IVF#4 - Moment of Panic

Well more like all morning panic!

I was comparing my 4 cycles and the size of my follies jumped out at me. In my past 3 IVFs, my follicle size didn't reach 8mm until Day 4 of stims. With this IVF, I'm at 8mm before even starting stims. The difference being no suppression drugs before stims.

My cd2 u/s was only 12hrs after AF arrived, which means that I was really not even into cd2 yet. I was concerned about this as women with high fsh have a tendency to start recruiting follicles before cd1, which obviously has happened here. If you remember, I was very concerned about not doing BCPs or EPP to prevent this.

Where the panic set in was that it's very important to start the antagon injections to prevent ovulation when the lead follicle gets to 14mm. Supposedly follicles grow 2mm/day. If that is true, then my 8mm follie could be 18mm by time I have my first monitoring appt on day 5 of stims. While it may very well grow slower than that (I hope!), that is a huge risk to take when spending this kind of dough.

I emailed my IVF nurse my concerns. She called back and said that while my follies were larger than they are used to seeing at this stage, they felt it would be fine. She said that my E2 is low which means that these follies aren't producing much. I asked if she was sure that I would be fine to wait until day 5, of course they can't guarantee anything, so it was more of an I'm pretty sure you'll be fine. She said I could do an u/s & b/w early but I would have to pay for it, around $600+ I believe.

My voice got shakey on the phone and I let her know how stressed out I was. She said that is the worst thing I could be doing right now. I told her that I was trying not to, but that there is so much on the line here. Then the tears started rolling. She felt bad and said she'd put it up for review.

She called back later and said she talked to Dr. Surrey and that he wasn't concerned but that if I wanted to do a day 4 u/s & b/w, he was fine with that. So that's what we're going to do, and they aren't going to charge us. Whew! I feel soooo much better!

We now officially have monitoring appts scheduled every day from day 4 to day 11. Some of those may be cancelled if they see I'm doing well, but I don't know how my arm is going to handle all those blood draws every day. My right arm is out of commission for awhile, so let's hope the left one doesn't blow.

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Answering some of your questions...

DAVs - The hotel we snagged for so cheap was the Hyatt Place Tech Center South. This is the same hotel we had for our one-day workup and we loved it. If you do name your own price on Priceline for 3-stars, Denver Tech Center South area only and $40, I bet you get it! We got it 2 out of 2 tries.

Lyndsay - Yes, my arm does look like an elbow on both sides, LOL. The photo is of my inner arm where they draw blood. It's a little sore but nothing near what it looks like. I could feel my fingers again after several hours. Stims are going well. I can feel more symptoms than I do when suppressed. I'm cloudy headed and have a headache. The injections themselves are a piece of cake.
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Back to packing... leaving for Denver very early in the morning.