Day 34 (cycle day 6) – Baseline Bloodwork Results.

What an eventful day!This morning we went to get my blood taken. It was relatively quick and we were barely there long enough to ask all our questions. But we figured that’s OK, since we are back tomorrow for the u/s anyway and will be able to ask then.

The nurse said that the plan is for me to have the u/s tomorrow and then start stims on Sat if all is good. She said they would check my blood and will call me ONLY if something’s amiss and isn’t right and plans need to be changed. But she said that the fact that I have bled is a good sign and that everything is normal and she does not expect to call me at all.

In the afternoon I eyed the phone suspiciously several times, but around 3pm I breathed a sigh of relief, since there was no call and I know that they usually get back to patients by that time.

I sighed too soon. Three seconds later the phone was ringing.

I was like “NO way!”. I hope this doesn’t set the tone of the cycle with all the constant curveballs.

The news was that my progesterone came back a little high at 1.6. The nurse said that the doc says it will still be OK to start stimming but they want to push my start date to Sunday now. I will still come in for my u/s tomorrow as scheduled.

OK, I guess one day delay I can live with. Although its nutty how much this has been pushed from the day I had originally expected. Heck, I thought we’d possibly be doing the RETRIEVAL on the 29th originally!! I can’t believe that this would mean I was on Lupron for a total of 16 days before starting stims! And I had thought it would be about 8 – ha. I sure hope there aren’t any more delays and that things flow smooth from here on. Overall, I realize that todays’ news was not TOO big of a deal – at this stage there isn’t that much that could go too drastically wrong, but the more the cycle progresses the more of a cliff-hanger it becomes. I sure hope that this is the last of the dissappointments.

Later in the day I went for the orientation at the IVF lab again to turn in my paperwork. Boy was I glad I went to it a second time – there was so much we had missed when we came in late that first time!!

It was a full house again and packed with IVFers. Also it was a completely different team this time – different embryologist and nurse.

They talked about the state of the art security system at the lab and about their strict procedures to ensure that the safety and the identification of the embryos is never compromised. I was impressed. They showed photos of the lab, the ER/ET procedure and went step by step through the whole process. They also talked about the embryos a lot and showed pictures of different cases and scenarios so that you would know exactly what they are talking about when they call you with information. As an example they showed photos of immature eggs and explained why they don’t fertilize. They also showed photos of eggs that weren’t fertilized properly. They explained the grading system of blasts and embies and showed examples. They also talked about multiples, the risks involved and explained why they always aim for one baby. The nurse of course, went over her presentation on what to expect on the day of ER and ET, how to prepare and how the day would go.

Overall, I was pretty happy I went the second time. The information kind of settled in. I think I enjoyed it better than the first time and got a lot more out of it.

Back home, I did a little research on P4 levels. I read that they need to be less than 1.5 in the follicular phase of the cycle and that some studies have shown that higher levels could be linked to diminishing ovarian reserve. Oh, the panic. Why do I even read those things?

I decided in the end to stop looking into it this much. It is good to be informed and know what is going on with your body but there is definitely a case of looking into it TOO much. I mean I’m already doing IVF this cycle so what more can I do, right?

I had thought about asking on my next appt what my FSH level was this time, but have since thought better of it. Ignorance is bliss and if I find out that it has sky-rocketed since my previous reading it will only worry me. As it is, I’m already doing an IVF cycle, so there’s no more that I can do. I figure instead, if I am hopefully successful, I’ll ask them in hindsight what it was, to keep for my records. But not going to worry myself now.

All in all, an eventful IVF day. And tomorrow I get to count the antral candidates! I sure hope there’s a lot of them…. and if there’s less than I would hope… well, not gonna think it right now. One day at a time.