Progesterone Day 1- 2WW Day 1?

Five months ago, at the start of my IVF/PGD journey, a good friend of mine sent me a care package. I first talked about it in my Sharing The Love post back in September. You can click on the link above to read the original story, but to sum it up, she sent me a care package with 14 individually wrapped packages for every day of the 2 Week Wait, with an inspirational quote on it. She sent it to me right after my first egg retrieval so I would have it for my 2WW, but then we decided to batch my eggs and do another retrieval before proceeding with PGD, so I put the box with all the packages away in my spare room (hopefully soon to be nursery) and waited. Now five months and a new year later, I am finally ready for my transfer! However, I wasn’t sure how the 2WW works with FET because my embryo is already a 5-day blastocyst and we’ll be transferring her on Friday after I’ve been on progesterone for 6 days, so I figured since today is the first day of the progesterone suppositories and the medication is mimicking what my…Continue reading Progesterone Day 1- 2WW Day 1?

FET is a go!!!

First of all, thank you all for your support and encouragement, and thank you especially to those of you who checked in with me before my appointment today to wish me well. All your positive thoughts and wishes have really helped me through this long wait! I’m sorry I took all day to report back on my appointment. I just haven’t had a spare moment to sit down and write until now! I had a lunch date with a couple girlfriends after my appointment, then I had several errands to run, and work to do when I got back home. Then I was finally sitting down to write my update about an hour ago when my hubby got home from work and distracted me. He’s off to a weekend long bachelor party camping trip up at Big Bear Mountain so I wanted to spend a few minutes with him before he left. He was so happy he was practically giddy. He walked in the house and picked me up off the couch and asked “We’re good?”. He already knew because I had texted him earlier in the day, but and I laughed and said, “Yes, we’re good! We’re a go!”,…Continue reading FET is a go!!!

FET Schedule

I met with Dr. J today, and everything looked good on the ultrasound and blood test, so we’re a go! Here’s the schedule the nurse gave me: Jan 8th – Jan 13th: 2 mg Estrace (Estradiol) morning and night (2/day- orally) Jan 14th – 18th: 2 mg Estrace (Estradiol) morning, noon and night (3/day – orally) Jan 17th: Monitoring Appointment to make sure I didn’t ovulate. Dr. J said 85% of women taking estrogen won’t ovulate. We want me to NOT ovulate. If I do ovulate, even on the estrogen, we’ll have to stop this cycle and start over next cycle, but with suppressant injections of Lupron. Why not just do the suppressant injections now? I asked Dr. J this and he said he would rather not give me any more hormones then necessary so we’re trying just the estrogen for now. So fingers crossed the estrogen works and I don’t ovulate! If I don’t ovulate, then we’ll continue with the cycle with the following protocol: Jan 19th – until determined: 2 mg Estrace (Estradiol) morning and night (2/day – orally) 200 mg Progesterone capsules morning, noon and night (3/day – vaginally) Jan 22nd Azithromycin – to prevent infection from…Continue reading FET Schedule

Cycle Day 1 – Woohoo!

Today is cycle day 1, thank you! I started to get a little nervous yesterday, when AF didn’t show up, but one day late is fine! I’ll take it! I have an appointment with Dr. J tomorrow to do a baseline ultrasound to make sure everything looks good before we proceed. If all is good, we’ll start preparing me for my FET (frozen embryo transfer). Fingers crossed! At this point, I know I’ll begin taking estrogen orally and start using progesterone suppositories. These will help thicken my uterine lining and get me ready for the transfer. I think it will also help prevent me from ovulating so we can just go straight to the transfer, but I’m not completely certain how all that will work yet. I already have the meds read to go, I just need to know when I’ll be starting. I will discuss this along with the complete plan with Dr. J at my appointment tomorrow. When I spoke with him last month, he said we would need about 18 days to build my lining to the right thickness for the transfer, so if all goes according to plan (please, please), then we should good to do…Continue reading Cycle Day 1 – Woohoo!

My Last Miscarriage

Today is the due date for pregnancy #4 and miscarriage #3. It was the last miscarriage I had, and I pray it truly is the last. Two weeks ago, when I talked about miscarriage #2, I dreaded today and thinking about miscarriage #3, but now that it’s here, I’m strangely okay. I think I have to credit it to my last minute change of attitude towards my birthday. Yesterday I turned 37. For months I have been dreading it. It’s not because of getting older. That has never really bothered me and I’ve always felt pretty young at heart (though the toll all these losses has taken out on my body and emotions has made me feel ancient at times), but when you’re trying to build a family, every year that goes by and every year you age, counts. Almost exactly this time last year, I had the go ahead to start trying again after my hysteroscopy and 8-month long drawn out process from miscarriage #2, and now it’s been another year, and another loss. The fact that I had another miscarriage in that time and the due date is the day after my birthday, had me in quite a…Continue reading My Last Miscarriage

And Then There Was One

My doctor emailed me with the results of the PGD testing today, and we have 1 normal embryo out of the final 4. A girl. I immediately burst into tears upon reading the results. I was so relieved and also sad. The other 3 were abnormal and were another girl and 2 boys. My doctor attached the report from the PGD lab with his email and seeing the actual results was rather surreal. Two girls, two boys, but only one with normal chromosomes. My hubby was at work and has to keep his phone off when at work, so I called my Mom and she too burst into tears, so there we were both blubbering on the phone. We’re so relieved that we at least have one shot at this. Thank you God! Above is a picture I took on my walk today. There on the side of a wall was a single pink rose growing on a vine. A single bloom, just like our girl. I took this as a really good sign! Now I wait for my period to come and we’ll hopefully proceed with FET (Frozen Embryo Transfer) of our little star. I have a phone appointment…Continue reading And Then There Was One