Gonal F, Cetrotide, Lupron, OH MY!

There’s nothing really fun about poking yourself several times a day with needles, BUT I fortunately only had to do two day injections and then one additional injection the day of our egg retrieval. Due to the fact I’ve already done injections (trigger/hcg) for previous non-invasive fertility treatments, I felt like I was a pro, but nope, I wasn’t exactly the pro I thought I was. Luckily, Taylor administered the injections daily (have I already said how awesome he is?) so I thankfully didn’t have to inject them myself! Yay!  The injections I was on for the antagonist protocol: Gonal F-225 (used to grow the follicles), Cetrotide (used to prevent ovulation) and Lupron (used as a trigger to release all follicles).  During the stimming process which took 13 days, I had total of 3 ultrasounds.  The first ultrasound known as a baseline ultrasound was to make sure there were no cysts, fibroids and to obtain an afc (antra-follicular count/essentially, how many follicles there are prior to any medications). The second ultrasound was to check progression of my follicles.  This ultrasound showed I had a total of 23 follicles ranging 15-18mm (specialists like to see follicles at least 18mm+ in which indicates maturity).  I still had some follicles needing to catch up with the others, so I continued stimming medications for 2 more days and returned to our reproductive endocrinologist’s office for another ultrasound.  This ultrasound showed all my follicles were up to par and I was ready to inject with the Lupron and have our egg retrieval procedure 2 days later. The day prior to our egg retrieval and the day of, I felt as if my ovaries were literally going to fall out, I was in so much pain!

Egg Retrieval Day!

The day of our egg retrieval as stated previously, I felt as if my ovaries were going to fall out.  I was hooked up to an IVF and we spoke with our embryologist and signed paperwork. We of course also met with our nurses and the anesthesiologist and RE(reproductive endocrinologist).  Once in the procedure room, I chatted a bit with the anesthesiologist and nurse (oh how I love the staff!) for a bit while everything got set up and before I knew it I was out.  After the procedure I was taken to the prep area and was able to relax and wake up a bit.  We found out prior to leaving that we 23 eggs were retrieved! The days after were filled with healing up, as I was in a great deal of pain as well as updates from our embryologist. The day after egg retrieval, we were notified that out of 23 eggs retrieved, 20 were fertilized.  On day 3, 19 were still growing appropriately.  On day 5, we were notified that 8 made it to the blastocyst stage and were frozen.  On day 6, we were notified that 5 more made it to blastocyst stage and were also frozen, giving us a total of 13 embryos! 13!! Words can’t explain how blessed, amazed and just in awe we were of how smooth everything went! The 5 + years of trying to conceive, led us to an amazing 13 embryos we made, waiting for us!!

Xoxo

Sajae’