monitoring so far has shown a couple of cysts and we are taking it on a week by week basis as to whether we will actually get to transfer.  Tranfer is scheduled for the 13th (yes, as in Friday the) and since we are transfering one embryo which, at my clinic, stands at a 30% chance of success, well, I don’t really have good feelings about this cycle.  Realistically, there are more chances of it failing then succeeding.  Luckily, I don’t really have time to wallow.  Really only on the drive to the clinic and the drive back–it all seems kind of surreal anyway since Mr. W isn’t making these trips with me and he came with me to ALL the appointments when we went through our fresh cycle.  I almost feel like I am sneaking out and doing this FET in secret or something.

I’ll try and post some updates even if ithey are really short posts and work on trying to get more “me” time because not having much of it is sort of wearing me down.