IUI #8 Result - IUI #9 Plan

Not pregnant.

Not sure if I just experienced another chemical pregnancy - I'm not counting it if it was. DH saw the positive tests...AF arrived Sunday evening, exactly 14 days after ovulation.

New plan for IUI #9 (last or 2nd to last one before IVF must happen):

Baseline U/S on CD5 a.m.
5mg Letrozole/Femara CD5-CD9
1.5 vials Repronex/day CD9-CD12
Monitoring U/S CD12
NO TRIGGER - USE OPKs ONLY (this I pushed for and it was accepted; now I can't feel that the trigger was too early)
Upon receiving a positive OPK, IUI will occur the next day.

Felt really shitty all day (emotionally) until having the new plan put in place.

DH's appt with the urologist is this Wednesday. We'll find out now how long he can stay on the Clomid. His count is amazing but the doc said he'd take DH off the meds after 1 or 1 1/2 years. This week is the year mark.

We've decided to do a phone consult with the St. Louis clinic if this month doesn't work. It is a free 15 minute phone consultation. It would cost $125 to do a 60 minute in-person consult (all tests have been done so none are necessary). If we must do a visit again to the clinic (it was beautiful when we stopped by a couple of weeks ago) in person to be accepted into the program, then we will do it during IUI #10. That way, if IUI #10 doesn't work, we can go right into IVF #1 cycle.

That's the plan. I will resolve myself to wait to test at the end of this cycle. The good thing is, there won't be a trigger to test out. If I do test early though, I won't be posting them daily. I'm quite embarassed that that happened. At least DH saw the positives after 10dpiui though so I don't feel crazy.

9dpt 8dpiui - testing out the trigger

So we're home...took today off bc we got back so late. Tested w/ dollar tree last nite...positive. I used another dollar tree test this afternoon, negative or barely positive so I used an "answer" hpt. Clearly positive. So the trigger is not out yet. Tomorrow is ten days since the trigger. Maybe I won't see a bfn at all again...twins would be awesome but we'll take what we can get!!!

IUI #8 is in the books

I won't bore you with the details of how much we had to run around this weekend for already set in place plans (cat to the vet/benefit golf tournament/sister's going away party/club tournament), plus the suddenly rushed in and completely unexpected trigger and subsequent IUI. Just know that I was stressed and extremely busy.

I had 3 follicles on Friday's u/s and with that day's Repronex, all should have been between 19mm and 26mm yesterday. 1 on the left, 2 on the right. I triggered at 9:30 am on Saturday and had the IUI around 2:15 pm on Sunday.

So now we wait. I start progesterone on Wednesday night and am on baby aspirin. We leave for Arkansas on Thursday morning for 4 days. So glad I get to deal with oily, embarassing progesterone suppositories while out of state. At least there's a hotel and I won't be getting drunk so that helps I suppose.

Monitoring Appt/Ultrasound #1 - updated again

3 follicles. Cd 12. Huh. I guess the meds worked. One on the left at 16mm. Two on left at 17mm and 21mm. Go me huh? I'll keep you posted as to when we'll trigger. I say trigger Sunday at cd14 and iui Monday.

Update: Dr. M who sucks wants me to trigger today. Hell no. It's cd 12! I'm fighting to trigger tomorrow pm and do the iui Sunday afternoon, cd14. I get ku when we iui on cd 15 or 16 but the follicles are ready... what can I do? Help?!

Update again - triggering tomorrow. Iui on Sunday. Frack. We have the biggest tournament of the year Sunday at 8 am. We have to be here by 1 pm. I think we can get 18 holes

Let The Shots Begin

I just got my marching orders from Dr. B's nurse (Nurse Mean-Old-Lady): 1.5 vials of Repronex per day till this Friday's ultrasound. Dumb. I wanted 2 vials per day. Last time it was only 1 vial and we barely got 2 follicles. Stupid doctors.

Also - there was a St. Louis IVF clinic featured in an MSNBC article a couple of weeks ago talking about how their prices are lower for the same treatment as other clinics. Included: IVF (retrieval, transfer), ICSI, Assisted Hatching, ALL Monitoring (labs might be covered by insurance), embryo freezing and 1 yr of storage. Not Included: medications, cost of driving down for a weekend, then a week, hotel stay, food...they typical stuff. Total Cost of IVF less meds and other incidentals: $8,000. Yeah. Figure $2k in meds, it's a $10k cycle.  They'll also let us do monitoring here locally except the final week meaning retrieval and transfer.

The micro-IVF in Madison does not cover ICSI, AH, embryo freezing and storage or monitoring...or meds....$5445, so then include monitoring and meds and the cost is still $8,000 - $9,000. The odds of having frozen embryos in micro-IVF are much lower than in a traditional IVF cycle.

I talked to DH about it this morning and he's on board. Hmmm. Well if these 2-3 injectable iui's tank, we'll know where we're going. I did some more research and micro-IVF has lower success rates for MFI and RPL patients.....super.

God (who I'm still questioning) I hope this works...


PS: FEMARA/LETROZOLE GIVES ME TERRIBLE HOT FLASHES. Holy crap. Otherwise, I'm fine.

IUI #8 cycle begins...

Yesterday I called the clinic to get the schedule set up for this next cycle since AF arrived full force and honestly without too much warning.

Nurse Nice-But-Flighty said that there's no plan on my chart from Dr. B other than we need to up my Repronex. I told her we'd discussed Letrozole (Femara) and Repronex for this cycle instead of Clomid b/c I'm done with that after 10 cycles. She said that Dr. B is out of the office till next week on vacation and is unreachable.

Nice.

So she ended up talking to the doctor I'd fired after not being cautious with my 2nd and 3rd pregnancy, resulting in an unexpected blown ectopic when she refused to do one more beta. Yay. Fired doctor said I was to go back on Clomid.

I threw a bit of a hissy fit. Sorry. I'm an IF-er who had her 3rd WTF appt in 2 years recently and had laid out a plan with her doctor. Why would I smile and say okay? So I told Nurse Nice-But-Flighty that I will NOT take any more Clomid and that I prefer to go along the lines of the plan laid out with Dr. B. She said that was fine and that I can do my baseline this Wednesday on CD3 (she tried to schedule me for CD2, yuck much?) and if it's all clear then she'll call the Letrozole/Femara into my local pharmacy and I can start those on Friday for five days. Dr. B returns next Tuesday and he'll address the rest of the issues, but in the meantime, Nurse Nice-But-Flighty will order 10 vials instead of 5 for this next cycle so I can take 2/day. Since I'm to start them next Tuesday, she'll confirm the dosage with Dr. B when he returns. I'll take 2/day I'm sure of it. It's the only way to increase the dosage anyways. I wonder if that means 2 injections per day? Oh well. The shots got me pregnant last time...I'm still thinking it was a rotten egg though that was the cause of the failure. That one we squeezed out at the last second with extra drugs...

I'll keep ya'll posted. I have no idea what cycle we're on because the four pregnancies kind of screwed up the cycle counting...but it's been at least 30 cycles by now I'm sure.