Taking time off to detox

We had a regroup yesterday with our doctor, and the news was better than we thought.

I'll just take it sequentially. First of all, I did officially have OHSS. Apparently another girl that was cycling at the same time as me had it too, and I should feel lucky because she was hospitalized! So, although gaining 21 pounds sucked, I am definitely happy I didn't have to go into the hospital to be drained.

My estrogen level was 6440 and my lining was 16.5 the last time they measured. Apparently these aren't even "close" but are way over the ranges CCRM will work with, before they call off the cycle.

They retrieved 20 eggs. Only 18 were mature. And actually, 1 of the 18 was too far along, so we basically started with 17.

5 of the 17 fertilized abnormally which means that they had 1, 3 or 4 pro nuclei (PN) instead of 2. In a normal fertilization there are 2 PN (one from the egg and one from the sperm). These 5 were classified as 'chromosomally abnormal' and were discarded :(

Another 7 of the 17 fertilized normally (i.e. they saw 2 PN on day 1). Since there were only 7 at this point, they decided to freeze them immediately. The best day to freeze is day 5, but when you only have 7, it's a big risk to wait 5 days because many of them are likely to stop growing. And apparently freezing on day 1 is the 2nd best option if you can't wait until day 5. Oddly, freezing on day 3 has the worst results. So, while we were thinking that freezing them right away was the worst possible thing, we found out it really is the second best option.

The last 5 of the 17 never showed signs of fertilization, but they did start to cleave on day 2 so they were frozen on day 2 which is the 3rd best time to freeze, after day 5 (best) and day 1 (2nd best). Because these 5 made it to day 2 they were able to be graded. 3 of them are grade 4- (which is like an A- in school) and 2 of them are grade 3 (which is like a B).

So, what happens next?

Well, things go quiet for a while. Everyone is waiting for me to have a period, and then another period, and when that second period starts I'll go back on meds. This time I will be wearing estrogen patches for while and then taking progesterone in oil shots. Those will be the big needles that have to go into a muscle, and the nurse said it's not just a long needle but it's a fat one too because the oil is so thick. And they won't let me take a shot of whiskey before!

I'll be on the patches and shots for a couple of weeks (knowing me, longer). Then they'll thaw out the 7 embryos that are on day1 of their lives, and the next day they'll thaw the day 2 embryos so that all 12 will be the same age. All 12 will go on together to day 3 and we'll see if they look healthy or sluggish. We will still try to let them reach day 5 before transferring. This is different from what the embryologist originally told us. She said they usually have to transfer them right away if they are frozen on day 1.

It takes 30 seconds to freeze an embryo, and they can actually thaw and refreeze them with almost no impact on the overall success rate. So, after we reach day 5 (thinking positively here), and after they transfer 2, if there are some blasts left, they will refreeze them.

So, now we are taking a 5-6 week break. We're probably not going to post any updates unless we just happen to have something interesting to share. But we'll be back in August to pick up right where we left off.

XOXO,
Amy and Kelly