IVF Cycle #1: Cancelled

August 28th we went to the RRC for my suppression scan and got the news we could start our first round of IVF. I had mentioned in my last post how excited I was to get this thing started.
My first injection was on Friday, September 6th. Then on September 8th, we added in the “big guns” of these medications. Those are menopur and Gonal-F, as well as dexamethasone.
On September 10th, I was to go get blood work done locally to check my estrogen level. This tells the doctors how my body was responding to the medication. I got an email later that day telling me to increase my dose of gonal-f by 75iu. I asked what “normal” numbers are for estrogen on day 3 of stims. My nurse told me they want it to be from 100-300 on day 3 of stims; I was at 158.
I was immediately concerned. I was at the low end of that range. In my head, I thought something is wrong…I must not be responding well. But, my nurse told me my numbers were fine and not to worry.
On September 13th, my mother in law got in the car with me at 4:30 am and we drove to RRC for my first ultrasound while on stims. The whole way, I was nervous. Up to this point, I could feel the side effects of the medication, but not like I thought I would. I was so tired….naps were an every day thing. I had a few headaches, and bloating but nothing much worse than a normal period would give you. But I didn’t have that “full” feeling many fellow ttc (trying to conceive) friends had told me about. I wasn’t having migraines, nausea, cramps.
Now, don’t get me wrong, Its not that I want to feel like complete crap….but in my mind, the worse I felt the more I would feel the medication was working and growing those follicles and eggs. So besides having huge boobs and being extremely tired…I felt “normal”
In the waiting room at RRC, I remember sitting there and having anxiety come over me. I felt like my heart was fluttering. I didn’t have that “peace” I normally do when I am there. I knew in my heart, something wasn’t right.
We got called back into the ultrasound room and I got onto the table. The nurse came in and started the ultrasound. At this point, i’ve had enough ultrasounds to know what to look for. I know what a follicle looks like on the screen. She went to my right ovary….and it was silent. I said to her…”I don’t see anything….”, and she said to me “well, thats because there isn’t anything”. This was NOT good news. I was biting my lip trying to hold my tears in. She said “lets try your left” very upbeat and honestly she didn’t seem that concerned. She got to my left and I immediately saw a large follicle. Way larger than the others and way larger than it should be. My nurse finished the ultrasound, gave me “supplies” for the retrieval and was talking like we may be on for surgery the next week. I interrupted her and she said she was going to go over what she saw. My right ovary did not respond to the medication at all. I had 0 follicles. My left had 5, but one was an 18mm and the rest were between 7-10mm.
A mature follicle is 18-22mm and will give off around 200 estrogen.
What this told us, was my one follicle took off and is what they call a “lead follicle”. We did not want a lead follicle. They want everything to grow around the same pace so they can retrieve as many as possible when they get to the 18-22mm size. My blood work from a couple days before was most likely that one follicle giving off the estrogen. My nurse told me she needed to talk to our doctor but we would have 3 options.
1. Continue with retrieval for one egg…but we don’t even know the quality of that egg.
2. Convert this cycle to an IUI
3. Cancel the cycle, wait for my period and start over in October.
But before I could decide, I had to give blood so they could look at my estrogen, and my nurse had to talk to our doctor.
I left RRC in tears. From this I am learning that my gut feeling is right a lot of the time. I had a feeling something was wrong and I wasn’t responding to the medication. Come to find out, that gut feeling was right. I didn’t respond to the medicine.

My poor mother in law….the first hour or so of that drive I just didn’t know what to say. I was devastated. All of those medications, for nothing! Will we ever have a baby? What did I do wrong? Did I inject wrong? That’s how I felt. So many things running through my head and so many tears running down my face.
Thank God for her, she said all of the right things and made me feel as good as you can make someone going through this journey feel. I am forever grateful to have her in my life. If you don’t know her….you need to meet her!

I got a call from my nurse right as we pulled into the house. She said my estrogen was just over 300, and that the doctor had those 3 options.
Nick was at work…and I just asked my nurse, “What should I do? I don’t know what the right choice is.”
With this you battle with these thoughts:
What if we go through retrieval and they get that one egg, and its perfect and it fertilizes and we transfer and thats our miracle…
OR
What if we do retrieval and there isn’t even an egg in that follicle and we waste the thousands of dollars for that surgery that we could have used for another round…
OR
What if we do IUI and this is a blessing in disguise and IUI is really all we needed to do…we haven’t done one yet so maybe this is God telling us to do this and thats why this happened…
OR
What if we do the IUI and it doesn’t work, the first doctor told us we had a 10% chance and that was wasting our time…and then we are behind a month because we miss the October cycle….
OR
What if we don’t give this follicle a chance and we cancel it and that was our miracle that we didn’t even try to give it a chance.

Our nurse told me she wouldn’t do retrieval for just one egg…and IUI gives us a chance.
I called Nick and we decided we would try IUI since we hadn’t done one before and this could be a blessing in disguise.

September 15th, we mixed up our trigger shot and took it around 8PM. On Monday September 16th, we went back to RRC and did our IUI at 9:30am. This was actually the most painful thing ive done this far. I’m not sure if it was because I was anxious/nervous and I was tense so getting the catheter into my cervix was harder, or what…but this was not enjoyable at all. We were told to take a pregnancy test October 1st. If this did not work we would talk to our doctor October 2nd and discuss what steps would be next.

The dreaded two week wait was as bad as it sounds. Every little thing that your body is doing, you are questioning “is that a pregnancy symptom” “are those implantation cramps” “are my boobs huge and sensitive because im pregnant” “when would my due date be” “how will i tell my parents”
“Nicks birthday is october 2nd, this would be the greatest gift ever” This is the one that stuck with me. I wanted SO badly to be able to wrap up a pregnancy test with a little chiefs outfit and give it to him for his birthday.

September 28th, we had a friends wedding to go to. We were just about to leave and I told nick I needed to go to the bathroom real quick because the wedding was kind of far away. I went to the bathroom, and I knew…I wasn’t pregnant. I wont go into detail….but my period had started. I had my makeup done for the first time in months, I had a dress on with high heels, and I was excited to go out. And then, this happened. I pulled myself together, I did my best not to cry because 1. I didn’t have time we needed to leave, 2. I didn’t want my makeup to be ruined, which would make us even later, 3. I knew how much Nick had been looking forward to seeing some old friends and didn’t want to keep him home to hold me while I cried. So I walked out, told nick “Im not pregnant, and I am not going to cry and ruin this night”. I let a tear out, and we left.
At that wedding, so many people asked me when I would get to take the test to see if it worked. “October 1st!”
When in reality…..I didn’t have to take the test. I wasn’t pregnant.

October 2nd, we had a phone call with our doctor to tell him I had gotten my period and the IUI didn’t work. This conversation was one of the hardest conversation we have had yet. Besides being told we had a 1% chance of getting pregnant naturally, this came second.
I am not ready to share everything the doctor told us during this call. I am not sure when I will be. It’s hard to be vulnerable and let all of this out. I take my time processing and share when I am ready…
Our doctor told us we could try a few different approaches to this next round of IVF to try and get my body to respond. We ultimately let him choose what he thought was best and went with that. So, we will be trying a new approach, which includes adding in a few more medications and increasing the dose of the medications I was on.
I will be on testosterone patches as well as taking growth hormone and two different birth controls to try and suppress me more. The point of suppressing someone more, would be to hopefully not get a lead follicle like I had last time. They want everything to grow together or at least close to the same size. They are doubling my dose of menopur, which burns like hell so I am NOT excited for this at all. Increasing my Gonal-f and lupron as well.

Our next appointment is October 29th. This will be my suppression scan and when we will find out if we can start medications. If so I will start some meds that day and shots will start November 1st. Egg retrieval would be the week of November 11th (11/11). I am hoping and praying that 11/11 is lucky for me like everyone says!!

During the past few months, we have had SO many people reach out to us.
We have had many people praying, bringing us dinner, dropping gifts off at our door, sending us cards/gift cards and more. We are so thankful for all of you. We are thankful for those of you who text us to check in and those who are praying for us and thinking of us without telling us every day. Everyone shows support in different ways, we are all different.
One day we will have a child, and no matter how we get there I will always tell that child how much they were prayed for before we or anyone could met them.

Matt Snell’s song Prayed For You is my lifeline right now.
“Cause every single day, before I knew your name
I couldn’t see your face, but I prayed for you
Every heartbreak trail when all hope fell
On the highway to hell, I prayed for you
I kept my faith like that old King James
Said I’m supposed to
It’s hard to imagine, bigger than I could fathom
I didn’t know you from Adam but I prayed for you
For Someone to love me like you do
Graceful eyes to see me through
A smile that steals me, a heart that heals me
A touch that kills me too
Baby your perfect, I guess the Good Lord heard it”

Sharing a struggle isn’t complaining or whining or moaning. To me, its a strong example of validating vulnerability and allowing ourselves to sink into the reality of whatever our current situation is. This is a powerful thing to do for ourselves. Our experiences are relative to our own circumstances. There is no reason to compare them to anyone else, and your challenge is worthy of an occasional offload to get the support you need. Its not complaining, its honesty and being open. By sharing your struggle you are showing others strength and helping someone else who may think they are alone.

If anyone reading this is struggling with anything, it doesn’t have to be infertility related. Please reach out, I would love to meet up and to help you get through whatever your situation is.

“I will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born.” The Lord says.