The five Amigos!

The clinic just called and we have 5 frozen blastocysts! Wohooo!!! 3 of them were frozen yesterday on day 5 and 2 more today on day 6! All of them are "beautiful expanded blasts" as my lovely embryologist said after having wished me happy birthday... Only 2 had arrested on day 3 but the other 4 didn't look high grade enough for freezing (my clinic has very strict criteria for what can be frozen, they like to have their FET stats almost as good as the fresh).

So that's it for now, we'll be looking at single transfers in the summer of next year (we have the California holiday planned for June next year and then I have a conference near Boston early July), I really hope there will be a brother or sister for Oliver among my little penguins.

37

I'm 37 today and Oliver is 37 weeks! Nice coincidence. I love these coincidences, they make me smile even if they are totally pointless eheh. Happy birthday to me!

So Oliver has now been outside longer than he was inside. Again, soon this will be something I'll stop thinking about, look at how long I have been outside!

Nothing much new to say, no word from the clinic yet which is good I suppose. I had a very very busy week, a conference, several lectures, incoming students looking for advice, projects to be organised etc. I think I had a touch of OHSS, my belly was quite swollen and only in the last couple of days is a bit better. Still not back to normal though. The fact that I've been up and about from 6.30am every morning and often not back to bed before 11.30pm surely didn't help.

Anyway, I'm enjoying being pampered by my mom today, I slept in, she looked after Oliver. Nice. Fab food is being cooked and we'll go for some retail therapy later. Oliver had another inconsolable crying stint last night, sobbing and all. The poor baby. Then he settled but I could hear him a few times in the night crying a bit. Maybe he's teething. We still have no teeth at all! He has adjusted very well to be with my mom and not my sister, I am really confident he'll be fine in the crèche. And the sensor pad thing keeps going off occasionally, so annoying....but I'm not at the stage yet where I feel confident in removing it altogether. Soon, I promise.

I'll update with news from the clinic as soon as I hear. I am surprisingly calm.

Fertility report is in

The embryologist called around lunch time to say that 11 out of the 14 eggs fertilized! This more or less in line with our previous results (14/16 first time, 6/9 second time and 5/6 the third time) which is really positive news. Mike was a bit worried that he hadn't taken his vitamins long enough before the procedure (usually he would have had a 3 months stint), but I'm glad it didn't affect the first stage anyway.

So here's what going to happen. They'll culture the embryos to blast and on Sunday at the latest (day 6) they will phone me with a full report of what we have. If everything goes south beforehand of course they'll let me know but Ivy (the really nice embryologist we had a few times) said it's still going to be Saturday before she knows for sure how things are. I said I thought they were going to change medium on day 3 and that perhaps I would have gotten an update then, but she reminded me that the critical step is day 3 to day 4 and she doesn't want to give me false hopes (the usual protocol of the clinic!). Anyway, she said I can call the lab if I'm anxious, but I'll definitely try not to be.

Today I feel a bit swollen, I'm trying to drink plenty and take it easy (I'm back in work), let's hope it won't worsen. I had a night full of nightmares (some fake photographer wanted to kidnap Oliver!) so I didn't sleep that well at all, which I'm sure it's not helping overall.

14!

They got 14 eggs! I'm delighted, hopefully they'll fertilize, we'll know tomorrow.

The nurse said I had 21 follicles at the last count, so to watch out for OHSS symptoms. I think they went down quite heavy with the sedation this time, I could barely get up all day (still feeling quite spaced out) thankfully my sister could look after Oliver and Mike wasn't late coming back home.

I'll update tomorrow with the fertilization report.

And would you believe it, last night, Oliver's monitor went off 3 times! Of course all false alarms, which is great in one way, meaning there's not a hint of panic in me any more, but on the other, if we don't understand what the hell is wrong with it, it's going to be a real pain!

Update: Mike just came down and said the sensor pad was not in the centre of the bed so he repositioned it. Any time it went off, Oliver was at the top of his crib where he tends to migrate all the time. We'll see!

Retrieval on monday

Last scan this morning and all looks good. I think I have 20 follicles in total and 14 are of a very good size. Also I was scanned with a different (older) machine and even the measure of the lining (incidentally the best I ever had!) was less than 2 days ago so I am thinking there may be a couple more follicles in the "right zone", but we all know this means nothing till you have actually eggs and then embryos. So I don't want to have my hopes up too much as the disappointment the last time was massive. If I don't hear anything this afternoon from the clinic, I'll trigger with the full dose on saturday night and I'll be the first one in the morning going through the procedure.

In Oliver's world things are well, he had his first cold which had him up at night (and us too!) even more than usual, being quite uncomfortable and slightly feverish. But yesterday he was already much better and last night...oh yes, last night we NEVER had to get up! I'm looking 10 years younger this morning!! And it's just as well...we had the official opening of our new research facilities and the Prime Minister was on the premises...big big deal as you can imagine, in difficult economic times you have to really show that your job and research are worth the investment.

Finally we had another full on alarm with the sensor monitor. It happened one the afternoon, Oliver was actually awake and all smiley when Mike run up to check on him. Mike had heard him cooing seconds earlier so we are now absolutely certain the thing it's false alarming on us. I think Carlito may have started playing with the cable that connect the under-mattress sensor pad to the unit...I have to say I'm so so relieved!!!

Update number 2

Academic teaching term will start on monday and we are having orientation week at the moment and it's just hell. So I've not been able to read or comment! So sorry, I'll try my best during the weekend.

I had my second scan this morning, everything is on track, 10 follicles on the left and 7 good sizes on the right. A couple of smallies which won't count. Mike went in for his SA yesterday and he had nothing to report on the "Sample room" of the new facility, apparently it's the same as the old one, no new "interesting" material to look at. The results weren't great, 7 million/mL, low motility. Bleah. The Fav Doctor had a look for me at his precious number and actually in 2009 he only had 5.4 million/mL so it's not as bad this time. And she pointed out they only need a few for ICSI so they have plenty to work with.

In other news, Oliver had a terrible night last night, we had very little sleep, he seemed inconsolable between 1.30 am and 3am. Normally it's enough to give him his soother and the night-teddy but we actually had to pick him up and rock him till he stopped sobbing. My little baby...I think he suffers from separation anxiety now that I'm in work all day...and I'm a bit tender in the belly so I don't pick him up as much in the evening either...let's hope he'll settle soon. Love to all.

Cycle update

Day 6 of stim and this morning I had my scan with the Fav Doctor.

All looks super, I have 8 follicles on each side all above 10mm (but one which is small). Retrieval most likely to be on monday! She said after a pregnancy it's very common to have great response. Nice to know!

In other news yesterday I went to the local pool with Oliver again and it was a success like the first time! He absolutely loves it.

We had one other incident with the sensor monitor, a couple of nights ago. I had just been in checking on him and actually I heard him making a noise from my bed when the monitor went "Bip"! So I went back in knowing though it was definitely a false alarm. And it was. Oliver was on his side at the edge of the bed asleep. It never went to the full on beeping though, but somehow it reassured me greatly it may have been a glitch!

I'm back in work full time and I'm trying to come in very early so that I can go home mid afternoon, so far so good!