Week of Feb 3

[G22]

Happy first week of February!

I've never been on aspirin before for my previous IVFs, but my RE has me on it this time. Aspirin and injections are not a fun mix! On day 2 of Lupron, I bled for a minute after my shot and woke up to a massive black and purple bruise the next morning! I knew being a blood thinner would do that, but just was shocked at how badly I bruised. I never bruised this badly last time. So this is going to be fun 🤔

[seeyalater52]

Ugh I’m sorry. I’m also on aspirin for FETs and the bleeding after injections is out of control. PIO with the bleeding and bruising is also just awful, especially since I’ve developed the allergic reaction to bandaids adhesive so I have to hold gauze until the blood stops gushing.

How much longer on the Lupron?

I’m just over here doing my estrace 3x a day and waiting for my lining check on Wednesday. I hope it’s thick enough, I’m very anxious.

[ilovecandy]

I was on aspirin during my fertility treatments just baby aspirin.

Got in a good yin yoga class today where I basically half slept through it. H and I decided since my schedule changes this week for work, and we need to get back to the gym that we are going to do that this week. So our gym days are Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings before work. Yay for getting up at like 5:30 those days. Mostly I plan to use the treadmills and a little bit of weights. This is also to make sure h uses his gym membership that we pay for. As he hasn't been since he got it a month ago.

Has anyone done genetic screening through natera horizon? Worth it? We already plan on doing embryo testing pgs/pgd (depends on what the Dr recommends) would this really add anything else or just scare the fuck out if me because now I know I am a carrier for certain diseases?

Anyways h has to work for a few hours today. And I am currently planning our Superbowl stuff in my head. So far I think we are going to do a chili cheese dinner. We also have potatoes skins, and I plan on making pastry horns with a marshmallow frosting filling. re you watching the Superbowl? What foods are you planning on?

[G22]

Feb 3, 2019 12:34:48 GMT -5 seeyalater52 said:

Ugh I’m sorry. I’m also on aspirin for FETs and the bleeding after injections is out of control. PIO with the bleeding and bruising is also just awful, especially since I’ve developed the allergic reaction to bandaids adhesive so I have to hold gauze until the blood stops gushing.

How much longer on the Lupron?

I’m just over here doing my estrace 3x a day and waiting for my lining check on Wednesday. I hope it’s thick enough, I’m very anxious.

Too long lol. Tonight will be day 4 of Lupron, so I've got aways to go. I start estrogen next weekend.

I'm actually pretty nervous about the PIO and aspirin now that I've seen how badly I bruised with Lupron! I'm sorry you've been having reactions to the bandaid, how frustrating!

I hope your lining is thickening up nicely! Fingers crossed for good news Wednesday!

[seeyalater52]

Feb 3, 2019 12:47:12 GMT -5 ilovecandy said:

I was on aspirin during my fertility treatments just baby aspirin.

Got in a good you yoga class today where I basically half slept through it. H and I decided since my schedule changes this week for work, and we need to get back to the gym that we are going to do that this week. So our gym days are Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings before work. Yay for getting up at like 5:30 those days. Mostly I plan to use the treadmills and a little bit of weights. This is also to make sure h uses his gym membership that we pay for. As he hasn't been since he got it a month ago.

Has anyone done genetic screening through natera horizon? Worth it? We already plan on doing embryo testing pgs/pgd (depends on what the Dr recommends) would this really add anything else or just scare the fuck out if me because now I know I am a carrier for certain diseases?

Anyways h has to work for a few hours today. And I am currently planning our Superbowl stuff in my head. So far I think we are going to do a chili cheese dinner. We also have potatoes skins, and I plan on making pastry horns with a marshmallow frosting filling. re you watching the Superbowl? What foods?

You probably want to do the carrier screening on you (and on your H if anything comes up on your test.) PGD can test embryos for specific diseases but it’s ONLY if you know in advance what you are screening for. To know that you’d have to do the carrier screen on yourself. PGS doesn’t catch diseases, only chromosomal issues. Sometimes it can uncover inherited genetic issues (like a translocation) but mostly it is just testing for randomly occurring chromosomal issues with the embryos.

*disclaimer I’m not a doctor or anything but the above represents my best understanding of the differences between the two*

I’m glad you had a good yoga class!

[barney96]

Beta got switched from Friday to tomorrow. Really pissed me off to get that call at the end of the day on Thursday.

I took a digital today (didn't realize the 2 pack I bought was digital) and it was negative so my mental health has plummeted.

[landmermaid]

Feb 3, 2019 13:31:15 GMT -5 barney96 said:

Beta got switched from Friday to tomorrow. Really pissed me off to get that call at the end of the day on Thursday.

I took a digital today (didn't realize the 2 pack I bought was digital) and it was negative so my mental health has plummeted.

Ugh. I'm sorry you got bumped to tomorrow. I hope you get good news.

[seeyalater52]

Feb 3, 2019 13:31:15 GMT -5 barney96 said:

Beta got switched from Friday to tomorrow. Really pissed me off to get that call at the end of the day on Thursday.

I took a digital today (didn't realize the 2 pack I bought was digital) and it was negative so my mental health has plummeted.

I’m mad for you, that is pretty horrible. I’m sorry you have to wait for results and about the negative test.

[vmars]

Nothing much going on this week. I have to get 3 small fillings on Thursday. Blah! Monday the 11th is my meeting with the RE. In the meantime, I have some random questions - not sure if anyone here would know the answer...

1. Going down the IVF rabbit hole - I have seen people who didn’t do a month of birth control first. Is a month of BC guaranteed or does it depend?

2. Will I go through menopause sooner because they harvest a bunch of eggs in one cycle?

[Jalapeñomel]

Feb 3, 2019 13:59:26 GMT -5 vmars said:

Nothing much going on this week. I have to get 3 small fillings on Thursday. Blah! Monday the 11th is my meeting with the RE. In the meantime, I have some random questions - not sure if anyone here would know the answer...

1. Going down the IVF rabbit hole - I have seen people who didn’t do a month of birth control first. Is a month of BC guaranteed or does it depend?

2. Will I go through menopause sooner because they harvest a bunch of eggs in one cycle?

1. Most people do BC but not all. It just depends on your protocol.

2. Never heard this.

[seeyalater52]

Feb 3, 2019 13:59:26 GMT -5 vmars said:

Nothing much going on this week. I have to get 3 small fillings on Thursday. Blah! Monday the 11th is my meeting with the RE. In the meantime, I have some random questions - not sure if anyone here would know the answer...

1. Going down the IVF rabbit hole - I have seen people who didn’t do a month of birth control first. Is a month of BC guaranteed or does it depend?

2. Will I go through menopause sooner because they harvest a bunch of eggs in one cycle?

Good luck on the 11th! In the meantime:

1) no, some people don’t do birth control before starting but it is very common. The purpose of the birth control medically is to quiet your ovaries before starting stims which can help to avoid a lead follicle when you start taking meds. You can also prime with other things like Lupron or even cetrotide depending on your protocol. Some clinics that batch patients to coordinate egg retrieval timing also use it to get everyone’s cycles to match up. I took birth control for 17 days before coming off and starting stims which seems to be pretty common. I’ve especially seen doctors not do birth control with low AMH/DOR patients since some REs (but not all) think it might oversuppress the response to stims.

2) doing IVF shouldn’t affect when you naturally arrive at menopause. In an unmedicates cycle your body has a number of immature follicles that are next in line to develop. These are the “antral” follicles you’ll sometimes see doctors look at and count during baseline checks. They’re your crop of potential follicles for the cycle. Without medication one or even two of these follicles might grow in response to the hormone shifts your body experiences, and the rest of the follicles in that batch die off. During IVF the idea is to pump in more hormones so more of the eggs in the batch mature at once, and then harvest them all. So while you’re using more of the eggs to fertilize for that cycle than you would in a normal cycle, you’re not actually using up more than you would in an unmedicated cycle because otherwise they’d die off anyways.

[robinsbff]

getting ready for my third round of monitoring tomorrow morning. last time i had one follice at 18, two more around 14ish i think. i guess we will see what happens in the morning.

[ilovecandy]

Feb 3, 2019 13:59:26 GMT -5 vmars said:

Nothing much going on this week. I have to get 3 small fillings on Thursday. Blah! Monday the 11th is my meeting with the RE. In the meantime, I have some random questions - not sure if anyone here would know the answer...

1. Going down the IVF rabbit hole - I have seen people who didn’t do a month of birth control first. Is a month of BC guaranteed or does it depend?

2. Will I go through menopause sooner because they harvest a bunch of eggs in one cycle?

1. I was not on bc for ivf I was on lupron. This will vary by Dr and what their protocol for you is

[chocolatepie]

I started the Menopur & Lupron Gonal F last night; neither hurt and so far, no bruising. I am also on the aspirin train and my arms are bruised up (no idea what I ran into?) so I'm expecting my belly to catch up in the days to come.

We did have an issue with the Lupron Gonal F pen. When I clicked it, the measurement reset to zero but no medication dispensed. I was watching the liquid and it didn't move at all - I finally pulled it out of my skin when I couldn't get it to do anything and the medication was still at the 150 mark. I decided to reset it to 150 and try it again and it did dispense that time. Anyone ever have their pen not dispense? I'm a tad worried tonight will be the same issue with that pen.

[Jalapeñomel]

Feb 3, 2019 19:14:01 GMT -5 chocolatepie said:

I started the Menopur & Lupron last night; neither hurt and so far, no bruising. I am also on the aspirin train and my arms are bruised up (no idea what I ran into?) so I'm expecting my belly to catch up in the days to come.

We did have an issue with the Lupron pen. When I clicked it, the measurement reset to zero but no medication dispensed. I was watching the liquid and it didn't move at all - I finally pulled it out of my skin when I couldn't get it to do anything and the medication was still at the 150 mark. I decided to reset it to 150 and try it again and it did dispense that time. Anyone ever have their pen not dispense? I'm a tad worried tonight will be the same issue with that pen.

No advice, but I’m jealous that you have a pen with Lupron!

Good luck tomorrow robinsbff

[G22]

Feb 3, 2019 19:14:01 GMT -5 chocolatepie said:

I started the Menopur & Lupron last night; neither hurt and so far, no bruising. I am also on the aspirin train and my arms are bruised up (no idea what I ran into?) so I'm expecting my belly to catch up in the days to come.

We did have an issue with the Lupron pen. When I clicked it, the measurement reset to zero but no medication dispensed. I was watching the liquid and it didn't move at all - I finally pulled it out of my skin when I couldn't get it to do anything and the medication was still at the 150 mark. I decided to reset it to 150 and try it again and it did dispense that time. Anyone ever have their pen not dispense? I'm a tad worried tonight will be the same issue with that pen.

No advice with the pen, I've always had multi dose vial Lupron. I hope it was just a 1 time thing!

Of my 4 lupron injections I've done so far, I've only managed to bleed/bruise on 1 of them. Must have nicked a tiny vein that day. The other 3 have been easy peasy thankfully.

[cherryvalance]

Just jumping in regarding the pen. chocolatepie, I didn't do a Lupron pen, but my Gonal-F pen always came with instructions about what to do if it didn't release or reset. I think there might have been a helpline number, too. FX it was just a fluke for you!

[chocolatepie]

G22, Jalapeñomel, cherryvalance, I'm such an idiot. It's the Gonal F pen, not Lupron! I will dig through the paperwork in case it doesn't dispense again

[G22]

Feb 3, 2019 21:25:10 GMT -5 chocolatepie said:

G22, Jalapeñomel, cherryvalance, I'm such an idiot. It's the Gonal F pen, not Lupron! I will dig through the paperwork in case it doesn't dispense again

We get put on so many meds, its easy to mix them up at first! I have been on the Gonal F pen before, but it's been 4 years since then. I dont remember any issues with dispensing. Starting with the instructions is a good place to start, I find googling helpful sometimes too.

[cherryvalance]

G22 is right. There are approximately 18383874 meds to keep track of, so don't feel bad! There's a plastic envelope inside the box that has detailed instructions and the phone number. Hopefully that helps! I know how stressful it is when you feel like the dose is messed up.

[seeyalater52]

I’ve lost just over 7 lbs eating Keto the past 4 weeks! I feel really good (physically) despite the estrogen and I’m doubling down to power through this last week before my FET and through beta without messing it up as I continue the estrogen and add progesterone.

[megstoo]

I've found with lupron that it was easier to do it sitting down (no bruising) but also I left all of the needles in a few seconds after injection and didn't bleed for any of them.

I'm STILL waiting on CD1 to start so I can get the ball rolling for transfer. I had retrieval Jan 25th so I would have expected it to be starting a couple days ago. I used a double lupron for my trigger and the RE was saying with that trigger it can take 10 days from last trigger for CD1 to show. That would have been 11 days ago though. I'm curious though because I have PCOS if I will even get a new cycle or will need to start one using provera.

[stellelinds25]

vmars my first retrieval cycle I didn't use BC, just Lupron, but it over suppressed me and my cycle was cancelled. This time around I used BC, but I was only on it for 2 weeks. It'll vary a lot by doctor and what your specific circumstances call for!

barney96 I'm sorry...hoping for good results today!

When I was taking Lupron, I held pressure after I took the needle out for a minute or so...it helped a lot for me not to bruise as much.

So it's looking like I'm going to trigger tonight and retrieve on Wednesday! I'll know for sure this afternoon, but yesterday I was told I'd either trigger Sunday or Monday...they decided to let some of my smaller ones catch up a little bit, so I should trigger tonight. I have about 20 good size follicles and some smaller ones...so I'm really hoping for double digits! I am SO uncomfortable, I am living in leggings (thank God I work from home Monday & Tuesday) and it's the worst after I eat. But I am SO thankful that everything is going so well this time around!!

[seeyalater52]

stellelinds25, I'm so glad you've had good follicle growth! Good luck with trigger and your retrieval on Wednesday!

[vmars]

stellelinds25, thank you. I keep hearing different scenarios - so every time I try and mentally prepare myself for a potential timeline I realize there is probably more waiting etc.

[megstoo]

Feb 3, 2019 13:59:26 GMT -5 vmars said:

1. Going down the IVF rabbit hole - I have seen people who didn’t do a month of birth control first. Is a month of BC guaranteed or does it depend?

I was never on BC prior to starting IVF.  Actually I didn't even start IVF on CD1.  My ultrasound/monitoring appt turned out to be CD80.  I have PCOS though and since I don't ovulate they were able to check what was going on inside.  Since my levels were low and I had a lot of follicles I ended up starting the meds that night.  I then stimmed for 9 days and had my EG on what essentially was CD92.  

[robinsbff]

monitoring this am showed three on my right side, ready to go. i trigger tonight with IUI on wednesday. the timing of it is crappy for my job though. i can only take sick time in half or whole days, not hours like many people and the only slot they had left was 11:45. noon is when the half day mark is. ugggggggggh. i really don't want to take a whole day, but don't know how else to make it work.

[fairfax]

Feb 3, 2019 12:34:48 GMT -5 seeyalater52 said:

Ugh I’m sorry. I’m also on aspirin for FETs and the bleeding after injections is out of control. PIO with the bleeding and bruising is also just awful, especially since I’ve developed the allergic reaction to bandaids adhesive so I have to hold gauze until the blood stops gushing.

How much longer on the Lupron?

I’m just over here doing my estrace 3x a day and waiting for my lining check on Wednesday. I hope it’s thick enough, I’m very anxious.

Sorry about the bleeding/bruising and the bandaid allergy! You are not having an easy time of it 🙁

Fingers crossed for a thick lining!

[fairfax]

Feb 3, 2019 12:47:12 GMT -5 ilovecandy said:

I was on aspirin during my fertility treatments just baby aspirin.

Got in a good yin yoga class today where I basically half slept through it. H and I decided since my schedule changes this week for work, and we need to get back to the gym that we are going to do that this week. So our gym days are Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings before work. Yay for getting up at like 5:30 those days. Mostly I plan to use the treadmills and a little bit of weights. This is also to make sure h uses his gym membership that we pay for. As he hasn't been since he got it a month ago.

Has anyone done genetic screening through natera horizon? Worth it? We already plan on doing embryo testing pgs/pgd (depends on what the Dr recommends) would this really add anything else or just scare the fuck out if me because now I know I am a carrier for certain diseases?

Anyways h has to work for a few hours today. And I am currently planning our Superbowl stuff in my head. So far I think we are going to do a chili cheese dinner. We also have potatoes skins, and I plan on making pastry horns with a marshmallow frosting filling. re you watching the Superbowl? What foods are you planning on?

We did the carrier screening through Natera and I’m glad we did. Our Dr recommended it so they would know if they needed to look for anything in PGD. Luckily we were both found to have recessive genes for different conditions. So it did actually give us piece of mind.

[fairfax]

Feb 3, 2019 13:31:15 GMT -5 barney96 said:

Beta got switched from Friday to tomorrow. Really pissed me off to get that call at the end of the day on Thursday.

I took a digital today (didn't realize the 2 pack I bought was digital) and it was negative so my mental health has plummeted.

I’m sorry, that is really tough. Why did they switch your beta?