FET cycle start

A quick update - I had my baseline appointment on Tuesday - bloodwork and ultrasound. Everything looked good and I started estrace that evening. Starting an FET cycle is a lot less eventful than starting a fresh IVF cycle. Instead of shooting up every night, all I do is take a dainty little pill twice a day.  So it's pretty boring. I up my dose on Saturday to 2 pills twice a day and then go back on Wednesday to see how things are progressing. I really wish I had a clue as to when the transfer would happen. Hopefully on Wednesday they can give me an idea. I have to book a flight, hotel, rent a car, etc. Would like to get that done sooner than later!  It will probably be just me going out to NJ this time. My hubby recently got a job offer and starts working on the 13th. This is such a huge weight off our shoulders now that he will have a job!  So now I don't have to fret over the possibility that I'll have to book the trip at the last minute and incur extra costs. Of course extra costs are undesirable but at least we don't have to worry about how to pay for everything. And actually, our trip out to NJ for the ER was a lot cheaper than I anticipated so there is a bit of fluff that we have to work with to stay within our budget. 

I'm getting pretty antsy to get the transfer over with. Knowing we have an excellent embryo sleeping in a freezer makes me wish that it was in me already. All in due time I suppose.  Anxious about whether or not it will work, scared that it won't, making subtle preparations in case it does work (i.e.: I dyed my hair today).  I'm at the point where I really just need this to be over and either move on with a pregnancy or not. 

SIS and mock transfer results

All went well this morning. Easy peasy!  No abnormalities and my cervix will make for an easy transfer. 

So plan for now is to take my last birth control pill tomorrow. Then I'll go in for bloodwork and ultrasound next Tuesday. Assuming all is good, I'll start estrace that night and my FET cycle will be off and rolling!  After I start estrace, it's estimated that transfer will be about 3 weeks after that. 

Saline sonogram and trial transfer tomorrow

It's been a week since we found out that our one embryo is normal. I'm still on birth control pills and will be until the FET cycle starts. To start the cycle I need to do a saline sonogram so they can make sure my uterus is free of abnormalities. They will also do a trial transfer at the same time to note any irregularities with my cervix position so when it's time for the real thing, there will be no surprises. I have it scheduled for tomorrow morning and I'm doing all this locally so that's a huge plus. Was worried I'd have to go out to NJ. 

Anyway, hopefully all will be normal and I will get the plan for moving forward!

CCS results

CCS results are in. Our 1 embryo is normal!!  PHHHHEEEW!!!  We weren't expecting results for another week but I was going back and forth via email with my nurse today regarding bloodwork results and when to start birth control pills since I got my period on Saturday and in her last email she said "your results came in just now and it's normal!"  So glad she didn't wait to tell me. I was doing ok but the googling had started its evil downward spiral a couple days ago so I was well on my way to crazy town. Can't imagine what another week woulda been like!  

Now that our embryo is normal, we will definitely be moving forward with our frozen transfer. I started birth control tonight and continue that for a week. Then I start the FET cycle. I don't know exactly how it will work out but I know I'll be on estrace and will start lining and bloodwork checks in maybe 2 weeks. Once my lining is thick enough, they'll schedule my transfer, I'll start progesterone shots and we'll gear up to head out to NJ again. My nurse said that typically transfer happens about 6 weeks after ER. This will be a much shorter trip. I won't need to be there ahead of time and I can leave shortly after the transfer. We will probably fly and leave Kellen either in Chicago or Bloomington with family since it will be such a short trip. It's all up in the air still of course and hubby might not actually go if he has a job. Even if he doesn't have a job, he might stay home to save on travel costs. So who knows. The only thing that really matters at this point though is that a transfer WILL happen!

My clinic has about a 65% success rate of ongoing pregnancy with CCS normal embryos. I don't know if my specific chances are higher or lower given that our embryo was fully hatched.  I've been reading that hatched blasts have an easier time implanting so keeping my fingers crossed that that's true!  There is a 1% chance that our embryo will not thaw well but my RE said that that almost never happens at their facility. One other thing...with CCS, gender is typically information that they find out with their testing. I don't dare ask that question though!  If this doesn't work out, knowing gender will make it so much harder to accept the loss. So this will maybe be something we ask about if we get a bfp. 

But for now, we relax, try to stay in the present moment, keep praying of course, and get ready for the cycle!

Day 5 results are in

Day 5 was yesterday.  My nurse told me that I would be notified what they biopsied today.  I have been getting more and more nervous all weekend long.  Yesterday I called her and asked her if she could call me in the afternoon since I was supposed to be in meetings all morning today.  She said that would be fine and said she'd call around 2.  Throughout the course of this morning though, I got more requests for meetings that would make me unavailable all afternoon.  Ugh!  I accepted them all, but after lunch I just threw in the towel and went home "sick".  I was really unfit - all shaky and unable to concentrate... so I was totally unproductive. 

Anyway, I got the call as I was driving home.  Out of the 5 we had fertilized, only 1 made it to blast.  Honestly, I'm relieved we have 1.  Of course it makes me very nervous for the testing results since that is our one and only blast but my nurse told me that this blast was graded an excellent 6BB!  We've never had better than a 3CC (that was Kellen), so I'm really pretty shocked at that.  Hopefully it's a good sign that it is normal.  Statistically 45-50% of the eggs in women my age are abnormal - abnormal meaning they carry the genes for Downs Syndrome, Trisomies, etc.  I'm crossing my fingers and toes that the abnormal eggs were weeded out in the early development stage since we had over 50% drop off.  Sometimes this is the case, but other times good looking blasts can actually be abnormal.

So now we just have to sit tight for 2 more weeks.  In the meantime I will call my nurse when I get my period and she'll get me started on a brief course of birth control pills to "hold" me until our results come back. If the blast comes back normal, we will roll right into an FET cycle. 

Fertilization Report

I've been busy since driving back on Thursday, I didn't have time to post about the fert report. I got a call nice and early at 9:30am. The results were disappointing. Only 5 out of the 11 retrieved were mature. The nurse could not say if the other 6 were just immature or if they were not usable. All she knew was that 6 were discarded. The silver lining with this is that all of the 5 remaining fertilized normally. The next update will be on Tuesday, day 6. Ughhhhhh. Woulda been so much easier to wait if I knew we had a lot of embryos cooking away. But now that we don't, I just have to make-do and pray a lot. There is a good chance though that we might not even make it to transfer given our usual blast rate. I'm ok right now but come Tuesday morning, I will be a mess. Naturally I have a meeting on Tuesday morning when I'll probably get the call. I'm really thinking of just calling in sick that day. I will be a lunatic during the meeting so what's the point?  But on the other hand, all I'll do at home is pace - at least I'll be in the privacy of my own home though.  And if the news is bad, I'll be really glad that I'm at home where I can freely lose it and cry. 

With all that said, right before we left for NJ, we got the notice regarding my infertility benefits. We have quite a bit left over. So far I've used just over half. So now of course I'm thinking of plan b. It all depends on how much insurance pays and who knows what the negotiated rates will be. I'm really tired of being on the ivf roller coaster though. At the same time, after this cycle, our benefits likely won't be totally exhausted if we can't even transfer - but it might be close. So I donno. The benefits for our meds which was separate from medical is gone though and that's kind of a big deal. I donno how much was billed this cycle but at least $4k or so...?  So that would suck to have to pay out of pocket for that. There are programs though that would give discounts. I don't know...that's where my head is at the moment. 

I can't help but be a bit pissed off with the numbers though. Going in to ER I had 12 follicles. And they were concerned with me getting OHSS from my E2 number. How does one go from that to getting just 5 mature eggs??  All the vitamins, acupuncture, meditation, HGH, etc apparently didn't do much considering I have less embryos now than I've ever had before. Even on my first cycle, I had 6 that fertilized. Granted, that was 4 years ago and I was younger but still... what the heck happened??  All I can do is hope and pray that the eggs that did fertilize were all good quality and the trouble we spent to travel to one of the best facilities in the country works out in our favor. 

ER results

ER was this morning. It went well. They got 11 and said to expect 8-10 so that's good.  Less than last time but more than my first 2 ivfs. We'll see what the fert report is tomorrow for maturity and fertilization!  Ugh pretty nervous though. Hate...no - absolutely loath this part!  Out of my hands now though. 

We spent the day relaxing. I was not in too much pain, but still not good enough for a long car ride. Should be fine tomorrow though so plan is to leave after breakfast and drive as long as Kellen is good and we aren't tired. We'll see how far we get. It would be awesome to do the whole drive tomorrow but I donno how realist that is. 

Either way, will post tomorrow with the fertilization results.