New Blog

For privacy issues, I created a new blog address and linked it with a new email address. I'm going to wait a couple of weeks and then delete my other blog. I want to give all of my wonderful supporters a chance to catch my new blog address before I get rid of my old blog.

Confirmation

This morning my temps dropped drastically. And my spotting got heavier. I think it's a possibility that my period will come before 15DPO. Which is fine with me. I'm ready to just move past this cycle and get on to a new one.

I just don't understand why it's not working. I know it can take awhile, but logically I still don't get it. We were twice as fertile as any normal couple! I had 2 eggs, and we put as many sperm in my uterus as I would have gotten through normal intercourse if he had a sperm count of like 400 million motile sperm! Why didn't it work?

Shit.

Well, I started spotting today at 12DPO. Right on schedule. Which means my period will be along any day now... probably right on the 27th, as planned.

I hate my life.

OPKs Getting Darker

Okay, I know I said I was going to stop peeing on OPKs. But I am physically unable to. Or maybe it's that I'm mentally unable to. Yesterday and today I took them. That makes a total of 4 days in a row, and all the tests were taken at the same time of the day.

Interestingly, every day the test line gets a little bit darker. It started out almost non-existent, and each day it's become more visible.

I also started paying attention to my boobs today, and they are sore. Which doesn't have to mean anything. They were sore last month too.

Today I'm 11DPO, and last month I started lightly spotting at 12DPO. I guess if I start spotting tomorrow I'll know it's probably over.

Frig. I need time to speed up. I have to know!

Is There Still Hope?

I haven't been posting about my 2 week wait, because I've really been trying to not obsess during it. I'm 10 DPO right now and I've been having cramps every day since 5DPO. Last month I didn't have any cramps until slight ones started in the evening of 11DPO. Those were just period cramps, obviously. Also, last night for several hours (2am-5am) I was lying awake feeling nauseous.

I was pretty sure I wasn't pregnant. I took an OPK at 8DPO and 9DPO, and both of them were the most negative OPKs I've ever had. There was barely a second line on either of them (although the one at 9DPO was slightly darker than the day before). I usually have very visible lines all the time. Since OPKs detect HCG, I was very disappointed that they were so negative. I've been cramping since 5DPO, so if that was implantation you'd THINK something would show up by now.

I had pretty much lost hope. But today, my hope is renewed. Ashley got pregnant from her IVF cycle!! She took an OPK on Tuesday, and there was no second line at all. Then on Thursday she had a beta done and it was 104!! So obviously a negative OPK means nothing if you can have a beta of 104 48 hours later.

I should really stop taking OPKs.

And I really should go back to ignoring my 2 week wait.

I guess I'll probably know in a couple of days. I usually spot for several days before my period comes.

Review Appointment

I had a review appointment with my RE this morning. There were several points we raised with him, and we got good solutions for pretty much everything. The most important point (to me) is my rising FSH levels, but I'll address that last.

1) I have not been responding that well to my medications. Dr. Martin agrees. He didn't think it would be so hard to get me to ovulate. Next cycle I'm doing 7.5 mg of Femara on CD 3, 100g of Clomid on CD 3-7, and 75IU of Bravelle from CD 6 on. We're adding the Femara instead of increasing my dose of Clomid, because the Femara helps sensitize you to the Clomid. I didn't ovulate on just 50 mg of Clomid, but when I added the 7.5 mg of Femara on CD 3, I did produce an egg. Hopefully this new combination will help me make it to ovulation with at least 3 eggs.

2) Justin's sperm counts appeared to have been decreasing steadily. Dr. Martin explained that men are unreliable (which I already knew), and that there's no reason at this point to think that Justin's sperm has permanently decreased. For the IUI's this month his recoveries were pretty good, so maybe that SA of 2 million on May 10 was a fluke. He suggests we continue IUI's with his sperm.

3) I'm concerned with my FSH levels. My FSH is 8, which should be "fine," except for the fact that I'm 24 years old. Dr. Martin agreed with me; he said I should have an FSH of 4 or 5 at 24 years old, so my FSH is high. He said that the entire fertility world always uses the cutoff of 10 - anything below 10 means your ovarian reserve is fine. But we should also be relating that number to the age of the female. If someone is 42 and has an FSH of 8, they're doing pretty good for their age. But for a 24 year old, that's pretty brutal.

The problem with high FSH is that it's always been believed that there's nothing that can be done about it. You can't reverse decreased ovarian reserve. Perhaps that's not true.

In December 2008 there was a compilation of studies released that show that DHEA can improve fertility in women with high FSH. DHEA is a mildly androgenic precursor hormone for both testosterone and estrogen. The fertility world is starting to think that maybe part of the nonresponsiveness of the ovaries to medications isn't because the ovaries are running out of eggs, but rather because the ovaries' inability to make its steroid hormones in order to promote egg maturity within it's follicles.

Several studies have been done with women who have decreased ovarian reserve. The studies followed their IVF attempts both before and after treatment with DHEA and compared their results to those of a control group that did not take DHEA. The studies showed that treatment with DHEA (in women with dimished ovarian reserve) significantly:
-improves the woman's response to medication (more eggs are developed)
-increases the number of eggs that successfully fertilize
-increases the number of normal Day 3 embryos
-increases the number of embryo transfers
-increases the overall cumulative pregnancy rate

Just one example: in 2005 there was a 42 year old woman with decreased ovarian reserve undergoing IVF. She was on the maximum dosage of fertility drugs, but she only produced one egg. She went on DHEA for 9 months, then repeated the exact same drug protocol that she used for her first IVF. This time she developed 17 eggs.

There is also evidence of a decreased miscarriage rate, which may be due to a decreased abnormal chromosome number. DHEA improves the maturation process of the egg, resulting in a better quality egg.

I'm pretty excited about the drug. I'm hoping it will make my ovaries more responsive to medications and that my eggs will mature more normally. I'm not sure how quickly it starts working, so I don't know if I will see improvements next cycle or not. But I'm feeling better about my high FSH.

I love my RE.

IUI #2 (Part 2)

Part 2 of our second IUI was this morning. I was still getting positive OPKs yesterday evening (I don't know about today because I haven't tested), so I'm really glad we opted to go with the double IUI (for timing reasons, not because we needed more sperm). We weren't expecting a great recovery, but it ended up being 6.7 million! That's half of what we got yesterday, but it's higher than both of our recoveries for our last IUI. We were pretty happy with that.

All in all I have 20.2 million sperm swimming through my uterus and fallopian tubes.

*Please catch an egg; please catch an egg!*

IUI #2 (Part 1)

Both Justin and I were so nervous before the IUI. He's usually really positive, but not today. We were both convinced that they were going to tell us that they could only recover 307 sperm, or something ridiculous like that.

The nurses walked in to do the IUI and informed us that for our insemination we have 13.5 million motile sperm. 13.5 MILLION!!! I was like "You've GOT to be kidding me!!! WAY TO GO, BABE!!!" We cheered, and gave each other high fives (I'm sure the nurses found us very amusing).

13.5 million motile sperm right into the uterus. If you compare that to regular intercourse (where only 3-5% of the motile sperm make it into the uterus), it'd be like having sex with a man who has 270 million motile sperm in his sample! Considering most men have around 50% motility, and considering Justin always has a sample of 5mL, that's a sperm count of 108 million/mL!!

We always figure this out so that Justin knows what kind of "man" he is with that sample.

Don't ask me where all that sperm came from, considering the fact that 46 hours beforehand he only had 2 million sperm. But I don't care!! It was there!!

We're still doing another IUI tomorrow. We don't need to, numbers wise, but we have to be there for our review appointment for the RE anyway. And I feel better "timing wise" if we do the IUI's two days in a row. Since my surge is still pretty intense at this point I'd like to cover all our bases. I know that you ovulate 36 hours after the peak of your surge, but unless you're taking blood every hour there's no way to know when exactly the peak of your surge was.

So, great day. I think the only thing that could have made me happier than the 13.5 million motile sperm would be finding out that I'm pregnant. Hopefully that'll be happening two weeks from now.

The Case of the Disappearing Follicle

I went for bloodwork and ultrasound again today. I am EXHAUSTED.

My last ultrasound on Saturday showed 3 follies at 13, 14, and 17. Today showed 2 follies at 16 and 23.

I have given up trying to figure out my body. I have no idea what happened. The follicle on my left grew from 13 to 23 in 48 hours. One follicle on my right shrunk 1 mm. And another follicle disappeared.

I'm hoping it's just hiding somewhere, but the ultrasound tech didn't seem to think so. I think she just didn't want to go back in there. Can a follicle really shrink or disappear? That seems ridiculous to me.

Anyway, our IUIs are Tuesday and Wednesday. I'm taking both days off of work. I deserve it. I am so friggin tired. I barely even want to do the IUI's. We have such a small chance; it's like banging my head against a wall. It's probably a waste of $250. But I spent all this time monitoring my cycle, and I injected myself 11 times (it was only supposed to be 5 times)... I guess we'll do it.

We're starting to explore our other options for next cycle. We have a review appointment with the RE on Wednesday to talk about what we should do now that we know that those extremely low counts weren't just a fluke. I'm feeling pretty crushed.

May 10th SA

Justin did an SA yesterday. We wanted to know if his count had gone up from last month, when it had plunged as low as 4 million.

Well, it hadn't. His count was 2 million/mL. With 33% motility.

We were pretty devastated. It's barely even worth doing an IUI with a count like that. Our chances of success would be about 3%.