Lowering the OHSS Risk

Another day, another frustrating development in this seemingly hopeless IVF cycle.

I spoke to my fertility specialist today. She rang to confirm the freeze-all and to answer a few questions that I had, which I appreciated. After egg retrieval, they will freeze any viable embryos that have fertilised on Day 1. No growing them out, no freezing at blastocyst stage - just bunches of early embryos. Apparently this is because the early embryos are stronger when it comes to thawing and re-freezing, but it worries me a little. At least with blasties, you know only the good ones have made it this far. The problem I can see with the Day 1 embryos, is that we could potentially lose most/all of them when they're growing them out at the time of transfer. Frustrating.

So once I have retrieval, I should get a period within 7-10 days thanks to the Lucrin trigger. That next cycle, which will be December, is a mandatory rest cycle, so no transfer. My FS has told me to go ahead and take Letrozole/Femara days 3-7 that month, to make sure that I ovulate and that it's a relatively short cycle. It's basically a month of 'just see what happens trying yourself' - ha, yeah, right! And then pigs flew out of my butt-crack. Then after my NEXT period, I can ring them and start the ball rolling for a FET in January. January! It feels like a million years away.

She also let me know that she's worried I will hyper-stimulate. Not because of my follicles going too crazy (they only saw 14 after all, which is well within normal range) but because of the fact that the E2 jumped from 686 to 8407 in just three days. As such, I had to drive back down to the clinic at lunch time today to collect an alternate trigger. Instead of the Ovidrel hcg trigger, I'm now taking a Lucrin trigger. She said this should keep me out of OHSS territory, so I'm happy she was looking out for me.

So the trigger is tonight at 10.30pm, and then I have one more day to wait - joy! Egg retrieval is booked for lunchtime on Thursday. All of our hopes lie in some good quality, mature eggs being retrieved - and a bunch would be nice, since we're freezing them all.

This is the only thing I have left to hope for, since everything else has been taken away... so please, please, PLEASE universe, give us a good haul. I'm desperate for our future baby to be inside one of these {very uncomfortable} follicles!