Three Little Piggies

The results are in!  And we are so completely thrilled, thankful, feeling fortunate, feeling blessed and so excited.  Not one, not two, but THREE of our 5 blastocysts which were sent for PGS testing came back normal!!  With the frozen embryo we had from our first cycle, this absolutely and totally puts us exactly where we wanted to be in order to have a couple kids over the next few years.

We got 3 little piggies!
(cuz everyone loves chubby babies, right?!)

I can't think of better news to receive upon waking up at home on a lazy Saturday morning.  Hubby and I were able to read Dr. A's (very excited) email, review the test results and then leisurely, yet giddily discuss the timing for our frozen embryo transfer!  All the other "embryo update emails" I'd received the past week I had to share with him later at night since we were both at work during the day; so this was a treat.  We were so happy to have such great success and even happier to talk about what it means for us!

During our first cycle, when we got our PGS results from Dr. A - she asked us to come in for a consult and to be given the results in person.  I'm not sure if that's because we had more of a precarious result the first time (50% success: 1 of our 2 blastocysts was "normal"), and she therefore wanted to counsel us on next steps, chat about what we learned from the cycle and call out what was important to celebrate.  Or maybe it's just BECAUSE it was our first cycle and by our second cycle it was all old hat.  But regardless, for our 2nd cycle she emailed us our results immediately instead of asking us to come in to get them from her.  It's important to note that when you review the actual IVIGEN report, you see the genders of the normal and abnormal embryos.  I had speculated in my first cycle that it could be very difficult for some couples to see the gender of the abnormal embryos - it makes it seem like more of a loss to know the gender.  But for us, knowing the genders and feeling loss really wasn't an issue.  To us, an abnormal embryo is one we would not truly be able to rely on to give us a family and we were just happy to have the ability to avoid a potentially devastating situation.

So when we left off last time, we had just been pleasantly surprised with FIVE great looking blastocysts from our 7 fertilized eggs:

• 5AA (Hot Damn that's a good looking blast!)
• 3AB
• 2AA
• 2AB
• 6BB (but very small)

We were already tickled and just hoping to find out that 1-2 were chromosomally normal.  However, our results did us even better: THREE were normal!

The 5AA, 2AA and 2AB were all normal!  And that 5AA blast is a true beauty.  High scores and high expansion grade - Dr. A says the kid is going to Princeton.  ;)  Guess we better start $aving.  

3AB and 6BB had Trisomy 16 and Trisomy 20 abnormalities, respectively.  The cells in our bodies contain pairs of chromosomes.  23 pairs to be exact.  With a Trisomy abnormality, there are 3 copies of the particular chromosome instead of 2 (chromosome 16 and chromosome 20 in the case of our two embryos.)  Wikipedia tells me that Trisomy 16 is the most common trisomy leading to miscarriage.  We no want... and we are grateful for this information.

At this point int the process, we are happy.  Very happy.  Very, very happy.  No - we're not pregnant yet, but with 4 frozen embryos we have a very, very good shot at becoming pregnant and having a couple of kids.  And that's all I've ever wanted.

The next step of the journey is of course embryo transfer.  We will have the 5AA, 5BB (from cycle 1), 2AA and 2AB to select from, but Dr. A is advising the 5AA because it looks so dang good!  She thinks at least 85-90% chance of success with that one!  And the same goes for the 2AA and 2AB as well.  Our 5BB is rounding at about 70% chance of success - all of them look great, overall.

I promise I will come back and update when we start down the transfer path - but right now it's looking like we'll be waiting until April/May due to some travel plans we've had on the calendar.  Plus I'd also like to try to avoid having a Christmas or New Years baby - I've heard many complaints from 2 good friends with December birthdays and it's just something I'd rather not do to my kid if I can help it...  And we CAN help it!  We can keep our little piggies on ice and thaw them out when the time is right for us (which is the truly great part of all of of this!)  

Please feel free to continue to leave comments as I will absolutely receive them, read them and appreciate them!  Thanks so much to all of you for your thoughts & prayers, sweet comments, happy wishes and for even just stopping to say hello.  I started this blog to keep track of this process for myself - but the idea that I've helped even one person along their own IVF journey makes me so happy.  Don't worry, I'll be back!!  (no really, I WILL!)

We have blast off!

Get it?!  "Blast" off?!

This is an IVF blog, so I am of course referring to our blastocysts which resulted from my egg retrieval and fertilization last week.

On Day 5 after egg retrieval, we started getting a different kind of report.  No more information on the cells and the grade, but instead since the embryos were becoming blastocysts, we were getting information on where they were in their overall development and expansion:

• 1 - Blastocoel cavity less than half the volume of the embryo
• 2 - Blastocoel cavity more than half the volume of the embryo
• 3 - Full blastocyst, cavity completely filling the embryo
• 4 - Expanded blastocyst, cavity larger than the embryo, with thinning of the shell
• 5 - Hatching out of the shell
• 6 - Hatched out of the shell

and then scores on the Inner Cell Mass which is the part of the blast that becomes the fetus:

• A - Many cells, tightly packed
• B - Several cells, loosely grouped
• C - Very few cells

and finally, scores on the Trophectoderm which is the part of the blast that becomes the placenta:

• A - Many cells, forming a cohesive layer
• B - Few cells, forming a loose epithelium
• C - Very few large cells

This is called the Gardner blastocyst grading system.  Here's a great page to help explain better.  So at this stage we started seeing embryos/blastocysts being labeled things like 2BC and 4AB and 5AA, following the grading you see above.

Early yesterday morning I got an email from Dr. A who sounded so hesitantly excited (yes, my RE gets excited for us - LOVE THAT!)  She gave me the extremely awesome news that our 5 embryos had all turned into "beautiful blastocysts" which could ALL meet biopsy criteria.  Meeting biopsy criteria basically means that they grow to expansion grade 2 or higher.  They can be biopsied for the PGS testing we're doing at this stage!  That means they're all totally viable blasts!!  OMG my nerves (which were so stressed all weekend knowing this was likely the last IVF round we could do at this time) could finally relax!

Whew!

The report you see below, for Day 5 was the stage they were at very early in the morning yesterday.

Day 5 (1/21) - early morning

Tracking 5 embryos!

Embryo Count	Blast Expansion Grade	Inner Cell Mass Score	Trophectoderm Score
1	2 (5)	B	B
1	1	A	A
2	1	A	B
1	1	B	B
1	1	0	C

The numbers don't look incredibly impressive (1's & 2's) but they were expanding rapidly at this point.  The 2(5) meant that it was currently an expansion grade 2, but with assisted hatching (which is done as part of the PGS process) was starting to expand and hatch to a 5.  By the afternoon, a total of 4 had reached blastocyst stage, which meant they were biopsied and frozen on Day 5! (you can see their gradings in the Day 6 table, below).  Remember in my Day 3 update we had 5 potentially promising embryos, but Dr. A had given 3 of them only a 25% chance of becoming blasts.  25% chance and we got blasts out of all of them?  I mean - maybe we should get some lottery tickets up in here?!

Day 6 (1/22)

Tracking 5 embryos!

Embryo Count	Blast Expansion Grade	Inner Cell Mass Score	Trophectoderm Score	Freeze/ Biopsy Day
1	5	A	A	5
1	3	A	B	5
1	2	A	A	5
1	2	B	B	5
1	6	B	B	6

Blown away.  I mean seriously?!  We had 7 eggs fertilize successfully and we ended up with 5 viable blastocysts?!  We totally beat those 50% odds!  ESPECIALLY me with my elevated FSH levels!  Now the whole way through this process I've been very understated in my celebrating.  The true celebration is only when we're holding a live baby in our arms... But IVF is such a roller coaster and there are so many steps and hurdles along the way that even though we're not at the end of the journey yet - this is definitely cause for a mini celebration.  :)  Even Dr. A can't quite believe it.  She said she doesn't even see that level of blast development with her egg donors!  Woohoo I beat you this round, you 22 year-old egg donors!!  :P

We're not quite sure what happened, either.  Just a lucky cycle?  The growth hormone I took (which I also took in cycle 1...)?  Doubling my meds?  The fact that I gave the "kids" a pep talk every time I happened to pass the fertility clinic?  The blowing on dandelions, fertility dances, crossing our fingers and throwing coins in fountains?  Maybe all of the above...

But we're not done yet.  We now have to wait for the PGS results to come back, hopefully by early next week.  That will truly tell us where we are and how many embryos we have to work with.  And then we can start planning for a transfer and hope that our selected blast will implant.

I'm not totally sure how robust the blasts with Expansion grade 2 are, plus there's a note from the embryologist that our 6BB is "very small" so perhaps it won't perform.  But man - this is all such great news, overall.  Having 5 to sort through and send for PGS = amazingly better than having 2!

I'll be back shortly with our PGS results, but after that I'm not sure how long a break I'll be taking from the blog.  We haven't yet decided on when to attempt our first transfer.  There's some travel we may want to fit in along with trying to avoid having a "Holidays Baby" (Thanksgiving through New Years).  So there may be very little to update on - but I'll definitely keep you all posted as and when things happen!

8 Eggs!

Last time 6 eggs, this time 8 eggs.  That could totally mean the difference in 1 additional embryo to freeze so while it's not 20 eggs or even 15 - we are VERY PLEASED.  We were expecting 6-7, so to get 8 is awesome.

Awesome!

Maybe I should take back a little bit of the "doubling my meds didn't really seem to help all that much" talk.  Maybe it did, maybe it didn't.  Maybe there's sometimes no rhyme or reason as to why IVF is more or less successful from 1 cycle to another.  That latter statement is probably the truest.  But regardless, we're happy.  We're feeling much closer to being able to schedule a transfer now than we were back in November.  Thank goodness we weren't always dreaming of having 5-6 kids!  Or this could go on forever...

My retrieval went just exactly as planned.  I gave a good recap during my first IVF cycle so if you'd like - go ahead and read that.  It's just about EXACTLY how Thursday went down minus the goofy drugged out comments (I tried very hard to keep it together) and the grocery-store run afterwards (I bought all needed groceries the day before, just in case!)  The day after retrieval I actually felt far better than I did last time too.  Just a bit of spotting for a couple days, but almost no gas-pains.

Now we wait.  This is the hard part (well, a lot of it is hard parts...)  I get nervous each morning I see an email from Dr. A - but I want that email SO BADLY too!

For those of you who've gone through this, maybe you have had similar morning thought routines in the week after an egg retrieval.  It kinda goes like this:

"Oh Gawd oh gawd there's an email... Oh YES it's from Dr. A!  Oh no, wait - CRAP it's from Dr. A... Is it good?  is it bad?  Should I open it?  Maybe I don't want to open it.  OK I'm gonna open it!!  Down 1 embryo from yesterday, but all the rest are excellent.  NOOooooOOOooo!!!  Oh, wait - I  guess I can handle that...  Yesssssssss!  We're in good position.  We still have X more.  But NOooOOoo down 1?!!  No...we're okay.  Think positively!  But wait... does that mean we'll only have X to freeze?  Maybe I should Google more stats on success with X-number of frozen embryos.  It's okay that I did the same Google search yesterday and some of the info freaked me out!  I take it all with a grain of salt - right?  Yes, I'm totally in control of my over-active imagination.  Okay, okay - we'll be fine; this is fine.  Wait I just read remembered some scary stats I read, maybe it's not fine.  Oh but hmm - we proved those stats wrong last cycle..." and all of this runs through my head in the timeframe of about 1.5 seconds.

So if you feel this same way - you're definitely not alone.

For an explanation on embryo grading I like this page.  This is also a good page, but their grading is backwards from the grading that was done for our embryos.  (For us, the lower the number, the better.)  As these fertilized eggs, aka. cleavage stage embryos age, they will have a grade and a cell count and that's the report we would get each day.  The grading refers to the even-ness of the cells size and lack of fragmentation (the more even-ness and less fragmentation, the better, and the lower the grade #).  We also want to see the number of cells increase each day from ~2 cells in the first day to ~8 by the 3rd day.  We would get these daily reports along this grading scale for the first 3 days.  Day 4 there is no report because they are morulas and Day 5 the report/rating changes since they are (hopefully) blastocysts by then.

Our First 3 Daily Reports

Day 1 (Day after retrieval):
Tracking 7 embryos!

Embryo Count	Cells Count	Grading
7	NA	NA

7 of our 8 mature eggs fertilized which was great news.  At this point, we continue to be 2 up from our previous round - so that's way better than being 2 behind the first round!  No quality report yet today - we'll start seeing quality tomorrow.

Day 2 (1/18):
Tracking 6 embryos!

Embryo Count	Cells Count	Grading
3	4	1
2	4	2
1	5	2
1	1	5

Dr. A is feeling good about what we're seeing here.  1 of the embryos stopped growing and dividing well (the 1 cell/grade 5) so we'll stop counting on that one.  But the others look great and Dr. A feels that they're all high pregnancy potential and we're in good position to have more than 1 normal as a result of this IVF round - that's exactly what we're hoping for.  With our 1 frozen embryo now, we'd really like 1-2 more, to feel confident about having 2 children.

Day 3 (1/19):
Tracking 5 embryos!

Embryo Count	Cells Count	Grading
2	8	1.5
3	8	3
1	6	3
1	5	3

This is mixed news for us.  Of course we're SO happy to see the 2-8 cell/grade 1.5 embryos.  Dr. A is very confident we'll get blastocysts out of those 2 - which keeps us exactly on track with last cycle.  There's maybe a 25% chance that any of those 3-8 cell/grade 3 embryos would develop into a blast though.  Hey, 25% is 25%.  You just never know what might happen over the next couple days.  But typically you'd want your embryos to be graded between 1-2.5 at this stage.  The 5&6 cell/grade 3 embryos aren't going to come through for us (we'd stopped counting on one of them, yesterday already).  One thing that surprised me however, is if you compare the Day 2-3 tables, that 1 cell/grade 5 embryo grew all the way to a 5 cell/grade 3 overnight.  Still probably won't come through for us, but it's encouraging to see even the "bad" ones are fighters!

We take tomorrow off since on Day 4, the embryos are morulas and going through compaction which makes it very difficult to grade, so the day is skipped and we pick up where we left off on Day 5 with the start of blastocyst grading reports (a different grading system than above).

By the way, fun IVF fact: did you know that a morula (Day 4 embryo) is called that because at this stage it resembles a mulberry?  (in Latin, morus means mulberry)

Happy Mulberry Day!

Similar progress this time around

We're tracking just about exactly the same as we were the first time around.  That's good because we got 1 normal, great looking embryo out of our first IVF cycle.  But it's also a little bit of a bummer to us since we were trying double the medications in order to try for MORE than 1 embryo out of this second cycle.  But it goes to show you that sometimes the body is going to do what the body is going to do.

"Don't bother me, I'm doing what I'm doing"

I'm making good progress though - meaning my eggs are maturing (as usual, some faster than others) and my estrogen levels are looking good.  We're going to be triggering tonight which is Day 8 of Stimulation - a day earlier than we thought (and a day earlier than last cycle).

It seems my trigger snuck up on me so quickly during our last cycle and then we were thrust immediately into tracking embryos, so I never had a chance to discuss what the doctor is looking for when she gets ready to stop Stimulation and trigger you for retrieval.  You can also read about what doctors are watching for during a cycle here.  It's a balance of these items:

• progesterone levels - should not go above 2, once they get close, it's time to trigger
• endometrial lining - during Stimulation it will thicken and should be triamilar (show 3 lines on the ultrasound), but as it thickens and as the progesterone levels rise as it gets closer to ovulation, it will change
• egg maturity - if some eggs are ready but others aren't, you don't want to keep pushing the others and potentially lose or "over-mature" the ones that were ready

So really the body will only go as far as it will go and you can't push it anymore to (in our case) get the rest of the follicles to full maturity.

My Specs from this Stimulation:

Baseline (taken 3 days before Stimulation):
Right Ovary: 4 (antral follicle count)
Left Ovary: 12 (antral follicle count)
Estrogen (Estradiol) Level: 40.7 pg/ml

Day 5 Stimulation:
Right Ovary: 4 follicles (1 worth tracking:) 9.5mm, rest very small
Left Ovary:  13 follicles (8 worth tracking:) 4mm, 14mm, 12.5mm, 12.5mm, 9mm, 7.5mm, 8.5mm, 8.5mm, 8mm, 4mm, rest very small
Estrogen (Estradiol) Level: 354 pg/ml
Endometrium (uterine lining): 7.7mm trilaminar

Day 7 Stimulation:
Right Ovary: 4 follicles (1 worth tracking:) 9mm, 6mm, 3.5mm
Left Ovary: 12 follicles (6 worth tracking:) 6mm, 7mm, 12mm, 10mm, 9mm, 16mm, 10.5mm, 5.5mm, 18.5mm, 15mm, 6, 6mm
Estrogen (Estradiol) Level: 1094 pg/ml
Progesterone: .6 ng/ml
Endometrium (uterine lining): 11mm trilaminar

Day 8 Stimulation (today!):
Right Ovary: 3 follicles: 13mm, 15mm, 11mm
Left Ovary: 11 follilces: 7.5mm, 20mm, 13mm, 19mm, 20mm, 14mm, 11.5mm, 8mm, 16mm, 8.5mm, 8mm
Estrogen (Estradiol) Level: 1399 pg/mL
Progesterone: .7 ng/ml
Endometrium (uterine lining): 11.7mm trilaminar

Hoping for 6-7 mature eggs this time.

I don't care if they're pretty - just want as many as we can get!

Dr. A has explained that the "saturation" point for these medications has repeatedly been proven to be 300 IUs per day.  Meaning, you can try to give someone more, but most of the time they're going to react the same as if you gave them 300 IUs.  Last cycle I was on 150 IUs of Follistim and 2 vials (75 IUs each) of Menopur daily.  That equals 300 IUs.  This time I'm on 300 IUs of Follistim and 4 vials of Menopur per day.  That equals 600 IUs.

Now take a look at my Day 8 Stimulation this cycle compared to Day 8 last cycle:

Day 8 Stimulation NOVEMBER (300 IUs) IVF Cycle:
Right Ovary: 9mm, 7mm, 19.5mm, 15mm, 18mm, 9mm, 11mm, 17mm, 8mm, 8mm
Left Ovary: 14.5mm, 11mm, 11.5mm, 17mm
Estrogen (Estradiol) Level: 1300 pg/mL
Endometrium (uterine lining): 10mm trilaminar

Day 8 Stimulation JANUARY (600 IUs) IVF Cycle:
Right Ovary: 13mm, 15mm, 11mm
Left Ovary: 7.5mm, 20mm, 13mm, 19mm, 20mm, 14mm, 11.5mm, 8mm, 16mm, 8.5mm, 8mm
Estrogen (Estradiol) Level: 1399 pg/mL
Endometrium (uterine lining): 11.7mm trilaminar

It's almost identical.  The additional medicine won't hurt anything (other than my wallet!) and sometimes it DOES work to improve the results in some women.  But not too commonly...

So that's where we are.  Very hopeful for mature eggs - as many as we can get!

Here we go again!

New Year, New IVF Cycle.  Round #2 to be exact!

It's Day 6 of our 2nd IVF cycle.  It's probably not too surprising but this time around is so NOT a big deal.  I guess all the anticipation and presence of mind got used up with our first round.  This cycle - even though I'm on double the meds as our first time (I'll get into that) and taking shots twice a day (I'll get into that too) it's just very much not a big deal.  I guess that's good!  Except for the night Hubby was caught up in the office and totally forgot about our injection timing.  At least he still made it in the door about 15 minutes after we typically do the nightly shots.  Yah, definitely NOT taking over his thoughts, is it?

Our protocol is a little different this time.  You may recall (ok if anyone actually recalls that, then I might be a little worried about you) the last time I was on:

• 150 IUs of Follistim
• 2 vials of Menopur (+ Omnitrope every other night + Ganirelix nightly halfway through)

per night - all mixed together in 1 shot.

This time, because I had so few side effects (if barely any at all) and we'd like to try and get more than 6 mature eggs this time (6 is definitely on the lower side), Dr. A is trying me on double what we did in November:

• 300 IUs of Follistim
• 4 vials of Menopur (+ Omnitrope every other night + Ganirelix nightly halfway through)

But since it's kind of a lot of drugs to take all at once, we're doing the Menopur at night and the Follistim in the morning.  It makes each injection a tad simpler to prepare, but also means we have to make time for shots twice a day.

We're very hopeful that we'll get more mature eggs this time though!  It seems to be a better month for me since my antral follicle count was 16 total (4-right, 12-left).  In November it was 9 total (4-right, 5-left).  Dr. A seems pretty confident that we're going to get another chromosomally normal embryo.  I sure hope so...in fact, um... is it too greedy that I really hope we get 2?  Or ideally - 3?!  With our 1 good embryo on ice, and knowing that we definitely want 2 children (and might like an option to have a 3rd), then I'd REALLY REALLY like to have 4 frozen embryos before we attempt a transfer.  With the costs as they are, even with some insurance coverage - I'm afraid we will not be able to afford another round of IVF after this 2nd one.  So my fingers are going to be permanently crossed for the next couple weeks!  But I always remind myself of how lucky we are to have what we have at this point.  We do feel SO fortunate.

Feeling happy.  Feeling fortunate.

We started Stimulation last Tuesday night - 1/7.  It all seemed oddly familiar - yet I'm not totally sure I'll ever get used to the idea of mixing drugs and administering injections in my living room.  But such is this life we're living right now!  Because 1 of my follicles was pretty large even at my baseline ultrasound (~13mm) Dr. A had me take a Ganirelix injection along with our first night of Menopur and Omnitrope.  Last cycle I didn't start the Ganirelix until night 6 since it is used to hold off ovulation and that becomes more of a risk as your follicles get bigger and more mature.  But after that first night this cycle, we didn't see the Ganirelix again until night 5.

The morning shots were obviously new for us and definitely more annoying and inconvenient since we're quite a lot busier in the mornings.  But, what I didn't learn last time, since we never injected the Follistim directly into my belly but always mixed it into a Menopur vial, is that the Follistim pen is RIDICULOUSLY easy to administer.  The needle is even shorter and thinner than the 1/2" injecting needle we use with the other meds.

It again has taken some days to notice any bloating (um, but I did notice a 2 pound weight gain which is SO UNFAIR right after the holidays!!)  But here we are on Day 6 and I can definitely tell there's some bloating going on.  Not a bad feeling, just feeling...fat.  :-|

One difference between this cycle and last is I've noticed feeling a lot drowsier in the first half of Stimulation than I felt last time.  Looking back to November - I definitely started getting very drowsy (needed to take short afternoon naps) starting around Day 5 or 6.  But the first day after we started shots last week I felt like a zombie at work!  Dr. A attributed it to the surge in estrogen in my body - it can cause what she calls a "foggy" feeling but also drowsiness and sometimes headaches.  The drowsiness has gotten somewhat better since Day 2, but it's definitely vaguely noticeable.

Sleepy...

I had my 5-Day Ultrasound yesterday so allow me to share the specs with you like I did last time:

Baseline (taken 3 days before Stimulation):
Right Ovary: 4 (antral follicle count)
Left Ovary: 12 (antral follicle count)
Estrogen (Estradiol) Level: 40.7 pg/ml

Day 5 Stimulation:
Right Ovary: 4 follicles (1 worth tracking:) 9.5mm, rest very small
Left Ovary:  13 follicles (8 worth tracking:) 4mm, 14mm, 12.5mm, 12.5mm, 9mm, 7.5mm, 8.5mm, 8.5mm, 8mm, 4mm, rest very small
Estrogen (Estradiol) Level: 354 pg/ml
Endometrium (uterine lining): 7.7mm trilaminar

I'll again refer back to my original Day 5 Ultrasound for a little explanation for you: the baseline is taken before Stimulation begins.  At that point, they do an antral follicle count to see how many follicles there are.  I had 16 total, but you'll notice that by Day 5 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 are hiding at the baseline.  We're waiting for as many follicles as we can, to grow to larger than 18mm which would indicate a more mature egg.

We also track my estrogen levels since that tells us how well the follicles/eggs are maturing.  At baseline you want estrogen levels to be under 70 pg/ml to know that your ovaries are "resting" but by Day 5 you'd like to see a level of 150 pg/ml or higher.  The higher, the better, since it means that the eggs are maturing.  A mature egg secretes ~100 pg/ml of estrogen so you want to see these numbers climb higher and higher as Stimulation continues.

I have to say that I was hoping to see larger follicles at this point compared to my last cycle, since we doubled up on the meds.  If you compare my Day 5 specs this cycle with Day 5 last cycle, we're actually tracking 1 less follicle right now.  But there are still 4-5 more days to see what changes.  And another comment Dr. A made is that it's not a bad thing that I seem to be responding a little slower since it means she can push me longer.  Kinda like how slow and steady wins the race...

Slow and steady...slow and steady...

Obviously my play-by-plays aren't as thorough through this IVF cycle as they were in our first.  The experience is less novel now.  That's right, we're becoming jaded IVF patients... ;)  So if this is your first visit here and you'd like more info on the day-to-day happenings during an IVF cycle, I'd suggest you start here for an intro or here for the first day of Stimulation.

But if you just want to keep knowing what we're up to...follow along!  And thank you to those leaving comments and well wishes.  I wish any and all of you who are going down a similar path, the exact same good luck and well wishes you've sent our way.

Good Luck to all of you too!