Ho hum

We've had progress on the TTC front, folks, but it's modest progress. Since going off the Metformin, my estradiol (i.e., the estrogen produced by growing follicles) is increasing by nearly twice each day...it was 98 on Sunday, 185 on Tuesday, 316 yesterday, and we're awaiting today's result. This is good. (You want 200-400 per follicle at trigger shot time...)

The follicles have grown, too, but not as fast as we would like despite astonishingly high doses of hormones. Today I had 5 measurable ones (and a couple not worth bothering with), but only 3 that will likely amount to anything: a 17mm, a 16mm and a 15mm (the others were a 9 and an 8).

Dr. M. actually said, "Ho hum," as he finished the ultrasound.

The plan is to go back tomorrow for another ultrasound and more blood work, and possibly Saturday, too. He thinks I'll have two more days of drugs. I'm not sure whether that would mean retrieval Monday or Tuesday now. I'll know more tomorrow. What we know for sure is things can change quickly, so monitoring daily now is essential. God forbid those follies reach size without us catching it and my stubborn body ovulate on its own, which would be a huge waste of money and time, especially since we those eggs would go unfertilized (we have to "save up" Paul's contribution until retrieval day now).

Curious, I asked how my estradiol level increase compares to the previous three stim cycles. This is the best so far,so that's good. (But, oh, if that's due to me being off the Metformin?! Why I oughta...)

Feb. 2011 (36yo): peak 1300 (6 mature-sized follies but only 2 eggs retrieved)

May 2011 (37yo): peak 863 (stupid low!) (ovulated 5 follies post-trigger for IUI, the two biggest were over 20mm, so definitely mature). No wonder he's so shocked we conceived twins that cycle. Jeez.

December 2011 (37yo): he didn't tell me the level, but said it wasn't rising as well as my current cycle. That cycle resulted in a BFN after stimming for longer than ever before.

I still feel hopeful. Obviously, I was hoping we'd have more improvement than this, but it is what it is. So long as we still have three good follies at trigger we're still ok for IVF. Heck, maybe those two laggers will exceed 13mm by retrieval and give us a little better odds. Stranger things have happened. We'll just have to wait and see.