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Ready4Pink

September 2007 - Posts

  • Waiting

    We are still waiting on the phone call from Dr P.  Of course this is all I can think about.  I talked with DH last night.  He'd rather put 3 day embies back but he supports me in possibly needing to do another cycle if we lose these in PGD.   I don't know if I can stand that long wait to find out the sex again after doing all this.  It's different when you conceive naturally.  Plus I am too afraid to attempt CVS again.  So we'd be waiting to do an amnio.  That is NOT why I've been injecting myself and getting u/s probed and eggs harvested etc.  That process was so I WOULDN'T have to do that.   Please please please let me have 4 super strong embryos today.

    Well after a terribly long day I FINALLY got an email from HRC at 4pm that 2 of the embies are at the 4 cell stage and the other two may continue to grow and are "looking good."  Whatever that means???  And that the embryologist is recommending that we go ahead with PGD.  Sheesh after all the stress they didn't even call and ask me.  I did send an email earlier today that this was our hope so I guess it's good news.

    I've been packing my cell phone around all day along with my notebook full of questions for the Dr. about what we should do.  I went to the spa at the hotel to get my brows waxed and I tucked my cell phone (set on vibrate) in my underpants in case they called while I was in there.  Luckily they didn't.  That would have been embarrassing yanking it out from under my robe.

    They will PGD tomorrow and ET is scheduled for Monday at 8:30.  Sigh.....  this is going to be a long couple of days.  Grow girls grow!

    I asked and found out I won't hear from HRC until I go in on Monday morning.  They've changed my ET time 3 times today but now it is set at 10:30.  At least I have a ton of stuff going on this weekend to keep me busy.  Reading other PGD reports makes me nervous that I may only have 2 to test.  I can't believe I ended up with so few.

  • Fertilization Report

    I'm afraid I don't have the greatest report.  Of the 10 they got, only 6 were mature.  4 fertilized.  My nurse said that when you have less than 5 fertilize Dr. P might want us to consider doing a 3-day transfer and skipping PGD because we could lose all of them in the process. I don't know what our sort purity is yet.  We won't know til tomorrow.  I can't believe we could do all of this with the hopes of 100% gender guarantee and still be rolling the dice on an unknown transfer.  I'm not sure I can do that.  So tomorrow we have to look at where the embies are at and what the purity is and decide.  I'm having a rough time tonight.  I got this call right as we were walking into Legoland and I've been putting on a brave face all day.  Now that we are back, I'm feeling the tears welling up.  I keep telling myself that we aren't out of this yet and all 4 could be "rock star" embryos.  But I'm very worried too.

    I really don't think I can bring myself to do a 3-day transfer.  Which means going forward with PGD and possibly ending up with a no transfer.  I want that 100% gender guarantee SOOOOOOO bad.  That's why I have done all of this.  I wanted to be able to take a big sigh of relief and love every minute of my pregnancy.  I always thought IUI would work for us but 90% sort purity wasn't good enough.  Fate always seems to relish throwing me curve balls.   If there is a tiny chance of a side effect or other outcome, I always get that.  So if there is a 10% chance of a boy, that would be me too.  I'm sorry but I am having a little pity party tonight.

    I have so many questions for Dr P tomorrow.  Like what's the percentage of embies that don't survive PGD?  Can you get false abnormal results, like a false positive?  Meaning the embryo tests abnormal but isn't.  How do they judge 3-day embies to decide if they can handle PGD?  And if we did end up with a no transfer, how soon would I cycle again and what would we do differently?

    Just to add to my evening, I dropped the glass vial of progesterone and it shattered on the floor.  Damn!  At least I have more but that was $70 of medication.  Grrrrr   Plus I got sunburned today at Legoland.  I'm on doxycycline which makes you more sensitive to the sun.  I was wearing 50 spf waterproof sunblock and I still burnt.  Sheesh!
     

  • ER Day

     Well the most important news is I have 10 eggs!  I was hoping for more and I am a little worried but Dr. P said he'd rather have 10 great eggs than 20 poor ones.  He had to call some gal yesterday and tell her that all 27 of her eggs were poor quality and couldn't be fertilized.  That would be awful.  ER went fine. I didn't feel a thing.  I am sore and crampy now but not sick at all.

  • 1st Visit to HRC

     I'm back from my first appointment with Dr. P.  Gosh I was so nervous going in there.  I don't know what I expected.  Big golden gates or something but it's just a regular doctors office.  Busy too!  I got all gussied up to meet Dr. P only to find that my u/s was first.  That meant I had to meet him for the first time naked from the waist down.  Just me and my naked buns on the exam bed with a paper sheet.   Sigh....  at least my hair looked good.  That was weird and kind of hard to concentrate on the questions I had.  But I made it work. 

    My u/s showed that my left ovary is pumping out follicles like a champ.  At least 6 good ones and 2 that may get big enough.  My right one is slacking off.  It maybe had 2-3 good follicles and 2-3 more that are a bit small.  There was some discussion about stimming for one more day to help the small ones catch up but the big ones on the left side could get too big.  He decided to have me do one last dose of gonal-f and menopur this afternoon and my HCG shot is tonight at 10:30PM.  Woooo hooooo   He said if my embies get to good blast stage and I put 2 back, I have a 75% chance of conceiving.  WOW!  But as we all know, a lot of gals make up that 25% so I'm trying to stay focused on the positive.  I don't know what my E2 is yet.
     
    After my time with Dr. P, I got dressed and met my coordinator for the first time.  She's so nice!  We went over the rest of my meds and discovered that Freedom Pharmacy never sent my estradiol to take after ER.  Ahhhhhh!  So I called them and it turns out I should have been told a month ago that estradiol is on a national back order and you can't get this particular kind.  Frantic call to HRC to have them call in something else followed by a frantic call back to the pharmacy to make sure they ship to my hotel and not my home.  It's finally all settled.  I'll get 2 bottles of 10 ml estradiol instead of 1 bottle of 20 ml and I'll have to inject myself with twice as much.  Whatever as long as it works!
     
    Then I drove to Laguna Beach which is absolutely gorgeous!  I parked next to the ocean and gave myself those last two stim shots.  Gosh I felt like a druggie shooting up in my car!  But my hotel was an hour away and I wasn't going back there in time.  It was a peaceful place to contemplate this whole process. Happy Wink

    BTW there is a sign in the lobby of HRC now that asks you not to bring your kids FYI.   There is also a notice that you can dispose of your needles in a sharps container in your regular trash here in Orange County.  Good to know because I wasn't sure what to do with those.  I had no trouble flying with my meds and I bought a sharps container at a pharmacy down here for $7.

    I am so bloated it's uncomfortable to walk. I had a ticket to go watch them film The Tonight Show but that meant another hours drive and sitting in the studio for 3 hours.  I just couldn't do it even though that would have been so much fun.  I don't know how some of the ladies did Disneyland at this point! 

  • 2nd Follicle Check

    I went today for my 2nd check. E2 is up to 370 and Dr. P says that is good.  We could see 15 follies but a couple were around 5-6 mm and this doctor didn't think they would mature big enough.  But there are plenty 8-14 mm ones.  Whoo hoo! 3 more days of stims and I get to meet Dr. P and my fabulous nurse Lori.   I fly out on Sunday afternoon.  I've got sooo much to get together.  All my stuff for the wedding, the kids stuff (they are ring bearers) my meds and clothes for 11 days and stuff to keep me busy on after ET.

  • 1st Follicle Check

    I'm back from my first u/s and E2 check after 4 days of stims.  I'm not sure I had good results.  They measured 5 follicles on my right ovary, the largest was 9mm.  There were 8 on my left side.  The largest over there was 11mm.  Some were as small as 5-6 mm.  My E2 is 179. The doctor doesn't give me a lot of info because they are just my monitoring clinic.  She said it wasn't a great showing but that it was still quite early. She asked what my drug protocol was and just said hmmmm.  I couldn't tell if she was just being nice since she's not in charge of my cycle.  Hmmmmm??????? 

    Lori didn't sound concerned and said Dr. P was pleased but wants to up my Gonal-F from 225 to 300 starting tonight.  I guess the follicle count is good but they are a little small.  I go back for another check on Friday.

  • AF Finally!

    I can't even believe it's true but AF FINALLY made her appearance today in the porta-potty at the boy's soccer game.  I didn't even care where I was, I had to do a little happy dance!  HRC here I come!

    I did my first stim shots tonight.  I have the gonal-f pen and menopur.  The pen is a little unwieldy.  I had to press pretty hard to get the plunger to go down and it goes down in small little clicks.  Then I had to twist it around while the needle was still in there to see if I had injected all of it.  I'd highly suggest being able to see the plunger better before you inject yourself.

     Menopur mixing is a little complicated.  I needed to sit down at the kitchen table and reread the instructions.  I have a houseful of kids today and of course my 5 year old and the little 4 year old neighbor girl came in. Whatcha doin?  They both asked.  I'm mixing some medicine that I have to take.  Now go away!  At the sight of the syringe they both hightailed it out of there.

  • No AF

    There is no sign of AF yet and I stopped BCP 7 days ago.  I got up several times in the night to check because they said if it came in the evening I could start stims.  Around 1AM I gave up.  I have to up my lupron back to 10 ml and just wait now.  I sure do feel crampy and I have my PMS migraine so I am hoping to see AF any time although I am pretty ticked off at her at the moment.

     It's already delayed stims.  I was supposed to start them last night.  Now even if I get AF today I still need to change two plane tickets, 3 hotel reservations, 2 rental cars and the sitter who was coming overnight while DH was at HRC to give his contribution etc.  What a pain! And it's going to cost at least $100 in change fees.  I wish I had known this could happen.  I asked them last month if my dates were definite and they said yes go ahead and book travel.

    I did ask if I could be on lupron a little longer and push ER to the 26th and ET to 10/1.  That would allow me to be in the wedding between those dates and I wouldn't have to worry about being on BR during that time.  That actually is the schedule I wanted in the first place but they wouldn't do it.  Now they say they can.  Go figure.  This all assumes that AF will come and I don't have a big follicle growing.

    I went to the acupuncturist today and had her hit all the uterine points.  I had a tiny bit of spotting after that but it went away.  Dr. P is going to send me in for another estrogen check tomorrow if I don't start over night.

  • 1st Monitoring Appointment

    The u/s went very well.  NO CYSTS!!!!  I had a good follicle count.  5-6 on the left ovary and 8-9 on the right.  My uterine lining was 5mm.  However my estrogen is 129 and it should be 0.  AF hasn't come yet and I can't start stims until it does.  Ahhhhhhh!  Every day it doesn't come pushes out my cycle a day.  If I don't have AF by Wednesday I have to get another blood check to make sure my estrogen is dropping.  If it's not, I might have a follicle growing.  Crap!  She's wondering if the u/s missed it today.  I wouldn't be surprised.  That gal wasn't very good with the wand. It took her forever to find my ovaries. 

    This is all bad.  Even a day off schedule means I have to rebook flights, hotels, cars, sitters etc.  More than one day means I have to drop out of my cousin's wedding.  Okay that's not bad for me but she would be bummed and I wasted money on that stupid dress.


     

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