7 Day Post Surgery

It’s no surprise that I was planning to do a second round for IVF. My surgery was last Tuesday and let me tell you, the recovery this time around has been rougher. A few things happened during this round:

1. I peaked faster, meaning my estrogen was much higher on my first visit to the clinic then the first time by over 400
2. My follicles grew faster, but my estrogen was higher than my follicle count so I had to change the dosage of gonal-f towards the end.
3. I only had to go to the clinic twice before my surgery, versus four times

In terms of my results:

• Egg retrieval: 15 eggs, same as last time
• Mature eggs: 15 eggs, last time I had 12
• Fertilized eggs: 12 eggs, so much better than last time. Last time only 3 eggs fertilized. It’s clear that the pills my husband has been taking have worked because the quality was much better
• Embryos: 4, these are the eggs that made it to a frozen state

This means we have 5 embryos total that are frozen. I have a follow-up appointment with my doctor on the 26th to see about doing a 3rd round of IVF. It may sound like I’m addicted to the surgery or something, but trust me I’m not. Especially after recovering this time around. It’s been rough.

For the 3rd round of IVF we are going to go PGS (preimplantation genetic screening). This potentially lowers the risk of implanting abnormal embryos. We didn’t want to do it before because they do take a few cells off the egg during the process and we were concerned about whether that takes away or doesn’t. Maybe there are studies out there that would argue it doesn’t and is fine, but who knows definitively? This is a popular option so we are in a backup line until end of August.