Ramp Up Aggressiveness with Follistim

 

Sunday

I left a beach trip early to get Sunday monitoring and received a call in the afternoon saying that my estrogen levels went up to 32 (less than 10 increase) so they wanted me to return again Tuesday to do blood work and u/s again. Seeing as they want to see my estrogen at 180 (estrogen increase signals start of process), I asked to speak with a physician about starting fsh injectables. Of course, the doc called back in the 2 seconds my car was turning on the Bluetooth so I missed the call and because it was the weekend, I could not call back. The voice-mail told me to come in again the next morning to do blood work and u/s again then I could talk to the doc.

Monday

We got up early and drove to the fertility clinic without an appointment prepared to wait for a turn. I wanted to talk to the doc first before messing around with more blood and ultrasounds. After not too long of a wait, we got to talk to the doc! She was amazed by how many follicles I have (80, it was like she never saw so many before) and thought it was very reasonable to move onto FSH injections since I haven't responded to clomid or femara.

She will start me today with a low dose *50iu) of Follistim injectable since I have sooo many follicles and my chance of cancelling the cycle is high if too many follicles respond. They want only one follicle to grow or else it would be a high risk of multiples. (When doing ivf, they give you a lot because they want to mature a lot of eggs for harvesting) So, it will be monitored every few days and my husband will inject me each night with FSH. The doc said usually patients have to do it for 5-7 days, but she has one patient now who has been doing it for 30!

Still have to go through blood and another u/s today and wait on the results (make sure estrogen level didn't jump up or follicle grew 7mm over night) but I have the injectables laying next to a cold pack from the pharmacy below the clinic in my purse now!

Before we left, the nurse showed my husband and I how to use the syringes. Basically, you just pinch an inch of your stomach and inject.

Monday Night Follistim

 After getting blood work back, my estrogen dropped to 25... really low. And no follicles grew. Got the go ahead to start with 50 iu shots for 3 nights. Headed back Thursday for another ultrasound and more blood work. My husband gave me the shot and it wasn't as bad as either of us feared. Felt less than the sting of a mosquito. Injection of hope.  I'd like to think of it that way.

Praying for only one follicle to grow! Just one special little gift.