Friday, March 20, 2009

Not *quite* Cancelled... Yet.

Well, my E2 level didn't go up as expected, which probably means those two gorgeous follicles aren't as gorgeous as they look. Typical for me. Whatever.

My E2 level was 98.3 (down 0.7 from Tuesday, but essentially that means it's stabilized, not that it's gone anywhere). My P4 level was 0.75. So I'm not gearing to ovulate any second as SuperDoc had feared, and I get to stay on the Lupron through the weekend and return on Monday (Lucky Me!!). The likelihood is still that I will ultimately end up cancelling this cycle, but I guess we have to give it the old college try, right?

Of course, right.

Anonymous asked if I could try the old fashioned way since I've got those two follicles hanging out - there are a couple answers to that question:

1. The first is, the two follicles are both on the left side, which was the tube that was blocked in my last HSG. Assuming that wasn't a fluke - that would preclude them being useful.
2. Assuming the blocked tube WAS a fluke, I'm not doing anything at this point that involves two follicles on purpose. If you think I'm being extreme, that's fine, but I'm dead serious. I am petrified of ending up with twins - my perinatologist scared the crap out of me in December when I saw him and he made it clear that a twin pregnancy is not an option for me.

Tagging along with that question, Anonymous asked if, in light of this development, whether it would make sense for me to try on my own for the next cycle and see if I ovulate all on my lonesome. A few thoughts:

1. If anovulation alone were my sole problem, sure, maybe. But it's not.
2. If I were uninsured and needed time to pull together money for a cycle, sure. But this cycle is already paid for. My portion of this cycle has already been paid for, it's just being deferred until whenever we DO get started, so the money has already been set aside.
3. I ovulated every single month from the time my HOMs were 6 weeks old until they were about a year old. Then I started spreading out to about every 6 weeks. I used no birth control. I even did my best to, um, make the best of our... timing. I did not get pregnant in that entire time.
4. If there were something inherently healthier about getting pregnant spontaneously vs. via IVF, then sure, maybe there would be some advantage to waiting another month just to see. But aside from slightly lower birth weights in IVF babies (even singletons), there doesn't appear to be any inherent health differences in IVF babies vs. spontaneously conceived babies. So why wait?
5. If I *am* ovulating on my own, I can just as easily TTC spontaneously later, after I don't have insurance covering my cycles, as I can right now. So what's the difference?
6. What SuperDoc implied to me was that it is, oddly enough, the Lupron itself responsible for my response so far. His words were that sometimes in women you get the opposite reaction to the Lupron than what you're hoping to achieve. Note, I'm not so sure about this one, because, honestly? I sort of started tuning him out right around the time that he started making fun of me for always being opposite girl.

Anywhozit, it's just more fun for me. A girl's gotta get her Lupron fix somehow, right?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Man oh man. Never a dull moment in infertilty land. I'm sorry that Lupron is not agreeing with you. It really is the devil - in so many ways! I hope there's still a chance that this cycle can be salvaged.

Anonymous said...

your blog is really hilarious :) i am hoping to start on my 2nd ivf after my twins mc in jan 20 and was browsing through internet when i bumped into your blog. you are giving me inspiration not to give up :)
cheers :)

mimi