Monitoring #: Too Many

I had my fourth consecutive monitoring appointment today. Several interesting things came out of it.

First, Amy the u/s tech is a lovely lady, but I will specifically request not to be seen by her in the future. It was another extremely painful u/s, which was bad. Worse, when I was done and asked about numbers, she said my lining was "almost to a 6". I told her I was disappointed that I'd regressed since yesterday's 6.18. At that point, she said, 'oh there were other measurements. One was 6.55, that was better, so we'll use that one.' And then she deleted the 5.85 she had and replaced it with the 6.55.

What. The. Fuck.

When DH and I called her on it, she said it was actually the better of the images she'd taken, so it was good. She also said "your lining can't get thinner, so it must be right."

Given that my estrogen dropped since yesterday, I have proof positive that she's wrong, but not much I can do now. I did have a long conversation giving feedback about this with the nurse when she called me with instructions later.  I don't know if it will help, but I was not going to let that pass by.

Next, I got the final ultrasound report from yesterday. Turns out that unlike Amy, who told us I was at 22 and 19 for follicles, the report showed 20.5 and 17. Which completely explains why they didn't trigger me. My irritation level is high.

So, the outcome is that I trigger tonight. Estrogen is dropping, lining probably is too. I may or may not have mature follicles (I really don't trust Amy's measurements).

18-Jul	AFC	9
	Day	4	7	8	9	10
	L follies	9.5, 8.5	15, 13.5	16, 14.5	17, 16, 10, 8	20, 18, 9, 9
	R follies	11	16	19	20.5	23
	E2	691	739	1232	1726	1634
	P4	0.1	0.1	0.21	0.36	0.55
	LH	1.58	3.03	6.2	11.54	11.25
	Lining	5.2 triple	5.6 triple	5.7 triple	6.18 triple	6.55/5.85 triple
	FSH	1000	1575	1850	2125	2350
	Menopur	300	600	675	750	825

For comparison, here was the twins' cycle two years ago this month. The difference in response is almost unbelievable.

16-Jul	AFC	9
	Day	4	7	8
	L follies	12.5, 8, 8	19.5, 13.6, 7	22, 18, 7, 4
	R follies	11, 9, 8.5	16.5, 15, 10, 8	18, 16, 10, 8
	E2	803	1294	1690
	P4	2.68	1.66	2.59
	LH	8.24 miu	1.03	0.76
	Lining	6.9 triple	6.9 triple	7.3 triple, cystic patches
	FSH	600	1050	1200
	Menopur		0	0

And the Hits Keep Coming

Today's monitoring was good! All three follicles are still growing, lining is up to 5.6 and trilaminar!

There's hope! There's hope for 3 mature and lining over 7! I up my estrace to 2x/day, and I go back again for more monitoring tomorrow, although that seems early to me. My utterly anal chart is below.

Unfortunately, that was the end of the good news. DH's sperm frag test came back.

Research shows that fragmentation above 27% is correlated to recurrent miscarriage. DH is at 30%.

Fuck.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fucking fuck.

So many thoughts. So many emotions. Resignation. Anger. Sadness. Fresh loss.

Now is not the moment I'm going to process it all. Now is the moment I'm going to go inject more FSH, shove a few more pills in uncomfortable places, and keep going. Now is the moment I'm going to grieve silently. Once this cycle is done, we'll figure out what comes next.

Thank you to everyone who has sent encouraging words and who has been cheering us on. At this moment, it means more than you can know.

Stim Day		7/16	2/17	12/17	2/18	18-May	7/18
	AFC	9 R=6; L=3	4 L = 2; R = 2	7	5 L=3;R=2	6 L=3; R=3	9 L=5; R=4
0	E2	49.1	18
	P4	1.81	0.31
4	L follies	12.5, 8, 8	6.5	12, 10.5	14, 11, 8.5	5, 4.5, 3	9.5, 8.5
	R follies	11, 9, 8.5	9.8	5, 3.5	7,4	5.5, 5, 4.5, 4	11, 5.5
	E2	803	585.5	188	622	725	691
	P4	2.68	0.07	<.05	0.07	<.05	0.1
	LH	8.24 miu	2.73	3.38	2.12	1.32	1.58
	Lining	6.9 triple	5.7, fluid	4 uniform	5.7 triple	4.97 triple	5.2 triple
	FSH	600	600	900	1100	1100	900
	Menopur		0	300	300	300	300
	Day	7	7	7	6	8	7
6 - 7	L follies	19.5, 13.6, 7	5	17.5, 16	16, 13.5, 9.5	3	15, 13.5
	R follies	16.5, 15, 10, 8	14, 9.5	6	9	9.5, 9.5	16
	E2	1294	432	718	1023	252	739
	P4	1.66	<.05	0.07	0.08	<.05	0.1
	LH	1.03	1.15	2.8	1.61	0.51	3.03
		6.9 triple	6.7	6 triple	7.77 mixed	5.2 triple	5.6 triple
	FSH	1050	1275	1575	1350	2300	1575
	Menopur		0	525	450	600	600