Based on the results of the blood test and discussion with my RE on Friday, they called me in for a Saturday check on April 9, 9am. They did this, as they did last time, because they were concerned we might be reaching the end of possible stimulation and need to trigger over the weekend.
April 9 was only day 9 of shots, I was pretty frustrated. Instead of sleeping, I spent a chunk of my night searching the internet for options in this kind of case, just to be able to ask any other questions the next day. I read about sacrificing the dominant follicle in order to give the smaller follicles more time. If the estrogen levels support it, it is possible to keep "stimming" and let the dominant follicle get too big (usually >25mm), making it "post-mature" or over-ripe and likely unusable, meanwhile the smaller follicles have time to grow and catch up.
Our Saturday check was with the on-call RE. After catching him up with a brief summary of our situation, he performed the scan and helped answer most of our questions. He was very good and very willing to discuss options and explain what was happening. He said that sacrificing was a possibility, depending on my blood test results. The best thing he said was that he has had patients who ended up with babies (actual babies!) after IVF cycles with one lonely follicle. He said that for these patients, he had recommended cancelling out of the odds being quite low, but they wanted to go forward anyway...it can work.
We both figured this was better than quitting. We left the appointment knowing that the "dominant" follicle (we started calling it the super egg, perhaps with the hope it would be just that), had slowed it's growth, but was very healthy looking and mature. There was a small ~10mm follicle next to it on the left side, not big enough for retrieval, likely, but showing some catch up. We had to wait for the blood tests, and my RE would see them and make a decision.
The nurse on call rung my cell phone by lunch time. Based on the blood tests, my estrogen levels were slowing down, and it was time to trigger. We couldn't wait any longer or give the little ones more time. We had to take 2 Ovidrel trigger shots that night at exactly 8:00:00pm, and my retrieval was scheduled for Monday at 7:15:00am. Disappointed, I confirmed the information, and hung up. As optimistic as our attitude toward this one follicle seems so far, the creeping doubt was eating away at the corners of that optimism. Could all this have been for nothing? There is so much that can go wrong at each step, leaving us with nothing from this cycle...
- During retrieval, they might not even find an egg in there.
- If they retrieve an egg, it might not be healthy / mature.
- We lost 1 of 7 at this stage during IVF #1.
- If it is mature, it might not fertilize.
- If it fertilizes, it might not make it through day 1.
- We lost 1 of 7 at this stage during IVF #1.
- If it makes it through day 1, it might not make it to day 3.
- If it makes it through day 3, it might not make it to day 5 to be sampled and frozen .
- We lost 4 of 7 at this stage during IVF #1.
- If it makes it to sampling / freezing, we could wait the additional ~2 weeks and find out it isn't genetically normal.
- Recall, we didn't get to know this about our 1 frozen embryo from IVF #1, since they didn't sample it before freezing due to a paperwork error, but we will find out at some point.
The generally accepted statistics for my clinic is that 70% of the eggs retrieved will fertilize, and 50% of those will make it to freeze. These were long odds if you're starting with 1 single egg. I suppose there could be a very small chance that the second ~10mm follicle grows and matures just enough by Monday morning to give us 2 eggs, but from what we understand about the basics of follicle / egg development and how it was measuring at Saturday's scan, that would be a surprise.
Stopping now and quitting still didn't feel like an option. It's possible this could be our baby, and I am not about to give up on that possibility for my own comfort. The retrieval will put me under anesthesia again, I will be uncomfortable afterwards, Michael has to do his part, and we will both miss a day of work to do it all. This feels like a reasonable price to pay to give this egg a chance.
As I write this now, it is Sunday evening before my Monday morning procedure. We administered the trigger shots last night (Saturday, April 9) at exactly 8:00:00pm. Thank you cell phone clocks for your accuracy and universality! I also started my Z-pack (5-day course of antibiotics).
Tonight, we have a reprieve from shots, though yesterday's were nearly undetectable compared to the Menopur injections. This reprieve is bittersweet, since we would have preferred to be able to keep going a bit longer, but as we have come to learn through this IVF process, we have to find some form of comfort in allowing it to be out of our hands.
With injections phase finished, here's a shot (hehehe!) of all the injection medicines I took this cycle:
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| All the vials from cycle #2. Each row = 1 day of medicine. Bottom row is the 2x Ovidrel trigger shots, which come pre-loaded with meds. |
Listening to "Break My Heart Sweetly" this evening, which has become a favorite of ours during the last few months. Another that really hit home for me has been "Just Be Held"...thank you, Regan.
I was late getting into your blog. Started at the beginning and got to the song "Just Be Held". Oh my goodness, the tears starting flowing. When I was pregnant with Christine and had breast cancer raging in me, I had to decide if I should abort or not. One morning I woke up crying and Jim said to me what is wrong. I said I did not know what to do abort or carry the baby through chemo. I was back into a corner. He calmly said throw it up to God and let him handle it, but you must accept whatever he hands to you. I looked at him and thought how simple how could I have missed that! We women are constantly keeping things in control that we forget to allow God to help us. So I threw it up to him and the result was relief. During those first 7 months of doing chemo and looking pregnant I had so many people look at me and thought you must be crazy. I merely kept my head up knowing that God was taking care of things. Kelly, thank you for sharing that song. It was touching. Prayers are flowing for you and Michael. we love you and support what you are doing. Love, Aunt Betty
ReplyDeleteAunt Betty, I can't imagine how incredibly difficult that must have been. I can relate to being in a position where all you want to do is the right thing, whatever that is, and that it's confusing as hell sometimes.
ReplyDeleteThe song was sent to me by a friend from work (Regan) after she and I had a long catch-up over lunch. She and her husband were in PNG with us, and she had just come back from maternity leave after having an adorable little girl. I had found out she was pregnant right after my first miscarriage, which was very hard. We would have had our babies within a month of each other. After our chat, she send me the lyrics to that song. My favorite part is, "your world's not falling apart, it's falling into place." Along with making me tear up every time, it helps me remember this is just the path we are meant to take, because we can handle it.
Thank you so much for sharing your story, too. I love you very much, and am so happy to have your support and prayers!