Good News and Rockin' CM

I have some good news!

I responded well to the 225 dose of Menopur and have five mature follicles!  Well, one of them is on the small side at 15mm, but the rest are 17-21mm.  I self-administered the trigger shot right there around 10:30am in the doctor's office.  S and I will be back there bright and early tomorrow morning - he will do his part at 8:15 and I'll close with the IUI at 10:15.  Maybe we'll have breakfast in SF in between appointments.

This cycle has been different than my other injectable cycles in so many ways:  first, I actually had to have two monitoring appointments before triggering, whereas I've only gotten to one in the past before my follicles ballooned up.  Second, I had follicles growing and keeping pace on both ovaries, when previously I had the synchronization problem and ended up triggering with only a couple of them mature.  Third, I'm doing the IUI on day 11... I'll have to go back and look, but I think that's at least a day or two later than previously.   Soooo, fingers crossed.

The other odd thing I wanted to share - which really may be TMI, and I will not be offended if you tune out now - is that, for the first time ever, I had the experience of egg-white CM literally "falling out" of me!  I had read about this in books but never experienced it.  On Tuesday night, as I was getting dressed after showering, I felt something, reached down, and caught it.  Yep, the stringy, egg-white stuff.  Crazy!  I was told it's presence is simply due to increased estrogen from multiple follicles, but, despite this scientific explanation, it still seems like a good sign.  S and I BD'd that night and Thursday night for good measure, so I guess it went to a small bit of use.  Does anyone know if CM matters at all with IUIs?  I'm thinking no... maybe just that my estrogen level is good?

Anyway, hope you all have a good weekend.  It's getting hot here; at least hot for Nor-Cal.

p.s. Congratulations to Jenny at Sprout!!!  Her and J's little guy, Seamus, has finally arrived!  Please send good thoughts that his jaundice resolves very soon.

On the other side...

Writing this post from the other side.  Another IUI on the books.  Outcome yet unknown.

Everything went as well as it could have, I would say.  I went for the ultrasound Monday, still not having seen my LH surge.  The doctor saw two dominant follicles, one on the right and one on the left, and one smaller.  Measurements were 23 and 26mm, definitely triggerable size.  There is a chance that the one on the left was the cyst, which had grown some.  The doc thought it was likely new, though.  I gave myself the trigger shot that night at 11pm, having still not seen a surge.  IUI scheduled for Wednesday morning.

It was going to be at 11am, but I had a lunch meeting scheduled with a group of my birth mom's high school girlfriends, which was important to me and I wanted to try and make if I could (I will share about that visit in another post).  The fertility center was kind enough to move my appointment up to 10am and S was kind enough to get into the office to make his deposit an hour earlier, at 8am.  Thanks, baby!  He was so nervous about the whole thing, it was endearing.  Maybe I'm jaded after have done several of these.

I did get a little nervous the morning of the IUI... part of the reason is the importance of timing in a natural cycle.  S had to be on time, or else my procedure could be delayed.  I had to be on time or it might be detrimental to the sample.  We never saw each other, but our actions were very coordinated and interdependent!  We texted back and forth the whole morning.

The IUI went like clockwork.  I was told the doc I had trained most of the ObGyns in the East Bay.  I wouldn't be surprised because it was the quickest, most efficient IUI I've ever received.  Before the procedure, they made me look at the vial three times.  For some reason, I didn't want to see it!  I kept thinking, "Just get it inside of me!" lol  It was such a small amount, too, I was surprised.  I guess they separate out the swimmers from the fluid, so it reduces down a lot.  They told me that the numbers were great (120 million, and they want a minimum of 20 million) and that S gets an "A."  I told him, and he obviously felt good about it. :-)

I have a question for those of you who have had IUIs: Did they encourage you to lie down for a while afterwards?  I did with all my other IUIs, but at this place, they didn't seem to give much value to this practice at all.  He was like, "You can stay for a few minutes if you want, but if you have somewhere to be..."  I didn't actually end up staying too long but it was at least five or 10 minutes.

As I'm writing this, I just remembered I have to take my first progesterone pill tonight.  I'm not looking forward to the side effects, but I know mine has been low so I'm happy to have the help.  Here's hoping!

Ready

I did the trigger shot about 9:30 tonight. It felt really real as I was doing that.  I dropped off the donor vial at the doctor's today, as well.  I'm all set for the IUI Thursday morning.

I read an interesting RE blog article today that talked about follicle size and when to trigger, and it validated my plan. Basically said that if the lead follicle is 16 or 17mm and there are smaller ones to keep doing the medication for another day or two and then trigger.  Here is a direct quote:

"What if instead of the average 11-12 days it takes to grow the follicles, they are of the right size after only 6 days or 8 days?
If the size is good, but it seems early, we usually go at least one more day that we normally would, maybe 2. If it’s day 9 and the follicles are 19-20 mm, it really sounds ok to give hCG. If it’s day 7 (so 5-6 days of FSH injections), and the follicles are 17-18 mm, more time would probably be a good idea."

Yay!

UPDATE:  I wanted to add that my doctor also felt this plan was the right one and concurred that synching up referred to maturing follicles.  Apparently he said he thought my response was pretty good.  But this was relayed through the nurse, and I look forward to touching base with him later today on the phone.