Image Source: Pinterest and stayinspired365.com Today is trigger day! Woohoo! This morning I kissed the hubby goodbye on my way out the door to my monitoring appointment and asked him to say a little prayer that we were good to go, and it must have worked because Dr. J announced that everything looked great and we’re ready to do the trigger! I have 6 follicles measuring between 19 to 21 mm and a few stragglers that will hopefully catch up by Monday. We’ll see what we actually get at the retrieval, but 6 is still a pretty good number since we already have the 5 frozen fertilized eggs from our retrieval in September. Praying it will be enough to get us to 5-day blast and have at least one healthy embryo after PGD! I’m so relieved we’re ready to trigger. Aside from the obvious relief of moving forward to the next step, I’m beyond ready to be done with the injections. I did the usual Lupron shot this morning and then 1 last vial of Menopur and 200 units of Follistim at the clinic to give my follicles that extra boost for final maturation, and then at exactly 8:15 this…Continue reading IVF and PGD Part 2 – Trigger Day!
Tag: Transvaginal oocyte retrieval
IVF and PGD Part 2 – Injections
Meds, Meds, Meds My hubby and I are becoming experts at preparing and administering all these meds. I get the tray ready with the vials, needles, gauze, alcohol wipes, and sharps container and my hubby prepares the meds and does the sticking. He’s becoming such a pro! It’s such a relief! I just can’t get the nerve to do it myself. For all of you out there who do this yourself, I am very impressed! To recap, we’re on a pretty intense schedule for meds this time around. So far it’s been a breeze with just 1 injection of Lupron (Leuprolide Acetate) at 7 am and 1 injection of Lupron at 7 pm. My only notable side effect so far is a really bad headache. It’s a bit better today, but it seems to get worse about 4 hours after each injection. I’ve read on other blogs that, headaches are a pretty typical side effect of the Lupron, and I had headaches last time with the other meds too so it was expected. Dr. J recommended upping my electrolytes last time so I stocked up on Gaterade this time and I think it’s helping. Even though we won’t be transferring…Continue reading IVF and PGD Part 2 – Injections
IVF with PGD: Egg Retrieval Part 2 – Update
We are officially beginning our second round in the IVF and PGD process. I went in yesterday for an ultrasound and blood draw to test my estradiol levels. All was good, so Dr J gave me the go ahead to begin taking birth control pills again. I’ll take the pills for the next 17 days, then stop and get another period, then I’ll start injections again and my next egg retrieval is tentatively booked for Dec 1st or 2nd. If we get enough eggs and enough fertilize, then we’ll grow the new embryos and the 5 we have frozen to 5-day blast and on the 5th day, they’ll take a biopsy of each embryo and send it to the PGD lab for chromosomal testing. So we should know by around Dec 6th or 7th if we have any viable embryos. If we do, we’ll likely wait until the end of that cycle and one more before doing the transfer. So sometime in mid January we will hopefully be ready to transfer an embryo. I’m feeling a little more positive today. When I wrote my last post, I wasn’t feeling very positive about moving forward this time around, but I’m feeling…Continue reading IVF with PGD: Egg Retrieval Part 2 – Update
IVF and PGD (Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis)
The Journey to Having a Family Continues After the loss of our son, Holdon, my biggest concern moving forward with trying to become pregnant again was being at high risk for a reoccurrence of preeclampsia. This is still a huge risk that lurks in the back of my mind, but after my 3 miscarriages since then, this fear has been overshadowed by other fears… fear of having another miscarriage, fear of not being able to have another baby, fear of moving forward with expensive fertility treatments that don’t have a guarantee, and could result in further heartache and disappointment. However, after giving it a lot of thought, we have decided to proceed with IVF and PGD (Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis). After 3 ½ years, four pregnancies, one baby in heaven and 3 miscarriages later, our journey with trying to have a baby has taken this surprising turn. It’s surprising because I always thought of IVF as a solution for infertility, and it didn’t initially occur to me that this was a solution for us because we get pregnant quickly and easily. However, the word infertility comes with different definitions and for us it means recurrent pregnancy loss. Why do IVF for…Continue reading IVF and PGD (Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis)