An extra day

Day 1 of my Lupron period arrived horribly, explosively, crampily, headache-ily yesterday morning. Two days earlier than expected, one day earlier than my plane tickets allowed for.

I called the nurse and begged. Last time I had an ultrasound and bloodwork on day 3, but didn't start stims until day 6. Do I really need to be at the clinic on day 3? Can't it be day 4, pretty please? She said yes. So I get my one day at work, frantically FedExing out almost-late rec. forms.

And one more day with Miss T., who has been taking Mama's travel pretty much as expected: sad but peaceful when Mama's away, then letting it all out when Mama comes home. I really didn't want to only be home for the weekend---even a day and a half of standard daycare routine, with everyone home for breakfast and Mama picking her up at the end of the day---is a gesture towards normality.

So I leave for New York tomorrow. The plan is for me to stay at my grandmother's, and for Beaker and Miss T. to fly out when I trigger. The three of us will stay at the Helmsley for the, um, active part of the cycle, then fly home more or less together.

I'll be renting a car and probably doing some of the monitoring appointments at one of Cornell's satellite locations. Bringing along huge piles of work, too. Last week's visit to Dr. Wow generated a huge new 2008 to-do list for the book, and there's another semester, including a brand-new course for me, coming up somewhere just over the horizon.

I'm on the same protocol as last time, lose-dose Lupron and starting with four Gonal-f, two Menopur. That's sort of aggressive on the stims, but not particularly low-responder-flavor. I was expecting the initial stim dose to be upped, but Dr. Data said, hey, this worked last time, so no.

Three years ago I stimmed for 7 days; they dropped the doses fast, so that my last day I think I just took 2 Repronex (as Menopur used to be known). Then my E2 dropped a little (I don't think it ever got to 1000, even) and boom! they triggered me. Eight eggs retrieved, 5 mature, all fertilized. Four good-looking embryos on day 3, with 9, 8, 8, 7 cells, and we put them all back. Ended up with an honest singleton.

What do I predict will happen?

--Scenario A: Similar to last time, but subtly crappier response all the way through. Estradiol lower, follicles grumpy and poorly synchronized. Maybe get three or four mature eggs, of which two fertilize and none stick.

--Scenario B: truly lousy response. Something where they'd ordinarily convert to an IUI, which we can't do. Or maybe one more follicle than that, but since we only have the three vials in the freezer is it worth defrosting for a tiny number of eggs? Would I cancel myself?

Either way, there's still a lot of room to modify protocol for the (close eyes, no no no please no) next time.

Comments

[Jody]

Good luck.

Are you prowling IF blogs the second time around, or sticking to the old standbys? I can't remember how, exactly, but I stumbled back out into the next generation of IF blogs and was struck by how very, very long ago it all felt -- and also by how completely blogs vanish into the ether, because you'd think that the conversations of three years ago had never happened. There they are being replicated all over again.

God willing, your results will replicate themselves, too.

[Melissa]

Think positive. Your response this time around may surprise you!

Good luck. Crossing fingers for you.

[Elizabeth]

Speaking from ignorance here, but does Cornell do oocyte freezing? Is that an option if you don't have enough eggs this time around to make it worthwhile to defrost a vial?

I hope that you don't have to worry about it, though - good luck!

[harvestbird]

I salute you, and wish you well in all of this.

I well remember acting just as Miss T is doing on occasions when my mother was away. When Mum is like an extension of the self, there's an element of "how dare you" to all those actions she dares take outside the home!