This Really is the Last Time, I swear.

I had my lining check and blood draw (to check estrogen levels) yesterday and we are still all go for launch. However, I was informed by my coordinator that I cannot, in fact, do my first progesterone-in-oil (PIO) injection in the evening on the 8th. I will have to do it in the morning. The reasoning behind this is that they need me to have my PIO injections completed before I go into the office the two mornings I have my biopsies. And, since they want you to do your injections at the same time every day, it means I have to do my first injection in the morning. And, it just so happens I will be at a nursing clinical that morning. So, at approximately 8:15am, I will get to ask permission from my nurse and excuse myself to a private area (public bathroom, perhaps?) to do a giant injection of warm peanut butter* into my butt cheek. AWESOME. (I know I should stop whining, but I already hate IVF and this just makes it more frustrating.) *Not actual peanut butter, but very similar in co

I got my supplies in the mail today. I would normally have gotten 2 vials of progesterone, but I still have an unopened and unexpired bottle from last year, so I guess that saved me $50 for this cycle? In a process this expensive, I count even nominal savings as a win.

So, the clinic I go to recently changed it's FET protocol to include oral Estrace every day instead of Estradial valerate injections twice weekly. So, this is my first time taking Estrace and I feel like it might be giving me major food aversions. My husband makes this awesome vegetarian tortilla soup and we had it last week. I usually love it but I could barely choke it down and now whenever I see the leftovers in the fridge my stomach gets a little queasy. We are supposed to have chicken tacos tonight and I'm not sure that sounds very good, either. I just want to eat fruit and veggies and drink water.  I did a quick Google search for food aversions and Estrace and am not yielding overwhelming results, but that has got to be what's causing it. I haven't started taking any other new meds lately. REALLY though, I should be studying while my son is still at his after school program, but instead I'm doing IVF related web searches because I can't concentrate on m

I found out the other day that, due to some abnormal test results, I need to get a colonoscopy. The earliest appointment that worked for me was November 29th. I would have done it sooner, but all my earlier Wednesday's (it's the only day my doctor does them) are occupied with either school or fertility stuff. AND!!! The effin' appointment isn't until 11am that day.... which sounds awful. I literally eat every 3-4 hours and I am trying to figure out how I will make it the entire previous day without anything aside from clear liquids. I was kind of a mess the day I found that out. Ok, I was reeeeally a mess. I feel extremely overwhelmed with all of this. I have my first two nursing clinicals, two endometrial biopsies, other fertility appointments, a colonoscopy, plus all my usual school and family stuff in November. Also, we would like to go to visit my mom for Thanksgiving, but I really don't know how that will all work.

So we just got back from our scheduling appointment with the FET coordinator and it turns out we won't be doing the actual embryo transfer until the middle of December... like, the 18th. I was NOT planning to have a transfer that late. This puts us at a due date of around September 5th. I was maybe kind of okay with having a due date of mid-August, but September 5th is REEEEALLY pushing it. I will likely have my 3rd semester nursing program orientation on the 22nd, and because 3rd semester classes are on Wednesdays, I probably won't have class until the 29th. However, I really did not want to be due after the semester starts. This is really, really difficult. AND, if for some reason I don't start my period within 4 days of ending the progesterone from my mock cycle... not only will I not get to visit my mom for Thanksgiving (due to baseline ultrasound scheduling), we will likely not make the cut off for transfer before the clinic lab closes for the Christmas holiday... wh

I often wish that I had started a blog to chronicle this foray into the world of Assisted Reproductive Technology early last year when we officially began the process. However, I didn't... so instead I will give a timeline as best I can (it's been a while). Late 2015. We thought we should start looking into fertility clinics, but it was expensive and we had lots of other stuff going on, so we put it off. We did speak with a reproductive endocrinologist at one of the clinics here, but told them we needed to sit on it a while. February 2016. We get a call from the clinic asking if we would maybe be interested in participating in an IVF medication study. They told me it would significantly reduce our costs. The medications were not new, they were ones that had been used for years. The study was only focusing on outcomes for each of the medications. I went in for the necessary testing and, holy crap, I qualified! March 2016. We start the stimulation cycle and I am just overw

Just FYI... this whole blog will be full of Too Much Information. I'm a nursing student struggling with infertility. Literally nothing is off limits for discussion... just ask my friends. I got my period dark and early this morning (4:45am!), two days earlier than I had anticipated. Now I'm writhing in pain and scheduled to go to school in an hour and study for my pharmacology midterm. Today is Saturday, but my midterm is on Monday and I really haven't done as much studying as necessary. It's hard when you're heart just isn't into it.

So, I just a call (THE call) from my reproductive endocrinologist's (RE's) office letting me know that this intrauterine insemination (IUI) cycle was a failure, just like the previous IUI cycle last month. My husband and I decided earlier this year, when we were of sound mind, that we would do two IUI's and then one final frozen embryo transfer (FET) before throwing in the towel. Well, since we have exhausted our IUI's, we are now moving on to the FET cycle, but there is a caveat - due to our recurrent cycle failure from last year, my doctor has recommended we do an Endometrial Receptivity Array. This requires a mock cycle, where they begin FET protocol and then instead do two endometrial biopsy's, about 48 hours apart, and send the tissue samples off to a lab for analysis. After that, we wait for the results before beginning the FET protocol again but with the new information from the biopsies. This link here explains it better than I can. Anyway, the mock cycle