Nope

Negative....again. They don't have any idea why, everything was almost perfect this time.

Frosties are up next...

PUPO

On Sunday morning we had 4 embryos that had reached the Blasocyst stage. A 4BB, 3BB, 2BB and 1BB which are all good quality.

We decided to go with the national recommendation of 2 this time and transfer the 4 and the 3. The 2 and the 1 were frozen.

Beta on October 9. Feeling better about things this time. Lets hope that translates into a better outcome!

3 day Embryo Report

3 x 7-cell B's
5 x 6-cell B's
1 x 5-cell B
1 x 4 -cell B
2 x 6-cell C's
2 x 3-cell C's

Our embryologist does a pretty simplistic rating system, A, B or C. A is perfect, B is good, C is poor.

Given we had all C's last time this is MUCH better! Keeping everything crossed we have as good of news on Sunday.

Here we are again

So here we are again, meds have been injected, eggs have been collected and we wait to see what kind of quality of embryos we have this time around. They were able to retrieve 22 eggs this time, all mature. Of those 15 fertilized, one abnormally and 14 normally. So, as of today - Day 1- We have 14 embryos and are once again scheduled for a 5 day transfer on Sunday. I am happy that we have a larger number this time, maybe, just maybe there will be one or two in there that could go the distance, but I can't help but hear the nagging voice in the background reminding me of what happened last time. Only time will tell, we continue to hope, wish and pray for our miracle.

It's official

Negative it is. Plan is to cycle again in September.

Moment of Truth

So here we are, nearly two weeks since embryo transfer, Beta HCG tomorrow. I had some really promising symptoms over the weekend which had me psyched up for just enough time to prompt me to cheat and take a test on Monday, I wasn't surprised to see a glaring negative, of course it could have been too early, I took it mid day, etc. etc. but in my heart of hearts I know it was right. We'll get the official beta tomorrow, but I've already got it settled in my head it's going to be negative too. We'll see what the plan is. I've already decided that if my hunch (and the hpt) are correct, we'll try again in September. We didn't have any embryos make it to freeze. No surprise there either. Hopefully the RE has some thoughts and strategies to get us some better quality embryos next time around.

Just when you think

Just when you think things are going well and things are looking really promising, the other shoe drops....I knew it would at some point, at 39 I'm obviously past my prime baby making years but I had hopes that I had somehow defied mother nature and this IVF cycle was going to be really great. I had asked the nurse on Tuesday when they told me I have 5 normally growing embies if there was any possibility that we will still have to do a 3 day transfer if the embies didn't progress well. She assured me that we were on for a 5 day transfer and that they may adjust for a time but to plan on Saturday. I had asked for an update on the embryo progress on Thursday....which apparently they don't usually do? I just needed to know where we were at, the waiting was killing me. She agreed to send me an email update on Thursday. So Thursday morning came - nothing, Thursday late morning - nothing, Thursday noon - nothing, I was starting to think she had forgotten about me......then my phone rang, it was the Dr's office - don't panic, she probably just called instead of emailed.....'Hello?' 'Hi, this is Dr. H'........Crap, the Dr. is calling this can't be good....so he proceeded to tell me that on day 3 they like to see 6-8 cell embryos. We had one 7 cell, one 6 cell, one 5 cell and 2 3 cells. Okay, well that doesn't sound so bad, I was just happy they were still growing...THEN the other shoe dropped. 'We also give them a grade based on how they are looking, A being outstanding, B being good and C being poor. Your embryos are all Grade C.' ........silence and a stomach drop from me. He continued 'Some people want to wait to day 5 to see if they keep progressing, but at this point what I recommend is that we put them back this afternoon, sometimes they do better in their natural environment, can you be here in an hour?'.......Holy crap, I was so not expecting that, I had a ton of things going on at work I needed to finish, I had so many plans of things to get ready and get done before Saturday for our transfer but of course I'm not going to go against his advice. 'I'll call my husband and figure it out....it is an hour drive for us, so give us 2 hours'......so off I flew home, called dh and we flew to the office. When we got there he again explained the embryo grade and we discussed how many we wanted to transfer. The American Reproductive Society or whoever they are, with my age and grade of embryo's recommended 4.....4?! Really? What if by some miracle they all made it? No way no how we could handle 4 babies...We decided we couldn't handle 3 either. Now we know they probably wouldn't all make it, but strange things happen and triplets is not a strange happening we were comfortable with. SO we transferred the 7 cell and the 6 cell. So not the news I wanted to hear, nor the news I was expecting, it was all such a whirlwind, but nevertheless the embryos are back home and we're hoping and praying by some enormous miracle they defy the odds. So here we are officially in the two week wait. Luckily work is super busy so I'e got plenty of distraction, but its hard not to think of it every minute of every hour. Surprisingly I'm pretty calm about it, I've done all I can do. The only thing left is to wait and pray.

Update

So things got busy and I haven't been good with updates. Here's a rundown -Started 150u of Bravelle and Menopur daily, everything went well, I responded very quickly with a 13mm follicle and several smaller on my day 4 visit. - Started Ganirelix to make sure I didn't have a surge on my own. They wanted me to stim for 8 days minimum so we kept with the same doses and stimmed until June 6. - At 6/5 ultrasound I had 14 follicles measuring 11mm or larger. - HCG Trigger Shot on June 6 - Egg Retrieval on June 8 (my dh's birthday!) - Retrieved 16 eggs -5 were not mature, 1 was an empty zona - ICSI'd 10 eggs - 5 fertilized normally. -Waiting on the Day 3 report to see how many are still growing. We will have transfer of hopefully 2 embryos on Saturday, June 13. While I think those numbers are pretty decent for someone my age, I can't say that I wasn't a little disappointed that we ended up with only 5 out of 16, BUT it only takes one, right :)

On Schedule

Turns out the polyps weren't that big of a deal, did the hysteroscopy, removed those buggers and we are back on schedule. Baseline ultrasound 5/29 and start medications on 5/30, here we go!!

Road Block

Everything was going so well, got my calendar, timing was perfect, all was well. Then during the wonderfully pleasant saline ultrasound they discovered some pesky uterine polyps.....well lovely. Instead of scheduling a baseline ultrasound and a med start date, we scheduled surgery/hysteroscopy. CRAP. It shouldn't delay us too much, just a couple weeks, but I was so ready to get started. How does the saying go? Never get the cart before the horse....well mine was way before the horse, time to get it back in line.

Here We Go

So testing has been going well, nothing crazy out of the ordinary to prevent us from moving forward. Had ultrasound and bloodwork today, also started birth control pills. Scheduled for HSG because of my past history with endometriosis. Also scheduled Saline Ultrasound and Mock Transfer for early next week. Once those are complete we will have our protocol and cycle calendar and will officially be a go. Exciting and scary all at the same time.

Back on the crazy train

Wow...it's literally been years since I posted, doubt anyone even checks in on this old blog anymore, but we've decided to jump back on the crazy train that is IF treatment and so I wanted an outlet and a place to document what's going on. Briefest of updates.....life goes on pretty much the same as last I wrote with a few life altering changes. I was forced somewhat unintentionally to choose a new career path. This new path led me on a few familiar roads and many new ones, but all in all it's been a good change. With this new career path came new health insurance that includes IF treatments and lo and behold we've decided to take advantage and get back in the game. Since it has been SOOOO long since I saw my doctor last I have to start back at square one and be treated like any old newbie IF patient, which really boils down to I have to wait months to get an initial appointment. Disappointing to say the least, this was a huge leap of faith for us, I recently turned 39 and we just wanted to jump in and GO ASAP...but it is what it is and so we wait until May. There is a new doctor at the practice I go to and so I am excited to meet her and hear her take on things. One thing is for sure, we aren't going to mess around, we're going straight to IVF.... this is a last ditch effort and we don't have time on our side anymore. Since I haven't thrown enough cliché's your way yet.....Let the games begin! Stay tuned (if there is anybody still out there)