Procedure and Report

Egg retrieval was today.

I honestly have been so so nervous over the last few days, especially after doing the trig.ger shot on Saturday night. For some reason I kept wondering if I would ovulate early, if there would be any eggs, would moving around too much 'do something' to them, should I just be sitting down and waiting? I was also feeling pretty full and uncomfortable so I was ready to get this movin.

I got to the Dr. office early this morning (for a change)...got there around 7am, for arrival appt at 7:15am. Wouldn't you know we were locked out and noone was there.  This has happened to me a few times over the years at this office. I was okay waiting until 7:15, but then I just started getting frustrated. How do they not have someone open the doors on time?
Finally they opened up and I got checked in and waited. Old nanny was with me, she came in town on Saturday and will stay through tomorrow. It really was nice having a friend there with me to talk a bit, listen to my chatter, and hold my purse. There was only one other couple in there this morning with us.

It really didn't take too long and they called me back to the little surgery area. There was not much to the check in once I was laying on the gurney....just blood pressure, a few questions....then nurse said we were just waiting for the Dr. and anesthesiology.  As I'm laying there I was feeling pretty anxious...like wanting to crawl out of my skin anxious. I had to force myself to focus on mentally relaxing myself and do some deep breathing, laid on my side to get more comfortable, and just focused on the design on the curtain.  Once the Dr. came he came in to talk and said he was very happy with how I responded and was thinking the retrieval would go very well. He had reached over to touch my arm and what I love about this Dr. is he is just so calming, and he has the softest hands on the planet. They are so smooth and comforting.
Dr. was getting a bit impatient because anesthesiology was still not in the building. We waited and waited....and finally, they just had me walk into the surgery room so we could just get totally prepped and then start the minute he arrived. Still more waiting.....then finally. Anesth. showed up.
He had trouble w/ my IV, unfortunately, and ended up starting it in my wrist--which was really uncomfortable. He had to poke me multiple times, which hurt each time, and I was just trying to stay calm. He asked me if he was hurting me....umm yeah, you are. He did finally get it and the Dr. and nurse started turning off lights to get started and he said woah, he still needed a few minutes to get everything set up. My Dr. was ready to go, clearly!
Then I got the lovely medication which I was then waiting to go to sleep.....and I was just lying there eyes open. I finally said, 'um, you know I'm still awake right?'....of course they did but normally it happens very quick, medicine, then out.

Next thing I know Im being wheeled out. I asked whoever was around me how many we got and I thought I heard someone say 3.  My heart just sank. Oh no......no. 
They wheeled me back where I started and I heard the Dr. outside my curtain so I asked him to come in. I asked how many eggs did we get and he said 10.  I said, 10? He said 10.  Just to make sure I heard correctly, I said 'did you say 10?!'.....He smiled and said yes, 10. He was so, so pleased with that number he said he was just so happy w/ that outcome.

Im also so thrilled with the result as I honestly was worried about the what if's that might happen....but to get 10 eggs from 10 follicles (or 11, they kept going back and forth w/ how many I actually had) is great news.  Dr. said next step is to see what fertilizes, then grows to blast over next several days.  I'm still a bit surprised and in disbelief almost. This just exceeded my expectations.

Now, on to thinking about the next steps and here's where the quality comes into play. You can have a lot of eggs, but if none of them are normal, well.....clearly that's not good. BUT, I'm keeping positive thoughts over the next several days and also planning to take it easy w/ recovery i.e. supposed to be bedrest today, then a bit more normal tomorrow.


Sunflower, I can't thank you enough for your supportive comments. I really appreciate you taking the time to respond and offer encouragement.

Another Surprise

I just returned from my IVF monitoring appointment and learned of a great surprise. Over the last two monitoring appointments my right ovary was responding well i.e. 4 follicles, and the left one was so-so i.e. 1 follicle, so total of 5. I was starting to get a bit worried because starting out w/ only 5 follicles, likely not all with eggs, likely quality issues....well, I was the doing the math. When she first started the scan today she actually couldn't find the one on my left ovary. I started thinking during the scan today aw man, I wonder if they will have to cancel?

But guess what?  Because she was having trouble, she had the Dr. come in and right away the Dr. found them....a few seconds later the coordinator starts counting....one, two, three.....seven! There are actually seven measurable follicles on the left for a total of 11 all together. That's close to what I had during the round for my son.  Now, the ones on the left are a bit smaller i.e. 16/17, etc and there are two on the right that are 20 and 21....and they want them all to be pretty consistent in size. 
I have no idea why they were hard to find for the coordinator, but at least the Dr. came in today to take a look herself. It's not my main Dr. in the office, but she runs the IVF group and all of the protocols. Since she was there I asked her how she thought all of this was going and she said I was responding better than she thought I would. Alrighty then. She's the same Dr. that when I started exploring IVF mid last year she started off with, "Tell me what you want to hear".  Can't say I'm connected with her well, but she won't be doing the retrieval anyway.

Next steps:
I need to wait until my labs are in and they look at the whole picture to decide, instructions will be on my portal tonight. It's possible if I trigger tonight then I will have retrieval on Sunday at the earliest. I'm ready for the stimulation to be done, as now that it has been 10 days, my ovaries are feeling quite full and starting to be uncomfortable.  I'm also on a steroid which makes me flush/hot on/off throughout the day...could also be the other medications.
This protocol hasn't been overly difficult and I've handled the medications really really well this time. I've actually felt good throughout, so that has been such a nice surprise. I'm taking men.opur 225 (injection), gon.al 150 (injection), cl.omid 2 pills daily, dexa.methasone steriod 1 pill daily, and since I have a few bigger follicles and trying to get others to catch up I started cet.rodtide .25 (injection).  I'm also on supplements--pre.natal vitamin, Co.Q.10 (600), methyl.folate.
When I type it out, it kind of seems like a lot, doesn't it.

Im still just processing this as.....will take it step by step and see how it goes. I'm not putting too much thought into the what if's because a) that doesn't help and b) the outcome is the outcome.
Again I go back to, I felt so so strongly about doing this that it just wouldn't leave my consciousness. I tried a lot of things to distract me (whole house remodel that I need to still put up the pictures), and I kept coming back to this. So, I am content in following my heart right now.

A few other good things I met w/ my therapist again yesterday and she really is sharp. She is insightful, challenging, can keep up w/ my stream of thoughts, etc.. Our main focus right now is to work on my sleep. Sleep has been a nemesis of mine for many years...at least 10+.  Part of it may be physical i.e. mild ap.nea, however a lot of it has to do w/ my sleep hygiene. I drink caffeine diet soda at lunch, it disrupts my ability to naturally fall asleep, keeps me awake longer, and quality of sleep is affected. Honestly I need to just quit. But that's hard to do /w addictions, isn't it? I've tried several things in past (like drinking only caffeine free) and have always fallen off, but she's helping me frame that as--trying is success, even if the behavior wasn't changed. My thinking it's more like, success only comes if behavior is changed.
The approach now is that I will remain caffeine free for 5 of 7 days in a week.  I wanted a back up 2 days because I didn't want to have a moment and feel like I failed.
I think this is reasonable. Honestly I may get to a place where the decision has to be none at all.....because it is such a slippery slope for me. Having one turns into having one the next day, and so on such that its habit again.

The other thing is sometimes I don't always sleep in my bed. I've been falling asleep in the recliner, sleeping on the couch, etc.. and I just am not sure why? Perhaps because my room became a place to work rather than sleep, I prefer being away from it?
So, I'm supposed to go to bed by 11:30 every night.  This is a hard one. Mostly because my 'me time' is after the kids go to bed. I can just sit out here, decompress, and I find that this is the time I recharge myself. The kids have been sleeping by 830-ish so you would think 3 hours is enough?!
I actually think if I drop the caffeine this one would be much easier because I'll actually be tired!

A lot of my issue is I spend way too much time thinking about this stuff and not actually doing. It's time to change that. More to come.

Surprise

So yeah, this happened. The xray is of MY right foot/ankle and I have a Weber A fibula ankle fracture. I had no idea!  Basically, mid December I was out playing w/ my son in our cul de sac. We were up on the curb and I stepped off of it w/ my right foot and my ankle completely 'rolled' I swear in half.  It was the most painful ankle injury I ever had--even w/ all my years playing sports. It certainly made me fall to the ground and just lie there for a bit.  I ended up able to get up and hobble on it, so I did what I thought I should i.e. RICE Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation.  It seemed to be helping somewhat so I just kept going w/ it, but it still was quite painful. I let it go through the holidays and finally last week I decided since it was still bothering me, I should get it checked out. With all my Dr. go.oogle I was convinced it was just a very bad sprain. I normally always go and get things checked out so I can't even say why I didn't for this.

Turns out I was wrong, it was fractured, and I should have been in a boot for the last month. The Dr. said I could boot it now for a few more weeks, but at this point, it's on it's way to healing. Then I would need to do some PT start of february when the bone heals a bit more. So, I decided no boot, take it easy, and let it just keep healing.

Aside from that, if I rewind over the end of last year to this point, there's been a lot going on (besides fractures).  It started with the stomach flu my girl brought home mid-dec. Then my son picked it up and kept getting everything else most of the holidays (Mid- Dec through the new year) sick.  There were several days where he was just miserable and as you can imagine, miserable 5 year old = miserable house. He was so over it that by our christmas eve candlelight at church he eventually made his way to the back of the church and was writhing around the floor because he didn't want to be there anymore.
I spent some time re-reading some old blog posts and realized just how much I talk about one, both, or all of us being sick or hurt.  There has just been a laundry list of  things over the years and because I dont have a ton of people to ask, I'm just going to assume that while everyone has their fair share, we just have had a lot? At least it just seems like it for me......It truly seems like someone is sick on/off ALL of the time and that makes it's way into a lot of my blog posts.....AND, I would also bet for every holidays we've got sickness running through our house for the last 5 years.

So, overall the holidays were ok, but a bit hard--noone was feeling that great. My sister came and that visit was quite bumpy. I had to call her out a few times for her behavior and she finally apologized and was able to get it together. I always hope it will be better the next time.....and the next time.  She's in a tough spot with adjusting some of her medications and that doesn't help.  This may just be how it is w/ her for awhile. There's more to unpack here, but I wanted to focus on something else.

So.
I'm doing IVF.
At 45.
Yup.

I made the decision in December that even though the statistics are quite low w/ own eggs at my age, I felt in my heart I needed to try.  I initially thought starting over to make embryos was a deal breaker for me, but nothing was helping me to find peace about being 'done'.  I struggled with what to do for months and then finally decided (after doing some additional labwork w/ the Dr. and finding out that insurance still covers the medications) that I'll do this one final attempt and just see.
I started the injectibles last week and so far, things have been progressing well.  The way my Dr. does it w/ my age is that they recommended 2 rounds of  stimulation and retrieval, then transfer a 5 day, tested embryo (s) when we make it that far. I talked to the Dr. and said I wanted to just see how it progresses and if after this first retrieval we get nothing, I may just stop all together.
Right now I have 5 follicles they are watching and measuring. The other day we had 6, so not sure what happened today.  I looked back at my old numbers and for my very first IVF  in 2011 I had 7 follicles, they got 6 eggs, 3 embryos transferred and that made my daughter.  Then I had the IVF in 2013 that we got no eggs at first, then 5 eggs but no viable embryos (fluke is what Dr. said). THEN, I had the next IVF in 2013 where we had 16-ish follicles, 10 eggs, 5 embryos. 2 embryos transferred to make my son, 3 thawed March 2019 and 2 transferred, no success.

So, having only 5 follicles seems quite low considering not all of those follicles may have eggs, they may not be good quality (that's basically what I am majorly up against), and it seems like the numbers usually keep halving i.e. 5 follicles, maybe 1-3 eggs, maybe? ......just won't know until I try.
Of course I've been scouring all the research and statistics and honestly most everything says it's a slim chance. But, I don't care. There's always that one.

Even though I've decided to move forward, I have still thought through what is it, why am I so driven to do this?  Part of it, I wonder, is just....well.....I've always been working towards a goal. When I was in school I was working to graduate, then graduate school, then corporate career for 10 years, then thinking about and building my family for the next 10 years.....and now here I am, blessed to be in such a great place in my life, and really on the cusp of 'what's next'?
I think it's harder then I thought to let go of the family building part of my life, and not really knowing or defining yet the 'what's next' for me and my family.

That's where I'm hoping my new therapist can help support me. She's the one in the same office my daughter's psychologist is in. Thankfully my girl is doing much better now and we are seeing her Dr. weekly still.
Anyway, I just started to see her before the holidays, but she spent the last month getting married and on honeymoon, so will be picking up again soon. She seems really smart, has a lot of energy, and had some good advice for me already....when I told her about possibly moving forward w/ IVF plans I talked about why, etc.. and her response was great...she said, just because it seems illogical to me, doesn't mean it's irresponsible.  I really liked that.

Will see how all this goes!