Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Clomid 100mg = IUI or No IUI?

I have took it upon myself during all of my IUI cycles to do the at home ovulation test.  (Last IUI cycle I didn't.  Don't know why, I just never did.)  This morning, I was supposed to have a day study at Waynesboro sleep lab.  Last night before I went to bed I thought of all days, watch me get a positive ovulation test in the morning when I am supposed to do the day study.  I ended up going to bed thinking it was pretty impossible to get a positive today because it is only CD (Cycle Day) 9 but I always do them to be on the safe side so we don't miss anything.  Welp, I woke up this morning, tested and low and behold, it was positive.  I immediately kind of freaked out, panicked, and thought Oh crap, what now?  I immediately called my boss.  He didn't answer.  After all, it was only about 6:30 this morning.  I then turned around and called Trent (he was on his way home from work) and prepared him he wouldn't be getting much sleep today as we would most likely be going in to the Fertility Center this morning.  Hung up, called my boss back and Thank God!  He answered.  He knows everything we are going through so I told him we got a positive ovulation test and I needed him to go to Waynesboro and run the day study.  I was much closer to Waynesboro than him and there is no way he would have made it there by the time the patient was supposed to be there so I told him I would go start the patient if he could just come to me ASAP and relieve me.  He said he was going to stop by the Columbia office for a few and do a few things and then for me to call him when I talk to my doctor.  I called the doctors office at 8am when they opened.  Left them a message and they called me back 5-10 minutes later.  They wanted me to come to the office ASAP.  They said that the ultrasound tech was leaving at 11:30 could I be there by then.  I told them it would take me well over 2 hours to get there because I was working in Waynesboro and that is not including the time it was going to take my boss to get to me.  She put me on the books for Follicular Ultrasound at 11:30 but told me to call if I couldn't make it by then and she would schedule us for tomorrow.  I hung up, called my boss back and told him he had to get there ASAP.  It really kinda put him in a tough spot because he had things that needed to be done in Columbia but he ended up not coming to Columbia and came straight to me in Waynesboro.  He got to me and relieved me around 9:15.  I booked it and sped like a devil to get home and pick Trent up.  Picked Trent up, sped like a devil to Nashville and finally got there around 11:05.  Thank God!  We made it. 

Trent LOVES watching the ultrasound.  He has become a pro at being able to identify my follicles himself.  I can't usually see the ultrasound screen because of the way it is turned.  During this ultrasound, I watched him the whole time.  While she was looking around, he holds up 2 fingers.  At that point he had spotted 2 follicles.  After done looking on the right side, she says, you don't have any ready on the right side.  She moved to the left side looked around for a minute.  Then said ok, you don't have any ready, let me go talk to Dr. Hill and let him view the size of them and what the outer edges of the follicles look like.  Get dressed and come on out.  When she left the room, me and Trent were left totally confused.  Did I really expect to be ready today?  No!  It's only CD 9.  It's typically too early to ovulate but I thought well maybe 100mg Clomid really kicked me into gear.  But more than that, we wondered what it meant by let Dr. Hill see what the outer edges of the follicles looked like.  We still don't know what she meant by that but oh well.  Anyways, I got dressed and came out.  The nurse practitioner came and got us.  She then explained to us that we do not have any follicles ready, it is still early and Clomid probably just caused a false positive ovulation test.  If everyone will remember, I have gotten a false positive before on Femara however, they did say that time that they thought it detected ovulation because I was so close to it and if we would have waited until our originally scheduled day, we would have probably missed it and not had the IUI that month.  Well, this false positive is totally different.  We are not ready and they are wondering how well I am really responding to this cycle.  It is really odd hearing that I may not be responding well this cycle for a couple reasons.  1) Normally my follicles are over 20mm and 2) I don't have problems with ovulation I always ovulate.  That has never been a problem for me.  I am obviously somewhat responding because I did have 4 total egg follicles so I responded as far as making more eggs but the follicles are still small in size.  They are only counting 3 follicles because one of them was small.  Again, it is only CD 9 so it is early and they do still have time to grow however, we have been told in the past they only grow approx 2mm a day.  They like to see them at 18mm and I had 3 on the right side.  2 at 12mm and 1 at 13mm.  On the left side, I had 1 at 10mm.  This is the one they are not really counting.  This month could be VERY different from all the other IUI cycles because of me not responding quickly.  I will be going back in on Friday (my originally scheduled day) to see what my progress is then.  Lets say they do grow 2mm a day, that still only puts the largest follicle at about 17mm which still isn't 18mm that they want to see.  They said depending on what we see on Friday, we could trigger me to ovulate then and go in for IUI Saturday however, to me they talked more like depending on what is seen on Friday, they will tell me when to give myself the trigger shot over the weekend and possibly go in for IUI on Monday.  I have never given myself the trigger shot.  It is given in the stomach.  Not looking forward to that if I have to.  Its just odd because usually I go in for ultrasound, they trigger me that day, and the next day is IUI.  This time though because I am responding slow, this whole cycle may be totally different.  They did also say that I may just not respond well at all this cycle and we may have to skip this IUI all together.  Me and Trent really feel this won't be the case.  We just feel like today was just too early all together.  Now, I don't believe I will have follicles as large as we are used to however, I do think they will end up good enough to do IUI. 

I am so hopeful that the 3 on the right side will end up being good enough size and we can do IUI this month.  It is exciting to know that I have 3 possible eggs and everything that was wrong with me previously is now gone therefore if I can ovulate 3 eggs, just think of the possibilities.  We are also hopeful that this round will work because we did ask them about the injections today just in case this round failed and we had to move to injection meds.  They said that for 1 full cycle of injection meds it will run $2,000 to $3,000.  This does include though the blood work and ultrasound monitoring, meds, and IUI.  This is still ridiculous though because our normal cycle with meds, ultrasound, and IUI is usually about $500 a cycle.  With injections though, you run many more risk so they have to monitor you VERY closely with numerous blood work and ultrasounds so I am sure that is part of what runs the cost up so much but of course, the injections them self is more expensive than what the med is that I am on now. 

Anyways, I just wanted to update everyone on what all happened today and what we are facing for this month.  I like knowing what to expect and as for our previous 6 IUI's everything was the same.  One day was ultrasound and trigger shot and the next day was IUI.  This cycle is gonna make me crazy because it appears it is much more hectic than our previous cycles and we are clueless as to what is really gonna be taking place this cycle.  We will try to keep everyone updated and let you all know what happens on Friday and where we are going from there.

2 comments:

Smith1230 said...

Still praying that Friday results in good numbers and results for all those eggies!

Christina Trull said...

Wow, sounds like a crazy day! I bet you guys were exhausted by the time you got home. I will be anxiously waiting to hear what happens on Friday, (tomorrow) I just realized that it is Thursday night, lol. You will be close to my heart as always, love you guys!