Ready, Set Go! No, Stop!

My first egg retrieval was on Wednesday. The nurse told me to expect cycle day 1 in 4-14 days. I went home, felt fine the next day but pretty yuck by Friday. I also started bleeding on Friday. That's 2 days post ER, for those keeping track at home.

Despite the fact that it seemed way too early for CD1, I called it in. They told me that since I did a luteal phase stim cycle, it was entirely possible that this was CD1. If so, at first they said I'd do a long testosterone prime, and then after checking with the Dr, they wanted me to start stimming for my next cycle on Sunday. I got this call at 1:45 pm on Friday, and scrambled for the next four hours to get meds ordered and the cycle authorization submitted. 

By Saturday I was still feeling pretty rough. (Side note: a fringe benefit of DOR really ought to be super easy ER recovery. Why is this not the case?!) The four pounds of water weight I'd put on in a day were gone, but my right side hurt and my digestive system was all kinds of messed up. Still, I went for a suppression check. I figured they wouldn't bring me in if there was no chance of proceeding.

My right ovary is a hot mess. Six cysts. No antral follicles anywhere. So, back to the testosterone priming plan. They're also adding in estrogen priming. I have mixed feelings about that. Our first esrogen priming attempt, which also included cetrotide priming, ended in no response. We cancelled and I mentally wrote off the thousands of dollars I paid in OOP costs. The next cycle was testosterone primed, but I also had multiple estrogen producing cysts. In fact, my E2 level was higher at suppression check in attempt #2 than in my estrogen primed attempt #1! And my ovaries responded. So it seems I can do just fine on estrogen priming. I will push back and refuse any cetrotide priming this cycle, if they suggest it. And I will hope that the E/T priming will work again. As always, it's just one grand science experiment.