The Decision to do DEIVF



Fractal Ovary by Gilberto Santa Rosa

So where are we now as far as trying to add to our family? What’s the next step?

Basically, we have decided our next step will be to use donor eggs, also known as DEIVF (Donor Egg In Vitro Fertilization). It’s been tough getting here. Not just because of all we’ve been through. Making the actual decision has been hard. And since we can change our mind at any time realistically until our donor has started meds, maintaining this decision is also challenging.

First, it took some time for the Wacky Wicketeer to come around to the idea. When I brought it up at first he was just negative about it. Then he told me why – because he couldn’t imagine his DNA combining with anyone’s other than mine. It was this really weird, romantic, unexpected reaction, so I was like, “awww!” and “WTF?” at the same time! Later, we talked about it some more and I told him I didn’t think he realized what he was taking away from me by deciding we wouldn’t use donor eggs. As opposed to donor embryo, he was taking away my opportunity to bring more of HIM into the world. This man I love so much…I just can’t imagine the world without him in it, and part of my safeguarding that, since I know it will happen someday, is in trying to duplicate him. LOL. I know, that sounds strange, but there it is.

As compared to adoption, which he was ready to go ahead with, DEIVF would allow me to be pregnant, give birth, and possibly breastfeed. I would still have the opportunity to be the child’s birth mother, if not its genetic mother. I might be ready for adoption someday, but I’m not right now. To be ready for it, I would need to grieve these things.

He was still reluctant. Then one day he came home from work and said he was ready to proceed using donor eggs. I asked him what changed his mind. He told me a guy at work told him he needed to “just get over it!” Hah! After all that I had said, it took some guy from work who had been through an IVF or two to have his child, telling my Wacky Wicketeer to get over it.

I have heard it recommended that once you have a failed cycle at a clinic, you should change clinics. I think if it was a complete failure, i.e., no frozen embryos remaining, this is likely excellent advice. Each clinic I’ve been to has made little mistakes here or there that impact my confidence in them as a major part of my Fertility Team. So, we decided to change clinics. That same work friend of his, and an online friend of mine, each recommended a particular clinic in the Bay Area. So, we are switching to that one.

Because of the change, and because our initial infectious disease testing has expired, we have a lot to do before we’d actually cycle. I found myself procrastinating in getting the records and such. I finally realized that I hadn’t fully come to terms with the loss of my genetic connection to this theoretical child. I was, and still am, in the midst of grieving this aspect. My therapist says it will continue through to the child’s birth, but that the important part is that I get through some initial stages of it first. What I realized was that I was still in some denial about this being what we need to do.

I have recently lost about 20-25 pounds. For the first time during this infertility roller coaster, I have a healthy BMI. As I’ve mentioned before, the primary cause of my infertility and miscarriages is poor egg quality caused by PCOS. Hence the egg donor route. However, the weight loss, and the fact that I’m now running regularly, can help regulate my insulin, and possibly result in my ovaries being less PCOS-ey. (How’s that for a made-up word?) In summary, my improved weight could mean better fertility. Of course, we still have that pesky little slow sperm problem, so it’s still unlikely we’d get pregnant on our own.

Over the course of this journey, I’ve become a fairly religious person. So here’s what goes through my head: What if God meant for me to get healthy again before having kids? What if he delayed my dreams coming true because I was headed down the same path to diabetes and kidney failure that killed my Grandma at age 63? So just in case, how about giving my body a few cycles of trying out the old-fashioned way? Now that my eggs might be better? Maybe after all, God does intend us to use an egg donor, a donated embryo, or to adopt a born child. Maybe the child or children that we are destined to parent are a different genetic combination. But we can’t know that. I just need to give my body this opportunity, to accept the reality that we need an egg donor.

So, we’re taking our time getting the paperwork and initial testing done for the new clinic. Then we have to pick out a donor. By then, we’ll have gone through a few cycles of trying to get pregnant on our own again. What’s meant to be, will be!

If you have any questions, please ask! Nothing is off limits here. Just please be kind. J

Five Snowflakes

The thing about IVF is that it's relatively unpredictable. Most people who haven't been through it don't realize the combination of steps and gambles, twists and turns, along the way. We just had one of these happen to us. Fortunately, it may be a blessing in disguise.

First of all, I've mentioned before that I was overstimmed during my first IVF, which was likely the cause of my low egg maturity rate, and that my stim dosages were decreased this time, in an attempt to avoid overstimulation. Well, it seems to have worked! IVF #1: 21 sizeable follicles, 19 eggs retrieved, 8 mature, 5 embryos after fertilization with ICSI. IVF #2: 9 sizeable follicles, 11 eggs retrieved, 7 mature, 5 embryos after fertilization with ICSI. So you can see that the success rate at each step has been higher.

Today was the third day after egg retrieval (which by the way, was curiously more painful this time). We learned from the Embryologist that all 5 embryos are still growing, although one is slacking. A healthy embryo should be 6 or more cells by this point. Today we had a 9-cell, two 8-cells, a 7-cell, and a 5-cell. If my memory is correct, with IVF #1, we had an 8 cell, three 6-cells and a 5-cell. So the theme of higher success rates at each step of IVF #2 is continuing!

This IVF cycle has been more complicated because we want to do preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) at the day 5 stage, instead of day 3 like last time. In IVF #1, we had a single-cell biopsy done of our embryos at day 3, to test them for a severe chromosomal abnormality, and hopefully prevent another miscarriage. The results came back on day 5, and we had one competent embryo. Two tested as incompetent, and two were inconclusive. Unfortunately, the two that were inconclusive had already ceased growing on their own, or we would have given them a try.

A day 5 biopsy collects more than one cell for testing, and it takes longer to get the results. But it's also more accurate. However, it does require freezing. So our first plan for IVF #2 was to do a freeze-all cycle. But then, considering that we could easily end up with only 1 or 2 embryos to test at day 5, and that the 5-day growth process culls some of the genetically incompetent embryos anyway, we decided to have a back-up plan of preparing for an embryo transfer. In the case that we ended up with only 1 or 2 embryos at day 5, doing PGS seemed pretty pointless. But the result has been that I have had to prepare for both circumstances - a freeze-all, and a day 5 transfer. Having to explain this over and over again to confused nurses was no picnic.

Today, when the Embryologist called with our day 3 results, I was so relieved when she said we still have all five. If we had already been down to 1 or 2 poor-grade embryos, we would have gone in for a transfer today, and I am still in pain from my egg retrieval on Thursday, so I really don't feel ready to get pregnant. I was already getting worried about the very realistic possibility I would need to do a transfer on Tuesday, wondering if I would still be in pain. But, she also had some surprising news.

The Embryologist told me that they always grow a batch of mouse embryos to test the culture medium and lab environment, and that all her mouse embryos had just died. She needed to pull all embryos out of culture. In other words, they all had to be either transferred or frozen. So we froze all five of our embryos. The more accurate term would be "cryogenically preserved", but "froze" is easier to type.

Of course, the idea of something being seriously wrong in my embabies' first nursery concerns me, but I couldn't be happier with the Embryologist's response time, and her focus on saving them. The amazing part is this feels like a blessing. My body does not feel ready to become pregnant right now. This will give me a few weeks to feel completely healthy again.

So when will we get PUPO (pregnant until proven otherwise-describing my state after an embryo is transferred)? Probably anywhere from late September to late October. Vague enough for you? I'll write more about what that part will entail in a later post. For now, we have five snowflake babies resting peacefully. Please pray for them and for us!

As always, please feel free to ask any questions. This often seems like science-fiction to me, but at this point I've probably become so familiar with it, I brush over some points that need explained. No question is too simple.

Friday Freakout: Bad Clinic Behavior

I don’t understand why IVF clinics aren’t more sensitive to what their patients are going through. I don’t understand why they aren’t more careful to ensure they don’t stress us out more than we already are, and why they don’t make the effort to provide us with more information and greater transparency, so that we can have some sense of trust and control in a situation where we are vulnerable and powerless.

Photo by takomabibelot

The Wacky Wicketeer and I have been patients at three clinics in Northern California. Here are some of the stressful mistakes we have encountered:
·        Failed to diagnose me properly
·        Failed to inform us of miscarriage risks to IUI due to our diagnosis
·        Miscalculated dates on IUI protocol calendar
·        Made us wait over an hour in the waiting room, making our appointment over an hour late (multiple occasions, and multiple clinics)
·        Miscalculated prescription quantity
·        Mishandled post-miscarriage fetal tissue
·        Improperly tested post-miscarriage fetal tissue
·        Lied about limitations of genetic testing of post-miscarriage fetal tissue
·        Failed to return phone calls (multiple occasions, and multiple clinics)
·        Failed to respond to emails (multiple occasions, and multiple clinics)
·        Talked to me like I was an idiot for asking about the safety of progesterone suppositories during pregnancy, after I had already miscarried once while on them
·        Delayed submitting my prescriptions to the specialty mail-order pharmacy until the last minute (I only received them 18 hours before I had to use them because I spent two days on the phone yelling and pleading with people)
·        Failed to timely submit an insurance claim
·        Minimized & failed to warn me about potential recovery time after egg retrieval
·        Delayed my cycle start date by a week for a non-medical reason after we had already rescheduled work, work travel, and numerous other activities
·        Tried to delay my cycle start date by a week for a non-medical reason a SECOND TIME, after we had already re-rescheduled everything around the first change
·        Delayed giving me dates for an injection class until a week before, such that I couldn’t go because I already had bought plane tickets, conference passes, and made reservations for an out-of-town conference
·        Failed to give me a pre-emptive pain med prescription for the most painful experience of my life
·        Failed to provide thorough information on costs and insurance coverage for IVF
·        Failed to provide an information packet of any sort on how that clinic does IVF
·        Lack of transparency as to staffing changes that may be occurring during a cycle

I have received apologies--from a newly-hired nurse for rescheduling, and from a doctor for my painful experience. I still see that nurse and doctor. Nothing else on this list has been corrected or apologized for. For a service that we gamble tens of thousands of dollars on, and that requires us to substantially rearrange our lives for a painful, mere attempt, at having children, the very beneficiaries of our struggle, the fertility clinics, should be more conscientious of how their mistakes and behavior affect us.

The larger, immediate problem when these sorts of mistakes occur is that it strikes at the heart of an in-progress IVF cycle (or other treatment). It makes us doubt the very people that are supposed to be important members of our team. For me, the single thing that most influences my anxiety level during an IVF cycle is my faith and trust in my fertility team. That includes my clinic staff, nurses, embryologists, doctors, phlebotomists, pharmacists and geneticists, as well as my husband. While other people can be supportive and helpful during an IVF cycle, if they aren’t, I can block them out while in-cycle. I can’t block out this group. I need them, and I need them to be reliable and trustworthy.

I know we’re not the only ones, so what clinic mistakes and issues have added to your infertility stress?

Wordless Wednesday: Tired, So Tired

Can't you see I'm napping?

Friday Freakout: IVF Meds

I’m calling this post a “Friday Freakout” as a tribute to the fact that my greatest psychological challenge is anxiety. It rots my gut on a regular basis.

So guess what? We’re there. Where? IVF number 2. I started my morning injections of Lupron on Thursday, and start stimming next Thursday night. My protocol is 10iu of Lupron daily until next Thursday, then drop it to 5iu, and add 225iu daily of Follistim. My last birth control pill is tomorrow, so CD 1 should be about next Tuesday. I’m also taking Metformin, prenatal vitamins, DHA, CoQ10, and extra calcium and vitamin D, but these are all oral pills. Only the Follistim and Lupron are injections.

On August 26^th I’ll go in for a monitoring ultrasound, and my RE will decide whether to schedule me to trigger, or have me continue on Lupron and Follistim longer and return for another ultrasound before triggering. Our first IVF, we had a low percentage of the total eggs retrieved that had triggered properly. My understanding of the trigger is that it tells the eggs it’s time to go from 46 to 23 chromosomes, so they can be fertilized. My RE thinks it didn’t work on a lot of them because they had grown too fast. In other words, I was “over-stimmed”.

Even though we had a single, genetically competent, girl embryo that made it to transfer, since she didn’t implant and we didn’t have any others make it to blastocyst stage for freezing, that cycle was a total bust. The only thing it did was give us very expensive clinical data showing we end up with a lot of chromosomally abnormal sperm and eggs, thus conceiving chromosomally abnormal embryos. That is, when they are able to actually conceive.

This time, my dosage of Follistim has been decreased, and an additional stim dropped entirely, with the hope that this will allow more of my eggs to mature a little slower, and properly trigger. This is what we are now hoping and praying for virtually every day.

I’ve also decided that I’m going to learn how to give myself the injections this cycle. That does not mean I will actually be doing them all myself. Nurse Stepmom is again generously giving me my injections, but I’m going to have her teach me how. I’ll do a couple under her tutelage, on the off chance I get stuck having to do it myself. But until that happens, I’m having her do it! I haven’t had pain or a bruise from any of these injections yet, and I firmly believe I owe that to her expertise and skill! This process is stressful enough without having to stab myself every day.

And no, the Wacky Wicketeer is not allowed near my shots. You see, my big, strong husband is afraid of needles. Despite this fact, he grudgingly said to me one day, “I guess I could try giving you a shot.” I replied with a firm, “no way!” I love him for wanting to help, but what I don’t need is a husband passed out on the floor and me still standing there, having to stab myself.

Finally, I promised my tweeps (friends on Twitter, for those who aren’t) that I would share another use for the insulated bags Dove gave us at BlogHer ‘11. Here it is: Transporting our IVF meds that are supposed to be refrigerated! Hey, if it’s good enough for ice cream…

If you have any questions about anything I’ve discussed in this post, please don’t hesitate to ask!

The IVF Experience: Egg Retrieval through Day 3

We last left off at the HCG "trigger" injection. I used to think the sole purpose of the HCG was to make you ovulate, so I wondered what it's use was in an IVF cycle, when they don't want you to ovulate before they retrieve the eggs. It turns out it also tells your eggs to switch from 46 to 23 chromosomes-an important step if you want room for the 23 chromosomes a sperm will add!

Thirty-five hours after triggering, I had my egg retrieval (ER). This entailed not eating or drinking anything-not even water-from 5 in the morning until my retrieval just after noon. The water was absolutely the toughest part of that! At the clinic, I filled out more forms, changed into a hospital gown, hairnet, and booties. I was allowed to keep my bra and socks on, so I wore my special silly socks to help keep my spirits up and my feet warm!  Besides, other than your hoohah, your feet and calves are what your surgery team ends up seeing most of the time, and you want them in a good mood!

Nurse "Sweet" was my prep and recovery nurse, and first she tried to put the catheter in my hand for the IV. It didn't go so well. So, the anesthesiologist, Dr. "Silent" took care of it, hooked me up, then walked me into the OR. As I'm climbing onto the table and swinging my knees up over the stirrups, I'm already feeling like I've had a couple drinks, and frankly, I don't even remember laying down, that sedation worked so fast! I do remember asking my main IVF Nurse, Nurse "Mellow" if she liked my socks! She said yes, they're great!

Next thing I knew, I was feeling awesome and back on my original gurney, and I just really wanted to keep sleeping, but Nurse Sweet insisted I had to wake up! I vaguely remember telling her and maybe someone else in the room they they all did a great job, that it was awesome, that they were awesome and I loved them all, and that I would bake them zucchini bread. I was probably quite entertaining, but hopefully welcome comic relief after the cranky patient I overheard before me.

While I was asleep, here's what my team was supposedly doing: The RE takes a long needle, and using a speculum and an ultrasound machine, inserts it into the vagina, through the vaginal wall, and into each mature follicle in each ovary. Dr. Analytical said he retrieved 19 eggs, so that would be 19 follicles. Fun, eh?

After a brief recovery period, I was sent home with painkillers and instructions to take it easy, not immerse myself in water, lift more than 10 lbs, have sex, or get my heart rate over 120 for two weeks, among other things. Pre-op was at 11:45, ER at about 12:45, and I was home at 3:30.

The next afternoon, Nurse Mellow called to give me the fertilization report. Out of 19 eggs, I only had 8 that were mature. This was a big drop to start this process with, and I was horribly disappointed, not to mention still in physical pain. Only five had fertilized, with a sixth runt that was a possibility. This made me cry. Looking forward, I knew we still had to get to Day 3, then through genetic screening, and to Day 5, for transfer or freezing. Then, of course, there's my history of pregnancy loss. All those hurdles seem awfully daunting with 5, maybe 6 embryos. (Not to mention-only 8 out of 19 were mature?! No wonder we're infertile!)

Today we got our Day 3 report, and while number 6 didn't make it, the other 5 did! We have another one falling a little behind, but still ok. Ideally, they want 6 or more cells on Day 3, and when Nurse Mellow called me this morning, she said number five only had 5 cells. However, three of my embies were already up to 7, and one of them even had 8 cells! This is blessed news!

So, we still have five embies growing like the little stubborn warriors we know they are. Please continue to send them your prayers, good vibes, and well-wishes. As their mother, I know they can feel the love, as do the Wacky Wicketeer and I.

The IVF Experience: Through Trigger

Here's where I start to give you the details about what this IVF cycle entails. At the moment, I'm frankly a little buzzed on a prescription painkiller my RE gave me after egg retrieval, so please, bear with me!

The first part of preparing for IVF is down-regulating. Particularly with PCOS, the woman's hormones need to be under control prior to starting stimulation. To accomplish this, Dr. Analytical had me go on birth control pills (BCPs) in December. On a Wednesday in mid-February, I started daily injections of Lupron, which does a lot of things, but mostly suppresses estrogen production. Thus, side effects are like a mini-menopause: hot flashes, fatigue, headaches, etcetera. At the same time as the Lupron, I started taking Dexamethasone, to help suppress my immune system. The next Monday, I stopped BCPs, and Aunt Flo officially began my cycle that Wednesday.

I had to get my estrogen level tested the next day to make sure that I was properly suppressed, which I was, with estradiol at 25. So I was on course to start stim injections the following week, which included Follistim and Luveris.

You might be noticing that there are a lot of injections involved. Most women either do these themselves, or have their husband or partner do them. However, the Wacky Wicketeer has a tendency to faint at the sight of needles, and while he nonetheless offered to try, I decided that I did not want a passed-out husband on my hands while going through this. The idea of doing them myself totally stressed me out, but I'm fortunate enough to have a Stepmom that is a nurse! So, she was kind enough to arrange twice-daily injections with me.

After a week of stims, I had my monitoring appointment, which included an ultrasound and another estradiol test. My estradiol was 3500, my uterine lining was 9.5, and I had 21 follicles ranging from 12 to 21 mm, with most of them in the 15 to 18 mm range. Dr. Analytical said I responded perfectly to the stims, that it looked great, and we should stop stims, trigger, and schedule egg retrieval for Wednesday - 2 days ahead of schedule!
So we did.

We had to administer the trigger injection - Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG), a.k.a. the pregnancy hormone - at 1:45 in the morning! So, Stepmom stayed overnight, and we got up in the middle of the night to get it done.

Next up, the scary part: Egg Retrieval!

How we got to IVF & Current Status

Last year, after going through two miscarriages at about 8 weeks, I had a bazillion tests done to see what could be wrong. We found nothing. No uterine factors, no immunology issues, no clotting factors, no infection. The Wacky Wicketeer and I were both karyotyped after the first miscarriage, which showed that we, ourselves, had no major chromosome defect that might be contributing to the loss. My general practitioner did find that I had a severe vitamin D deficiency. However, my Reproductive Endocrinologists (REs) would not attribute my losses to this factor. (Despite the fact that there are recent studies coming out showing a possible relationship between uterine lining and vitamin D.) Go here for more information on causes of Recurrent Pregnancy Loss (RPL): http://www.asrm.org/uploadedFiles/ASRM_Content/Resources/Patient_Resources/Fact_Sheets_and_Info_Booklets/recurrent_preg_loss.pdf)

We were very disappointed in the attention and lack of customer service we were receiving at our first clinic. So, we went to a new one last fall.

Our new RE, Dr. "Analytical", diagnosed me with a mild form of Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS). You can learn more about PCOS here: http://haveababy.com/infertility-education/causes-of-infertility/pcos.html. PCOS is a syndrome, thus it occurs on a spectrum. At my end of the spectrum, I still ovulate regularly, but my eggs are immature and/or poor quality.

Dr. Analytical has a theory that, between poor-quality eggs caused by PCOS, and abnormal sperm, as exemplified by the Wacky Wicketeer's abnormal sperm morphology, we end up with a non-viable embryo on the rare occasions that sperm actually fertilizes egg. This then results in a pregnancy loss.

Dr. Analytical has explained to us that our best chance at having a biological child is through In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) with Intra-cytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI) and genetic screening. In this way, we are the most likely to become pregnant with a viable embryo.

So, here we are. We decided to do IVF with ICSI and genetic screening, and are now in the midst of treatment. It is a trying process, and we are attempting to approach it with grace, with respect for our marriage, and with love for the embryos conceived in the process. I'll explain more of the details in another post, but for now, know that we have five, maybe six, embryos in their first home at the clinic, each fighting to grow. Please send them, and us, your prayers, hope, love, luck, and well-wishes. Thanks in advance, and lots of babydust to those looking for it!

Wordless Wednesday: Hormones & House Robbed



"Screaming" by ralaenin





Infertility Follows Us Everywhere - A Little Humor

I have a bazillion things going through my head that I want to write about, but can't seem to find the time to spit it all out! So instead, I decided to share this video.

A friend of mine who has struggled with infertility is currently pregnant with triplets after IVF. She posted this on Facebook, and I couldn't resist sharing it here. Enjoy!

Our New TTC Protocol, Part One: Yes, Women ARE Complicated!

I’ve often heard men say that women are complicated. Men, you have no idea! So read on.

There are basically four levels of assisted reproductive therapy ("ART"): (1) a medicated cycle, (2) intra-uterine insemination (“IUI”), (3) in-vitro fertilization (“IVF”), and (4) intra-cytoplasmic sperm injection (“ICSI”). Because timing, and everything after intercourse, relies so much on the woman’s body, medicated cycles alone can help women who have unexplained infertility, irregular, or unpredictable cycles. The medication also has a higher occurrence of more then one egg being released, increasing the opportunity for a sperm to fertilize an egg.

The average woman’s menstrual cycle is 28 days long, and she will ovulate (“O”) usually on cycle day (“CD”) 14. Ovulation refers to the release of a mature egg from an ovary. Cycle day one is the first day of a woman’s full-flow menstruation. These are the dates that conception, and therefore assisted reproductive therapies, are based on.

My cycles are rather predictable, with O arriving on CD 14 like clockwork (unless I get sick earlier in my cycle). They are a little on the shorter end, at 24-25 days long, but this is not short enough to be diagnosed with a defect because of it. Since we have moderate male-factor infertility (“MFI”), the least-invasive step that could help for my husband and I is IUI. In proceeding with IUI, many fertility specialists like to have the woman on medications also to make her cycle extremely predictable, stable, increase the number of eggs released to increase the odds, and make her as fertile as possible. It made me feel like a bionic baby-making machine!

Anyhow, I liken IUI to the turkey-baster method. This seems to be a working metaphor, and it sticks in my friends’ and family members’ heads so I don’t have to repeat the descriptions over and over again! It also contrasts nicely with the next step, which is IVF, or what I refer to as the petrie dish method. A quick description of IVF and ICSI: For IVF, the sperm are donated and treated as in an IUI, and mature eggs are extracted from the woman’s body, then the two are put in a container together, and hopefully, sperm meets egg there. ICSI is IVF with the sperm being injected into the egg(s). We have been told that if IUI doesn’t work for us after about three times, ICSI would be the next step.

So, back to our current cycle, new protocol and IUI. It all starts with me taking Clomid on CDs 3-7. As it was explained to me, Clomid acts like a little general in your brain telling it to stop listening to certain hormones and to listen to the Clomid instead, which mainly tells it to mature extra follicles (in which eggs are maturing). Side effects that I had from it included hot flashes, bloating, headaches, and blind spots (like stars you see when you get a concussion or a migraine). I have heard from other gals that modd swings are also very common, and the doctor warned me that the Clomid could thin out the uterine lining and decrease cervical mucus (which is an important fluid present around O that helps the sperm swim through the cervix and into the uterus). Because of the last couple of side effects from Clomid, the next drug is Estrogen, or Estradiol, which I took on CDs 8-12. The bloating continued, but the other side effects subsided. Starting on CD 11, I had to use an ovulation predictor kit (“OPK”) first thing in the morning, and as soon as we had a positive, call the clinic and go in for an intra-vaginal ultrasound (“IVUS”) to see how big my mature follicles are and how thick my uterine lining is, and from that, predict how close I am to O. We also had to abstain starting on CD 9 until the insemination, so that my husband could build up a good store of soldiers before making his deposit! They start you on CD 9 in case you have to get the IUI on CD 12, so that you have three days of storage, but I didn’t O until CD 14 (as usual), so it was a long time, I tell ya! And mind you, those days are your most fertile, so for the last two years, that’s been baby-dancing time! What a switch…

Next post will continue at CD 13 when we went in for my IVUS to check out the follies. Make sure to check back!

-J