Survivor IVF, season 2

Let me recap least season for you.


Day 1: We started with 12, 1 did not survive, 2 were polyspermatic, 3 may not have been fertilized, 6 were doing good.

Day 2: 8 were at 2-4 cells, 1 at 6 cells

Day 3: 1 was abnormal, 1 at 10 cells, 7 were about average.
In the end we implanted a B and D, none could be frozen.

So, this season here's the summary.

Day 1: we started with 20 (woohoo). 4 were polyspermatic, 4 did not fertilize, 1 was immature. 11 were good to go.

Day 2: 5 were at 4 cells (awesome), 2 were at 5 cells (awesome), 3 were at 6 cells (awesome). One little burnout was at 9 cells (not awesome, grew to fast).

Day 3: little burn out hadn't changed (chill out dude!), 2 are at 11 cells, 6 are at 8 cells, 1 at 7 cells, and 1 at 6 cells.

The 6 at 8 cells are our first stringers. They look really good.

Both Mo and I have a good feeling about this cycle. It just feels like things are going the way they should and the odds look good. Implantation will be Tuesday at 1pm. Then begins the dreaded 2 week wait. We will do a home test about 10-11 days after implantation.

Part of me dreads the home test. Getting another negative will just cripple me emotionally. But at the same time, I'll have to know. With luck, some of the eggs will be good enough to freeze so that if it doesn't work again, we won't have to do the whole process over again.

Retrieval is go!

Yesterday we had our egg retrieval. That went well. I think Kallenberger set a land speed record for eggs. I swear the whole thing was over in 30 minutes (tops) and we got 20 eggs. That's 8 more than last time.

I was kinda bummed we didn't get 24, cause you know, 2 dozen eggs. I could post a picture of 2 dozen eggs. Instead, I'm going with this. 

They also took out 2 liters of fluid. That kinda explains her complaining about feeling bloated. She was lugging around an Easter basket and a bottle of embryo soda around. No wonder!

After the procedure things went a bit South. She started saying her left eye hurt and kept rubbing it. They taped her eyes shut during the procedure (to keep them moist). We think she might have gotten scratched or something.

Either way, it just kept getting worse. I left work at 4 to get her to a doctor. Our regular physician was not available so we went to the best care clinic over on 33rd. The doctor there is a quack. He looked at the chart, barely looked at her, ignored the whole IVF thing and declared it pink eye.

Pink eye. She's on 200 mg of doxycycline and zero symptoms leading up to this. We told him this. He just kinda ignored that and went with pink eye. We will not being back to that clinic. But, he did give a prescription for some ointment and some drops to help with the swelling and pain. We took those and called the fertility clinic.

Beejay (the nurse) let us know she talked to the Dr. K and he advised ignoring the diagnosis and use the drops and ointment. Neither would hurt the IVF process. The eggs are out, and that's a big deal. So, she's been using the drops and she seems to be in less discomfort. If it starts to get rough again, we'll go to our normal physician.

Either way, we should get the first update on the embryos today. I'm wildly looking forward to that. Of all the IVF stuff that sucks, the daily updates are wonderful.

and...another one.

So this IVF is similar to the last one in many respects. Last time we were supposed to do 3 ultrasounds, then got to do an extra one. Well, today that happened. We have another ultrasound tomorrow morning. That Ultrasound will determine when we do the retrieval.

Right now, retrieval is looking like Thursday. There is a chance it will be pushed to Friday, but I seriously doubt it.

The follicles themselves are developing as well or better than last time, but taking about the same time. Her uterus lining is at least as good and I think (in my completely uneducated way) better.

So, last time things went pretty much how they were supposed to, and this time is much the same. The most likely culprit last time was a failure in the embryo to implant, but not by fault of the uterus lining. So, it is likely that will be the hurdle this time.

No idea what can be done about that (and I doubt anything really).

Either way, we are getting to the serious points again. The progress makes the process less miserable, as does the familiarity of it all. Stay tuned.

IVF is like Charlie Sheen

We had the first of three ultrasounds to follow the development of Mo's follicles.

Doesn't that look fun?

They are doing well and mo is down to one less injection per day. That is good news. The folistim burns. The little things are doing well, apparently she is doing about as well as she did last time, which makes the nurses happy, but send a quiver of fear down our spines.

You know, because last time it didn't work.

We're not freaking out, but you know, not exactly what we want to hear. We want to hear "holy crap this is a billion times better than last time!" but since everything went so well last time (except the end part) that expectation is just unreasonable.

It's a funny thing. Having gone through a failed IVF (which was rough), it kinda takes the tension out of the whole thing. It still sucks, I want it to work, and I don't want to do it again. But, I can talk and think about it in a more realistic, factual way. We do this, then this happens, then we wait and see. It will either work, or it won't. If it works, awesome. If it doesn't, we go to the next step. It has become somewhat procedural.

Not unemotional, just procedural. Familiar.

So it's weird talking to people about it because I say how things are likely to fall into place and what we are expecting on a bit of an autopilot and they usually respond with something about not giving up hope. Which is weird to me because that never crossed my mind. I'm not sure if it is my tone or just people saying nice things for lack of a better thing to say.

Just another reminder that IVF is very, very, very different from the way people normally make babies. It's like charlie sheen...you can't process it with normal brain.

IVF, it's kinda like Charlie Sheen

Twinkie Tuesday is Good Stuff

So True

Angry Twinkieday

Yeah, it was like this today.

But it got better after slow cooked roast and kickboxing.

Week 5

Good golly. This starts week 5 of IVF round 2.

It's kinda hard to believe. This round seems to be flying by faster than the last round. Not sure why. Could be that we just know what to expect now so the anticipation-of-the-unknown doesn't factor it. We've also been doing fertility treatment for like...9 months? 10 months? So dealing with it kinda like dealing with going to work. You just kinda tune it out, go through the motions, and don't thinking about it.

I'm kinda looking forward to the suppression check on Wednesday, but I now know that part is not such a big deal. Neither are the ultrasounds and blood draws. We are scheduled for 3, we will prolly do 4. Which will push retrieval back to the 25th or so. Which pushed implantation to the 29th to 30th. Which means our home prego-test will be around the 1st of April.

Please, please, please dear God, do not have a sense of humor about prego-test on April 1st. It won't be funny.