TTCwithPCOS's Blog

Tomorrow is my first ultrasound in four weeks!! I feel like it’s been forever since I’ve seen a doctor…I was used to going like twice a week 🙂
Can’t wait to hear baby’s heartbeat again and know that I’m that much closer to finding out whether this baby is a boy or a girl!! I hate calling the baby “it”…feels horrible!! On the plus side, I think we’ve finally settled on both a girl and boy name, but I’m keeping quiet for now 🙂
I’ll update after tomorrow’s appointment!

We’re pregnant!!! I am 8 weeks and 3 days today and we are due on May 1, 2011!!! We had our second ultrasound this afternoon and everything looks amazing…a strong heartbeat and we even got to see the munchkin move some!

So…this is now a pregnancy blog 🙂 I’ll post the ultrasound pics tomorrow…thanks again for your support and prayers!!

Ok, so I’m blown away that anyone is still reading this…though most of it is probably Becky 🙂

Just so you all know it’s coming…I have an appointment on Wednesday and I promise I will update everyone with next steps after the appointment. It’s a late afternoon appointment though so don’t expect anything until late evening!

Thanks again for all of your support and prayers 🙂

Confused?  So was I today!  I had an appointment this morning that went VERY well.  I am now the proud owner of two follicles (one at 18mm and one at 14mm) which are large enough to produce eggs!  Dr. Scheiber was very happy and told me to take another 100iu of Follistim tonight, then trigger tomorrow, and we scheduled the FET for next Thursday, on Brian’s birthday.  I was so freaking excited!  He talked to me a bit more about my protocol too since it’s not a typical protocol…turns out that Dr. S developed the protocol himself and has only been using it for about a year.  And…he’s had a 75-80% success rate!!!

This was an excellent way to start my Wednesday 🙂  I was really busy at work today so I just kept chugging along and after running a few errands around the building I came back to my desk around 3:45 and had a voice mail.  My voice mails says:  “Hi Amanda, this is (name) from Dr. Scheiber’s office.  We had to cancel your transfer.  Please call us as soon as you can.”  Um….what?  So I decided to check my cell voice mail where I found this message:  “Hi Amanda, Dr. Scheiber.  I need to talk to you about your blood work from today.  Call the office ASAP and have them transfer you to me directly.”  Um…huh?  So now I’m really freaked out!  I called the office and told them that Dr. S left me a message and said I should be directly connected.  She asked my name and immediately said “You need to call his cell…here’s his number.”

Obviously, I’m completely scared by this point and when I called Dr. S’s cell I got voice mail.  Within about 5 minutes he called me back.  Turns out, my progesterone levels were elevated…which means I either ovulated already or am getting ready to ovulate.  This is GREAT news!!  My body has finally figured out what it’s supposed to do when the ovaries make eggs!!!  Dr. S was pretty excited and so was I…this means that a pregnancy may actually regulate my body at some point, which I didn’t think was going to happen.  However, this also means that we can’t do a FET this month.  Without knowing exactly when I ovulate (like we would if I used a trigger shot) it’s hard to time the transfer for optimal success.  So…he told us to go ahead and try “the old fashioned way” this month! 

According to Dr. S we already know that my lining is in great shape and that I’ve either already ovulated or I’m going to in the next day or so.  And, we also know that I likely released (or will release) two eggs.  I’m thinking it would be poetic if we got pregnant on our own after all of the time and money and heartache we’ve been through, but in the end, so long as I get to be a mommy, I’m game!

Stay tuned…I’ve got to let my body do it’s thing and we’ll either re-do the same protocol next month, or be announcing our pregnancy in a few weeks!

Sorry it took me so long to update and I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July!

Went in for another ultrasound on Friday. My follicles grew, but only about a millimeter, so not nearly enough. the good news is that my uterine lining is absolutely perfect and exactly what he was hoping to achieve this cycle. So…he gave me three options:
1. Supplement this cycle with injections…same as when we did IVF, but not as strong of a dose. This will hopefully make my follicles grow large enough to trigger so I will ovulate on my own.
2. Start taking estrogen and progesterone to “trick” my body into thinking I ovulated, similar to what we did during our last FET.
3. Scrap this cycle and try the Femara again next month.

I asked Dr. S what he would suggest and his initial response (joking of course) was “I would suggest that your body react to Femara like it always has!!” I LOVE my doctor and so appreciate that he helps us to keep our sense of humor 🙂 After we all had a good laugh he went back through our chart with me and said that he really thinks it would be best if we supplement with the injections and try to get my body to ovulate on its own since the “trick” didn’t work last time. So…I started injecting Follistim on Friday night and I’ll be going back on Wednesday morning…hopefully this will work and we’ll be scheduling a transfer!!!

First of all, I was right, Mollie is a having a boy!!  Can’t wait to meet you Alexander 🙂

Today was my first scan for the cycle.  I have had almost no response to the Femara, despite having always responded so well in the past.  I go back on Friday to check and see if I’m just progressing slow but if not this month will be a bust 😦  As always, thoughts and prayers are MUCH appreciated and I’ll keep you all posted.

I’ve been taking the Femara for two days (third dose will be tonight) and having no side effects. I didn’t expect to since I didn’t have many last time, but I thought I may react differently this time. Next Monday is the ultrasound and hopefully all will be good!

On another, somewhat related note, a good friend of mine is finding out the sex of her baby tomorrow afternoon…Good Luck Mollie!! (It’s a boy…you’ll see)

Today is Day 1…I’ll start Femara on Saturday and take it for five days. Then I have an ultrasound on the 28th and they’ll schedule the transfer…with any luck this time next month I’ll be pregnant!

First of all, I see that some of you are still faithfully checking my blog though it’s been a VERY long time since I’ve updated and I want to say thank you. I cannot put into words the comfort that Brian and I gain from knowing we are supported and loved.

Now for the update…

It has been two months since I last updated anyone and a LOT has happened. Dr. Scheiber called the day after my last post to talk about what he thought went wrong (again). As always, he was very understanding and seems genuinely frustrated with our case. After consulting with Dr. Awadalla and a “colleague” whom I suspect was Dr. Chin, but not 100% sure, they concluded that due to the strong reaction I have to stimulation my body may simply be so out-of-whack that it cannot support a pregnancy. For this reason, they felt that I may better handle the frozen embryo transfers than I have been handling the fresh cycles.

We started our first frozen embryo transfer (FET) cycle just a few days later. I was taking estrogen 3 times a day (poor Brian!) and then around Day 20 of my cycle, the embryo transfer was scheduled.

Our 7 embryos are frozen in what they call “straws”…we had two straws of three embryos each and one straw with a single embryo. The two straws of three were from our most recent cycle and were the highest quality, with the other embryo being from our first cycle and not as good of quality. Dr. Scheiber recommended that we start by thawing one straw of three, warning us that only about 2/3 of embryos survive the thaw, on a good day. Well, all three of our embryos not only survived, but were thriving!!! 

We transferred all three embryos and anxiously awaited our beta test.  I had lots of symptoms this time…fatigue, nausea, odor aversions…we were very optimistic.  This was also the first cycle that I was able to make it to my scheduled beta without starting my period.  Unfortunately, it turned out that we were, again, not pregnant.  My symptoms, according to Dr. S, were a result of the stronger progesterone suppositories that he had put me on for the cycle.  Needless to say, we were crushed.

This time, Dr. S had no answers and admitted that he was at a loss. After a lot of discussion we decided that I would begin birth control so I could undergo a HSG.  An HSG is a test whereby dye was injected into my uterus and then a series of x-rays were taken to make sure that I didn’t have any lesions, tumors, etc. in my uterus and that my fallopian tubes weren’t blocked.  Everything was absolutely perfect (thankfully) but that still left us stumped.  Brian and I did a lot of soul-searching and decided that we wanted to move forward with another FET, using a different protocol.  We still have four embryos and we don’t want to just leave them sitting there…it’s a weird feeling to know that you have frozen babies…

So, that’s where we’re at now.  I’m waiting for my period to start (should be any day now) and then we’re going to try a (kinda) new protocol.  It’s actually the same protocol that we used for our inseminations, but since it mimics natural processes Dr. S thinks it’s worth trying.  I’ll be taking Femara on days 3-7 of my period.  This will actually make me produce eggs (but only one or two) and then around day 15 of my cycle I’ll take a trigger shot to make me ovulate on my own.  After triggering I will have the embryo transfer to coincide with what would be a “natural” implantation day. 

Hopefully, this will work and if not, we’ll still have another embryo to transfer and perhaps some soul-searching as to next steps…

As always, thoughts and prayers are much appreciated…