[chickpea]

Hi everyone,

I just found this site tonight as I was googling and reading online. I thought I'd join up and get some conversation going.

I am 36, and I am on Day 6 of my IVF cycle. This is my fourth cycle, but the first one that I'm going to finish for myself! The first three were donor egg cycles years ago.

A couple of years ago, I finally got married. I waited for The Right Guy to share my life with, and as it happened, that Right Guy also had two kids from his previous marriage and a vasectomy. We had had numerous talks about having our own family together for years before we got married, and he knew that it was *very* important to me.

First we tried the reversal... doc thought he had an excellent chance of success, but it ended up being an utter failure. Not one sperm found in the semen analysis. It took some time and discussion to get DH around to my way of thinking to give IVF a shot. I at least have the previous experience of knowing what I had been sensitive to and couldn't tolerate... ie: anything suppressive. It was very hard for the doc to get my follicles moving after suppression, and in a subsequent cycle he'd found a magic protocol that was absolutely perfect for me... ended up with 10 very strong embryos.

So now I am going through basically the same antagonist protocol that I was doing that last time, a year and a half ago. I have 18 follicles and I'm expecting the lead one to be around 1.3 at my ultrasound later this morning (I'm up a bit late... my brain won't shut off! lol).

I'm here at this clinic from out of town because I moved away with DH to be closer to his kids (they live with their mom) when we got married, but I felt comfortable dealing with the same Dr. and environment that I already had experience with. Luckily I have friends here who are kind enough to let me stay with them and fill their fridge with my meds. My husband will be coming into town two days before my 'scheduled' retrieval (and his aspiration), and staying with me until (knock wood) transfer.

DH is pretty nervous about the prospect of putting back more than one embryo, even when I explain to him that with my age, and just the odds of the embryos continuing development being relatively low, that two is still very conservative. I'm very afraid that he will not allow two... but I would be happier with twins than none, and he is SO afraid of more than one.

So, that's basically where I am at. I look forward to meeting some of you and having more people to talk about this with. I know I'm going to have some sleepless nights. It's already been extremely stressful to try to work things out with my US insurance to cover meds (the hoops I had to jump through were HORRENDOUS) and driving to NY state to pick them up so that they would be covered. But what a blessing that I can DO that.

Now, off to put my signature line together.

Babydust to all...
Chickpea

[babatime]

Welcome to this wonderful site Chickpea.

wishing you all the best on your journey.

kat

[~*Megan*~]

Welcome to the site!!
Wishing you the best of luck...Keep us updated

[chickpea]

Ok... today's update:

Day 6, same # of follicles: 7 & 11 (18 total).

2 @ 1.4
2 @ 1.2
4 @ 1.0

The others are still less than one - there are a bunch of them at .8 and .9, so I should get a few more catching up by my next u/s, i hope. If I remember correctly, these numbers are down from the last time I did this. I'd have to look at the paperwork to know for sure, though. But I'm pretty sure. I'm feeling kind of down about that.

Doc has lowered my Gonal F from 225 to 150 because my estrogen is pretty high, which is making me a bit nervous. But, he must feel pretty secure about how things are developing, because now he says he doesn't need me in for another bw/us until Friday morning, which will be Day 9.

So that's where I'm at! Now I have the next couple of days to have small fits and get nervous about stuff. I might need a few words of wisdom from you folks to help keep me from going over the edge.

I am SO glad this is not the first time I've gone through this part of the process. I'm sure I would be a heck of a lot more stressed than I am right now, which already stressed *enough*...

I think I should find myself a good massage therapist.

cp

[Hopefull39]

Hiya Chickpea, boy is your story familiar!
I met my amazing dh at age 34 and it took me a couple of years to convince him that I needed a baby. He has 3 with his ex and a vasectomy. 2 years ago he had a reversal that failed too.
There is a fairly large group of us that are cycling now in the January IVF cyclebuddies group. You will find everyone here and there and all over this site to be very supportive and understanding. You can always find someone who has gone something close to or the same as you.
I have found it helps to have women who understand to chat with.
It is great you have so many follicles, I hope you get the bfp you deserve.

[tigerlady]

Welcome to IVF.CA Chickpea!! Good luck on your cycle!

[chickpea]

Thanks for the encouragement, gals!

I have one friend (the one who I donated for, she hasn't had a success yet) who has been through this, and she is *tremendously* helpful with support and knowledge. It is a wonderful thing to now also have a resource like this to read even more people's experiences and have people to share with.

Frankly, it's all I want to talk about right now, and of course DH and other family members want to know how things are going, but they don't want to ONLY talk about this. hahaha. So this is a great outlet for me to yammer on all I want, and do lots of reading.

The next two days are going to be long and tedious, as I wait for Friday morning to see where things are at.

I'm going to pop over to cyclebuddies!

Hopefull, my thoughts are with you... babydust POURing over you so your embies dig in and take hold!!

xo cp

[tigerlady]

I remember that feeling! I wanted to talk about IVF and babies all day long, DH was soo sick of it!! We are here indeed if you wanna chat!!

[leigh14]

Welcome Chickpea,

My DH also had a vasectomy many years ago after fathering two children with his ex. It's really a shame that reversals aren't more successful! We inquired about it but it's been a number of years since my DH's Vasectomy and apparently that's a factor. We opted to go this route. It took a bit of convincing for us to get to this point. DH wasn't "baby crazy" like me but he does realize how important it is to me.

I wish you the best of luck. I see that you responded to one of my other posts (thanks again)...it's comforting to connect with people who have similar experiences.

I hope that all goes well with your cycle! Keep us posted. Sending babydust your way!

[Barendina]

Welcome...

[chickpea]

Hi Leigh and Barendina!,

Thanks for the messages

Leigh,

I was looking at your sig line... have you started your new cycle yet? I'm sorry I can't remember what was in your other post that I responded to before. LOL... my brain is on 'vay-cay-shun' right now! Stupid hormones.

I see that your first cycle was cancelled cuz you were oversuppressed... I had this issue as well. My first cycle wasn't cancelled, but there ended up being 3 blasts, they put back two (I was donating eggs for my friend that time) and watched one for one more day because it didn't look that good, and as expected, it did not continue development. But Dr. knew things could have gone better and that I was very sensitive to the suppression. The next time I only did BCP's for about 2 weeks, and a lot less Lupron (if I remember correctly). The results were better... I am trying to remember how many there were to freeze... three good ones I think? But then on the final donor cycle, he didn't give me ANY BCP's, NO Lupron at all, and BAM! TEN very high quality Day-5 blasts! TEN! Two to use, 8 to freeze. Crazy, right?

I'm pretty sure this round isn't going to be that good... that was a couple of years ago, and in the meantime I passed the magic '35' age (just turned 36 end of Jan), so I really am just hoping that I have four or five to work with... knocking wood.

Anyway, so don't despair... a different protocol sure can make for HUGELY different results!

Babydust...!

cp

[morningsun2]

Hi Chickpea.

Did you have 18 follies at the baseline ultrasound - as in 18 antral follicles? I'm just curious because I think I had more antral follicles this ivf round than previous rounds, but I didn't make notes. I only paid attention to the # of eggs at retrieval. I'm curious to see how many more follicles appear for everybody before retrieval!

18 is a great number, by the way, and congrats!!!

I'm on day 4 of stims right now and they saw 8 follies at the baseline, which I'm sure is more than my last 2 ivfs. And if a few more follies appear, then I'll definitely have more than before!!! One of my ovaries is consumed by an endometrioma, so I have low #'s.

Keep us all posted and good luck!

[chickpea]

Hi Leigh!

Yeah, just went back to another thread and realized that I did indeed reply to you before with pretty much the exact story I just rehashed here. Sorry! I just have no brain power left. Ma gudniss!!




cp

[chickpea]

Hi Morningsun!

Yes, 18 was the antral follicle count. At the last u/s (Day 6), I still showed the 18, but only 8 of them were 1.0 and over. A bunch were not too far behind, close to 1, so I'm hoping by tomorrow morning they've grown and caught up a bit. So we'll see how the Day 9 tests come out.

I think this is a 'typical' number for me for antral count. I seem to recall it being around the same the other times (donor cycles). So I'm encouraged that that means my ovarian reserve hasn't gone through any big dips since then (last donor cycle was a couple of years ago, and I just turned 36 a couple of weeks ago).

8 isn't a huge #, but perhaps that will make for better quality overall!

Hang in there! Keep me posted on your updates.

cp

[morningsun2]

Chickpea, good luck on your retrieval tomorrow!!! How exciting!

I am feeling so positive this time I just can't wait for retrieval!

On Saturday I had a day 6 ultrasound that showed 4 follies (3x0.9 & 1x0.8) on the left, which is supposedly my good ovary. The baseline showed 5 antral follies, so I'm wondering where the 5th went and a little disappointed that no other ones appeared. sigh. On the right ovary, which has a monster endometrioma, which will likely affect egg quality from that side I had only 3 antral follies which have now turned into 6 follies that are bigger than on the left! (1x0.9, 2x1.2, 3x1.3)

I'm a little hesitant to be excited over the right ovary because of the endo, but I'm still excited all the same!

I hope all goes smoothly at your retrieval!

[chickpea]

Hi Morningsun!

That's great news! You're getting closer... And it's so great that they're all basically the same size too! Very nice work.

All you need is one good one, in the end. That's what I keep telling myself, and it's true!

Cheers!

cp

[dreamscometrue]

Hi Chickpea!!!

That is so awesome!!! Good luck tomorrow at your retrieval.

We are having to do an egg donor cycle which is coming up in March. What a wonderful gift you gave another couple :-)

Hugs to all!
NW

[chickpea]

Hi dreamscometrue!

Thanks for the good wishes!

All the best to you too with your donor cycle. It should make all the difference for you. Think positive!

I'm sorry for your long struggle TTC. I often find myself struggling with the knowledge that I spent so many years tNtc, and then when I finally met the man I wanted to have children with, he'd had a vasectomy. Ah, the irony.

I'll be sending positive vibes your way too!

cp

[dreamscometrue]

Thank you so much Chickpea...

Ha ha...isn't that the way, spending so many years trying not TC. My DH and I have been together since I was 13 so we spent many years doing the same (TNTC) and once we decided to try for a family after we married wasn't as easy as we thought...:-(

Yes yes I have to think positive - I am going through waves of emotion - excited, stressed, anxious..etc - Well I am certain you are doing the same.

Chat soon
NW

[chickpea]

yeah, bigtime emotions.

I just had a small emotional explosion with my DH... he got irritated about something and I burst into tears. ugh. I hate all these hormones, and I hate it that we even have to go through this. I'm left feeling like i'm 'putting my H through something horrible' rather than this is us doing something we want to do together. I know it's just all the stress and drugs, but what a horrible feeling.

Not a good day.

I can't wait until this is all over and I can go home.

cp

[dreamscometrue]

ahhhh!!! I hope your day gets better!!!

To be honest, our very first IVF, I told my husband to get the F out of our house....It was terrible becuase we never ever fight and when we do its never like that....at least now we can laugh about it, but soooo was not funny at the time.

It will be nice for you to get home - is that right after the transfer?

nw

[chickpea]

Yeah, we'll be driving back the day after the transfer. I figure I can lay back and relax in the car just as well as I can on the sofa!

That's so funny about what happened in your first cycle... funny NOW, not funny then. lol.

Things have calmed themselves a bit over the last few hours. I don't think I've EVER felt so tired. I could sleep at the drop of a hat, and I have SOOOOooo much work to do so I can take tomorrow off. gah.

lol

cp

[chickpea]

Hi everyone, update for Chickpea!

I had my ER today.. things went much better than expected! Procedure went well, and Doc told me at the end that he thinks there must have been a batch of follicles that were somehow hidden from the u/s techs, because they ended up getting *28* eggs!! OMG, no wonder I was SO. SORE. Of course I know there will be a number of those that aren't mature, but here I was going into this thinking they'd get like 10, so I'm feeling pretty good!

DH had his sperm aspiration this morning as well, and they got tons of it, no problem there either. PHEW! Another hurdle jumped!

So... time for the boys and girls to play nicely in the sandbox... I'll give y'all the fert. update when they call me tomorrow.

Thanks everyone for all of the good luck wishes in the last couple of days... I think they helped!

Naomi: good luck with your ET tomorrow!!! Babydust!!!

cp

[morningsun2]

Chickpea, that's amazing!!!! I am so happy for you! Man, that's a lot to carry around inside you and I imagine you're really sore right now, recovering! Hugs! Fingers crossed for a great egg report!

I had my u/s today and the follies on the side with the endometrioma are not growing, but no great loss really since they would be very poor quality anyway. On the other side there are 6, but 1 is very small at 1.1 and most likely won't have time to grow. 1 is huge at 2.1 and they think we'll lose that one, but there are 4 at great sizes around 1.6-1.9!!! I got a first today - the dr. is telling me not to take menopure tomorrow, only puregon and cetrotide. What?!?! You're not telling me to up the drugs? lol. Amazing. Trigger on Wednesday night and retrieval on Friday!!!

[leigh14]

Wow Chickpea!

That's incredible! I'm so glad that things went well today. I was thinking about you! Get some rest! I hope that ET goes just as well. Sending mega positive vibes your way!

chickpea, on 16 February 2010 - 04:58 PM, said:

Hi everyone, update for Chickpea!

I had my ER today.. things went much better than expected! Procedure went well, and Doc told me at the end that he thinks there must have been a batch of follicles that were somehow hidden from the u/s techs, because they ended up getting *28* eggs!! OMG, no wonder I was SO. SORE. Of course I know there will be a number of those that aren't mature, but here I was going into this thinking they'd get like 10, so I'm feeling pretty good!

DH had his sperm aspiration this morning as well, and they got tons of it, no problem there either. PHEW! Another hurdle jumped!

So... time for the boys and girls to play nicely in the sandbox... I'll give y'all the fert. update when they call me tomorrow.

Thanks everyone for all of the good luck wishes in the last couple of days... I think they helped!

Naomi: good luck with your ET tomorrow!!! Babydust!!!

cp