stimming on a tightrope

I'm happy to report that we have a great start to this IVF cycle! Today is Day 7 of stims and I've had 2 monitoring visits. On day 4 there were 14 measurable follicles (max 11mm) and estrogen @305. On day 6 we had 22 follies (max 15mm) with E2 @1020.

For any normal infertile chick, this would seem to be an excellent situation. But, oh no, recall that I have these annoying polycystic ovaries (PCO) which can go all hinky, especially at this point. We're trying to walk the line between hyper-stimulation and under-production. Either problem can lead to a cycle being cancelled - the latter happened to me in June and it really sucked.

After 5 days on Gonal-f (150 units) Dr. Snaggletooth had me switch yesterday to the same dosage of Repronex. What's the difference? Gonal is 100% follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and 0% leutenizing hormone (LH). Repronex is 50% FSH and 50%LH. So what? The doc says that FSH "recruits" follicles to grow and LH helps with egg maturation. So in switching from FSH-only to an FSH/LH mix, I'm kindof slowing down follicle recruitment/growth and hopefully improving egg quality, which could ultimately improve on the awesome IVF of 2007.

Today I'm in a mild panic. As Obama would say I'm "all wee-weed up." My mind is alternating between two opposing doomsday scenarios:

• Oh no, my estrogen is over 1000 already on Day 6! I'm going to hyper-stim! I'm going to have a stroke! And no baby!
  
• Oh no, I won't have enough FSH and my follicles will crap out! I'm going to have another cancelled cycle! And no baby!

Since I can't decide which disaster will occur, maybe it's a sign that some happy medium will result. Right?! I'm back for monitoring on Wednesday (day 8) and, unless things crash and burn, I'll trigger on Thursday.

In other news.. I have an excellent lead for a part-time nanny for Waffle Girl. She's a friend-of-a-friend from the Old Country who will help teach the girl my preferred Eastern European language. She's coming over Thursday. Hope the girl likes her!