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Hey Aimee

Hope you had a nice dinner. I know it is has lots of fat but their macaroni and cheese is my favorite - excellent comfort food. Actually we are having pasta tonigh as well -DH is in the kitchen as I type making homemade fettuccine with wild mushrooms (it is one of my favorute things he does so he is trying to get me out of my funk - very sweet DH (read desperate DH trying to keep hormonally imbalanced wife from going completely insane!).

Anyway yes I am scheduled for ER on Wednesday - I go to Columbia Fertility and their ERs are done right in their own OR at their offices on M street so it is very convienent. Hopefully everything will go well and we will have something viable to transfer.

Thanks for all the positive thought - they are much appreciated. How are you doing today? I saw your post to Dr Jacobs and he sounded like things were on track for you. Good luck at your next meeting/appt. I always have all these questions I want to ask RE when I go for check but seem to repeatedly lose my nerve to ask things as I am sitting on the table half dressed and I know he has others in the waiting room anxious to get their US done so I wimp out.

Well 3 hours till trigger so I must really go and ride my bike I have been procrastinating all afternoon on the computer but think I better "just do it" and stop saying one more search! I am sure I will be back on later so if you want to chat "see" you then.

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Hi Lila ;D I was going to tell you in my earlier post that the Mac & Cheese is my favorite, which is what I had for dinner! Yum!!!!!!!! Oh my...what you are making sounds GOOD!!! I want what your DH is making! That's real sweet of him!

Good Luck with the trigger shot! Ice before so you feel no pain! Or less! I am keeping my fingers crossed for you Lila! You have a good egg count. All you need is one! keep me updated OK!

I am glad Dr. Jacob's thinks my lining is OK but it really worries me that I had no AF. :-\ With the last cycle I am concerned with my estrogen rising dramatically like it did. My meds should have been decreased.

Lila- You have nothing to worry about & you are definitely NOT a poor responder! I do not care what the dr. posted! 9 follies is great for a 38 yr old! Even for a 30 yr old! You have 9 mature follies and they will most likely fertilize too! Please don't get yourself all worked up. You have a very good chance at this cycle & getting a BFP!!! ;)

Well, I have to stim now so I better log off. I am keeping you in my thoughts & prayers and hoping you get a BFP and will have a baby to hold in your arms next Summer! :)

Talk to you soon! PLease e-mail me if you would like,
aimeeharms@cox.net
-Aimee

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Aimee - thank you so much for all the positive feed back it realkly helps and know that I am thinking the exact same for you.

I read on another site that an IVF cycle AF (especially with supression) can be extremely light - even just a little spotting so I think you are fine and this cycle is right on track.

What have your E2 levels been so far? Sorry if you have to repeat them I did not see them in past post. You are on day 3 correct? So if they need to decrease they would do that at your next blood check right? I really am hoping and praying for you that you do not have to deal with OHSS again that would truly suck.

PS thank you very much for your kind words about my Med question post I was a little surprised at the response. Trying to put it out my head. I did immediately post to Dr Smith - I know it is not his area of expertise at all but I have found him really great - super supportive and extremely educational so I though it could not hurt to ask.

Anyway since having dinner and doing the trigger shot I have really calmed down and relaxed so I am not obsessing any more. Really at this point what will be will be - the wheels are in motion so I am just going to go for the ride and hope for the best.

Trigger really was fine - no big deal at all which was great. DH did an outstanding job and the funny thing was just as we were about to do it my dog walked into the bathroom (she has to be a part of absolutely everything!) and she sneezed at the exact moment DH sticked me so I was distracted and did not even realize it was done. I did ice first which worked great. I think I have been really lucky with my shots - no pain, no fuss so I will take my blessings when and where I can get them.

OK I am going to run I want to catch the end of US Open and Serena's match. Sleep well and please update me how stims are going and how your next check up went.

Again thanks for all the kind words they really helped.

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Hi Lila-

You know I think that you really want this to work so badly that you are stressing yourself out and analyizing every little thing. I know, because I am doing the same thing. Just have faith and trust your Dr.'s and relax and everything will work out. :)

You have 9 mature eggs which is excellent. Many woman have a few mature ones and smaller ones before the trigger, leaving them with less eggs to be fertilized. Things are really in your favor!! :)

The dr. responding to yuor post says things to cause the patient more worry. Mainly because I do not think he knows the full story or does not read the post carefully. You have absolutley nothign to worry about Lila!

Yuor E2 levels look good to me! 250 for every mature follie and your E2 is right where it should be! :) I hope you are not trying to compare yourself with others because everyone responds differently. Looks like things are right on track for you! :)

Are you seeing Dr. Rifka or Sachs @ Columbia?

I am glad the trigger shot went smoothly! Laughing abotu yuor dog! LOL! When I was doing the trigger, Trapper sat on me right before I was going to jab myself in the buttox! :) I guess he sensed my fear and wanted to comfort me. LOL Dogs are so wonderful & funny at the same time.

I watched the Serena matched too. Merresmo (Sp?) played well. Have you seen the Roddick commercial? I love it! He is playing tennis with pong. LOL

I am really pulling for ya Lila! I am keeping my fingers crossed for you and DH!!! :) *hopeful hugs*

-Aimee

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Hey Aimee

OK I know I am an obsessive fruitcake and I am trying really hard to keep it to a minimum, but it is ridiculous how much my homone-addled brain can conncoct in terms of things that might be wrong with this cycle.

I know I just am going into survival mode so I do not think there is any way this is going to work - and thus will not be dissapointed later with the BFN. I know it is not healthy or helpful. I just had the worst experience after getting the BFN back on my first medicated IUI that I know I need to protect myself from ever feeling that way again. I think the first time you bump up a level of treatment after so much failure at the previous level you just think the new step is exactly what is needed and no way will it not work. So being back in the same position with the first IVF I am just so scared of having to deal with not just the negative but the total shock that trying something new and even more difficult still did not work.

OK I promise that is the end of my negativity - it is out of my system - so I also promise to stop talking about it since that really would make this thread live up to its name! Also it would make it no fun for you to come here and chat, and trust me I really enjoy the chats and company. You have been so positive and supportive these last few posts and as I said it means the world to me. THANK YOU!

Now enough about me tell me more about what is going on with your cycle. Everyone keeps saying the no AF thing should not cause any concern so that is good news. Do you have a folly report? I want to hear lots of follies and more good news from your next post!

That is very sweet that Trapper wanted to help with trigger. DHs are great but dogs are the best - total unconditional love is wonderful!

I am with Dr Rifka at Columbia. I really like him and have had a great experience so far. I found out after starting with him that he knew my Dad (he passed away last year so I did not realize the connection) which makes me feel that I am at the right place. Did you used to go to Columbia/think about going there? How did you know the docs there? Who are you seeing at SG? How did you decide which clinic to go to?

Hope work is going well but not too stressful. I will try and check later tonight before bed. Hope you are feeling good today.

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:D Hi Lila!

We are soo much alike that it scares me! LOL! In case you don't know, I have OCD & one of my obsessions is worrying and fear of failure, etc. I did exactly what you are doing (still am) and am questioning everything going on with my cycle! LOL! I have to learn to trust the Dr.'s. In reality, we are trying to protect ourselves! It is somewhat of a defense mechanism.

Why are you saying that you think this cycle will not work? STOP IT LILA!!! You have 9 mature follies!!! That is well over the amount of follies they would like to see. When I was in the ER some gal had 4 retrieved and another had 6. Many gals get pregnant when they had 4 retrieved. All of your 9 are mature which is a very good sign!!! ;) I really think this will work & you will soon be informing me you are PREGNANT!

Now I know it is hard to be positive after your BFN's and upsets with not being able to get pregnant. You have to believe that IVF is alot different, it is ART! I had trouble believing this myself.

Tomorrow I will know more of where I stand, which is day 5 of stims. I think after 8 or 9 days on stims is when you actually see where you stand as far as follies are concerned. After day 3 on stims they do not give you sizes because they are still small. I am hoping to get atleast 18 or so. If not, I will be happy with 15 like the first cycle. I just fear my E2 going up too high so dramatically. Not good as Dr. Jacobs says it is not good for the maturing eggs.

WOW Dr. Rifka knew your dad? Sorry about your dad! :( My dad is my best friend and if I ever lost him I would be devestated!!! How did they know each other? From school? That is too cool! Did he ask you about your dad or how did you know this?

Work has been extremely busy but I am taking a break to email you because it is on my top priority list! ;D I think you will have success with this cycle, please believe it Lila!

I wish you luck tomorrow! When is your ER scheduled? I hope it goes smoothly for you! Keep me updated ok!

*hopeful hugs*
Aimee

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Sorry I got you dates mixed up in my head for some reason I thought you had just had a US check and knew your folly count. Will they try tomorrow or wait till day 7? I ended up with my first peek at day 5 and they were all in range of 12-15 that day so hopefully SG will do US tomorrow and you can get a rough idea how things are going. BTW how did you end up at SG? Have you done all your IUIs and IVFs there? You mentioned two of the docs by name at Columbia did you ever cycle there?

About my Dad - I knew Dr Rifka was friends with one of my Dad's clients and I had just seen that man a month before so I mentioned him at one of my appoitments and that was when Dr Rifka realized the connection and that he knew my Dad. I am always amazed what a small world it is and DC is such a small town (no matter how self important it thinks it is!)

It was very sad to lose him but he was 83 and had had a wonderful life. I think you mentioned that your Dad was career Army is that right? My dad was not but did serve in WWII and was called up again for Korea so his funeral was at Arlington which was very special - one thing no one can fault the military on is they know how to honor their own. The only weird part about it was he died in June but with Arlington so busy right now it was September before we could have the funeral. At first it was odd to wait so long but in hindsight it actually really helped the whole family to deal with the loss and go through all the grief and then when it was time for the funeral we could appreciate everything in a different way which was nice as it really was an amazing day that we will all remember.

Your work sounds like it has been a good kind of busy lately. Enough to keep you occupied but not crazy stressed. Are you still do emergency work right now or taking a sabatical with everything elase going on? How frequently do you do it?

I have been very good about exercise for the past 5 weeks and have even lost some weight! A real first for me as I gained about 25 during the 6 months of clomide and IUIs. I was feeling so depressed tonight but made myself go work out and it really helped. It always does - it is just sometimes so hard to put down the comfort food and get off my but when I am down so I am thinking tonight was a big victory for me. How has your exercise been going? Still killing yourself or have you taken it down a notch?

I saw your post to Dr Smith about remodeling your place and I am beginning to suspect you are actually insane - hear me out - in the past month you have started an IVF cycle, had your wisdom teeth pulled, replaced your kitchen all while holding down two jobs!!! Can I please have some of your energy. Hope everthing worked well with the kitchen - renovations can be very stressfull not to mention pricy. I think I told you earlier DH and I gutted all the bathrooms and kitchen in our current home and that was a project and a half. But of so worth it. Give me detail what you did.

Well I better run I need to shower and get all ready for ER tomorrow. I am taking tomorrow off so I will email you and catch up while lazing around and relaxing.

Have a good night

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Hey Aimee

Hope your US check went well.

Actually I saw your post about the sperm so I am guessing the check went well so you had to find something else to obsess about! LOL. Just kidding but I do hope the check went well and you finally got to see all those follies. BTW I have a good friend who had testicular cancer before he had children so they banked a lot of his sperm before chemo. He now has 3 kids no problems so there never was a problem with the sperm and his oldest and youngest are 6 years apart - considerably longer than your donor's freezing time so I would think everything is going to be fine. Were there any problems on any of the IUIs or first IVF that now has you concerned? Did they have to do ICSI on first IVF? Remember even if there is some problem with the thaw ICSI can really resolve most of that by cherry picking the sperm that made it best through the thaw so stay positive.

As for me ER as a proceedure went fine (much easier than the Lap) but they did not retreive as many eggs as we thought from the US so now we are just in a wait and see to find out if we have any thing that even makes it to transfer. I am not feeling very positive with the numbers being so against me but I have heard of lots of "miracles" in IVF land so like I said I will keep fingers crossed and see how this goes.

Hope you have a good day

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Hi Lila! Did you have your transfer? I hpoe you had some good decent eggs to transfer. How come they did not get all the eggs & how many were retrieved? I am keeping my fingers crossed for you. BFP wishes!

Did you have ICSI? I do not think you would need it unless MF? Well I had 3 IUI's before my IVF and with frozen sperm your odds are at 6% to get pregnant. Very low! That is why I jumped to IVF.

As for me, I have 18 and a few smaller ones that may not be in the game? My E2 was at the 3000 mark after 10 days on stims) I am going to stim for another day and go in tomorrow. I am sure my E2 will be around 5000. Yikes! I am already really sore in the ovary dept.! My lining is 13.2 I am going to take a warm bath tonight to help relieve some discomfort. It looks like Sept. 14th for my ER. Wish me luck!!! ;D

Anyway, I am that everything is going your way!
*hopeful hugs*
-Aimee :)

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I just noticed your other post. I will respond laters. I have to run to meet my sis for dinner! ;D

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Hey Aimee hope you check this morning was good and no OHSS. Keep those E2 levels down. Also hope you had a nice dinner with sis last night, I think you mentioned in the past that your family, except Dad, was not the most supportive of this so I really hope they have come around and are offering unconditional lave and support. The last thing you need right now is stress.

I had 3DT and we did everything we had on that day which ended up being 4 - 3 8 cell and 1 6cell so we are hopeful. They only found 7 at ER which was less than US so I guess a few follies were empty which explains why E2 was a little low. Of the 7 - 5 fetilized and then one arrested on day 2 thus we were down to the 4 we transfered. Hope that was enough!

I am guessing you will trigger tonite so good luck! Do you know yet for sure if transfer is Thurs or Sat or will SG take a wait and see approach about when o transfer?

Columbia does wait and see but not in the way I was expecting based on things Dr Smith had said - if the embies look good they do 3 day but if the do not or are slow growing they hold till blast to see how they develop. Interesting since it seemed Dr Smith was suggesting many clinics push the day 3 when things are not going well so if they totally arrest it happens in utero not lab. I decided to do everything the way the clinic prefers the first time, save all my issues and questions (like wanting to push for a 5DT), see if this works - if it does all my isssues are moot and if it does not I will have more to talk about in the after consultation about what to do next time.

I am going a little crazy in 2WW but have sworn a pact that under no circumstances will I HPT before beta day. I think that would actually drive me even more nuts. DH and I are thinking of going away for long weekend to try and get our minds off everything, but we really want to go to Vermont and we always hike there and I am inclined to take it easy during implantation. I had finally got where my work outs were really regular and doing some good and that is all going down the drain but it is all for a good cause so hopefully it will help and if I get a positive result I can go back to the exercise.

Please write soon I was worried when you dropped off for so many days. Stay well.

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Hi Lila- Glad you had your transfer! WOW you had 4 embies transferred!! Yikes!! My RE will only transfer 2. She says because I have no feritility issues. I had 2 transferred last time (2 eight celled grade 1's) One of those are bound to stick! Maybe 2 or 3?!! :) STICKY VIBES to you!!! :)

yes, my dad is the only one who knows of my plan. He is a retired Colonel in the AF & now has his own real-estate business and is very successful. I love him dearly, he is very supportive. I did not inform the rest of my family of my plans, because it would stress me out. I do not need to hear any feed back while TTC.

Looks like my follicles are at the point that I will trigger tonight! I really love my clinic, they entire staff is really friendly and fun to talk to. My nurse Doreen is absolutely the best, she is so sweet & caring.

I have 18 follies, 10 on right and 8 on the left. I have a very other smaller ones that are probably not contenders? The lead follicles are measuring from 17-21 My lining is @ 13.1. My estrogen will mostly likely be around 4500. I am waiting to hear back from my nurse. My ovaries are in alot of discomfort. My enire abdomen feels liek a pressure cooker right now.

I will get a call from the main clinic in Rockville this evening to inform me when my ER will be and what time I should trigger tonight.

OK, I am getting quite nervous for my ER/ET!! I just have alot of worry & fear right now. I do not want to go through another misfortune. I will try my hardest to relax & think positive. I can't help but think that this will be another let down, I guess it is my way of protecting myself for another let down.

I would like a 5 day transfer but if not that is OK. My clinic only freezes embies that make it to blasts. I question why some clinics freeze 3 day embies when most of them do not survive the that. When you wait till day 5 to freeze them it is mostly likely that these are the strong ones and will survive the thaw. My firend had her tranfer on day 3 and she told me they froze them remaining on day 3! hmmm? I question that for sure!

Well, I have to run. I have alot of work that I have to do because I plan on taking 5 days off of work.

I thinking you have alot of hope Lila! 4 embies!! WOW!! I think you will be informing me of wonferful news soon!
*hopeful hugs*
Aimee :)

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Your follie count and everything else sound really great. You must be excited that this cycle is going so well. Good luck at trigger tonight. ER on Thurs - YEA!

I am going a little insane in 2WW. I was laways really calm before for the first 10 days and only became very moody and irritable at the end of 2WW so being this anxious and antsy is frustrating. I am trying to stay positive, don't know if that even has any impact on end result but figure it can't hurt. Just want to flash forward and find out the answer. Too bad it does not work that way.

I was surprised at you question to Dr Smith I did not think any clinics frooze 3 day embies any more, but I guess his answer made sense in a cynical way. I hope lots of your extras go to blast so you will have a slew of frosties waiting for you when you want to have a second child - since of course this cycle will give you the first. Try not to worry to much it really seems like you are having a picture perfect cycle. Relax and enjoy.

I was relieved that RE was fine with us puting back all 4. I think with my age it still only means a 20% chance at a positive, but hopefully it will work. If we are really lucky and more than one sticks and grows then we are great with that. DH and I discussed multiples and we are absolutely fine with whatever we get. I actually would love twins but I know the chance of that is very very low so however it turns out is what was meant to be.

I just convinced DH to do a long weekend in NYC - YEA so maybe 4 days out of town will help the time fly by.

Good luck tonight.

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