5 Day ultrasound

Yay, it's working!

The first big checkpoint during IVF Stimulation is the midpoint ultrasound, around day 4-5.  It's the first time seeing the doctor after starting Stimulation.  For me, it was yesterday morning.  And thankfully - everything looked great.  Like I've mentioned before - Dr. A is a very optimistic and positive thinking doctor.  She delivers all news with a smile and an attitude that's like "everything is awesome!"  So it's sometimes hard for me to gauge if things are just okay or actually better than expected.  Her reaction to my ultrasound seemed to be somewhere around ever-so-slightly better than we were expecting (??) so I'm feeling pretty positive about that!

My Specs

Baseline (taken 1-2 days before Stimulation):

• Right Ovary: 4 (antral follicle count)
• Left Ovary: 5 (antral follicle count)
• Estrogen (Estradiol) Level: 33 pg/ml

Day 5 Stimulation:

• Right Ovary: 6 follicles (4 worth tracking:) 12.5mm, 13.5mm, 12mm, 9mm
• Left Ovary:  7 follicles (6 worth tracking:) 7mm, 8mm, 6mm, 5mm, 12.5mm, 12mm
• Estrogen (Estradiol) Level: 330 pg/ml
• Endometrium (uterine lining): 6.4mm trilaminar

To decipher this a bit - a baseline is taken before meds are started.  At that point, they do an antral follicle count to see how many follicles there are.  I had 9 total, but you'll notice yesterday there were more than that first day.  It's not because more follicles develop, but that with everything starting to mature and grow, you can see more than before.  Some of them were hiding at the baseline.  We're waiting for the follicles to grow to larger than 18mm which would indicate a more mature egg.  Dr. A is hoping to get 6-8 mature eggs from these 10 we're tracking.  She said this is all excellent and exactly what we want to see.  Sweet!

She went on to call my estrogen levels "awesome" stating that a level of 150 pg/ml would be considered appropriate for yesterday and anything higher is great.  Well great!  This is all... GREAT!!  

We're supposed to stay the course tonight (injections-wise) and add Ganirelix tomorrow, which will help to hold off my ovulating too early.

Overall I'm still feeling very good.  I think I'm feeling more bloated, but I'm not sure if it’s really bloating or the few pounds I've gained from backing off on the running the last few months (man, the sacrifices we make for our kids – before we even HAVE them!)

About halfway through and so far so good!