IVF over 40 Buddy Group........Membership Drive

[teachertam]

Hello Ladies:

Kat: I'm glad you are feeling better now. That is just rude when people keep asking you about giving your DH a baby. People do not think before they speak sometimes.

Sis1: I'm so sorry you are having a bad time this cycle.

Renee: I will ask my ob/gyn about the success rates with clomid and femara and us "over 40's" ladies. I am ready for a vacation. I hear you about knowing what it was like before the children/child. DH and I used to have Friday "date nights". Of course that has gone awhile ago. I would not change if for the world though, as Andrew has brought so much joy to our lives. If we do go out for a nice dinner or a movie, I am always wondering if the little rascal is ok.

SueQiwi: Good luck on this cycle. Hopefully you will get lots of good eggs.

Kelly: How are you doing? The OV watch shows that I'm ovulating today. I am a little crampy so I think it may be right. However, the pee stick never gave me a positive for the LH surge. I hope I just missed it and that I am actually ovulating.

Lynnie: That is very sweet of you to offer your meds to others.

Hello to everyone else out there.

Regards,
Tammy

[lynniecat]

Sisi--

Have you tried a lupron-less cycle? I had success with no lupron and no BCPS. Both suppressed me too much!

[Sisi1]

That is what I am trying next but of course there is only one "try" for me so I am determined to get it right

I just wish I knew more about the lingering effects of Lupron like;
If I start a cycle now could I expect my responce to be downregulated?
When might I ovulate again?
Is it better to wait until my cycle is back to normal?
How long can the Lupron really stick around for?

I think I will try to get a hold of my Dr but I feel like I can't (that would just sound a bit to out there for me) until AF actually rears her ugly face so more waiting.....

Thank you for suggesting it, wish you were my Dr!

[Liam'sMommy]

Sisi have you found out anything about your cycle, your body, the lupron effect.....

Kat, i hear that lupron can make you a mess, make you loopy and give you bad headaches. What fun!!!!

It is so atypical for AMA patients to be on lupron due to over suppression. Hence, most of us no nothing about it.

Tammy, did you just test once a day with opk? If so i am sure you just missed your surge. I can't remember, are you temping to confirm O? If so let me know if the watch was accurate. The big is did you get busy at the right time? I hope so

Hello to everybody else. I will get the list up soon. I am such a slack ass.

BABY DUST to all still trying!!!!

[AKMom]

Hey there

Lupron does give you headaches, and it seems my emotions are more intense what ever they are...sad, anger, etc. Its like I am in constant PMS mode. My poor family, sometimes I cant even stand myself. Seriously. My body feels tired, like I want to nap, I dont feel "sleepy" just body tired like I've been hiking all day. Does that make sense?

AF is still here, but it is a strange period, the color is darker and it is not as heavy. I wish my Doc would have told me this would happen otherwise I wouldnt have freaked out ....but you ladies really helped, so thanks again.

I start my stims tomorrow, (joy) like I need my boobs to be any bigger, and to feel PG and not be. Oh well, I hope it works this time, For ALL OF US!

TTFN

Kat

[AKMom]

Hey there

Lupron does give you headaches, and it seems my emotions are more intense what ever they are...sad, anger, etc. Its like I am in constant PMS mode. My poor family, sometimes I cant even stand myself. Seriously. My body feels tired, like I want to nap, I dont feel "sleepy" just body tired like I've been hiking all day. Does that make sense?

AF is still here, but it is a strange period, the color is darker and it is not as heavy. I wish my Doc would have told me this would happen otherwise I wouldnt have freaked out ....but you ladies really helped, so thanks again.

I start my stims tomorrow, (joy) like I need my boobs to be any bigger, and to feel PG and not be. Oh well, I hope it works this time, For ALL OF US!

TTFN

Kat

[SueQiwi]

Hiya Ladies~

I just returned from my morning scan and am feeling discouraged. I only had 5 follies. I was really hoping for more. I thought the Chinese herbs i have been taking for the last 3 months would have bumped up my count. I worry there might not be an egg in every follie.

Kat~Im glad you will be joining me on stims today. The drugs are making me totally loopy too. I keep snapping at the poor Hubbs and crying at the drop of hat. Im a mess!

[Liam'sMommy]

Sue, you have been on stims 8 days? What size were the follies? Do you mean 5 follies all together or five larger with some smaller ones that could catch up?

My ER in Jan. i had 5 follies, 5 mature eggs, all fertilized with ISCI, all made it to blast but since i was not transferring they only froze the 2 that still looked really good on day 6. Which still pisses me off that they didn't freeze all of them. In any case, if your protocol is right and you trigger on time you should least have an egg in every follie. Keep the faith.

Okay Ladies, her is my is your ivf homework. I have not updated the list because this was my long post for today. Sorry, but this is more important.

HRSS/IMSI should be standard in ivf
I know we have all been led to believe that egg quality is what prevents most successful pregnancies. But that is not the case. The selection of good sperm is just as important and is now achievable via HRSS/IMSI. These articles help elucidate why even with ICSI, you can have fertilization failure, failure of embryos to develop properly, implantation failure, chemical pregnancy and more. This probably explains why some women continue to have failed cycles even with CGH normal embryos.

#://www.nhs.uk/news/2008/07July/Pages/NewIVFtechnique.aspx

#://www.andrology.org/library/downloads/ica ... er/W3B.pdf

#://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/scien ... 282460.ece

#://www.eshre.com/binarydata.aspx?type=doc/TEXT16.pdf

Those articles give stats with ISCI alone vs. HRSS/IMSI and ISCI etc.

The next article is different. My RE and i had been discussing this topic and he sent it to me. By the way, he does not charge extra for this technology as he believes it should and eventually will be standard for all ivf patients. In this study, which is the first study of its kind, the researcher selects good sperm based on "physiological status" or morphological characteristics. To do this they need high power microscopes. The microscopes are much stronger than those used by embryologists to select sperm for ISCI. Further testing of the selected sperm showed them to have significantly reduced mitochondrial dysfunction, chromatin problems and aneuploidy. Believe it or not, they could select against sperm anueploidy 100% of the time. The results of this research help to explain the findings in the previous articles.

I can not figure out how to link to the article. It was sent to me as an attachment and i don't how to get it to you. The article is "High-Power Microscopy for Selecting Spermatozoa for ICSI by Physiological Status" By Dr. Carlo Foresta. Vol 17. No. 5 2008 610-616 Reproductive Biomedicine Online:www.rbmonline.com/article/3404 on web 29 Aug. 2008. Maybe somebody can figure out how to link it or copy and paste it here.

My RE also said Bartoov, Berkovitz and Vanderzwalmen have written some of the best material on this subject. I have not had time to look for them yet. My guess is they are probably in scientific journals that most of us can't access but REs should have access.

I hope you all read the articles and urge your REs to do the same. It will take pressure from ivf patients to make this standard practice.

[Sisi1]

Kelly you are seriously fabulous!

If I was a Dr I would make you an offer you could not refuse and have you come work for me!

Thank you sooooo much for this information.
I always kind of figured that egg quality was a bit too simple to be the whole answer!

Now we just need a list of clinics that have the ability to do this .

[SueQiwi]

Kelly~ There were five follies between 10 and 15 mm and this is day 6 of stims for me. They are going to call me this afternoon with the blood results. I suppose I imagined there would be tons of eggs this time since I have been taking those herbs.

[Liam'sMommy]

Sisi, the docs doing it in this country are almost none existent. My doc is even the only SIRM doc that does it. So that tells you something. But in Europe it has taken off per my doc. It will become the standard here but that will be too late for most of us.

Sue, they probably only measured the 10-15 because they have to base when to trigger on the leader/leaders. Hopefully there are some 8-9 that they didn't tell you about. If so, some of them will be mature enough by ER too. When is your next US?

[teachertam]

Kelly: Yes, I am using the pee sticks to see if the OV watch is in sync with the LH surge. The OV watch monitors the chloride ions in your skin instead of the LH surge. I only tested 1 time per day, as I only had 6 tests left from the last cycle. I guess I will know if the OV watch worked by either getting preggo or if my AF starts 14 days after ovulation (as predicted by the watch).

I agree..............you are a wealth of information.

SueQiwi: I bet you have more than 5 follies. They usually only count the follies that are in the ballpark. However, some times those small follies grow faster than expected and can be large enough by the time you have your ER. My RE got 12 eggs during my 2nd IVF, but he was only expecting 10-11.

Hello to everyone else. DS is playing in the bathroom sink now, so I need to go. He pulls up his potty chair and uses it as a step stool to reach the sink. He loves to play in water.

Take care all,
Tammy

[lynniecat]

Sisi -

I found my cycles were lengthened by lupron, but I did not have that breakthrough bleeding. I would wait for what seems like a normal period before starting your next cycle, though waiting sucks big time. Can you use ov kits to figure out if you are ovualting? Then you can expect a real period around 14 days give or take after the surge... Course mine is always 10 days after the surge!

Are you doing estrogen priming? With EP they used ganerelix up front. My EP protocol had you use ovulation kits to figure out your LH surge, then on day 10 after the surge start estrogen patches and then start ganerelix on day 11 for 3 days. Then no ganerelix till the lead follie was 14 mm.

My antagon protocol did not have me do the shots up front or use estrogen. Instead we just started stims on day 2 of my cycle. We added the ganerelix when the lead follie was 14 mm.


I found the EP was better cause it kept my follies closer together, where as my antagon protocol caused me to have a lead follie. So the lead follie grew really fast and hogged up all the FSH causing the other follies to creep along!

Watch out for that issue if you are doing an anatagon cycle like mine! I should have canceled that cycle, but live an learn! This only happens to SOME people (of course I had to be one of them)!

[lynniecat]

Kelly -- Great information. It definitely bugs me when not all the eggs fertilize. Makes me wonder if its the sperm or the egg! And when you do not have many eggs, you need them all!


Sue-- 5 is not terrible at all. On my day 6, the most I had ever between 10 and 15 was 4! And guess what? I am PG right now! I have been told that sometimes when we have less follies, there is a greater chance they are good ones! So, try to not panic!

[Liam'sMommy]

Hi guys I have really been slacking around the house lately and it is a pit. I am going try to bust butt for awhile and get on top of things. I will get back with you tonight and update the list if my DH is too whiny Sometimes i just want to tell him to stop acting like a titty baby. I am sure you can all relate.

Hugs, Kelly