IVF – Baselines and Stim Day 1 – 10/26/22

Yesterday was the full beginning of this journey.

Completed Baseline Ultrasound and Labs.  7 Follicles on the Right, 2 Follicles on the left.  Praying these grow and more pop up that are good.  I know that each follicle doesn’t guarantee an egg.  9 sounds great, until you realize all 9 may be worthless.  My thyroid was slightly high for TTC so they added another medication for that.  We’re up to 31 now I think between supplements and prescriptions.

I was extremely excited for awhile after these appointments.  We are REALLY doing this.  We are REALLY going to have a baby.  It’s been a long couple decades longing for this moment.  I cannot wait.

Then reality returned and my anxiety got worse.  I made the mistake of searching some groups for 9 follicles as for my AMH level this was actually great.  Of course, I read more bad stories than good.  More people have 9 follicles and getting 0 mature eggs vs people having 9 and ending up with more.  I remind myself – Those that talk to the most have the bad stories and need the support.  It’s like reviews – people are more likely to leave a bad review than if they had a good review.  But it still stung – still reminded me I could be excited for nothing.

My therapist stressed I need to work on living in the day/moment and not trying to plan this journey.  It’s not something you easily plan.  I have like flow sheets in my mind of each scenario and the next step.  Yes, it’s obsessive.  Instead, I need to focus on the good of that day and just wait until the obstacle comes up or something changes.  It’s true, but hard.  I feel like I NEED to be prepared.  Badly.

Quality over quantity.  I just need ONE good egg that turns into a good embryo to have a baby.  Just one.

I started medications this morning for some of the oral meds, begin the shots tonight with more oral meds, and then repeat until Monday.  Monday/Wednesday/Friday I have ultrasounds/labs to evaluate how it’s going and change any med protocols as needed.  So, just a week of meds basically.  Then the chaos really begins.  If all goes right we have an estimated retrieval date of 11/7, that could be a couple days earlier or later if I respond good or slow.  At that point I will HAVE to decide on Fresh Transfer vs Frozen Transfer.  I need to quit thinking about this for today, for the next 10 days really.  I honestly do not know what I want to do.  I don’t know what’s better.  It all depends on what we get for embryos.  If it’s 3 or less I won’t risk it.  If it’s 6 or more I’m more willing to risk it.  4 or 5 – I’m torn.  So, end of thought until we know if we have 1 embryo or 10 embryos.  (Statistically I’m to only have 3 – 5 max.)

If we do the testing it reveals gender.  Now that we’re onto this part Max is suddenly interested in talking about it.  A lot.  I’m not sure what’s worse – When he never wanted to talk about it or when he always wanted to talk about it. lol.  He is VERY pro testing.  Today he says – So you want a girl if we get to pick?  No.  You want a boy?  No.  Honestly, gender does NOT matter to me – at all.  I simply want a healthy baby.  Something about picking the gender just doesn’t sit right with me.  If we get to this, I’d personally tell them to pick the one that looks the absolute best, regardless of gender.  I did ask if he wants to pick – Kind of.  What do you want?  I don’t know.  Well, you better think about it as if it comes down to picking I’d likely let you do it.  And how to tell you come from an enmeshed family completely – Okay, I’ll have to talk to my parents.  Huh?  You have to talk to your parents to pick what gender OUR baby is?  Yeah, I need to see which one they would prefer I had.  I didn’t think about this a lot until I got back to work – Ummmm, no.  If you’re picking a gender you need to pick what YOU truly would like the most, not someone to make your parents happy.  If he’s always dreamed of raising a boy (and his parents want a cute girl) I’d recommend trying the boy and vice versa.  Yes, we’ll need to talk about this later.  But I still lean towards getting whatever we’re given.  Each gender has their pros and cons.  And no matter the gender, each baby has it’s unique personality and behaviors.

So – I’ll probably begin feeling awful and crazy soon.  Can’t wait for the misery of that and the roller coaster of hormones.  But might as well document it all.

Still have my cute little foster friend.  Sigh.  Sadly, I’m just not sure he’s going anywhere anytime soon.  His father did text that he got on his drug patch today.  His mother has been doing her stuff.  Yet, they still do stupid things.  The stupid things could be the icing on the cake at each hearing.  Hopefully one of the two figures it out.  Our honeymoon period is totally over and he’s kind of a jerk now.  I just redirect and move on.  His biggest fight is food – Gosh, he wants crackers.  All day.  Every day.  Getting him to understand there will always be food available but we can’t eat crackers all day isn’t going great.  Hopefully it just gets better and better.