It was dark this morning when I got in my car to drive to the fertility clinic on the last day before we “fall back” for the end of Daylight Savings Time tonight. My appointment was at 7:15, and during normal times it takes me 20 minutes to a half hour to get to the clinic.
But at 6:45 on a Saturday, there’s not a lot of traffic. At one point I was the only car at an intersection, waiting for the red light to turn green. I thought, at that moment, “this is nice. I should get up at 6:30 every Saturday just so I can drive on streets that have no traffic.” Ha ha ha ha. Right. CERTAINLY not during my current subsistence on only green tea.
Dr. N was on duty today, so I STILL did not see my regular doctor. Dr. N is a nice man, but not my style. He called me “spunky” in observing my behavior (he said he was evaluating me to see if I was coming down with anything such as the flu that could mess with my retrieval. This was also my pre-op appointment.) He is kind of a don’t-worry-about-it, let-me-do-the-worrying kind of doctor, whereas I am a give-me-all-the-information-and-then-some kind of patient. Just not my style. But I think he is a good doctor.
My lining was 6mm and showing the triple stripe. This is amazing to me since I had a period that started on the same day as the gonadotrophins and that lasted 2 1/2 days with one additional day of brown spotting.
There were 8 measurable follicles on the right measuring from 13 down to 10 or so. There were three that were too small to measure.
On the left Dr. N only found two follicles and they were on the small side.
This is similar to last time. They only got 4 eggs out of the left, and they retrieved something like 18 or 20 total. The left side just doesn't work as hard as the right side.
We will not get anything even close to that number of eggs this time. I’m hoping for 10. If we end up with five embryos to transfer, that would be ideal. (And that is how many I want to transfer. It is also consistent with the recommendation for someone who is my age. — it provides the highest success rate. When you go up from that number it doesn’t increase the success rate, it just increases the rate of multiples. My doctor said that even with transferring five, multiples are highly unlikely for someone my age.)
Dr. N said he did not expect that retrieval would be before Wednesday, and he would guess that it would come more towards the end of next week, perhaps even over next weekend.
My E2 level today was 1004. My dosage stays the same. I go back for bloodwork and another ultrasound on Monday. My own doctor’s dance card was already full, but I managed to get them to squeeze me in with her at 8:45. I will be late for work, (and the morning is our crunch time), but I haven’t seen my doctor since June and I need to ask her about the thyroid stuff. And I’ve also been trying to get some answers on my sperm questions.
My sperm question: If David’s current samples are so much worse now than they were back when he produced his frozen sample nearly three years ago, why don’t we just use the frozen sample? No one seems to want to answer this. Maybe there is no good answer. But either way I want to know what the current thought is on this.
I’ve realized something else. I have become emotionally invested in this cycle. I wish there were a drug to prevent that part.
I can't even tell you how gorgeous those last three lines were. I'm feeling the need to point them out to everyone tonight.
I would tell your left ovary to step up, but you won't be needing her to produce massive quantities of eggs if this cycle works. So instead I'll wish you luck and success for this cycle.
Posted by: Mel | October 28, 2006 at 09:37 PM