IVF Diary Vol III: 03 – 06 Apr 16

April 6, 2016April 6, 201611 Comments

Medication(s) administered and dosage(s). Stimming phase: day 6. PM: Gonal-F 375 iu & Menopur 75 iu injections. AM Lupron 0.5mg (5 units) injection

Medical procedures undertaken. Monitoring vaginal ultrasound and Estradiol blood tests check 2! I had a good number of follicles on Day 4 of Stimming…better than my previous 2 rounds, I had 6-7 in each ovary which was better than the 4-5 from the previous rounds. So that’s good!

What are my symptoms? The headaches have started 😦 I’m trying to stay hydrated, but I’m not able to shake them. Also, when I thought I was suffering from a cold – turns out I was suffering from allergies to pollen – potentially the pine pollen. For those of you unfamiliar with pine pollen, it is luminous yellow and coats everything in the neighbourhood in a fine layer of yellow dust. Then when it rains it turns the puddles toxic yellow!!!

Ughhh the pine pollen gets everywhere!!!

today is the first day I’ve been feeling my ovaries – Oh hello ovaries, it’s about time you woke up and reminded me how many follicles we are growing inside of you!!!

How do I feel today? I am feeling much better than my previous post. I have been off work today. I’ve caught up on some lovely blogs, I’ve chilled out with a friend and her kids (we also played with St Bernard mountain puppy in a pet shop) and I’ve put together some gratitude boxes for the upcoming yard sale to raise cash for our local infertility support group! These boxes have some sweet treats and a positive happy quote written inside them. They are a way to say thank you to those who donated to our group’s cause! So I’m feeling inspired and positive today 🙂

Any results? Estradiol level after 3 days of stimming 380 pg/ml – this is a lot higher than my previous cycles – and correlates with my increase in follicle numbers too (cycle 1 – 173, cycle 2 – 194). Uterine lining is looking food. Ovaries are stuffed with some nice looking follicles. So all looking good 🙂

What’s next? Tomorrow morning is monitoring appointment check 3!

Weight. I have put on 5lbs since IVF 2. NOT AMUSED.

Waist. AGHHHHHHHH MY TUMMY IS SOOOOOOO BLOATED!!!!!

Boobs. NSTR.

The Final Countdown!!! Over half way there!!!!

*Notes. I take First Response Reproductive Health multi vitamin gummies (pre-natal), 5mg Melatonin at bed time and CoQ10 200mg gummies daily. NSTR = Nothing Significant To Report.

IVF Diary Vol II: 23-24 Jan 16

January 24, 20163 Comments

Medication(s) administered and dosage(s). Stimming phase: Days 9 & 10. PM: Saturday AM: cetrotide, Sunday PM: Ovidrel (the trigger!!!). I did the trigger injection myself and decided to record it and post the video to my personal facebook page #thisiswhatinfertilitylookslike. (the video is at bottom of my blog post :-))

Medical procedures undertaken. Monitoring appointment – ultrasound and blood test.

What are my symptoms? Tiredness – afternoon naps have been required!!!! Nausea that comes and goes. Sunday, I have felt a little bit better than I have done over the past few days, but the ovaries are starting to twinge with odd pains here and there :-s These eggs are ready to go!!!

How do I feel today? Excited. Nervous.

Any results? My follicles are looking great. Randomly, in my right ovary all the follicles look the same size and shape.

“My good English eggs are ready!!!”

(The Dr’s words…not mine!!! Every single time I have seen him he makes a reference to my Englishness)

What’s next? Egg retrieval Monday 0630 AM!!!! Trying to mitigate any potential mild OHSS symptoms like I got from last time.

Weight. I haven’t weighed myself, I need to do this before the surgery so I can monitor OHSS.

Waist. My waist is 6cm larger than the same time last time!!! Whoops!!!

Boobs. NSTR.

Hours of Sunshine 🙂 None. It’s winter. It’s cold out there. Oh and we were like the only city in Virginia to get a pathetic amount of snow, it was mostly rain for us! I am pleased so it hasn’t messed up any of this round of IVF. I hope other women didn’t face problems with the snow storm who may need to travel from further way.

The snow storm wasn’t quite so apocalyptic as it was in other parts of Virginia!

Fun Activity to keep Dani from going insane. It will be time to relax and recover, so no specific fun activities. However, I am quite excited to watch Orange is the new black – I have a lot of catching up to do!!!!

*Notes. I take First Response Reproductive Health multi vitamin gummies (pre-natal) and CoQ10 200mg gummies daily. NSTR = Nothing Significant To Report.

IVF Diary Vol II: 19-20 Jan 16

January 20, 2016January 20, 20169 Comments

Medication(s) administered and dosage(s). Stimming phase: days 5 & 6. Gonal-F 300 iu & Menopur 150 iu. I started cetrotide this morning, day 6 (20 Jan) – this is the drug that stops me from ovulating prematurely and losing all those eggs!

Medical procedures undertaken. Monitoring appointment – ultrasound and blood test. So for my last appointment there were loads of people in the waiting room – it was like chaos. This morning, there was no one except little old me. It made me nervous! I don’t know why, but it just did – I wondered if I was an odd ball with my cycle.

What are my symptoms? Tiredness – I am struggling to keep my eyes open today. I went into work after my appointment and this afternoon I taught a 2 hour lesson as part of our staff development training. I give a highly interactive class with practical tasks, so it is incredibly draining on the brain as the ‘students’ always have lots of challenging questions for me!!! I am amazed I survived. At the end, one of the organisers asked me if I was OK, was I tired? Clearly I looked pretty rough!

I also have a headache. It is not dehydration because I have hydrated constantly all day, carrying around my water bottle with me.

The bloat…the bloat….the bloat is on fire! Aghhh! How many days do I still have left? I’m just over halfway hopefully! I am currently sat in my fluffy fleecy pyjama bottoms. They feel sooooooo good!

How do I feel today? Apart from the tiredness thing, I’m feeling not too bad. I am excited to be on this IVF journey still and haven’t given up hope just yet 🙂

Any results? I have 6 follicles in the right ovary and 7 in the left, with a few smaller ones hoping to catch up!!! Last time around my right ovary was the dominant one, this time it is the left. It looks like I am responding well in terms of follicle numbers similar to last time. Which is good because they collected 9 last time (6 were mature, 4 fertilised) so I am hoping for some more mature eggies this time around!

What’s next? The same injections then monitoring appt on Friday morning. The Doctor says I am currently looking good for an Egg Retrieval on Monday!

Weight. NSTR

Waist. slowly growing 😦

Boobs. Slightly bigger.

Hours of Sunshine 🙂 None. Snow expected soon!

Fun Activity to keep Dani from going insane. Dodgeball season starts tomorrow evening, I am not sure if I will play yet! I am doubtful. But I will go along anyway to support the team even if I don’t play.

Rahhhhh – Dodgeball is a great place to let off some steam – But not when you are in the middle of an IVF cycle!!!! :_-(

13 follicles – with a few at 3-4mm left to catch up

*Notes. I take First Response Reproductive Health multi vitamin gummies (pre-natal) and CoQ10 200mg gummies daily. NSTR = Nothing Significant To Report.

IVF Diary Vol II: 16 Jan 16

January 17, 20166 Comments

Medication(s) administered and dosage(s). Gonal-F 300 iu & Menopur 150 iu. We started with the Gonal-F needle – this one needs a bit more force to pierce the skin. Chris didn’t do it hard enough and the needle bounced off my skin!! I like to think it’s just my strong abdominal muscles rejecting the needle – haha!! As if!!! Anyway, after that little episode Chris tried again, this time he went a little too hard and it hurt! The camera captured the moment well. It’s OK to laugh at me, I know it is quite a funny picture ;-p

Chris was oblivious to the ridiculous face I was pulling! The camera captured the moment well. Fortunately he was concentrating hard on the task at hand.

Medical procedures undertaken. Nil.

What are my symptoms? No hot flashes…nothing to report. I am thankful!

How do I feel today? Feeling good! Chris and I had a nice day together, we went to our local organic eatery and sat in the heated sun porch for lunch. It was a sunny glorious day so it was very relaxing. We played a game of cribbage, I have 5 games to win in the next 1.5 months to beat Chris for the whole year (ever since we got married we keep track of the number of games won in a year). Chris has taken the ‘surprise date’ idea and decided to extend it to the whole weekend – I am not to make any decisions, it will be a surprise and there will be fun!!! Which sounds weird, but so far it has been nice to just follow his lead.

Any results? After worrying about the LH and FSH results yesterday, I forgot that these tests were taken one day earlier than last time. The Birth Control Pill effectively switches off the LH so my body obviously hadn’t started to produce it again but I am sure it would have been higher a day later. Worry ye not.

What’s next? The same injections Sun, then monitoring appointment on Monday morning.

Weight. NSTR

Waist. NSTR

Boobs. NSTR

Hours of Sunshine 🙂 It was a beautifully sunny day and so caught a few rays whist we were out for lunch.

Fun Activity to keep Dani from going insane. I am going to finish this page of colouring in! This was a colouring book I was given as a Birthday pressie from my parents.

Fun activity for next 24 hours…colouring in!

*Notes. I take First Response Reproductive Health multi vitamin gummies (pre-natal) and CoQ10 200mg gummies daily. NSTR = Nothing Significant To Report.

IVF DIARY VOL I: 27 JULY 2015

July 28, 2015July 28, 20156 Comments

Medication(s) administered and dosage(s). 2 injections: Gonal-F 300 iu and Menopur 75 iu.

Medical procedures undertaken. Ultrasound and blood test. Also had a quick pre-surgery health check up.

How do I feel today? I have found it really hard to concentrate at work today. I don’t know why. I have a really big project deadline coming up…of course it is due the week of egg retrieval and transfer. Couldn’t have planned it any better?!?! (a bit of sarcasm there). I have pondered about working from home, I have also pondered just calling in sick. But I checked out our sick leave policy for the first time in my life! If I am off work for more than two days I need a doctors note, and if I am sick for more than 6 days in a year it cuts out of my annual leave entitlement :-s so as I will probably be taking 3-4 days of sick leave for the procedures next week, basically, I need to not call in sick! (I had one sick day earlier this year).

The doctor who did a quick pre-surgery health check up was very young. So young that she actually said “Love it” to me when I said I had no questions. I feel old.

What are my symptoms? Lot’s of peeing! I’m trying to avoid headaches so I’ve been drinking more water, it has mostly helped, but I am having the odd headache here and there.

How does Chris feel today? “Feeling good because we are on track and injections are going well” (he hasn’t killed me yet basically)

Any results? My follicle count this morning is currently at 8 at various sizes from 4-8mm…apparently I am progressing how they want me to progress and were pleased with this. Well I’m pleased if they are pleased! I will stay on same dosage of Gonal-F (300iu) and menopur (75iu), but adding cetrotide to the list of injections.

What’s next? Eeeek, I start the Cetrotide injections tomorrow morning, increasing total number of injections per day to 3. Seriously going to run out of space on my tummy soon! But I am excited because this means we are almost half way through this stage of injections.

Weight. OK so I panicked with my 1.6lb increase yesterday, but some of that had disappeared by this morning, so it must have been a combination of weekend munchies with some bloating from the stimulation.

Waist. Still feeling bloated.

Boobs. NSTR

Hours of Sunshine 🙂 Well the sun didn’t come out in Virginia today, so there was no sun to be had 😦

*Notes. I take First Response Reproductive Health multi vitamin gummies (pre-natal) and CoQ10 200mg gummies daily. NSTR = Nothing Significant To Report.