Second IVF Cycle: Injections and Egg Retrieval

From the start, I haven’t been mentally been in this second IVF cycle. Taking each day at a time, rather than dwell what lies ahead.

Yes I prayed extra hard that there would be more than 5 follicles retrieved, but that was pretty much the extent of my effort for this cycle.

Like last time I kept a journal of my ultrasounds with “wanda,” as well as blood draws checking my estrogen.

Shot Schedule:

AM: 225 Gonalf
PM: 150 Gonalf
1ml Menopur

I did daily shots from July 12-25 (12.5 days). Then I triggered ovulation at 1:00AM on Monday, for a Wednesday 1:00PM egg retrieval.

Day 4 of my shots my body decided to start bleeding. I was devastated! Thinking that this cycle was over, and that we were going to be wasting money on meds when my uterine lining wasn’t gonna be perfect.

And of course this happened on a weekend! I called our on-call nurse and she said she would get me in for an appointment. Well… my lining was fine and I got put back on estrace and started taking it twice a day to help stop bleeding. The bleeding did stop after a few days.

Remember I’ve had no estrogen in me, and then all of a sudden I’m pumping myself full of it (stims & estrace)!

Towards the end of those 12 days, my follicles decided to stop responding to the shots. Each day, I kept hoping that today is the day for egg retrieval.

However, I went into my clinic 6 days in a row. Me and “wanda” got to meet for 6 days straight, as well as being poked to check my estrogen levels.

Lets be real – I was pretty stinking upset at my body for not responding the way that it’s supposed to.

Egg Retrieval

With having done egg retrieval before, I felt it shouldn’t be that big of a deal, but I was still nervous. Mainly, because I would be put under anesthesia once again. Thankfully, I got a blessing from Chase and that helped me calm down.

Egg Retrieval (ER) wasn’t until 1PM. They wanted me to fast from 5AM to 1PM. Knowing this, I got up at 4:30AM, had a few bowls of cereal and milk, and then went back to bed.

We waited until 1:30PM before getting to go back. I got poked twice for an IV line, and didn’t wear my pineapple socks because I was hot.

My RE, the anesthesiologist, and one of the nurses all had hair caps on, and I said “what, I don’t get to wear one?!” So they got me a cap and they put it on me, because I couldn’t reach my head.

It took them 20 minutes to do the egg retrieval surgery. I only remembered the oxygen mask being put on my face.

After getting into the ER recovery room, they told me I started bleeding a little after they retrieved my eggs and that could cause spotting.

My RE told me that he was only able to retrieve 5 eggs. They found several other follicles, but they had nothing in them. Which can be a factor of having low ovarian reserve. He said we were going to do a day 3 transfer, and that the only reason to do a day 5 would be if we had more embryos, so they could grade them, and put the best quality back in.

After speaking to him to say we both were a little bummed would be an understatement. We trusted in his knowledge. Which looking back now, we should have just waited to see if any grew to day 5.

After we left the clinic we headed to Cafe Rio. Chase had been fasting too, because he didn’t want to eat in front of me.

We waited to get the fertilization report the next day.

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