IVF #1, Day 1

Yesterday, I had my baseline appointment with Dr. Abdalluh. I had blood drawn to check my estrogen levels to make sure the birth control pills I've been on for the past 1.5 months sufficiently suppressed my cycle. I had an ultrasound to check my ovaries for cysts (none) and antral follicle count, which was 4 on each side. This is a little low, but expected since we already know I have DOR. So, it means that most likely the maximum number of eggs, and therefore embryos, we can expect is 8.

I also brought my big box of meds in to sort through with one of the nurses. She labeled everything and went over how to mix and inject the menopur since it comes in powder form. There are a seriously scary amount of needles in that box...

Later in the afternoon I got a call that my estrogen was at 44.8 and my cycle was a go!


So, this morning, I started my very aggressive Antagonist protocol. I'm on the maximum medication doses, in the hopes that enough eggs stimulate to give us a few good embryos. My daily medication routine will now be the following:

• 3 Asacol pills 3x/day (to keep my ulcerative colitis in remission)
• 1 synthroid pill (for my hypothyroidism)
• 1 labetalol pill 3x/day (for high blood pressure)
• 1 baby aspirin (to prevent blood clotting)
• 1 medrol pill (steroid to keep my immune system from rejecting the embryos)
• 1 prenatal vitamin pill + 1 DHA pill
• 300 iu Follistim injection 2x/day (stim med)
• 150 iu Menopur injection (stim med)
• 1 Lovenox injection (blood thinner)

So, that's a grand total of 17 pills and 4 injections a day for the next 10 days. At some point I will add a couple of injections of Ganirelix to prevent ovulation, and then an injection of Ovidrel to make me ovulate. If all goes well, the egg retrieval will be done around November 22 and the embryo transfer will be 3 - 5 days later.


Chad helped me with the injections tonight. He managed to stab his finger with the giant 3" long needle used for mixing up the menopur. Whoops. Once we got him bandaged up, he gave me my three nightly injections. Hopefully tomorrow night we both remember to get the air bubbles out first. Ouch. :-/

Keep your fingers crossed that my body responds well to all of this!!