34 and on stims and needles....
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Today is day 6....
My estrogen at my first follicle check was 237!
My last 2 retrievals they were 5 & 11 respectively. Dr. W said that t was possible that my weight was cause the meds to not work like they were supposed to. So my response was always anywhere from slow to almost non-existent.
For those who have no idea what any of this means let me try to explain.....
So the purpose of the medications that you take during IVF is to grow a good number of follicles. The hope is that all of those follicles actually contain mature eggs. The rule of thumb tends to be an estrogen level (e2) of around 200 per mature follicle. While I'm not a Dr., I think this tends to vary the farther you get in to your cycle, since I've ladies with an e2 of around 1800 end up with 10+ mature eggs. As for the follicles themselves, your Dr. will want them to grow to around 18+mm before having you do the trigger shot. The trigger shot is the last stim medication you use and it promotes ovulation in around 36 hours. At that point, you go to the clinic for the retrieval which is the procedure in which they aspirate the follicles and retrieve as many eggs as possible.
Yesterday, I had my second follicle check and as you can see from the picture below, the difference between last yer and this year at the same time is crazy. Not only do I have more follicles but my e2 is SO much higher.
My ovaries hurt this time around which never happened before. I'm so very thankful because I know that this means that the stims are actually doing their job, however, sitting at my desk all day sucks.
Tomorrow, I go in for my 3rd monitoring. My GUESS that trigger will be Saturday and retrieval Monday. Dr. S won't be around so hopefully all goes smoothly with her backup. I'm still super disappointed that she won't be doing the retrieval but I'm trying to look past that and focus on all the positives this time around.
I'm actually excited. Stims and everything that went along with it have in the past been a very difficult time for me. Not responding to meds is super discouraging and as made apparent by my 4 previous failed cycles, what I got from them wasn't great.
Tuesday was my 34th birthday and I spent most of the day just reflecting on this last year. A fresh that resulted in an ectopic that had to be terminated and a failed FET.
Dr. W wanted me to try to get healthier and so I set out to do that. Around that time I met Dr. S, she motivated me to everything I could to put myself in a better place both physically and emotionally.
#optimization
I had no idea that it would help make such a difference in my response.
Dr. W said it would but it's hard to really imagine what that difference will look like when you're in the dark aftermath of a failed cycle.
There were many times that I wanted to say fuck it and give up.
But I didn't.
No matter what happens, I'm thankful that this journey has shown me my strength and will power.
I firmly believe that God brings certain people in to you life at the perfect time, just when you need them and this past year I have met so many amazing women...the feeling of gratitude is overwhelming and brings me to tears.
So here I wait, on stims and needles, hoping that this is it.
