Ultrasounds

We started going in for ultrasounds to check the growth of the follicles on Monday August 8th. The original plan was to have the egg retrieval on Thursday or Friday and these ultrasounds would determine which day based on the size of the eggs. Because they can't actually see the eggs, only the follicles, the way they determine whether they are mature is how big the follicles are. The follicles can grow anywhere from 1-3mm per day. Usually they are mature when they are anywhere from 18-22mm. On Monday they expect ed them to be around 16 mm. Our ultrasound on Monday showed that they were on the small side, there were two at 12 mm, 2 at 11mm, and 10 under 10 mm. They knew at this point that we would most likely not be ready for egg retrieval on Thursday or Friday but possibly on Sunday. They told us at that point if we went past Sunday the percentages of a live birth go down. Dr. Johnstone decided to do another ultrasound on Wednesday to make sure they were still growing. With each ultrasound we became more confident that we would have the retrieval on Sunday. John would also have his biopsy on Sunday about an hour before my procedure. That way we would have the freshest eggs and sperm possible. The goal was to have at lease 10 eggs matured, but the ultrasounds on Wednesday and Thursday seem as though we would probably only get about 6 mature eggs, but they could never tell for sure until they got the eggs out. When they do the egg retrieval they take out as many eggs as they can, but they can only fertilize the eggs if they are mature. Our final ultrasound on Friday told us that although we didn't have the goal of 10 mature eggs, the ones that we did have looked as though they would be ready on Sunday. The last test before we did the HcG shot Friday night was the estrogen test. The estrogen test is the second test to ensure that the eggs are mature. They expect the estrogen level to be at least 200 for each mature egg. If the estrogen level is not that high it could mean that there is not an egg in every follicle or that the eggs are not healthy. They wanted my estrogen level to be 1500-4000. It came back at 917 This was the devastating point! Dr. Johnstone told us that we had a few choices. We could still go ahead and see what we get, we may only have a few eggs to work with. The problem with this is you usually lose a few eggs with each step. Not all of the eggs fertilize and some just don't make it. The second choice was to go an extra day and see if the estrogen levels increased. Or the last choice was to cancel our cycle and try again at a later time. If we decided to go ahead and it didn't work we would lose the whole $10,000 plus the cost of medication at about $2300. If we canceled they cycle we would just lose the cost of the medication plus the cost of the ultrasounds that we had done so far which is about $1000. They can either refund the rest of it or put it toward our next cycle. The doctor's recommendation was that we cancel and said that we could start our cycle again the next month. We decided to follow her advice. She put me on progesterone for two weeks to shrink my ovaries back down to normal size. My period should start within the next week after I stop taking it. I will start birth control on the first day of my period. I will take that for two weeks and then start the Lupron shots again.