Now on to all of the infertility stuff we have had going on. As everyone knows, we applied for the Baby Quest Foundation grant which we did not receive. We were pretty bummed about not getting it as we felt like we were probably pretty good candidates with everything we had been through. We would have loved to have tried IVF to better our chances but we had to accept it and move on. Just a refresher on the past couple of months. At the end of October we went to our Injection class at the fertility center so that with our next IUI we could do our first Follistem injection cycle. When my cycle rolled around in November, I went in for my first day of monitoring with blood work and an ultrasound in which we found a large cyst on my ovary therefore we had to sit out that cycle to wait on the cyst to shrink. They placed me on birth control to help the cyst to shrink quicker. Me and Trent chose ourselves to sit out the beginning of December cycle to wait and see if we got accepted for the grant and in the meantime, the fertility center put me on another month of birth control to try and make sure the cyst was gone by the time we were ready to start back up with the next cycle. That leads us up to where we are now.
Just a refresher on how my shot cycle was SUPPOSED to work. We would go the fertility center at the beginning of my cycle for blood work and an ultrasound and if everything looked good at that appointment, I would start Follistem shots on cycle day 3. I would then return to the fertility center 4-5 days after starting shots for more blood work and another ultrasound. From there, I would return to the fertility center every 2-3 days for blood work and ultrasound until it was time for the actual IUI. The very least number of days I would take shots was 7 and I could take them up to as many as 11 and sometimes it is more than that.
December 21st was my cycle day 1 so we went in for our first ultrasound. They said I still had the cyst but it had shrunk from 44mm to only 13mm. As long as my blood work came back ok, we would be able to continue with this cycle. Before we left the fertility center, they set us up our voicemail box there at the fertility center and told us to call and check it around 3:30. When I checked it, they said that my blood work looked good that my Estridiol levels were low at 66 which meant that the cyst was not producing Estrogen. I am honestly not too sure what all the levels are supposed to be at. I would normally research the crap out of everything but I guess I am just not that worried about it. Due to blood work looking good, I would take 75 units of Follistem starting Sunday night the 23rd and take them every night through Thursday 27th. Friday 28th go in for my monitoring with blood work and ultrasound. This means by our 1st checkup, we would have only 5 shots. We done just that. Like I have said in the past, Trent has became a pro at watching the ultrasound and spotting the follicles and how big they are and all that good stuff. Because of this, on the way to the fertility center Friday, I reminded Trent that the follicles would still be small that today was just to monitor how quickly I am responding and if they needed to increase or decrease my shot dosage or even keep it the same based on how well I am responding. We were very anxious to see how many follicles were forming since the injections were supposed to give more follicles than pills. We got there and as they were doing the ultrasound, they were checking the right side and calling out all kinds of numbers. For a follicle to be mature they like to see it at at least 18mm. We were tickled to death because I had 4 follicles on the right side alone. 13mm, 9.5mm, 10mm, and 10.5mm. None of these were very big yet but that was expected as they aren't supposed to be. I had only taken 5 shots and it was just too soon for them to be ready. We just knew they would move to the left side and see a similar situation with several follicles forming. WRONG!!! As soon as they moved to the left side, Trent's mouth flew WIDE open in shock. I knew something was up just not sure what it was. Not long after that, the ultrasound tech said "Well, you have 1 mature follicle on the left side. You may trigger for ovulation tonight and have IUI tomorrow". The follicle was 22mm already. What? How in the heck was this possible? The least number of days you are supposed to be on shots is 7 days and we have only taken 5. Trent then asked her if it was common to respond that quickly and be ready for IUI that soon. She responded with "Uhhh, NO!". She was totally shocked that I responded so quickly. Well, I guess I am just a total odd ball. We were told to check our voicemail box there at the fertility center around 2:00 and we would know exactly what is next. When we checked the voicemail box, they said that my Estridiol levels had increased to 458 and to take the Ovidrel trigger shot as soon as possible and be at the fertility center Saturday 29th at 10am for IUI at 11:30. Me and Trent had already been talking and we didn't think there was any way that we would have IUI Saturday because they are only open half a day on Saturday and that would not give 24 hours between trigger shot and IUI so we were shocked and didn't know what to think about having it done so quick. We done the trigger shot at 2:45 and the IUI was scheduled for 11:30 which only gave us about a 21 hour gap. Everything with this cycle has just been totally unexpected. I called the fertility center back to talk to a nurse and ask a couple of questions since we were just totally thrown for a loop. The nurse and the doctors were also shocked at how quickly I responded. If this just half way explains the quickness of this cycle, you normally aren't ready for ovulation until about cycle day 14 however, I was on cycle day 8 and ready for ovulation. They said normally you do want 24 hours between trigger and IUI however in this case, we could not put it off until Monday because we would most likely miss ovulation all together and have to cancel this cycle. My Estridiol levels jumped from 66 to 458 within exactly 1 week and they like to see the levels above 300 for ovulation so they didn't want to put it off. Let me back up a little now. Since Wednesday, I have had a headache that doesn't want to go away, nausea (no vomiting) and dizzy. As of Thursday I had all of the previous mentioned along with feeling like my head is going to explode with snot and coughing. I have just felt absolutely horrible lately. I didn't know if the dizziness and nausea was from the injections or maybe a virus which my mom and dad has had along with Trent's mom. After the ultrasound and seeing that I responded so much quicker than the norm, I just summed it up to side effects from the shots. Well on Saturday they day we were supposed to go in for IUI, I woke up feeling absolutely horrible. I also woke up with hives broke out all over my thighs, elbows, head and ears. I was so tempted to call them and tell them we would be cancelling this cycle that I just did not feel good at all. I had taken a shower, done my hair and makeup and laid back down. I finally mustered up the energy to get up and put on my clothes so we could go. We had decided though that we would double check with the nurse before they unthawed any vials to make sure she thought it would be ok to continue on with procedure in case I was sick to make sure it wouldn't affect anything. After talking with her, she didn't think my sickness was from the shots and she thought I actually had a virus going on along with the head cold and hives. I am just a total train wreck right now. She did say though that if I went to a doctor that I needed to make sure they treated me as if I am pregnant right now just in case. The difficult thing is with these darn hives. It has been a while since I have gotten them but normally if I get them, they are gone within a couple of days but every time I get them, I fear that I will get them severely as I have once before when I had to take 3 rounds of steroids and had them for 3 months without them going away. She did tell me to take Benedryl and try to treat them myself before trying to let a doctor resolve them but if they were not gone by Monday I probably did need to go ahead and go to a doctor. They are not gone so it looks like I probably will be going to the doctor tomorrow to see what needs to be done. Anyways, she said we was good to proceed with IUI so we waited on the vial to be unthawed. When they call us back, the paper with our numbers is always on top of our chart and I NEVER give them a chance to tell me what the numbers are, I am always immediately looking down at the paper while they are checking our wrist bands. When the nurse called us back, I immediately looked down and was in total shock. I absolutely could not believe what was before my eyes. Our highest total motile sperm count in the past was 16.1 million and that was with 2 vials. We had 33.1 million total motile sperm count this time in ONE vial. I just couldn't believe it. The nurse said for a frozen vial, that was great numbers. She was thrilled with what we had. Trent told me not to put this in here but I am going to sneak it in here anyways. By no means am I trying to be disrespectful to any country, religion, etc. I am just putting a little humor in things. Normally when they verify our information to thaw a vial, they have us to verify our donors birthday so that we all know it is the right vial they are unthawing. This time, they just verified my information. I told Trent in the waiting room that if we got back there and our numbers was ridiculously high, we knew it was not our donors vial. There was a foreign couple there also having an IUI that day and they were actually using a fresh sample if you know what I mean and fresh samples have better numbers than frozen samples. Well, once we got back there and saw our numbers, I told Trent that if our baby came out with a jewel on its forehead, we knew our vials did get mixed up. Just a note: I did verify that they thawed the correct vial and our donors information was on our paperwork. I just thought is was funny because we had joked around about high numbers in the waiting room and then we got called back to the shock of our lives with double the numbers that we have ever had before even using 2 vials. We had so many people praying for us that day and more specifically praying for us right at 11:30 when IUI was supposed to be that I know the good Lord heard every single one of those prayers. Now we pray that the biggest prayer of all is answered and we are blessed with that sweet little miracle baby in September of next year. Anyways, once we got back there, we again as always asked them to give us a few extra minutes before coming in to do the IUI so we could pray first. Trent prayed this time the sweetest prayer I have ever heard. At then end he prayed that we would be blessed with that little boy or girl that we could devote our every waking minute to. We absolutely can't wait to have a sweet little one to devote every single second of our day to. All I can think of is how appreciative we will be over this child that we have so long yearned for. We absolutely can not wait for all of our dreams to come true. Once we got there and seen how WONDERFUL the day turned out for us, I was so more than thankful that I made myself get up and get ready to go because I was honestly so close to calling and cancelling this cycle. The unfortunate part of this IUI is we normally have a 2 week wait but this time we have almost a 3 week wait. If you take fertility shots, you have to take a progesterone supplement. For my supplement, they are actually having me to take another Ovidrel trigger shot because it will trick my body into thinking it is progesterone. The Ovidrel gives a false positive on a pregnancy test for 7 to 10 days. I have to take the 2nd Ovidrel shot on Jan 3rd and they want you to wait 2 weeks after taking the shot before testing to make extra sure that the shot is totally out of your system. This means that we will be testing on January 17th. We normally do pretty good through the 1st week wait and then the 2nd week we start getting anxious. We are going to die having to wait an extra 5 days this time but we KNOW that we can NOT test any sooner and risk a false positive. It would absolutely kill us if we got a false positive and then found out we were not actually pregnant. We need to be praying for much patience over the next couple of weeks.
There has been alot of unexpecteds in this cycle. Just a few are:
1) Responding so quickly by cycle day 8 when we thought it would be atleast 4-5 more days before IUI
2) Having IUI without 24 hour gap of trigger shot
3) Awesome motile sperm count at 33.1 million
4) Having to wait almost 3 weeks to test
With all of these unexpecteds already, hopefully we will receive the greatest unexpected next month. This sweet hopeful little one of ours sure has been a very long time coming.
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| Us after IUI #8 |
