Follicle and Surgery Update
Normally one goes to the doc about every other day but because my follicles are all growing at such different rates, I’ve been having to go daily since Thursday. This means extra vaginal ultrasounds and blood draws for me.
Each day there is different news: Follicles growing more closely together. Oops, now the big one grew 6cm… yikes! Oh, wait, now they are closer again.
This past weekend we went in at the crack of dawn both Sat and Sun morning. Dr. H was not on call this weekend so it was Dr.M who has a VERY different personality which, in my current state of heightened emotions was both welcomed and cursed. Gina of course was neutral. Thank god. I just look to her to see how I should respond.
On Saturday he told us that my largest follicles were now larger than when they do the surgery but the smaller ones were too small to be of use. They have never in their history “triggered” (induce ovulation) for someone this early in the process. He wanted to get me to hold on until Monday… so, he WAY lowered the stimulating hormones and we came back in Sunday morning. He checked again and saw that the largest one did not grow even though it had grown 6cm the the last 48 hours and was now at 20cm (they like to harvest them around 18-20cm). And the smaller follicles had grown steadily… even up to 14cm (which is the smallest they will harvest them). But still, there are many follicles much smaller.
He says that the belief is that the eggs that grow fastest they believe may be the best in quality and the eggs that are small may be of lesser quality. Still, I had so many more mid-sized and smaller eggs (growing at a more normal rate) that maybe, it was my extra large eggs that have something less desirable about them. Truth is, there is no way to know. In the end, it was his call; quality over potential quantity.
My gut told me that waiting one more day was the thing to do. That if that one large follicle ended up being “too mature”, that would be okay, for we’d have a whole bunch more to work with. Anyway, he said there was only about 20% chance we’d lose that largest one to “over maturity”.
So, in the end, we sat in silence in the office. Me with goop on my yoni and a paper blanket across my lap. Gina sitting on tenor hooks in the chair. We breathed and watched as he looked over my chart and calculated. In the end, “Okay. I’m going to have you wait one more day. I think that is the best choice. I believe you’ll get way more eggs this way and I believe that there’s about a 20-25% chance we’ll lose that one large one.”
Whew. We all exhaled. Still, a 20% chance we’d have to trigger this after noon, he said. If my blood work came back showing that my body was starting to surge on it’s own (can happen when eggs get a certain size), we’d either have to start all over (because yes, it’s only a matter of HOURS before they can lose it all) or we’d have to trigger tonight. In the end, my blood work came back normal. We are solid. We are good.
We are to lower our dose of stimulating hormone yet again and hold off on the morning shot. I go in to see Dr. H yet again tomorrow (Monday) morning and we’ll look and see and go from there. For now, it’s VERY likely we’ll do the trigger shot Monday evening and we’ll be in surgery Wednesday morning, harvesting the eggs that hold one or more of our future children. Yes, I am crying again now. 🙂
P.S. Also, this weekend, Gina and I have been to two adoption classes. We figure just in case this doesn’t work out (and even if it does) we want to get moving on this process and we know (with out a doubt) we’ll foster or adopt as well as give birth. And since that process can take up to 2 years… off we go! Suffice to say, the classes were intense (especially in my drug induced condition) but they were informative and we are excited. More to come…