I am going to tell you a story. Part 3

This is part three of my story about our fifth IVF.  

I left off yesterday with me increasing my medication and being told to go back to the clinic in 3 days.  

I headed back to the clinic on Friday for lab and ultrasound.  This was my first ultrasound to see the follicles.  The results were not that awesome but they weren't terrible either.  My left ovary (which is usually a rockstar) only had 2 follicles and the right ovary (usually lags behind) had 7-8.  I could deal with that.  Like I said in part one of this story....I just wanted a chance to get pregnant.

I saw Dr. M that day.  He is actually my main doctor but I have seen all of them many times.  If you remember during our last IVF we retrieved 13 eggs.  Out of those 13 we only had 3 that were mature.  I wanted to make sure each of the doctors looked back at that cycle during this cycle to compare and to hopefully get more mature eggs this time.  Only the mature eggs can be fertilized.  

On that Friday I spoke with Dr. M about this.  He told me that he was the one on call that weekend and he would look back at all of my cycles.  He suggested possibly doing the stimulation medications an extra day to try to get more mature eggs.  I felt good that I had talked to him about it and that he was going to be the one I would see all weekend.  I would have been happy with any of the doctors but I liked the idea of having the same one all weekend.  

In all of my other cycles I have taken the trigger shot on Sunday night and had the egg retrieval on Tuesday so that is why I had asked about the doctor on call for the weekend.  I felt like he would be the one making the decision as to when to trigger and whether or not to stim for an extra day.  

Anyway.  Friday afternoon they called me with my results and told me to continue the same meds and come back on Sunday morning.  

I did just that.  When I got there on Sunday Dr. MS walked in the room.  I thought that was odd since Dr. M specifically told me he would be the one there.  I went through the whole spiel with him about not having many mature eggs last time and really wanting to try to get more mature eggs this cycle just like I did with Dr. M on Friday.  After the ultrasound he said that he thought I would probably stim one more day if not 2 more but he would have to check my lab to make sure.  Later that day he called and said to continue the same meds that night and come back to the clinic in the morning...Monday morning.  

I was very happy with that.  That meant I was going one day longer than I ever had and I felt very hopeful that would help with my egg maturity.

I went back to the clinic on Monday morning.  This time it is Dr. B.  I love him and I saw him the entire cycle when I got pregnant with B.  He takes plenty of time to talk to each patient so I knew he would hear me out.  I went through my whole spiel about egg maturity with him.  This was my third time.  I was being proactive because I felt like I needed to make sure they understood how important this cycle was.  After my ultrasound he told me to come back into his office.  

When I sit down the first thing he says to me is this.  

"Dr. M is no longer practicing here so you will be seeing Dr. MS and myself the rest of the time."

Seriously?  Dr. M quit on Friday afternoon.  Quit.  Resigned.  Retired.  Whatever.  He quit on a Friday afternoon (soon after I had my talk with him!) heading into his call weekend.  

I worked in the medical field for years.  My husband is a physician.  That is one of the worst things you can do.  If one of my husbands partners did that, I mean, I can't even really imagine it.  I am sure there is much more to the story that I don't know (I've heard maybe he had some medical issues) so I will just leave it at that.  Dr. M left the practice and left Dr. B and Dr. MS to take care of all the patients.   

Another sign?  Maybe...  But I was only looking for hopeful signs.  


Back to the story.  Dr. B listened to me about this cycle.  He knows me well.  I have seen him the most out of any of the 3 doctors in the practice.  I trust him.  I know he is very thorough.  I was not concerned that my main doctor had quit.  I knew Dr. B would take care of me.  

He called me Monday afternoon and said he wanted me to stim for one more day.  (This meant going back to the clinic the next day for monitoring.)  He thought I may have one egg that would be "post mature" but I had quite a few others that he thought could mature after one more day.  I was very happy with this.  I felt like we were doing something different and hopefully would get a different outcome.  

I headed back to the clinic on Tuesday.  Keep in mind I had been on the hormones 2 days longer than I ever had.  I was uncomfortable.  I was bitchy.  It is 2 hours round trip to this clinic and I had been there Friday, Sunday, Monday, and now Tuesday.  I was ready for a retrieval.  More than ready.  

Tuesday afternoon the nurse calls to tell me that I am ready to trigger.  I will get detailed here.  The trigger shot is Ovid.ril.  You take this at a very specific time and you have the egg retrieval exactly 36 hours after.  This medication stimulates ovulation and helps to mature the eggs.  I was told to take the shot at 10pm and be at the clinic on the 4th of July at 830.

A 4th of July retrieval!  That sounded good to me.  Surely a holiday is a good day to make some babies...

Part one
Part two

Part four