Tuesday, August 25, 2009

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!

7 comments:

  1. I'm voting for the happy medium. I've got my fingers & toes crossed for you - good luck!

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  2. Wow, you are off to a great start! Good luck!!

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  3. It's lookin' pretty good there, huh?! I hopin' that this is the one for you!!

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  4. I'm thinking about you and the Waffle Girl. She and the Trooper need siblings! We're a little bit behind you this time so it's like you're blazing our trail. ;) Let me know how the EE nanny works out, too.

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  5. Thank you all for the encouragement. Today's update is a lot of follicles, with the biggest @19mm and estrogen 1800. So trigger is likely on Thursday night. Yay!

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  6. TMI? WTH? So what was the result of the stupid poll? Puh, as if one could ever share too much info on cancer or fertility treatments. As if!

    Hope the shot went well tonight- keep me on a post! And we'll talk schedule stuff too - I stand prepared to dig holes as needed.....

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  7. I love that you use the term "hinky" it made me smile.

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