Friday, October 17, 2008

I am really pregnant

  • 1st Beta was on October 15th. Came back with Beta #1 @454 w/ progesterone 32.
  • 2nd Beta was on October 17th. Came back with Beta #2 @ 1080
  • 3rd Beta was on October 24th. Came back with Beta #3 @ 17,858 w/ progestrone 27.7
  • 4th Beta was on October 30th. Came back with Beta #4 @ 62, 600 progestone at 49.4

    These are very good numbers. I am so excited. :-)

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Updates

I haven’t done any posting in awhile, but overall, I had great follies, retrieval and transfer.

Second ultrasound with Dr. Zouves
My 2nd Ultrasound went very well. My little follies on my left side were between 15 to 17.5 now. My little follies on my right side grew between 17 to 19. Total of 15 follies My lining went up to 12mm. My eggs retrieval will be in two days and transfer in 7 days.

Retrieval Day
Today is Sunday Morning, the day of retrieval. I was pretty nervous and excited.

I was in the waiting room outside lobby of Dr. Zouves office, glazing and staring out at the chinese cementery that was accross from his office. There were so many people on that sunday morning, coming out and praying for their ancestors. It was so peaceful and pleasent looking at all those people and thinking about spirits of their loves ones. I am also asain, and I believe in ancestory spirits alot. I was thinking and was praying for the ancestors to help me make my IVF successfully. Hopefully, they can hear me and grant my prayers.

I had never been under anesthesia and I dont know how it felt like to be under it. Also, will the retrieval hurts and will I be in pain. Well, it felt like a walk in the park. While inside the surgery room, I asked the anesthesia doctor how long it would take for me to be knocked out and the next thing I remembered, I closed my eye and was dreaming.

Suddenly, I woke up and it was 1 1/2 hour later, and the nurse said I am done. I was still in shocked and surprised. I love it. 15 minutes later, Dr. Zouves came by and told me he had retrieved a total of 15 follies and they all looked really good. He will call me for their status prior to the transfer.

Embryo Transfer Report
Dr. Zouves nurse called me that I have a total of 15 follies, 14 were mature and 11 were fertilized. Those are good numbers, which means that I might get a good set of grade A embryos.


Day of Transfer (7 days later)
On the day of transfer, Dr. Zouves called us in to give us an update on our selection. He told us that we have 3 best Grade A blast, and 1 best grade A mature, 3 grade B, and 3 grade C after 5 days blasts.
He suggested transfer only 2 best grades A and freeze 1 one first and once the other become mature, then freeze it after.
That sounds good to me!

Thursday, September 25, 2008

First UltraSound with Dr. Zouves

Today is my first ultrasound to check my little follies. Usually, when I injected myself with hMG, I felt the follies growing everyday, but somehow this time, I didnt feel a thing in my ovaries area except last night when I felt a little ache on the right side. I had started the FSH/hMG injection 7 days ago.

Every night, I mixed 3 FSH (bravelle) and 1 hMG (Menupur) with 1 Unit of liquid Sodium, then injected in my abdominal area routinely back and forth each night.

This morning, I was at Dr. Zouves office, taking NKA, Estrodial and Prolactin blood tests, while my dear hubby had to produce backup soldiers. After that we had the ultrasound, and the Dr. Zouves said that I have

1. Tilt uterious which he had told me before

2. 8 Follies size 11-13 mm on the right side

3. 7 follies between 10-11 mm on the left side.

4. 9 mm of lining and he said that was good


Although the follies looked good, but Dr. Zouves had to increase my hmG because the follies are still a little small for next week retrieval. So he up it up to 3 FSH (bravelle) and 2 hmG (menupur) for 3 days. I will be back on Sunday for a 2nd ultrasound and a 50% chance of retrieval on Tuesday or Wednesday then implementation after that.

Experience with AETNA Insurance -
I was a little sad that my follies were still small, but I am ready to inject myself for 3 more days. I told the nurse to prescribe my meds at the same location where I had order my medicines before (Disco Rex/Walgreen) in Palo Alto, CA. When I drove by to pick it up, the pharmacist shocked me with a big bill on my medications. He told me the insurance is not paying for it this time. I didnt get it so I called my Aetna Pharmaceutical specialist. They told me that my special meds needed to be order through them, and not through the original pharmacy. I was bum, and told them to prescribe it for me. I had to called Dr. Zouves office and requested the office to faxed my prescription to AETNA for refill. To my surprise, AETNA got to it right away. Hopefully, my med will be sent in time for my continuous injections.

This evening, Zouves nurse called me and told me that some of my blood tests came back:
1. 1087 for Estrodial
2. 13 for Prolactin
She said that it looks good for the amount of my follies, but I have to continue my injections for 3 days.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Acupunture for Fertility

During my first session in consultation with Dr. Zouves. He knows I have PCOS and also believe that I have "Natural Killer Cell", and recommended that I should start on acupuncture sessions to help suppress the Natural Killer Cell.
Since I did went through acupuncture before, and it didnt helped at all, but since it looks like he knows what he was talking about. I decided to give it a chance and start on another acuputunture session with the doctor he recommended. Out of the list, I picked "ROBIN HAYES" in Milpitas C.A. She focused on Infertility treatment Via acupuncture and it looks like she she has a few postings on the web.
I am very impressed with Robin. She is very professional and good at what she was doing. She told me that I do have natural killer cells by testing some strength resistance on my arms. She gave me a small bottle of liquid is says "natural killer cell", asked me to hold it on one hand and on the other arm tried to resist her strength when she pushed down. Dont know what but that was really weak. So she did the same without the bottles and my arm was strong again.
It was a very interesting concept to figure out if i do actually have natural killer cells or not.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Humira Injection

I have done many menopur injections in the last year and I dont think starting on a humira injection would give me fears. Man was I wrong, it took me almost 15 minutes to put myself together and be more confident in poking myself with a needle. I mean I skipped the last two months on injections due to my 4CM cyst, but starting over again should be no problems for me. For some reason, I was so fear of stucking a needle right onto my stomach area. I told myself it would sting a little, but that was it.


Tips: If you dont want bruises, poke it in slowly & push the needle to the end of the tip, then push the liquid slowly into your body. It will sting a lot, but at the end you wont bleed and bruise.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Finally created a blog

Well Well, finally I decided to create a blog about my journey through my Infertility experiences.
I am married to the my perfect husband in '05 and also fortunately is loved by his whole family. I think I am the luckiest person in the whole world to be married into such loving, caring and devoting family.


After we got married, we decided to start a family of our own, since his parents wanted a grand kid to cuddle and care for. We tried for 2 years, and I finally got pregnant in January '07. Unfortunately, after I found out I was pregnant; I lose it 5 weeks later for no unknown reasons.
Ever since, we tried and tried to conceive again, we did it naturally, and also went through infertility treatments. That included, 8 IUI's with Femora, Clamed and Manipur injections with no positive results.


It was devastating and heartbroken. Every time, I found out it was negative, my heart sunk and I cried until my husband comfort me which he always do. (luv that hubby)
I felt like my body is rejecting the implementation, but I dont know how to express it to my infertility doctor. So I made up my mind and went to a different doctor for a 2nd opinion on my infertility problems.


With many nights of researching and reading many blogs about infertility, I decided to select one of this well known doctor. Dr. Zouves from Daly City.