"Hey soul sister.."

3 days of Gonal-F

3 days of Follistim

2 shots of Ganirelix

2 Ovidrel triggers

and the result?


11 sparkly eggs!


"Full-on Double Rainbow All The Way!"

Tomorrow is the big day.  Egg retrieval day!  I can't even stand myself right now.  The only reason I'm not still wandering around the house in full bipolar disarray is because I can't walk and type.


As my wife keeps telling me, "Double rainbow all the way!"

"I say a little prayer for you"

I had the dildo-cam on monday and the gonal-f/follistim combo had resulted in a billion follicles.

My lining is already 13mm.


Can this please just work now?

Thanks.

"Don't you wish your girlfriend was hot like me"

Sperm and egg ain't got nothing on me.

"Stop, hey, what's that sound?"

Today I said goodbye to Clomid and hello to Gonal-F.

That's right, folks.  We're pulling out the big guns now.


And to celebrate, a quote from my student, SC:

"I saw a dog outside.  You know that dog.  That girl dog.  She's pretty like a dog.  Like a pretty dog with eyelashes.  I have a Jeep because I have a Jeep."

Yes.  These things actually come out of his mouth.

"Drove my chevy to the levee but the levee was dry..."

Epic fail.


Please send kittens.

"Don't stop believing... hold on to that feeling"

I would like to know how I am going to get through the next week... I've never been so unsprung in my life.


I wouldn't be this bad if I wasn't weighed down by the fact that were gonna have to take a break if this doesn't work.  We just don't have the money to try again right away.

Ok, that's a lie.  It would still be this bad.


I have been having little cramps all day.  But that could totally be just in my head.


Jesus.

"One small step, first right then left. I'm never gonna stop."

More good news yesterday!  We went in for our transfer and the embryologist informed us that our embryo is advanced for his age!  He was only supposed to be 8 cells yesterday but, to everyone's surprise, he was already a compacting morula on the way to the blastocyst stage!  Yay!!!!   He was given a grade of 1+ which they said was better then the best.

We even got a picture.

The transfer went well.  The gave us a really high percentage of success because of how quickly the cells were progressing.  My wife and I are so damn excited and incredibly scared.  We know it's still a long shot because we only had one egg... but at least it was a good egg.

So, now I'm home trying to rest and give the little guy a good chance to hatch and implant.  Also, I have to keep reminding myself that he's microscopic and there's no way on earth I should be feeling him hatch.

"She blinded me with science!"

Our omelet made it to four cells this morning!  The embryologist called and told us it was a beautiful grade 1 (the best) embryo!  Yes!

We grappled a bit with the decision to do a 3 day transfer or a 5 day transfer.  Our RE really was pushing for the 5dt but, after I did some of my own research, I just felt like it was a bad idea.  We only have one embryo and most embryo's that arrest do so between days 3-5.  It's much harder to sustain the embryo in the in vitro medium after day 3.  Most experts seem to believe that the in vitro medium, even the new advanced ones, are just not as good as the womb environment.  Women who get a lot of fertilized eggs do much better with the 5dt because, most times, they will have a few that reach the blastocyst stage on day 5.  In our case,  it seems like tempting fate to wait out the five days when we only have one shot.  It would destroy us to think that we had a viable embryo and let it die sitting in a petri dish.

Let P = "The womb is better than the petri dish"

Let A = "Healthy embryos can arrest between day 3-5 due to culture intolerance"

Let Q= "A 3 day embryo dies in the womb."

Let D= "A 3 day embryo dies in the dish."

Let Y= "We should choose a three day transfer"

Let X= "We have many embryos to transfer"

so

~X.(P.A).(Q->D)->Y

Learn about logic!

Yeah.  It's been awhile but, I'm close I think....

Basically, it boiled down my wife and I trusting our instincts and hopefully, we made the right decision.

I can't believe our kid is only 4 cells old and already giving us gray hair.

Alright, omelet.  8 cells tomorrow!  You can do it! 

"I'm walkin' on sunshine..."

100 mgs of Clomid....


10 mature follicles....


1 egg.


Yep, 1 lone egg from 10 follicles.  Unbelievable.  At least we know why I have not gotten pregnant... I have probably not really ovulated many, if any, actual eggs.  Needless to say, yesterday was a very somber affair.


But, this morning, we got our first bit of good news since we started trying almost 11 months ago...


we're fertilized!


Our one little egg is now an omlet!


So, we've cleared two hurdles.  The next hurdle is having the omlet continue to develop and the having it implant.  We're not out of the woods yet but, we're on our way!


Keep your fingers crossed for the omlet!

"Sunshine go away today, I don't feel much like dancing..."

Oh lord.

This whole IVF thing is really happening and tomorrow, they are going to stick needles into my ovaries via my crotch and then I will know once and for all if I have eggs.

This is a sentence nobody should ever have to write.