More Monitoring, More Results

We've progressed to pre-transfer monitoring, round 2. At this point, we are 16 days into the medication cycle and exactly a week after the last monitoring appointment. We will have one more monitoring appointment in 3 days, and then we'll transfer in a week and a half (June 12).

As with each monitoring appointment, they drew a vial of blood and did another ultrasound this morning. The things that have changed since our appointment last week are that I finished shedding old lining, the RE cut my Lupron dose down to 5 units per day instead of 10, and added oral estradiol at 1 mg twice a day. After the first three days of that change, he upped my estradiol to 2 mg twice a day. The effect that we hoped to see at this appointment was increased estradiol levels in my blood, my endometrium starting to thicken up (goal thickness at transfer is > 8 mm) while the ovaries should still be quiet (no follicles over 10 mm) and progesterone levels should still be low.

Results
Endometrial thickness: 9.3 mm
Right ovary: 6-7 follicles < 10 mm; 0 follicles > 10 mm
Left ovary: 8-9 follicles < 10 mm; 0 follicles > 10 mm
Additional findings: Small pocket of fluid in the uterine cavity
Estradiol: 228 pg/ml
Progesterone: 0.5

Things look great. My lining is already past our goal and we have no rogue follicles trying to impede our progress, so we're in great shape. We're going to keep plugging along toward our next monitoring appointment on Friday. The RE didn't say anything about the small pocket of fluid, but I'm hoping that it'll be gone by the time we do the next ultrasound.

Round 3 - Ready, Set, Go

It's that time again - needles, syringes and vials by the fistful. I started the third round of meds this past Monday, so today is day 5 of Lupron. The last time it took about a week before the side effects kicked in, so we'll see in a few days if the hot flashes, insomnia and weight gain will return with this cycle. Today I met a brand spanking new side effect that didn't pop up last time; nausea. To be fair, nausea is my catch-all 'something's off in my body' symptom. Some people get headaches, I get nausea. Especially when hormones are involved; even your run-of-the-mill birth control pills will make me nauseous on a daily basis. When we did the first round of meds in July and August, I was actually pretty lucky that the nausea side effect didn't show up until we added the Estrace and then it was pretty intense. I cursed the Estrace a bit for it, but I guess there's a chance that the Lupron was equally to blame. On the bright side, I didn't need to hold onto those extra calories I ate at our office holiday lunch anyway.

So we're about a week into the cycle with exactly 4 weeks to transfer. I'll go in for a baseline monitoring appointment next Wednesday and if everything looks good, we'll start the Estrace on Friday and work on building a nice thick lining for the next monitoring appointment in December. Scott and I are going to sneak a nice little Caribbean getaway in between to get some rest and relaxation in before I get called up for stork duty. We're now 2 weeks away from vacation, and I'm looking forward to a fruity drink in my hand and some sand in my toes. Here's hoping that the tropical sun will help clear my hormonally-induced pukiness.