February IVF

SBump · January 2017

@artemis618, thank you. Not TMI, the info. helps.

JuliaGoolia719 · January 2017

Hi ladies! I've been posting on the Jan board, I started stims on Jan 22 and ER is scheduled for Feb 1, 2 or 3 depending on how I'm reacting to the meds. Had my first visit yesterday and just got bloodwork done, they said to keep my meds the same and it all looked good. I go in Friday for my first US to see how many follies are popping up.

My Dr recommended that we plan on a freeze all cycle since I'm at a high risk for OHSS (thanks PCOS) and if we plan to do a freeze all cycle we can be more aggressive with my meds and hopefully get more eggs. Since we're doing a freeze all cycle anyway we decided to go ahead and do PGS testing.

Good luck to all of us this cycle!

caseyw8784 · January 2017

@JuliaGoolia719 - welcome to the february board! how are the stims going so far? i haven't started my stims yet (but should in 2-3 weeks!) but we are also doing a freeze all. so you're anticipating a March/April FET (depending on if you get ohss/severity/etc)? we might be FET cycle buddies!

lizycs · January 2017

Hi @rayoflight80. Our situation is almost identical. I am also going through my first IVF cycle. I started BCP two days ago (1/23). Everything is normal from my end, but hubby has full obstruction. My meds arrived last night and I am feeling a bit overwhelmed. I am also terrified of the horror stories regarding hormones since I can't take time off work and I sit next to the most obnoxious guy in the office.

I also want to ask the ladies who have gone through this before whether your retrieval and transfer days were predictable. I am trying to request time off work for those two days, but I don't know how much to trust what my doc predicted. Were your days on point? Or were they off by a few days?

Lastly, since I am super nervous. Is there anything you wish you had known about IVF?

Thank you so much!

Best wishes for everyone!

-Liz

JuliaGoolia719 · January 2017

@caseyw8784 so far so good, I've noticed that I'm tired but I honestly couldn't say if that was strictly stims related or just that I've been stressed and my adrenal glands are probably overtaxed lol. I asked on the Jan board when people started to notice that they were feeling side effects and a lot of them said not until after day 6 or 7. FX that the OHSS doesn't become an issue, bc I'm pretty sure that as of Feb 4th I'm going to be sent out on another work trip (I'm a catastrophe adjuster, so when I travel for work its usually 23 days at a time and I work 12 hour days w no days off).

I'm hoping that we can schedule the FET for the latter part of March, we've had a vacation booked w my hs friends for March 13-17 for over a year and I'd *like* to be able to have a drink/get in the hot tub etc. -- Obv if timing doesn't work out for that it will be totally 100% fine, and I wouldn't push it back a month just for the trip either. But if it does work out DH and I have talked about basically extending the trip or going a few days early and having some "us" time.

artemis618 · January 2017

Hi @JuliaGoolia719! Stim start date twin

Originally my first appointment was for this Friday, but the Dr. wanted to see me today too. Kind of opposite - I had an ultrasound but no blood work. Apparently she just likes to check that there's no dominant follicle, and that everything looks and is going okay. I get to mix up my second batch of Omnitrope tomorrow night so hopefully I don't F it up like the last one!

We're also doing freeze all/PGS, but we want to do the other retrieval that (I think) my insurance will cover before a transfer. I'm 39 and my AFC was only 9 (still on track for that per this morning's look-see). I actually only got 9 mature eggs not quite five years ago when I froze eggs right after I turned 35. So not looking at transfer for a while. Plus Dr. wants to make sure uterus looks as perfect as it can before transfer. I'm so impatient and that probably puts us past our first EDD... :-/

Next appointment is Friday morning and she wants me to bring Cetrotide with me to maybe administer in the morning instead. Hope your Fri appointment goes well!

Polythene Pam · January 2017

@lizycs I can't speak from experience at all but I have 3 good friends who went through IVF. They said retrieval day was the tough one where they needed the day (or a couple) to sleep and rest. They all were surprised that transfer day they felt great, I guess that just depends on what kind of activity level your doctor recommends

*TW** I have a 3.5 year old so I've asked them a lot about how I'll feel as I work from home and have my daughter but my mother-in-law offered to take her for a few full days. I'm planning on a couple for retrieval then just one day for transfer, more in case I'm emotional

I took my last BC today so I'm just anxious now!

lizycs · January 2017

Hi @Polythene Pam! Thanks so much for your reply. My doc said to take retrieval day off because of the anesthesia and to take transfer day off because he recommends taking it easy that day. The problem is that my work is such that I would have to give them advance warning. I'm so new to all this that I have no idea how "on schedule" the process will be. From my understanding, retrieval depends on how well the hormones are working, so it will be hard to pin point a specific date?

laurad75 · January 2017

I have never been so excited to see AF you guys! It's officially CD 1 and stims will start Friday night! Heeeerrrrreeeee we go!

@lizycs They won't be able to schedule your ER with certainty but they can ballpark it. My nurse told us ER will likely be between Feb 7 and Feb 9 but it will depend on how I respond to the stims. I am planning to take ER and the day after off from work but I am lucky enough to have a flexible schedule. How is your relationship with your supervisor? Can you be honest with them about your situation? What would you do if you had a stomach flu or family emergency?

caseyw8784 · January 2017

@laurad75 - woo-hoo! yay for AF and good luck with the first night of stims on Friday!

JuliaGoolia719 · January 2017

lizycs when I asked my nurse about ER day she gave me the range of Feb 1-3, she said when I go in on Monday the 30th they will see if I'm ready to trigger and ER would be Feb 1, if I'm not ready on Monday then I'll go back in Tues and see, which would make ER Feb 2 and then if I'm still not ready then we'd go back Wed which would make ER Feb 3. She said there's no way to be more precise bc there isn't a way to know exactly how a person will respond to the stims.

Msymmers922 · January 2017

@lizycs This is my third round of IVF. You definitely will want to take retrieval and transfer at off. I usually take the day after off too because I'm still sore. As for timing it will depend on how your body reacts to the meds. The first time they were right on but the second time it was two days after they estimated.

The hardest thing for me was waiting and the emotions that are involved. I work with all males but luckily my boss is super cool and I told him exactly what was going on (without intense details) and he is super supportive. It also helps for me to have a calendar in my bathroom so I can see the progress I am making and can count down days while waiting.

AFM I just started birth control. My husband has bad sperm so this time we did the male retrieval and he had his sperm retrieval last week so the sperm are waiting for me!! I am doing the lupron cycle so lupron starts in the 5th and stims start on the 13th with retrieval most likely on the 24th! Good luck everyone!!! My goal for this round is to stay positive. This will be our month!!!!

Mando15 · January 2017

Hello everyone! I hope you are all doing well and looking forward to our exciting month ahead!

DH and I had our nurse visit today and went over all of our meds, signed consent forms, scheduled all of our upcoming appointments and wrote a very large check. (Everything is OOP, ugh) But then I had my SIS appointment and they ended up finding a couple polyps so another delay for us. This IF journey is really testing my patience. Oh well, glad we are dealing with it now.

FX for everyone!

mandasd · January 2017

Hi all. Please make sure to update the spreadsheet...the sheet covers Jan/Feb!

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-XRaAkGAn3gVwpc7krx5NlyRh90djq4m8rtUlOIRKFg

lizycs · January 2017

Thank you so much, @laurad75, @JuliaGoolia719, and @Msymmers922. My supervisor is extremely understanding. It is just the nature of my work that is the problem. I'm in the medical field and would have to cover my service on certain days. If I cannot make it in, I would need to shift many coworkers around in order for someone to cover my shift. I told my supervisor the situation, and she is completely open to doing whatever she can to help me. I have an appointment tomorrow for a saline sonogram. I will try to get a better ballpark from my doc. I spoke to a nurse yesterday who told me that ER may be flexible (can be delayed by 1-2 days) as long as my hormone levels don't get to high. That info helped a lot!

Thanks again and good luck to all!

JuliaGoolia719 · January 2017

@lizycs ahhhh that makes sense, I ended up taking next Wed-Fri off work for the ER, not bc I think I'll actually be down that many days, but bc otherwise I was going to be deployed (sent out on a 23 day work trip) and all these dang shots would be for nothing! My job basically has zero work life balance, so without PTO there's no guarantee that I'll be home at any given time. I was hoping that this time of year we'd be slow and it wouldn't be an issue but CA decided to flood, TX got a hail storm, CO got 100mph winds and then tornados broke out across the SE

caseyw8784 · January 2017

Hi ladies!

I just got an email that my PGD test kit is all set up and ready to test the embryos! Yay!!!

I have a sono HSG scheduled for Tuesday, and my RE said that I will probably start the meds a week or two after that. (I'm so very lucky that my insurance will most likely cover all of the IVF costs - except for shipping the biopsy samples to the genetics lab, I think - so the HSG is needed since it's been more than a year from the inital approval...)

This is finally really happening!

Polythene Pam · January 2017

We're off!! Aunt Flo arrived so I scheduled my ultrasound for sat, expecting to start meds sat night. And the finance dept called to say bring 12K so there's no turning back (Eek!) hoping Feb is a good month for us

artemis618 · January 2017

Just came from 2nd ultrasound/1st blood draw. 10 follies - since my baseline was 9 (and I'm old), I'll take it! Meds staying the same, will likely start the Cetrotide tomorrow night. So still on track...

@JuliaGoolia719 How went your appointment?

ETA: I also learned this AM that my lining looks okay at 9mm and tri-laminate? A transfer would be months away for me, but I guess that's also good.

JuliaGoolia719 · January 2017

Had my appointment today, I've got 15 follies between 10-15mm on the right and 20 on the left! The nurse said that there were also other follies on both sides that just weren't as big, but that they could still catch up to the pack by Monday. She said that sometimes when there are a lot (thanks PCOS) they tend to be smaller but that these all look like they are growing and if things keep on track that ER could be Wednesday! I'll find out later today if they want to adjust my meds or keep me at the 150 menopur and 225 follistim.

ETA: I'm adding in Ganirelix tonight, and reducing my follistim and then on Sunday reducing my Menopur....which is great, except now I think that I may have ordered too much of the meds! -- all OOP so that's a bummer.

laurad75 · January 2017

@JuliaGoolia719 So exciting!

artemis618 · January 2017

@laurad75 Are you starting stims tonight?

laurad75 · January 2017

@artemis618 I am! I went for baseline bw and us this morning and everything looks ready to go. gonal-f 450 and metopur 75 the next 5 nights and go back in for monitoring on the 31st.

Image: https://media.giphy.com/media/zaezT79s3Ng7C/giphy.gif

tamalahoops · January 2017

I've been over on the Jan board but since my retrieval is feb I thought I'd jump over. We're on day 6 of stims (225 gonal-f, 20 pregnyl and now cetrotide) for our first IVF cycle. We'll be doing a freeze all cycle with PGS so no transfer until March/April.

I do have a question though. This morning when I did the cetrotide (aka ganirellix) injection I bruised really badly and it is still bruised and swollen ~7 hours later. Please tell me that I did something wrong! Is this normal and I should just suck it up for the next 5 days or should I call the doctor and make sure I'm doing the injections correctly? I haven't bruised with any of the other injections I've done and at this point I've given myself about 20....

artemis618 · January 2017

@tamalahoops Tonight will be my 6th night of shots as well. But transfer will be even later than yours since we'd like to do another retrieval after this one and PGS.

I just got my Cetrotide instruction this morning (I likely won't start it till tomorrow), and the nurse suggested icing before this shot - haven't done that with any of my others (the Menopur can sting a little - I suppose it's all only temporary). She also said that the Cetrotide could leave a red mark

I managed to give myself a small bruise the first night with my Menopur injection because I hit a capillary. I haven't managed to do it again, but it's not because of my better aim (just luck). So I'm not sure if it's Cetrotide-specific. Maybe see how the second one goes and maybe try ice??

tamalahoops · January 2017

Thanks @artemis618 ! It really didn't hurt going in but after it did sting pretty badly and is now sore to the touch. I also did it right on the waistband of my work pants so that probably didn't help. I've iced for all of my other shots I was just in a rush this am when I did it. Thanks for the advice! Good luck!

JuliaGoolia719 · January 2017

@tamalahoops I start ganirelix tonight and now I'm scared!

They told me menopur would sting going in, today is the first time I noticed it though. I've noticed when I do a shot on my left side I've bled a few times, the nurse said it was likely bc of a slight angle change from doing it w my right hand on the opposite side. Who knows, but I can get behind that logic.

mandasd · January 2017

I always bruise myself but I bruise easily.

lizycs · January 2017

I'm so glad we're talking about the injections. This is my first cycle and I'm only on the OCP stage. I am TERRIFIED of the shots. I don't have a problem with needles, but the idea of giving it to myself kinda freaks me out. I'll probably be ok after my first one, but right now, I don't even want to think about it. It's weird because at the same time, I can't wait to get to that stage. Such a crazy mix of emotions and BEFORE the hormones!! >o<

JuliaGoolia719 · January 2017

@lizycs I have a more than minor needle phobia. My first shot took a solid 10 minutes after mixing to psych myself up to actually do it. I'm happy to say it's been totally fine after that.
My nurse basically said that these are not usually painful, but the PIO shots are no joke lol. I was like ummmm thanks....we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. She said this while she was explaining that the suppositories were an option if I couldn't handle the larger needles for the PIO.

laurad75 · January 2017

I took my first injections tonight. It's done but not without incident... At my injections class the nurse encouraged me to mix the meds so I only had to do one injection. It seemed easy enough and I was doing fine getting it all started tonight and then I accidentally injected the gonal-f into the diluent instead of the menopur. I had a brief meltdown and then called the pharmacy helpline to confirm that I could just get all the medication into the vial of diluent and inject all of it and it wouldn't kill me.

Tomorrow night I'm just going to do 2 injections and keep it simple until I have this down. This is going to be a long 10-12 nights.

liljoy-2 · January 2017

Lurking from the January IVF board here a bit

Since I've been through all the injections, given to me by various nurses because I wasn't up to it, hahah, I can recommend the following:
-take the Gonal/Follistim out of the fridge 30 min before, otherwise it stings
-ice the skin beforehand, but let it dry
-plunge them in slowly, it tends to burn less for me
-expect some burning from Menopur as it goes in, but it's not bad
-Ganirelix can sometimes sting because of the blunt needle, but what I learnt is that it really depends on how you inject it. I had one nurse plunging it in quickly and vertically without ice and I didn't feel a thing; another nurse plunged it below my navel and more slowly and it hurt. I suspect bruising can happen because of the blunter needle.

Good luck, it's going to be over soon.

Polythene Pam · January 2017

Eek thank you guys for the injection tips. My husband insists he wants to help but his nerves are through the roof so I may just sneak away and claim I'm in the shower and just do it tomorrow. Having us both nervous isn't going to help. If I can do the first one I think I'll be fine. If you see a flurry of questions tomorrow night that's just me freaking out

artemis618 · January 2017

@laurad75 Sorry to hear about the mishap, but glad you got through it! It'll get easier. Just when I felt like I had the hang of this (though am really starting to feel my ovaries now - and I haven't nearly the responses of @JuliaGoolia719), I get to add the somewhat dreaded Cetrotide tonight.

Thanks @bestofjoy for the tips!

JuliaGoolia719 · January 2017

@laurad75 FX that shots go better today!
@artemis618 I added Gamirelix last night, I'm super glad that one hasn't been involved since Sunday! I also think I may have spoken too soon, today I am *feeling* my ovaries! I'm in my 2xl sweatpants and have zero plans to put on anything with a real waistband. Maybe my leggings if I *have* to look presentable, but I have no plans to do that until after ER either....

mandasd · January 2017

All, I suggest really taking your time when getting ready to inject meds especially Menopur which has to be mixed and those syringe plungers are temperamental. The first couple of days will be fine because you're not in what I call "injection fog." At about day 4, it's like you're here but no one is home. Complete fogginess. In this fog, injections become much more difficult...what dose again? What day did they want me to go in for bloodwork? So, my only suggestions is take it slow and have your written instructions out every day. Talk yourself through every single step.

Obviously everyone is different but I'm a real over achiever and perfectionist and I found myself struggling so much balancing injections, work (one day I was crying in the kitchen at work while buttering my toast for zero reason), and maintaining a normal home life. It got so bad for me, this cycle I am taking time off work and using vacation days so I can be focused on the procedure, my doggies, and husband. I don't need the other distractions!

mandasd · January 2017

@JuliaGoolia719 I know the feeling! One day, I attempted to wear pants with a waistband, drove halfway to work, turned around and went home to declare to my husband "I can't wear pants!" Changed into my leggings and back to work I went. Husband texted me a video of the "no pants dance." It was funny but I was so miserable and a little embarrassed to be wearing leggings at work since it's business attire.

artemis618 · January 2017

Thanks @mandasand! My IVF nurse said the Q caps are gimmicky, but I totally appreciate them after my first night Omnitrope oopsy since the Menopur, Omnitrope, and Cetrotide have to be mixed.

On day 7 here and have my Betabrand yoga "dress" pants (and generous dresses) teed up for this work week (and whenever I go back to work after).

Hard to believe I'm anxious to start another cycle right after this one, but I just want to be (I hope) done with it already.

rayoflight80 · January 2017

Hey all. I have been absent but I'm back! Perhaps starting a renovation while starting IVF was a bad idea? Ahem.

@laurad75 We're stim twins, I started my injections on Friday night too!

@lizycs Good to hear from someone else whose DH has azoo. It's so tough and not as common on these boards.

So the first night I started injections (I decided to do it myself) I was SO nervous that after the first injection my hands were shaking SO much. DH said he thought I had a huge adrenaline dump b/c I'd been afraid of these injections for the past year or so. But I DID IT! It was fine! I didn't die! I gave myself a needle! Two, in fact. Gonal and menopur. Menopur hurts, gonal doesn't.

I am lucky (in a way) that I'm currently searching for work during this time because I can just chill on the couch while I'm doing this. I have a job interview on Weds tho and I'm worried that I will be out of it because of the hormones. I'll be on Day 5 of injections so the nurse said I should be fine.

Anyway, really glad you are all here and really glad to hear all your stories. We got this!

Mando15 · January 2017

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend! I know we are all doing everything we can to increase our chances of success this month, which for me includes eating healthier. I have one major weak spot and it is sweets. I have my suppression check on Tuesday AM and should be starting stims on Thursday. I have been pretty good lately with cutting back on sweets but I planned on really buckling down this week through ER. Annnd wouldn't ya know I get a knock on my door tonight and it is the sweet little girl across the street selling Girl Scout cookies!! AHHHH!!!! I always buy from her so I couldn't say no... Now I just need to get the cookies to work and hide in my office from them until they're gone. This might be the hardest part of my IVF cycle this month hahah.

GL to all this week and hoping for lots of good reports throughout the month followed by lots of BFPs!

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