Egg Update

Sunday morning now. Gina and I went in to Dr. H’s office to get my second vaginal ultrasound and second blood draw of the week. We last left off with one rebel follicle growing larger than it’s litter mates. We upped the does of the suppresent drug to see if we could get it to shrink. Today’s check would tell us if that indeed happened.

Dr. H was working this Sunday. As soon as he was in and the machine was on I could see that all was not great. The follicle was still big. He first said, “It maybe even has grown a bit.” Turns out it didn’t grow but it shrunk 1cm, to 10 cm- the cut off mark for going forward. However, the other follicles grew as well. Guess my body is not as compliant as others. Despite the double dose of meds and the rarity of them not shrinking… mine grew.

What does all this mean?
Well, I’m hoping it’s a good sign. Like, that my body really wants to get on with it and just get knocked up already!

In reality, however, it means that there is stronger chance now than before that we will only have just enough embryos to transfer and not any to freeze; leaving our options for a second try (either because the first round didn’t take or because we want a second child). It also means that we may not have as many to choose from or a wide variety of “higher quality” embryos. In essence, we’ll have less eggs, hence, less embryos.

Details
If you are a details person, read this. If not, skip it and spare yourself the nitty gritty.

We need ALL the follicles to grow at the same rate. Right now, I have about 8 follicles on each side (very good!) BUT, about 4 on each side are growing big and 4 are staying small. Meaning, when harvest time comes, we’ll have to harvest the largest 4 on each side. If the eggs get too big, they get overly “ripe” and are no longer “viable”. So, we’ll harvest those larger eggs before they get overly rip, but that means the smaller eggs won’t be ripe enough and we’ll likely just lose them. Of course none of this is for certain. If there is one thing we’ve learned, it’s that things change quite a bit around here in fertility land.

After the ultrasound, Dr. H looked back over my chart and saw that in December I had eggs measuring abnormally large on day 3 (long before we were doing injections, etc.), so perhaps this larger follicle thing is just “my normal”; my new “baseline” if you will. He explained the the next options were either to keep trying to suppress (getting them to shrink more) or to just start the stimulant injections (regular treatment/protocol). He’d get the blood work and call us later to tell us which it would be.

Blood work showed that my estrogen dropped even more. This time to 26 so we know the suppressants are working… it’s just that my eggs are, well, not all conforming the way he wants them to. Me? Surprising, I know.

Next steps
We got a call about 10m (whilst at a birthday brunch, which kinda sucked) with the recommended proceedings. Instead of suppressing more, we are to start up right away with the new meds. We are just going to go for it. This is bittersweet. It’s sweet because we are so ready. My body, our hearts, our calendars (yes, work time off, etc.) but a little bitter knowing we’ll likely forego a second chance at this. His exact words were, “It’s likely that you won’t have embryos to freeze”. Guh.

I’m trying not to be greedy and just be happy with what is so. We only need one really good quality egg. And while are chances of that are in some ways less (statistically speaking), we know- I KNOW- it’s going to all work out in the end. I know there is a baby coming. I can just feel it. And if I’m wrong, we’ll then, I’ll grieve that loss then. I can’t afford to worry about that now. I can only afford to listen to my heart and my gut and that’s it.

Now, onward!