Getting my blood drawn. Anthony is the best vampire on base. Both Dan and I love when he is the one who gets to draw the blood.
Fast Facts: Lining: 10mm Right Ovary: 4 follicles. Size in mm: 10, 11, 11, 11 Left Ovary: 8 follicles. Size in mm: 8, 8, 10, 10, 11, 12, 13, 13 E2 level: 411.5
Mature follicles are 18mm-22mm. They should grow 2mm per day, so they are on track for being mature eggs by Tuesday's Egg retrieval - That would put them all 18-23mm if they continued to grow at this rate.
My lining is also good, 10mm. Studies show a very direct correlation between thickness and success rates. I also had a triple-line endometrial pattern, which studies have also shown to be very important with increased success rates.
Next appointment is Saturday for another ultrasound & blood level. The follicles should be all ~4mm larger and my E2 level should be around 1000 or so.
Well just thought I would mention the few symptoms I have had from the hormone shots. A couple days I have had a headache which apparently is a common side effect of Lupron. But the biggest side effect I have is crazy hot flashes! I am normally pretty cold, but not for the last week. I am burning up especially the back of my neck. So not really hot flashes, more like constantly hot with occasionally small bursts of lava.
That's all for today. Tomorrow is an ultrasound and blood work so I should have an update for people in the afternoon. Hopefully there are a couple more follicles and they are getting bigger and hopefully my E2 is continuing to double.
I have not talked about my acupuncture sessions yet so I figure its time to share how that is going. I have had 3 sessions now. Each session lasts about 30 minutes. 5 minutes is them placing the needles and hooking them up to a low level electrical stimulation. Technically this is called Electro-acupuncture. Once everything is set they put on nice soothing music and let me be for 25minutes. The sessions really are relaxing which is the main goal of doing it. Each session consists of about 16-24 needles depending on what she wants to do. My first session there were needles all over, the next one seemed to focus more on my belly and these last one there were alot more in my legs. Supposedly the ones she added this last time will help me develop nice thick and receptive uterine lining for implantation. Who knows, but figure it cant hurt! The needles or electrical current dont hurt at all.
One cool thing that happened was when I was coming in today there was a woman there who came in to tell them she was pregnant. She had been trying for 6 years and this last attempt at IVF she added in acupuncture for the first time and she got pregnant! My acupuncture doctor was so excited, she said it is her 4th pregnant lady this year (not sure out of how many). So it was a nice success story to hear heading into my treatment.
Totally weird angle here but that's me, hard to see the needles but I have 3 in each foot, 1 on each calf, 3 around each knee, 4 in my belly, 2 on each arm and 2 on my head. (you can click on the picture to see it larger and see the needles)
E2 was 104.7, which is right where it should be. I was really hoping it would be above 100 today and it was! I will continue the same Gonal-f dose (225u) and see Dr Groll on Thursday for another ultrasound and E2 level.
Hopefully everything keeps going down the right path :)
So Friday started my 2nd daily shot, gonal-f. The gonal-f is in a very convenient prefilled pen. I just dial up my dose (225units), pull the plunger out until the arrow lines up with the 225 mark, inject it into my belly and then push the end until it clicks 6 times. A pen holds 450units so it only lasts 2 shots. After my blood work on Monday my dose may go up or down depending.
Gonal-f is a gonadotropin hormone, it consists of recombinant human follicle stimulating hormone (r-hFSH). FSH is necessary for the recruitment, growth, and maturation of the ovarian follicles.
I will be on this shot for 10 days with the goal of around 20 mature follicles, a mature follicle is 18-23mm in diameter. I am still on the lupron shots to prevent ovulation of all these nice big eggs until my medical team is ready to go in and extract them. Although 20 is the goal number, the minimum number of mature eggs to go ahead with the egg retrieval is 5. Hopefully I will have much more than that since not every follicle will have a mature egg, of the eggs you get around 70% will actually fertilize and of those that fertilize maybe half will continue to divide normally. So starting with 20 follicles you might actually only get 5-8 good embryos, then they would pick the 2 best and put those in me.
Here is an action shot of me injecting the pen. As you can see I have 1 really big bruise from a lupron shot and about 3 little bruises. Seems like every other day I give myself a bruise on injection! My belly is starting to look crazy.
I had my baseline lab work done today and another ultrasound. The main lab that we are following is my Estradiol (E2) level. Estradiol is a hormone that stimulates the lining of the uterus, causing the lining to grow, and to make itself ready for embryo implantation. This lab is a key marker (along with my ultrasounds) for how my follicles are developing, how many follicles I have and also how thick my lining is. The more follicles I have and the bigger they are, the higher the E2 level is. My E2 level today was 13. A baseline E2 level should be less than 80, with studies showing numbers on the lower end prior to stimulation with the gonal-f to have better outcomes.
Today's ultrasound showed 11 little follicles. 4 on my right ovary and 7 on my left ovary. There are probably a couple more that were too small to show today. The goal by egg retrieval day is around 15-20 follicles, so I am right on track there. The minimum number to continue is 5 follicles and my left ovary beat that all by itself. You can see 7 follicles below (dark shapes) on this example ultrasound. So both my lab work and ultrasound were very positive. Yea!
I also updated my calendar a bit to include a lab data section and added in my acupuncture sessions.
Well I am on day 3 of my Cole babysitting job while my sister and Jeff are in Chicago. I gotta say I learned a few things. First thing I learned is daycare is a pretty sweet thing. Being with Cole is wonderful but I don't know how stay at home moms can come up with stuff to do every day. Secondly, watching him mimic you and learn something is pretty amazing. He is a master at giving me a high five now and it just cracks me up every time. But really the biggest thing about these days that run though my mind is, will this be the closest I ever get to being a mom - these 3 days? It's a pretty depressing thought that hopefully doesn't prove true.
So on that note, my shots are going fine. I have a couple bruises on my belly from the shots. I already bleed really easy and they have me on baby aspirin which is just making my bruise more. Thursday I add in my 2nd shot, gonal-f. Thursday I also have an ultrasound, blood work and my first acupuncture session. So there should be more updates coming at you Thursday and Friday with all that stuff.
Oh and I hijacked Cole's blog and posted some gators videos on it, check it out :)
We finally got to break in the motocross bike this weekend. We went to a local track and spend about 2 hours just setting everything up, watching Dan ride and then having Dan teach me how to ride a motorcycle. I was certain I would fall over, but amazingly I never did. Course once you look at the monster hills I was riding over you will see why I didn't fall. Dan pictures are up top and mine are below. That 5year old was burning past me, haha!
I was told the hormone injections would give you weird dreams. I didn't expect them to start on Day 1. Last night I had the weirdest dream, I was baby siting Cole and all the sudden Richard from Lost (aka, the "Other" who doesn't age and wears far to much eye liner) and Gwyneth Paltrow came in the house to steal him. Instead of just attacking me they told me they had a good diversion tactic, they started waving my Wii Balance Board (the thing you stand on when playing Wii Fit and other games) back and forth to distract me while they tried to take Cole...but since they warned me that they were going to try and distract me I foiled their plan and kicked their butt and Cole was safe.
Totally random, but thought it was funny. I will pass on any other weird dreams that come along.
I was very nervous going into my ultrasound yesterday. I have never had an ultrasound with no cysts on my ovaries and if one was there we would not have started the IVF. Thank goodness it all looked good, my surgery a couple months ago removed all the endometriosis and I finally get to start!! I made a calendar of all my medicines, ultrasounds/labs, etc and posted it in the links section to the left. As I move on from one stage to the next I will of course be updating the blog. Hopefully its smooth sailing from now on.
Since I hope this is a somewhat informative blog I will also talk about the costs for IVF so far. Lab Fees: $2785 (includes Embryo culture, Ooocyte ID from follicular fliud, preparation of embryo for transfer, sperm isolation & complex preparation, Intracytoplasmic sperm injection) Facility Fee: $2,830 (use of facility, staff, coordination of services, equipment and supplies) Anesthesia Fee: $558 (for egg retrieval) Sperm Storage: $360 (1 year of storage)
Lucky for me I am saving several thousand dollars because I was able to get all my medicines filled by the Air Force Pharmacy. I will also be doing 3 of my ultrasounds/lab work at the base which will also save me a couple hundred dollars each time.
In other news, as I mentioned the other day Dan's 3 month CT was good - no change from previous scans. For those who want to read the actual report here you go. Page 1 & Page 2
Finally, I made a photo slideshow for Cole's 1st birthday. It ended up being a huge project that had to be broken into 2 parts in order to upload onto youtube (even split into 2 I couldn't get it on yahoo which limits size even further) I hope you enjoy them. You can watch it directly from this site (but I would keep it small) or you can use the link to youtube and right under the video it says "view in higher quality". If you click that you can make it full screen and enjoy! It is pretty long, but Cole is just so darn cute I couldn't cut anything. Make sure you have sound on also.
This morning I said goodbye to my Mom who was in Columbus vising Cole for his 1st birthday and then went to the Columbus Sperm Bank to pick up some important cargo. Prior to Dan's chemotherapy in January he went to the sperm bank three times to give us a shot at making a family the not so old fashioned way. This large cargo container holds inside a liquid nitrogen dewar which then holds inside it the 15 little vials of frozen sperm. The IVF clinic figures we will need 2-3 vials per attempt depending on how well they thaw and what the quality of them is after the thawing process.
This afternoon I will deliver the sperm to my IVF Clinic and go in for my ultrasound and bloodwork. I have been on birth control pills for exactly two weeks now with one week to go. If my ultrasound is good, no cysts, I can start the Lupron injections on Thursday.
Dan's new dirt bike and trailer. The trailer came in 13 boxes and Dan put it together after taking over the garage for 2 days. The bike is 2003 Honda CR125. He also received all the gear he needed slowly over the last 2 weeks from various online stores and eBay. This Saturday we will be hitting the track and I am sure some action photos will follow!
This short film was made by someone on the infertility forum that I read daily (ivf-infertility.com). I thought it was very well done and wanted to share it with you guys.
Dan called the oncology nurses today to have them read the results to him since he will not be meeting with Dr. Wood until July 10th. They said it was good - no changes from the last CT-Scan. Still an area of scar tissue that apparently is no bigger or smaller than previous and should appear the same on future CT Scans. So Dan continues down his path to remission. Perhaps on the 10th we will scan in the actual report so the medical types that follow this blog can read it. Very good news for us, next scan in 3 months (10/1/08)
I picked up all the medicines that I should need for in vitro today. They are (in order of use) 1) Ortho-Novum (birth control pills - hahaha) 1 daily for 3 weeks 2) Lupron 1mg (0.2ml) SQ injection daily for 14 days - that is the really small box in the middle and the 14 syringes. This medicine is to suppress my luteinizing hormone and estrogen production. Lupron will allow the ovaries to produce multiple eggs. without the fear of premature ovulation 3) Gonal -f (not sure the dose or how long I will do this yet) This is the 4 boxes of medicine. Its a pre-filled syringe. Each syringe should be a couple days worth of medicine depending on how the labs go. It could be once a day or twice a day depending. This medicine will cause the eggs to develop and grow. 4) Novarel (HCG - trigger shot) this is an IM injection given 36 hours prior to egg retrieval. 5)Doxycycline (Antibiotic) - 1 tablet twice a day for 11 days. This is given around the retrieval time to reduce infection. 6) Xanax and Tylenol #3 - both for the egg retrieval process as its supposed to be painful. 7) Prometrium (Progesterone) - This hormone will act upon the lining of the uterus to make it receptive for embryo implantation. As part of the egg retrieval process, progesterone-producing cells are removed along with the follicular fluid and oocytes, making the ovaries unable to produce progesterone sufficiently. Progesterone is vital for endometrial development and continued embryo support. - This is the only one that will not be fun..its 1 capsule three times a day in the vagina. And I have 180 pills of this with 3 refills!! That's kinda crazy. I guess its nice I don't have to do the Progresterone shot as I heard that one really hurts (real thick liquid IM) Sorry for the tmi (too much information) on that one! 8) Not shown is my daily Pre-Natal Vitamin and my baby aspirin that I also take daily.
So the game plan is suppression, stimulation, retrieval, transfer and maintain. If everything falls perfectly into line we are looking at an 8/8/08 egg transfer day, which just happens to be my mom's birthday and the start of the Olympics!
So kinda just hanging out for 2 weeks. On July 14th we have an ultrasound, blood work and a meeting with the IVF coordinator scheduled.
Fast Facts:
