IVF #1

We begin IVF #1 in Vegas! One of Adel and I’s favorite places and it being 4th of July weekend just makes it even more fun! We thought it was a perfect beginning to our baby story! I had gone in before we left to do my baseline U/S and E2 (Estrogen) check and got the call that evening that everything was in line to begin our first of many stim shots the next evening. I had already been taking two microdose lupron shots a day (am & pm) for a little over a week and would add 1 powder of menopur and 150iu of Gonal f into the mix nightly. That is 4 shots a day for those of you that didnt count... Lots of shots. Lol. 

July 2nd - Started stims (again... 4 shots a day!). I remember being overwhelmed by all the drugs in the box. So many syringes, needles, colored boxes. I remember feeling how important it all was to making our baby. But most of all... I remember feeling so empowered. As if we had been floundering at making a baby for the last 4 years but FINALLY I was taking control back and going to make it happen. All I needed to do was be the best shot giver, egg developer, embryo incubator. I/we were so full of hope. 

My IVF Cycle #1 Drugs

Stims and monitoring went well for the most part... had some nervousness day 6 or so when the follicles weren’t as big and there weren’t as many as I hoped there would be. Dr. C was all over it and increased my Gonal F from 150iu a night to 250iu. I ended up stimming for an additional day to ensure sure they were mature enough. The last few days before retrieval was crazy. I was so bloated, sore and had this “heavy” feeling. All I wanted was to get those eggies out of me!! 

July 14th - Egg Retrieval is finally here!!!! One step closer to bringing my baby home! ER went well! I didn’t feel a thing which is exactly what one could hope for. I woke up... had a couple crackers and an apple juice and awaited our egg numbers! 11 eggs total. I thought that was ok. Of course... you hear stories of people getting like 20 but as everyone always mentions “all it takes is one”. 

Very sore in the next couple days after retrieval. Fertilization report came in on the 15th and we had from our 11 eggs, 9 were mature and ICSI’d, 7 of those actually fertilized. Ok... so down to 7. Still decent in my mind. 

PGD - Day 3 came and we decided to move forward with PGD (Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis). This procedure involves a biopsy of each embryo and sending it out for genetic screening. It test whether the embryo contains all the required chromosomes 23 from the mom and 23 from the dad with no deletions or duplications. It also will give you gender information although that was not our reasoning for doing the screening. Our doctor had originally suggested it as a tool to weed out abnormal/unviable embryos. His explanation was this... “So on transfer day, lets say you have 12 embryos... and 4 of the embryos are really poor quality, 4 look ok and 4 look great... Looking at the great ones... they seem healthy and dividing properly... but we don’t really know what is going on with them for sure... I would be deciding between these 4 embryos just based on how they looked.” So we were sold. Again... this might have been another attempt at control. I wanted to control putting the right embryos back in! Lol. It was quite expensive ($4500) added to our already out of pocket IVF cycle but I felt it was worth it. To know for sure we were putting in a chromosomally normal (viable) embryo. 

Day 5 (July 19th) - Transfer Day!!!! We got into the office and were so excited about the transfer. Dr. C came in and informed us that out of our 7 embryos... we only had 1 chromosomally normal one. What? What do you mean 1? What happened to the other 6, what is wrong with them? How did we go through all of this for 1 embryo? SO may questions were running through my head. I was so disappointed. Dr. C went over the PGD paperwork with us, which showed severe chromosomal abnormalities. Severe. Chromosome deletions, duplications, etc... from both set of genes (maternal and paternal). Weird. But we moved forward with our 1 perfect hatching blast (graded BB). It was a boy. The transfer was emotional but beautiful. I couldn’t help getting caught up in the fact that we only had 1... none to freeze. Adel had to give me a stern talking to about embracing the moment and enjoying what just happened. I was officially PUPO!!! 

Our Beautiful Hatching Blast

The next 72 hours were strict best rest and I adhered to the extreme. I even ate laying down “just in case”. I watched movies, read, yapped on the phone... it was definitely hard to lay down for so long but I was willing to do so. 

2WW - The two week wait was tough. The progesterone so messes with your mind. Gives you all the normal pregnancy symptoms. I took an HPT 6DP5DT, 7DP5DT and 8DP5DT... and all were negative. I was still holding out hope however!! 

9DP5DT (July 28th) - Beta Day - BFN. Even though I knew... it was a negative. It doesn’t make it any easier. I felt like a failure. Such a waste. A waste of putting my body through what I did. A waste of money. A waste of hope. Was a sad couple weeks following.

Appointment with Dr. C - The aftermath appointment (often referred to as the WTF appointment) went decent. We talked about possible changes to my protocol to hopefully improve egg quality and overall numbers which I was definitely interested in. We scheduled an Endometrial Biopsy to ensure nothing interfered with implantation (even though we had just done a hysteroscopy the month before) and we set a date for IVF #2!