Tell me about your IVF cycles

*Willis*

Please and thank you!  I'm calling on Monday to schedule my IVF consult.  I got the initial information packet a few weeks ago with the prices.  I'm starting BCP tomorrow on CD 3, so I'm ready to start planning.  I'll take any and all info - meds, dosages, what CD you had your ER, how many you tx, and qualities.  I think I have a general understanding from following several of you ladies, but I'd appreciate some extra education.  

One thing I don't understand is the embryo grading.  Anyone want to school me on it?  You can divide the lessons amongst yourselves since it's so much . 

*Willis*

And I'm logging off to go shopping to cheer myself up.  I'll check back later.  Just don't want to be rude to my favorite ladies!

kimarino13

Antagonist Protocols both times.  I started BCP and stims on weird cycle days because I am anovulatory.

IVF #1:  Started BCP on CD51.  Took that for 10 days.  Started stims on CD3.  225IU of Bravelle, added in Ganirelix and 75IU of Menopur starting on 5th days of stims.  Stimmed a total of 8 days.  31 eggs retrieved, 16 mature, 12 fertilized, 2 were transfered on day 3 and 3 were frozen on day 6.  (Got OHSS this cycle.)  Result = chemical pregnancy

IVF #2:  Started BCP on CD23.  Took that for 12 days.  Started stims on CD39 (also started spotting on this day, and had AF during days 4-6 of stims.)  75IU of Bravelle mixed with 75IU of Menopur.  Added in Ganirelix starting on 5th day of stims.  Stimmed a total of 9 days.  10 eggs retrieved, 8 mature, 6 fertilized, 2 were transfered on day 5 and 2 were frozen on day 6.  (I had 21 undetected cysts this cycle, likely from IVF #1's meds.)  Result = chemical pregnancy

As far as embryo grading goes, my first clinic did a good/good, good/fair, etc type system.  The first good/fair/poor had to do with the quality of the inner cell mass and the second good/fair/poor had to do with the cells surrounding the embryo.

babydontforget

I did a luteal lupron protocol. My stims were Follistim (225 at first, and it was reduced to 150 toward the end) and Menopur (1 vial throughout). I was on BCP for about a month, then 10 days of Lupron at 20 units, and then we reduced my Lupron to 5 units, which I maintained throughout stimming. I stimmed for 9 days and then we triggered; ER was 36 hours after that.

We got 15 eggs. 14 were mature. 11 fertilized normally. When I got to my 5 day transfer (this morning!), there were six blasts available. We transfered two and froze four.

I honestly don't know much about embryo grading, other than that which I've found my googling. (This is a good website: https://www.advancedfertility.com/embryoquality.htm) My clinic's lab talked about them in terms of their status, rather than in terms of grade. "5 cell," "blast stage," etc. I decided not to push for more detail than that. They called our embryos excellent, and I'm going to believe them.

Hope that helps!

Quizzle

Antagonist for me.

I don't remember exactly what day I started BCPs on, pretty much a sort of random day early in the cycle when they told me to -- my clinic only starts meds on Monday, Thursday or Friday, so they tell you to start the BCPs so you'll be on CD2 or 3 when you've scheduled the baseline. In my case, I took BCPs for 2 months, mostly because I had to push my schedule a bit due to my job. We let me have a bleed in between because they don't wanrt you on BCPs for more than 6 weeks straight. We pushed mine for about 3 more days too, again because of my job. 

Anyway, baseline u/s on CD2 for me, and I went back later that afternoon for my injection class with DH and they told me my dosages then. I did follistim and menopur at 150IU each to start. After 3 days of stims I had my first u/s and they upped my meds to 225 IU of each. They kept me at 225IU for about 4 more days (I had u/s every other day) and I added in the ganirelix on stim day 6 (CD7). On stim day 8 I was upped to 300 of each and stayed there until I triggered. I stimmed for 12 days. My estrogen was about 2200 the day before I triggered.

 

Trigger was on CD14, ER was on CD16. We got 14 eggs. 8 of those were mature and fertilized with ICSI (which was about what we expected, since we'd seen about 8 on the last u/s, getting 14 was a total shock!). We had a 5-day transfer of 2 'beautiful' embryos. We weren't given the quality of them, but my RE came in to do my transfer and the first thing out of his mouth was 'You have beautiful embryos!' (and if I do say so myself, in our pictures they look like the ones you see on the websites.) We had 5 make it to freeze, so evidently he wasn't lying!