Look for September Cycle Buddies

[Jessica2723]

I agree with wondercat a good heart to heart with open ended questions is in order. He will come around! I agree that women seem to be much stronger emotionally!

AFM: RE called me today and discussed assited hatching with me. He would like to try it for our next cycle. Has anyone used assited hatching before?

[soccermom]

Hi girls!
Thanks for your support!!! A quick post to say I'm back on the wagon! Just gave myself my first Lupron shot, yipppeee! Oh the memories - they all came flooding back to me as I sat there holding the syringe - trying to psych myself up that this was no big deal & how this all became second nature to me a couple years ago. I do have to admit that I watched the online shot tutorial over & over again just to make sure I didn't forget anything. So silly...in retrospect...no big deal at all!!

Will catch up tomorrow...nighty night!

[Wondercat]

soccermom - Did you not have to do lupron for your FET? What was your protocol for that?

[soccermom]

Wondercat -
No Lupron for my FET, just estrace & baby aspirin & crinone.

[Wondercat]

Wow, that sounds a lot more simple than I remember my FET being. Don't get me wrong, it was still a lot easier than a fresh cycle - just more complex than yours. I wasn't told to take baby aspirin until my last fresh cycle, so I'm thinking that's a relatively new thing. I had to stop taking it shortly after I got my BFP though because I was having lots of nosebleeds every day and I had never had one before in my life.

[Johanna2010]

It81

Staring my first cycle of IVF at the end of the month, my husband is a bit like yours, a bit distant about the whole thing but I think that's just his way of dealing with it. My husband is very much 'task orientated' and I think sees IVF as a task he must complete and if it doesn't work first cycle he'll just keep going until it happens. For the couple of years we have been trying to conceive naturally he just treated each month as another chance to conceive, he didn't get upset every month like I did! He found it difficult to understand why I cried every month but tried his best to keep me positive. We have unexplained infertility so he was actually prepared to just keep trying but he agreed to IVF because the doctor said it was an option if we hadn't conceived after 2 years. Being subfertile for no apparent reason is very frustrating!

One of my girlfriends who's had IVF twice (2 lovely girls) found her husband to be the same and it was she who told me about this forum, I find hearing from other women who are going through the same thing as me to be a real support. It has taken a bit of pressure off my husband (and me) and is definately helping us go through the process.

xx

[Wondercat]

Johanna - It must be very difficult to not know why you can't conceive. I was kind of relieved to learn that with us it was very straightforward and that there is no way other than IVF for us to have babies. Not only did we not have any ambiguity about the cause to worry about, but it cut through all of the insurance red tape. Reading your post really brought me back to the months of trying naturally and what a drain that was on us emotionally. Ovulation tests, basal temperature charts, cutting certain foods out of our diets... I almost have to laugh now thinking back to all the POAS tests I used when I was even one day late, knowing now there was absolutely 0% chance it could have worked! And I definitely have to laugh (albeit, ruefully) thinking about all the panicky POAS purchases when we were only 19 and 21, hoping for a negative... What a strange journey it turns out to be for us IVF couples.

[Jessica2723]

Hope everyone is doing well! Anyone have their transfer dates schedule? I think September is going to be a wonderful month.

[dawgs1257]

Hello,

This is my secons attempt at IVF. My first attempt we had 18 eggs retrieved, 16 fertilized with ICSI and 2 were transferred on day 3. We had no eggs that made it to freezing stage so I am hoping for some frozen ones this time. We are starting our injections on Friday, 8/20/2010. This time around I will have assisted hatching and I will have the injectable progesterone. I am not looking for to that, 16 days of shots in the rear does not sound fun. I am hoping for a BFP! The doctor is telling me that retrieval will be around 8/31/2010 - 9/3/2010 and then transfer will be 3 days later. I ahve a daughter that was conceived naturally who is now 4 years old and she wants me to have another baby so bad! Hoping this is a good cycle for us all!

[Wondercat]

dawgs - Hi and good luck starting your injections! 18 retrieved and 16 fertilized is great - did your RE tell you why they thought none made it to freeze? Those sound like the numbers from my first cycle and they only got 2 to freeze... I can't tell you that the progesterone is fun, but it's not as bad as it sounds. Actually last time around for me the worst part is that I developed an allergy to the sticky stuff in the bandaids I was using, which within days changed from "this kind of itches" to "OMG I CAN'T SLEEP BECAUSE MY BACKSIDE ITCHES SO MUCH IT HURTS!" I was freaking out that it was an allergy to something in the shot until the nurse said, "Uh, this rash is shaped like bandaids." LOL

[dawgs1257]

RE never told me why none made it to freezing. They did tell me it is common for this ti happen. It looks like you gat a BFP on your IVF #2, correct?

[Wondercat]

Yes, I got a BFP on my 2nd fresh cycle. It went totally different from the first, where I was constantly on the brink of overstimulating and had to go in every day for monitoring. I felt so sick after that cycle it didn't surprise me when that one and the subsequent FET didn't work. Two days after my retrieval I almost fainted at work, I was getting hot flashes and felt dizzy. Then the transfer took about 45 minutes because of a kink in my cervix. They changed a lot of meds for the second one (including switching from crinone to PIO) and the whole thing just felt so much better. I ended up with 4 frosties, so was hoping to do an FET soon except AF is now 8 days late & counting!

[dawgs1257]

That sounds like a similar situation to me. There was a kink in my cervix as well. I had some bleeding about a week after the transfer and the spotting stayed until the BFN and I never got a full flow. I never was close to overstimulation. I am hoping that maybe the PIO will be the key. Like I said before my RE is switching that and also doing the assisted hatching. Have you taken a HPT to determine if you are pregnant or not? If so and it was neg, I hope you get your AF soon so you can this cycle started. Lots of baby dust to you!

[annashope]

Hi girls

this is exciting! Some of you are already starting and it honestly makes the rest of us feel like things are moving along. Dawgs the PIO are really not bad. My last cycle I was so scared of them but then my RE gave me a numbing cream which I applied 45 mins before the shot and 15 mins before I applied ice and then I didn't even feel the shot at all, I think it was much easier that the stimms which went into the belly and the meds literally burned under my skin. Actually for me the worst was the side-effects of Lupron- uncontrollable weeping and this deep deep sadness (I am not a weepy person) not to mention the constant dizziness. However maybe that was the problem with my last cycle because RE says that Lupron oversuppressed me and so we only got 4 eggs all from my right ovary because the left just "stayed asleep" This time around we will be doing 10 days of BCP followed by a very low dose of Lupron and hopefully we get more eggs and are able to get some frosties.
Wondercat- I also noticed that you got your positive the 2nd time around and it gives me so much hope. We don't have any major issues except for DH morphology and RE believes that this M/c was just a fluke and that it will not repeat. We have been tested for all genetic issues and even had our chromosomes mapped and everything is good so I am really hopeful. In the meantime it feels like things are moving so slowly. It has been two weeks since the miscarriage and thank God no complications but now I wait for the official period so that we can start the bcp's and I have no idea when that will come. I thought that if I did the ovulation predictor kit I would at least know when I ovulate and be able to calculate 2 weeks after that for the AF but so far 6 days and there is not even a faint line on the ovulation stick and my HCG was only down from 866 to 670 this past friday. Honestly I am so ready for HCG to be gone and some normal things to return plus I so badly want to start the process again.
Anyways good luck to you all and keep writing we need to keep this board alive...lol

[soccermom]

Hi ladies!
Sorry, I've been MIA lately...but I'm back & loaded to the gills with drugs!! Dawgs, looks like our cycles are kind of close. I started Lupron last week (after 2 wks on bcp), and I started Gonal F on Monday. They kicked my Lupron down & started my gonal f at 150. Tonight they have me cutting the gonal to 75, and also taking 75 units of menopur. I hear the menopur kind of stings a bit, so I'm not looking forward to that! Makes sense that it would sting, I just read online what it's derived from & I so wish I hadn't looked it up! Oh well, the miracles of modern science have gotten me this far! Speaking of miracles, I have this little angel that a good friend gave to me when I went through my first ivf. There's a quote on it that I thought you all would appreciate "Where there is great love, there are always miracles" - Willa Cather. The angel is holding a little bundle of joy & it's just the sweetest thing! I tend to repeat that quote in my head as I'm giving myself the shots....as a reminder. I haven't done the PIO shots & I give you girls lots of credit that go through that! I do hear that the progesterone is way more effective given that way, so it's worth it!