IF Testing and Treatment W/O 12/26

mambo5-2 · December 2022

This is a place for those of us who have already started TTC, but have started infertility testing and/or treatments. You can express your thoughts, feelings, and frustrations on infertility. TTC can be a long journey naturally, then add in the difficulties associated with infertility, and it becomes a whole new ballgame. The road to infertility can be lonely, frustrating, and complicated, so let's make this a place where we can vent, ask questions, and support one another. Feel free to resurrect this thread at any point in the week if you have something to say. Treat this as an ongoing conversation.

Diagnosis (if you've been):

Status (TI/ICI/IUI/IVF/FET/benched):

What are you doing this cycle? (Testing? Treatment?):

How are things going?:

Any questions?:

GTKY: Best New Year's Memory?

mambo5-2 · December 2022

Diagnosis (if you've been): RPL, MFI, Possible Funky Blood

Status (TI/ICI/IUI/IVF/FET/benched): Waiting for AF

What are you doing this cycle? (Testing? Treatment?): H had surgery, swelling and pain are better. Waiting for AF to get it on.

How are things going?: Good

Any questions?: WHERE IS MY PERIOD!

GTKY: Best New Year's Memory? When H and I first got married we had a huge New Years eve party with all of the Marine's. It was insanely fun. I got drunk for the first time in my life. It was very interesting.

optimistgardener · December 2022

@mambo5-2 i dunno but my period turned up with a bang this morning at 5:30. I was not really expecting much because it's a withdrawal bleed from coming off the nuvaring and i'm also shooting myself up daily with lupron, which should be shutting all my hormones down. apparently that's not saving me from a "bleeding through my super-sized tampon in the middle of the store" kind of cd1 today, though. i hope your cd1 turns up soon!

Diagnosis (if you've been): decrepit ovaries and who knows what else but apparently not anything they can track down

Status (TI/ICI/IUI/IVF/FET/benched): FET prep

What are you doing this cycle? (Testing? Treatment?): lupron down-reg in preparation for my FET.

How are things going?: fine i guess (see complaints about cd1 bleeding above). I've got an appointment for my baseline on Friday morning. fx!

Any questions?: naaah

GTKY: Best New Year's Memory? I am predictably grumpy about New Years, just like almost all the other holidays. But the year before last I did my New Years in the middle of the woods in the family cabin and that was lovely.

anniemarie887 · December 2022

@mambo5-2 hope your body cooperated and AF shows up!
@optimistgardener there is nothing more humbling than bleeding through a tampon as a grown a** woman. but gah baseline friday!!!! time is flying!!

Diagnosis (if you've been): uncooperative uterus/RPL

Status (TI/ICI/IUI/IVF/FET/benched): TWW

What are you doing this cycle? (Testing? Treatment?): the usual prentals, extra folic acid, baby aspirin, started progesterone today

How are things going?: today is back to reality, 2 days in the office, then wfh thurs and fri. taking monday 1/2 off. tww last month tormented me, so i really hope it's not the same this month.

Any questions?: natm

GTKY: Best New Year's Memory? oh hmm, i dunno. we've rented something at a ski resort with friends a few times. always a nice time, maybe 10-12 ppl, nothing too overwhelming. edit to add: there's always so much pressure around the holidays and NYE, i kind of hate it tbh. we are toying around with going to mexico next year with my family and that sounds lovely to me.

mambo5-2 · December 2022

@anniemarie887 I love low-key holidays. Let me sit at home and do nothing with just my fam

@optimistgardener bleeding though a tampon always such a joy and always at a super inopportune time

mokamonster · December 2022

mambo5-2 I find it funny how before I always dreaded AF but now I wish it would come faster so that we can start a new cycle! Hope AF comes soon for you. Mine seems to never come when I want it to

@optimistgardener Another grumpy holiday person! I've never enjoyed holidays because of the stress. Hope your baseline went well today!

@anniemarie887 Hope you can get through the rest of your TWW with sanity. I completely understand the holiday pressure. It would be nice if we could just stay at home for a day in PJs and do nothing for the holidays.

Diagnosis (if you've been): Unclear but Hasimoto's and diminished ovarian reserve (but I still ovulate on my own)

Status (TI/ICI/IUI/IVF/FET/benched): IUI

What are you doing this cycle? (Testing? Treatment?): Doing our first round of non-medicated IUI and of course there are problems, so I need to do more blood tests, too.

How are things going?: Eh, I was looking forward to starting IUIs, but now there are some issues and I'm worried my doc will cancel the cycle. It's non-medicated, but for some reason on CD9 I have three follicles, one already 18mm. My doc is very concerned since last time I checked, I have two large follicles (both around 25mm). So, time for more blood tests and TVS, *sarcastic yay*

Any questions?: Other than "What the heck is going on with my body?", no

GTKY: Best New Year's Memory?
I've never been into New Years and usually don't do anything. I never liked parties nor do I like being around a lot of alcohol, so New Years just was never big thing for me. When I was young, though, I would go to my grandparent's house with my sister and cousin and we would watch the ball drop together. My grandma has a model with a timer so that the ball on the model would also drop at the same time as the real ball. It was fun staying up until midnight eating all of the candy you want from grandma's candy jar!

optimistgardener · December 2022

hi and welcome @mokamonster! sorry to hear that your body is not cooperating for the non-medicated IUI this round. From the Hashimoto's diagnosis and DOR it seems you've done bloodwork, but have you done other kinds of testing as well?

AFM: my suppression check was yesterday and all was well. My lining was thin, my E2 levels low (27), and my ovary was, to embrace the poetic, quiescent. So tonight i start my estradiol shots. Doc also finally answered a question I had about endometriosis (in spoiler because i digress).

I saw one of the nurses for my ultrasound rather than the RE, but she relayed to him a question I've been trying to ask for months now but for various reasons have not successfully posed (last time around I was so distracted by the pain of my biopsy that I completely forgot). Basically: I know that (3 years ago at least when I had my myomectomy) I had some evidence of endometriosis, and I know that some women with confirmed endo undergo an extended pre-transfer lupron down-regulation to calm the endo. My question was, should I delay transfer and do this extended protocol instead of the more basic one I'm on right now. The doc answered (and the answer was relayed back to me) that he does not think the clinical evidence is clear enough to merit this treatment and he hasn't personally seen it make a difference. So there we go. Answer received, finally. Anyway, this is one of those things that people on the infertility boards (esp. on reddit) feel strongly about. Women with endometriosis (for very good reason) have a chip on their shoulders about receiving appropriate medical care, and on the reddit boards there seems to be a pretty strong consensus that a long down-regulation is crucial to maximizing FET success rates. In doing my own hunting around on pubmed in the past couple of months, I'd found a few studies that seemed to support the argument for the long downreg protocol. So after hearing my doctor's dismissal yesterday, I decided to look again at pubmed specifically to see if there were studies with results pointing the other way. Lo and behold, turns out there are, and indeed the data is pretty patchy as to whether the long protocol helps. There are, in fact, some studies showing little or no difference in clinical pregnancy/LBR between treatment arms. The beauty of confirmation bias, my friends.

And in other welcome news, my mom's CT scan after christmas remained stable! hallelujah

anniemarie887 · December 2022

@optimistgardener what lovely news for both you and your mom!!!

Also, woof, lots of stomach bugs circulating this way and I got knocked down. Thought I was on the mend all day yesterday to be brutally slapped in the face at 1am this morning. 😵‍💫

optimistgardener · December 2022

oh no @anniemarie887! i hope you feel better soon.

mambo5-2 · January 2023

@optimistgardener good work looking into the research! People get very stuck on studies that support their opinions.

acleverusername · January 2023

*lurking... cause it's me*

@optimistgardener, just want to say....

optimistgardener · January 2023

lol i can always count on some good ol' research chat to reel in @acleverusername from the lurker bench! i mean, i think the takeaway here is that there's a reason why our REs have fancy degrees and spent long years learning all that there is to learn about their field, and also trying to find our way to trusting their expert opinions is probably better for all of our mental health. that having been said, from what i managed to make of the studies there's probably a reasonable argument to be made for doing a lupron depot down-reg before a FET, but it comes with some really heavy-duty side effects, the most serious of which are potentially life-altering, and the data on improved FET outcomes is like, not a home run at all. it's more like a bunt, if i have to stick with this baseball analogy.

mokamonster · January 2023

@optimistgardener To access fertility treatments in China, you have to do every test under the sun it seems then register with the government. There were so many, I didn't keep track unless the results were abnormal. Are there any tests in particular that I should look at again?

Went in for an ultrasound and bloodwork today. LH and estrogen show ovulation is coming! I'm still checking with home tests and haven't gotten my peak yet. Looks like two of me follicles died and I'm left with one on my left. My lining is thinner as per usual, so started estrogen again. I'm not sure why as it never does anything and my estrogen levels are normal. I question a lot of what the doctors do and say here... we are in a small city at a public hospital, not the most ideal healthcare but it's what's available to us. Anyway, maybe doing insemination tomorrow if I ovulate today!

optimistgardener · January 2023

@mokamonster so my deal is that i did a lot of unmedicated IUIs (because my only known 'problem' for a long time was that i am/was single and therefore using donor sperm), and for that reason i have done a lot of thinking about IUIs. an unmedicated IUI really only does 2 things: 1) it gives the sperm a lift past the cervix, and 2) ideally and especially in combination with regular monitoring, which it sounds like you have, it helps improve timing. Unmedicated IUIs are great for folks with structural issues related to the cervix, it's great for people whose partners have lazy sperm/low sperm count, and in combination with monitoring, it helps for people with unpredictable follicular phases. What it doesn't do is improve the quality or quantity of your available eggs, which is usually the issue with DOR. It also doesn't help in the event that there's a problem with your fallopian tubes or with the receptivity of your uterus (did they make you do an HSG test to check that your tubes are open? did they do a hysteroscopy to look for scarring/uterine septum, etc?). You're young so the problem here isn't likely to be egg quality, and at least from this first unmedicated cycle it seems like your eggs are doing what they should do (maturing, ovulating). So if you don't get pregnant after a couple/three cycles this way, I would probably push the doctors to make sure they've ruled out any structural impediments.

mokamonster · January 2023

@optimistgardener we did an hsg and both tubes are open, but the left is a bit swirly? They weren't clear about it, but said it's open still so it isn't a problem. My AFC is normal, so that's why they said to do the IUIs first. My SO does have lower than average sperm quality and quantity, too. If we do 3 cycles and they all fail, we plan to see a specialist in Beijing, where the doctors are just better.

Went in again today for an ultrasound. Still no O, but my follicle is 23mm and lining is slightly over 8mm. My follicles always get giant (like 25mm) and the doc said that could be a problem? So she had me do a trigger shot this morning and going in tomorrow morning to check again and finally do the IUI if I O'ed already

optimistgardener · January 2023

@mokamonster that all sounds good! fingers crossed for this cycle.

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