We are going to do this article a little different than the rest. We are going to go through each impactful day from Day 551-578. These next 28 days were some of the most emotional, physically draining, stressful, and busy days of this process. It's amazing what our bodies can handle.
Day 551 - Today is our Start Cycle Appointment. This is the first of many upcoming ultrasounds and bloodwork to come. The doctors said everything looked great and we are good to go. I had my shot training as well to learn how to administer all of the different shots. Tons of information to take in but we got this!! All of the final medicines that we ordered arrived to day too. Follicle Count: 15
Day 552 - YAY!! We start meds tonight. First round wasn't bad at all! The needle is only about an inch long and you can barely feel it. Felt a little dizzy after the Menopur shot but overall, this won't be too bad. The shots during this process are to help the follicles in my ovaries grow. Typically in one cycle a woman only produces one follicle big enough to develop an egg. With this process, the meds grows ALL of the follicles in your ovaries.
To get some more information on the cycle, I called the business office at the doctors to discuss how us having two insurances would work with the process. Considering my insurance covers ultrasounds and lab work 100%, would my insurance be billed or would Cheyenne's be since it was for infertility. I found out that no matter what, all things will go through mine first and if it gets denied, it will then go to Cheyenne's. This means all of our ultrasounds and bloodwork will be 100% covered! Awesome!!
Day 553 - After discussing it, we decided to share our journey on Facebook. Cheyenne is not a very public person about this kind of stuff. But I was really struggling with hiding it from people. Also, not enough people talk about infertility so if I can shed some light for people and help spread the word, then alright. This also stops people from asking "Are you pregnant yet?" After posting, I literally felt a weight lift off my shoulders after hitting post. I did not expect that at all. One other thing I did not expect was the amount of love, support and wishes that we received from our friends and family. My heart has never been so full. Thank you everyone!!
Day 554 - One last day at home and date with the hubs before heading off to Indy for the rest of the time leading up to the retrieval. With the number of ultrasounds and bloodwork that would be needed and the constant monitoring, Bre was so gracious to let me stay at her place the entire time. I would be able to work from her house and jump over to the docs when I needed to - so convenient.
Day 555 - First ultrasound check up since Cycle Start day. She said that 12 Follicles were growing at a great rate and everything else looked wonderful! Tonight was the last night of 2 shots and tomorrow we get to start our 3rd shot.
Day 556 - My belly starting to feel really full. These ovaries are growing and making me super bloated. Meds must be working.
Day 557 - 560 - A few more ultrasounds and more vials of bloodwork down. These were getting close to every day as we were drawing near the trigger day! On Day 560 we had 7 fully mature eggs (at least 18mm wide) and 10 that were SUPER close. The doctor was confident in pulling the trigger tomorrow night.
Day 561 - TRIGGER DAY! A storm was coming and I needed to get home to get Cheyenne so he could bring me home from the retrieval. I decided to go home this morning instead of tomorrow to try and beat the storm. Luckily I did because it was a perfect drive home. As soon as I got home, and scared the CRAP out of my husband because he wasn't expecting me until the next day, it started snowing. Now the trigger shot means that I took an HCG and Lupron shot to "trigger" ovulation exactly 36 hours later. Cheyenne did AMAZING at administering the HCG shot. He was so gentle with me and I didn't even feel it. Back to Indy tomorrow on Day 562.
Totals:
Ultrasounds: 5
Vials of Blood: 9
Shots: 25
Day 563 - RETRIEVAL DAY! Per the doctors notes, we were to be at the office 30 minutes before our procedure. We arrived a few minutes before our 30 minute deadline and as we jumped in the elevator, my phone rang; it was the doctors office - weird. Hello?? Hi, are you almost here? ... Yes? We were told to be here 30-minutes before and we are walking in right now. The nurse then told me I was supposed to be there an hour before not 30-minutes. Well, that was news to me. Oh well, we were there and they did their jobs to get us all checked in and ready by 7:30 a.m. - right on time. It went great and Cheyenne got a funny picture of me post retrieval - jerk. The doctor retrieved 16 follicles! Whoop!
I felt like I just had the hardest ab workout of my life. The anesthesia made me a little queezy and super tired. So on the drive home, we stopped and got some Chick-fil-a and I watched my hubs enjoy his and took mine to go. The entire drive home, I kept my eyes shut, tried to sleep and just relax. The sweetest thing happened on the drive home, I winced and he reached over and put his hand on my leg and said -
"I'm gonna be a daddy soon, let me take care of you." ...please excuse me as I melt....
Day 564 - Still super sore and it hurts to move but we got the call this morning that of those 16 follicles, 10 were mature enough to be fertilized, and of those 10, 8 became embryos. 8 of them!! Whoop!! Now we have to wait 5 days to see how many of them continue to grow and develop. Saturday we will have the final count.
Day 565 - We got a call from the doctor, there was a late bloomer! We now have 9 embryos that are growing :)
After starting some post-retrieval medicine, my face started breaking out like it typically does around ovulation and prior to the start of my cycle. This was something that has happened every month since coming off of Birth Control. I just thought it was hormones and my body adjusting to being off the pill, so I didn't think anything about it. But this came on earlier than it usually does, so I knew something was up. After doing my WebMD and Google searches (super smart I know... usually you find out you're dying) on what this could be, I found what was called Autoimmune Progesterone Dermatitis (your body being hypersensitive to the progesterone that you release naturally). I emailed my fertility nurse to get more information and sent the pictures below. Told her that as soon as I started taking the Provera, my face broke out right away. She told me to stop taking it immediately and needed to talk to my actual doctor. She said she would be back in touch in the next few days with an update. She was not as familiar - neither was my doctor - as they have never dealt with this before. Well, if anything, I'm a learning opportunity...???
Day 568 - We have 2 fully grown embryos! The lab tech said there are a few that are very close so they are going to let them grow one more day to see if any of them make it to full size, so we will have the final number tomorrow.
Day 569 - FINAL NUMBER: 4 embabies!! Wahoo!! Tomorrow these little babies will be shipped to the genetic testing lab to get their first test done. What they are getting done is testing for chromosome abnormalities. By getting this PGS testing done they determine if the embryo is genetically normal, it increase the chances of the embryo implanting by 25%. We will find out the results in the next week.
Day 571 - Emotional Breakdown today... we got the call from the doctor that she is not comfortable moving forward with the transfer this next month (February) because of the possibility of APD. She wants me to get some allergy testing done to see if I am allergic to the progesterone or not. If we move forward this next cycle with the transfer and I am hypersensitive to progesterone, it could cause my body to fight back against the embryo and we could potentially lose one. As much as I wanted to move forward, we didn't want to risk one of our 4 little babes, so we wait again.
Day 578 - The PGS testing results are in!! We officially have 3 perfect grade embryos; the 4th one was missing a chromosome 13. We are so happy!! The awesome thing about the testing is you can also find out the gender of the embryos - how cool is science!? We have 1 Boy and 2 Girls :) Cheyenne doesn't have a choice now to have a girl... hehe. His response to the results were "My life is over" He doesn't realize his son will think he's a superhero and he will be wrapped around those girl's fingers in the future.
We now move into the allergy testing and determining how we move forward with the rest of the process. We are beyond thrilled with the results that we got and anxious to get the next steps.
Until Next Time... JR
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