OHSS + Introducing Myself

MooDaly

Hello Ladies,

I’ve been lurking since Nov when I started my first round of IVF. Now that I’m getting close to my FET (finally!), I figured I’d pipe up and join in on the fun  

My Bio:

• 36yo, TTC since March 2014 (yes, 6 years!)
• My husband traveled a lot for the first few years so I chalked it up to “bad timing.” My mother had trouble TTC with me so I figured we just needed to put in the time and it would happen but by the time I was nearing my 33rd birthday, I began talking options with my OB/GYN. She started me on tracking my ovulation and to give it more time. I peed on sticks for years & even bought one of those OvaCue monitors. No luck.
• @34yo I had hysterosalpingogram, everything was normal. My AHM was normal. DH sperm count normal. Everything looked fine. That year, we also did 23&Me and learned that we are both carriers for Cystic Fibrosis. I asked my OB/GYN and she said that since we had different strains we didn’t need to worry
• @35yo my OB/GYN finally diagnosed it as “unexplained” infertility. I had been reluctant to doing fertility treatments because I was afraid (I hate needles) but I think the diagnosis being unexplained put my over the hump. 
• That was last year. I switched jobs and started at a place that had fertility benefits. I started seeing an RE who, on the first visit was able to identify a couple things: an endometrioma on my left ovary, fibroids in my uterus, and that, no, having different strains of Cystic Fibrosis was actually something that could lead to a child being affected with it. I had a lot of anger coming out of this appointment, especially since my RE found with 1 ultrasound something that my OB/GYN failed to do after 2 years. I’ve comes to terms with this now but I was pretty livid at the time.
• Got an MRI to confirm the emdometrioma and then a hysteroscopy to see if the uterine fibroids needed to be removed (they didn’t). Also did bloodwork and got our parents to spit in tubes in order to get the PGD test made. That took what felt like a looooong time but worked out in the end because it allowed us to switch to a new insurance provider for stim rounds 2 & 3. 
• Our plan: 3 rounds of IVF stimulation followed by PGS + PGD testing for CF. We’ll do a natural FET with 1 embryo if we are able to.

My IVF Stim stats:

• Round 1 (Nov 2019): BC suppression. 350 Follistim + 150 Menopur for 12 days. Added in Ganerilix for last 5 days. HCG + Lupron subcutaneous trigger. 14eggs, 9 mature, 5 fertilized with 3 “on watch”, 2 blasts (4BC, 5AB). 
• Break for new insurance to kick in. Anyone else here on Progyny? I’ve loved them so far  
• Round 2 (Feb 2020): BC suppression. 50 Gonal F for first 6 days. Then dropped to 300 Gonal F + 150 Menopur + Cetrotide for the remainder. I think this was another 12-13 day stim cycle. Same trigger but less due to my estrogen levels being high. 20eegs, 17 mature, 9 fertilized with 3 “on watch,” 5 blasts (4BB, 4BC, 4CC, 5BB, 5BC)
• I wanted to go back to back but ended up with OHSS and the doctor said “no” and that i needed to take a month break. This worked out in my favor since March is when my area began sheltering in place for COVID and everything shut down
• Round 3 (July 2020): Insurance approval took a while so we thought we missed this window. Ended up on estrace for a few days rather than BC and had to check for ovulation; ended up needing to get a blood test to confirm. My estrogen was really high so they ended up dropping my Gonal several times. 450 to 275 to 200 to 150. Once they dropped the Gonal to 275, I added 150 Menopur for the duration plus Cetrotide. Same trigger but again, less this time. Just had my ER yesterday. 30 eggs, 16 mature, 9 fertilized with 6 “on watch.” We’ll see how many blasts I get this time. We can send 16 total to our PGS/PGT
• I ended up throwing up the night before the ER and they are already suspecting I’m going to have some no-fun OHSS this round and that it’ll be worse than last time. 
• FET is going to be sometime in Sept we think, FX

OK, now a question for y’all:
If you’ve gotten OHSS after your ER, what helped you cope with it?

Me? Lots of Gatorade, anti nausea meds, and a doting DH. Binging Netflix also helps  Ended up taking a full week of PTO since last time it was so bad that I ended up calling in sick for the week anyways.