IVF DIARY VOL I: 17 – 21 JULY 2015

July 22, 2015July 22, 2015Leave a comment

Medication(s) administered and dosage(s). Nil (the quiet before the storm??!)

Medical procedures undertaken. Nil

How do I feel today? Woohoo!! I took my last birth control pill yesterday, so I’m feeling excited!

I am on week 7 of my sugar and simple carbs ban. I’ve done pretty well and have allowed myself just one small treat each week which has kept me motivated (although last night we did have white pasta :-s whoops). I even bought dunkin donuts for everyone at work today and I had not one bite of them! Wow, I was drooling over their delicious smell. I have struggled over the last week or so with sugar cravings. I’ve never had cravings like this…it got to the point that I even imagined there was a tiny piece of chocolate in the sink when in fact it was just a piece of cat food. I was hallucinating about all things super sugary, in particular Krispy Kreme donuts. I was literally salivating over the cookies at my work cafe and imagining the way that they would crisp and crunch in my mouth, with the chocolate chips still slightly melted as they just came out of the oven. Was it the Birth Control Pills that did this to me? Or my addiction to sugar. I really can’t quite tell.

Work is a bit stressful as I am trying to fit a lot in so I can take time off required for the IVF appointments, plus a bunch of other factors that are out of my hands are probably contributing to the stress. I probably have piled a lot of that stress on myself, but I can’t help but be a perfectionist; sometimes I have to stop and ask myself – is anybody going to die if I don’t do this work? When I answer with no, then I remind myself to step away.

What are my symptoms? The spotting finally stopped just as it was time to stop the birth control pills. I took just 13 pills in all, and the nurse told me to stop take my last on yesterday in preparation for my first day of stimulation injectibles scheduled for this Friday 24th Jul. I am not sure if I will get a period over the next few days, so I shall await with a pad/tampon to hand just in case :-s

How does Chris feel today? Chris feels like work has distracted him from the build up to our upcoming IVF. It worries him a little bit because he thinks he might not be paying close enough attention to his true feelings. But he did tell me that he is excited to be starting, but nervous all at the same time, particularly at the notion of stabbing me with the needles. (Yep, you and me both hon ;-p !!)

Any results? Nil

What’s next? Our first appointment with the clinic to start the IVF cycle is scheduled for Friday morning, we have been told to anticipate spending about 3 hours there to get a baseline ultrasound, blood tests, fill out paper work, pay them lots of money – I hope they take my credit card (thinking of all the extra points!!!).

Weight. Overall, the Birth Control Pills did not cause me to put on weight. After tracking for 18 days straight (first time I have ever done this) I can see that I have a bit of up and down cycles as I eat more at the weekends and less during the week. But looking at my rolling average, I have not put on weight. Yippeee! But I have a good baseline set of measurements now prior to stimulation to closely monitor the effects.

Waist. NSTR

Boobs. NSTR

Hours of Sunshine 🙂 I got in several hours of sunshine this weekend, just before we had a huuuuge storm that crapped the hell out of me…the lightening, thunder and winds were extreme, I wasn’t sure we were about to face a tornado. Our neighbour’s tree fell down on their house and the neighbourhood flooded, fortunately this is the reason we all have raised houses.

My stats to date

*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: 10 – 16 JULY 2015

July 17, 2015July 17, 20153 Comments

Medication(s) administered and dosage(s). Ovulation Control Pill (OCP) Reclipsen 0.15MG-30MCG x 1

Medical procedures undertaken. Nil

How do I feel today? Fed up of spotting! I haven’t felt ‘hormonal’ the last week like I thought potentially the birth control pills might do. Overall feeling not too bad.

What are my symptoms? The first few days after I started the birth control pills I got a bit bloated and a bit constipated…which for someone with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (The diarrhea type) one would think it would make a nice change from going to poo three times a day! Fortunately, things have got back to normal in that arena. My boobs are a little tender and have stayed the same size since my period started (a bit bigger). Then there is the extra bleeding also, my period lasted a couple of days longer than my normal 2-3 days…and I have been spotting since then, so wearing a panty liner is a must right now.

How does Chris feel today? Chris is still very busy at work at the moment 😦 He is trying to get as much done in prep for the when we start ‘stimming’ (aka injecting the drugs) so he can focus on us. (Aww bless him, he’s a sweetie) We did have that big discussion about how many embryos to transfer and what our decision will be. It made for an interesting dinner table conversation! We weighed up the pros and cons, but he did say that ultimately he would stick with whatever I decided because it is my body and health that would be at risk. So we haven’t completely ruled out transferring two just yet.

Any results? NA

What’s next? Just four more days of birth control pills. I’m looking forward to not hearing my ‘alien’ alarm on my phone that reminds me to take them at the same time every day.

Weight. Funny story and probably too much information – Now, I have been weighing myself as soon as I wake up to make it a fair comparison. One morning, after weighing myself I went downstairs, started to prepare breakfast when I realised I needed to go to the toilet (at last hooray!!). And as I mentioned earlier, having been constipated for a while, I did an enormous poo….so much so that in the interest of science, afterwards, I dashed back upstairs to weigh myself again. Can you believe it? I weighed EXACTLY the same 127.2lbs….and I got on and off I three times to be sure it wasn’t stuck. So now I just don’t trust those scales!!

Waist. NSTR

Boobs. NSTR

Hours of Sunshine 🙂 Seriously, still not enough….the weather has not been great recently, but last night whilst I played softball I soaked up the evening sun and it was glorious. I hope this weekend brings us some better weather!

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

We have a start date for IVF!

July 9, 20156 Comments

Today the nurse called me with our IVF schedule…wooohooo!

It looks roughly like this:

Our rough schedule

So our first day of stimulation injectibles will be Friday 24 July. Chris and I both go in to the clinic to fill out the rest of the paper work, pay the $$$, get a lesson on how to do injectibles, receive our medication plan and I will have my first monitoring appointment with ultrasound/ blood work.

I also asked the nurse about the vivelle dot (estrogen patches) and why insurance only covers 8 patches and not the whole 24. Apparently the use of the patches is “off label” so it is not covered under infertility coverage, therefore I would need to pay for the rest out of pocket. BUT she did say that usually insurance will cover 8 every 30 days, so I can refill the prescription in 2.5 weeks and the insurance will cover 8 more patches, then I maybe lucky that by the time I need the last 8 it might be another 30 days. But either way, now we know why and will expect to pay out of pocket for the patches if needs be!

So….just another 11 days of Birth Control Pills! I really hope these don’t mess my hormones up too much :-s

Double Trouble: options for elective single embryo transfer

July 7, 2015July 7, 20153 Comments

Double trouble can only mean one thing – twins! A couple of weeks ago our friend recently gave birth to two handsome little boys – fraternal twins. I visited them after they were just a few days old, and as I held one of the boys I tried to imagine how it was possible to fit two of these little babies in anyone’s tummy! I know they are curled up pretty tight in there, but seriously – it must be magic! I am so amazed at how my friend carried these two boys to full term and not break her back! I am also super impressed that she avoided a c-section, despite one of her boys being breach – what a super mum (mom). And I am under no false impressions that it was easy! So all this got me thinking about our first IVF cycle and the number of Embryos we will transfer…and our chances of twins.

Now…Chris and I have already discussed and agreed that we are OK with multiples…we had to make that decision when we had our IUIs, in fact for one of my IUIs I had three follicles, so there was always a chance for triplets! Yikes Treble Trouble. But being OK with multiples is not the same as actively desiring multiples. For IUI, it was kind of out of our hands how any eggs would fertilise and implant, it was still very natural. But for IVF, we kind of have a choice. Our clinic typically transfers 2 embryos for women <35 and first round of IVF, but of course, we can choose to just transfer 1.

I read somewhere that 29% of IVF patients said that twins were a desirable outcome. Why? Well it’s kind of like BOGOF (buy one get one free). IVF treatment doesn’t come cheap, both financially and emotionally, so I can understand this logic. But for me this is all about probability and gambling….not with money, but with needles and drugs. Sure it costs $$$$s but fortunately we have it covered by insurance. It’s the emotional and physical cost that I am particularly nervous about. I have no clue what it will be like, so I feel like for our first IVF round we can’t make a firm decision just yet how many embryos we will transfer. I want to wait and see what all these hormones are like first and what our doctor’s prognosis will be when the time comes.

However, that doesn’t stop me looking into it now. Whilst I was surfing the web for more info on this subject I discovered an article that my RE had commented on regarding the a study that had shown single embryo beat double embryo transfer. Her point of view on the study was very vanilla and cautious! Random. I also found that the CDC provide a good little list of things to consider for elective Single Embryo Transfer.

So for now this topic lays to rest until we get a bit closer to transfer day. But until then, I’ll keep educating myself on what it might be like to be a mother of twins as well as help out our friend however we can with their teeny bundles of joy 🙂 So it’s not just double trouble – it’s also double the adorable 🙂

Starting my IVF diary

July 2, 201510 Comments

I have been thinking about writing an “IVF Diary”. Something a bit more formal and structured than my blog. I will of course post my IVF diary on my blog and keep posting other things, but I wanted to create a bit of structure to my diary to help me. Plus, I am all about the data (did I tell you I’m an analyst??!), I can’t help but think of it as s kind of data collection plan. Soooo this is what I think my template will be, but I would really like some input from anyone who has been through this before. I’ve crawled some blogs to try and figure out what would be useful to monitor:

Day X, date, cycle #, cycle type

Medication(s) administered and dosage(s).

Medical procedures undertaken.

How do I feel today? (i.e. my emotions)

What are my symptoms? (i.e. my physical reactions)

How does Chris feel today? (i.e. his emotions, if he is willing to share them that is)

Any results? (i.e. blood tests, ultrasounds)

What’s next? (any thing significant in the next 24-48 hrs)

Weight. (has it changed?)

Waist size. (has it changed?)

Boob size

Temp?? (should I do this or is it pointless because meds screw temps up?)

I want to start this week so I can capture a baseline of some of these stats before I start Birth Control Pills next week, like weight etc.

Do you think I have missed anything???

First meeting with our IVF Nurse Coordinator

May 22, 2015September 24, 201510 Comments

On Tuesday Chris and I met with our IVF Nurse Coordinator at the fertility clinic. She had asked us to set aside about 1.5hrs for the session, so we both took the afternoon off work…and I’m glad we did! I left the meeting with that type of headache feeling you get after you have just sat a 2 hour exam. I felt completely awash with new information. Fortunately, we were given a nice homework pack to take home and read so we could absorb it in slow time.

We discussed the IVF process, basic biology and advanced cell biology. Schedule and timings of events. Medication and blood tests for both of us. We also talked about insurance issues, consent forms, checklists and calendars. Our nurse has been doing her job for 15 years, she knows everything there is to know. I was seriously impressed.

Unfortunately the embryology lab is closed for a few weeks in June/July. We thought this would be OK, but when we actually sat down with my period dates we worked out that we were going to have to wait another month. The nurse is not allowed to start anyone on a cycle that starts from the 29th May to 20th June. As my period started yesterday my next period is due around the 16th June. We were hoping I would two 28 day cycles to push me to the 20th June, but it now looks like that won’t happen. I was very frustrated. This means we will be expecting a retrieval date around either 3rd or 10th August, right in the middle of my mum visiting us in the US. Which I am sure she won’t mind, but it means we can’t plan any fun sight seeing trips until we get closer to the date. At least we will have time to get medications sorted and August is a nice quiet time at work so that will be good but Grrrrr, July would have been so much better for us. Oh well.

It looks like our insurance will cover Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI). Great news! We now need to sort out purchasing our long list of medication (by all means, I have a very short list compared to some other ladies) and choosing a pharmacy that our insurance accepts (we discovered we can choose what ever pharmacy we want and what ever brand of medication we want too).

My list of medication will be:

Birth Control Pills – yup, it’s ironic! I’ve never taken these before so I had a lesson on how to take them! This will help controlling my cycle so we can start the IVF stimulation at a certain time.

Gonal-F or Follistim – this is a Follicle Stimulation Hormone drug, adminstered by a subcutaneous injection. Oh great! Needles! This helps stimulate the ovaries to grow lots of follicles, more than I did for the IUI where I had 2-3 follicles, the goal is 20 or so! Yikes.

Menopur – A Follicle Stimulation Hormone together with a Luteinising hormone (were you paying attention in GCSE biology??!). Another subcutaneous injection.

Ovidrel – The trigger shot. Been there, done that. Although this time I will be taking this injection at a very precise time just before my egg retrieval surgery.

Ganirelix or Cetrotide – this will prevent me from ovulating on my own so the eggs are ready at the right moment for retrieval. Another subcutaneous injection. Wow. Four different needles already.

Progesterone in oil – I’ve heard about this one before and the needle terrifies me! It is an intramuscular injection. Just google progesterone in oil and look at the images page. This is instead of the progesterone suppositories I had with the IUI. Chris will have to give me this injection every night – in the buttock muscle! Have you seen the size of that needle????!?!?!

Vivelle patches (transdermal etrogen) – An estrogen hormone patch. YEY something that isn’t an injection!!!

Doxycycline – antibiotic for my egg retrieval (so I don’t get an infection after inserting the big needle they are getting to use to retrieve my eggs through my vaginal wall) Chris also gets to take doxycyline because we are doing ICSI, this drug affects the sperm and makes them less ‘sticky’ so it’s easier for them to select just one sperm to inject into my egg for fertilisation. That was something I did not know! Rather cool.

It was an intense session, but I was very excited that we are actually starting this and moving a step closer to becoming pregnant. We came home in a bit of a daze afterwards. The emotions running around were definitely mixed. Interesting times ahead.