Hi Sara Q,

I was sorry to hear below your IVF got cancelled. I hope the next one goes much better. I don't know if Dr. Ch mentioned this to you, but Dr. Co hen mentioned it to me when I consulted with her that if you use ethinyl for mini-IVF and to prevent leads, usually they only expect to get 1-2 eggs. I was shocked when I heard this? I know for mini-IVF they aren't expecting tons of eggs, but it might be worth asking Dr. Ch about? If you want you can tell him you have another friend going to Cooper that was told this and see what he says? At any rate, I wanted to mention it since I know you were hoping for more eggs. I don't know if using another estrogen priming protocol would help, but Dr. Co hen did tell me that if you use estrace you can get more eggs with mini-IVF than using ethinyl. This whole thing was confusing to me; I never expect that I would ever get more than 1-2, so it's not a huge issue for me to use estrace vs. ethinyl, but I know you have gotten more eggs in the past so I just wanted to pass this along (and also to see if anyone else has ever been told this about using ethinyl? Which really makes no sense to me because it's in BCPs which are commonly used for supression anyway??)

I really hope your next cycle is better and that the immune protocol helps! I am eagerly watching for your updates on this! I had my follow-up consult with Dr. B and he apparently doesn't treat low LADS. Mine are also low like yours, so I am really curious to see if the LIT treatment helps you.

I hope you are okay and hanging in there! Hope to hear an update soon
Nancy

Thanks, Nancy, for posting this. This is quite interesting.

I, too, canceled my IVF cycle. I ended up with 1 follicle today at 19 mm and they wanted me to trigger tonight for retrieval on Saturday morning which I could not do.

The nurse said that I needed to do a consult with Dr. C. Apparently, I had 3 or 4 follicles around the same size on Tuesday morning (about 5 or 6 total). They were expecting a few more follicles this morning, but were surprised to see only one. I was on estinyl for about 2 or 3 days at the beginning of the cycle. And based on your post, I'm not sure why they were expecting more??

I would love to know more about this...

Hoping others chime in....

I'm so sorry that you had to cancel your cycle! It's such a terrible feeling. And what you are describing with having 3 or 4 follies around the same size one day and then only one biggie a couple of days later is EXACTLY what happened with me. One day I had 5, two days later, 1 (maybe 2, but the second was a lot smaller and no others seemed to grow at all.)

Did you take estinyl while taking stims? Check had me keep taking it the entire time to slow crazy-fast follicle growth and delay my ovulation so it wouldn't happen cd9 or 10 like it usually does....

Hope you are able to enjoy the weekend despite the setback.Thinking of you.

Hugs,
Sara Q

Hi Nancy (and MargieD),

Thanks so much for your messages - I'm so sorry it's taken me a few days to respond. I was trying to get a piece of writing that was left over from an old job out of the way so I could concentrate on my dissertation completely, so I wasn't checking the board. (I tend to be very one-minded sometimes...lol. Not always helpful with IVF..

What Dr. Co.hen said is very interesting. The night we canceled the IVF I did actually talk to Dr. Ch.eck about this as well - sort of. He basically said that I could cancel if I wanted to, but that with one or potentially 2 good eggs they wouldn't cancel me and that the most he was hoping for was 3 to 4 on this protocol. He also said, "You've gotten 10 eggs before, but that didn't work, did it? We're trying for quality instead of quantity in this situation." I did ask again about the estinyl, however, and he didn't really say that there was a difference between an estrace and estinyl protocol, which I guess is a little weird. I am taking estrace in the luteal phase this time around though, since we ended up doing TI for this cycle and you can't take estinyl in the luteal phase, so we'll see what happens. I am supposed to switch to taking estinyl if (when!) I get a negative beta. Check did seem concerned, though, that not taking estinyl for very long might not prevent an early ovulation, which has been a consistent problem for me and estinyl seemed to seemed to help with. But estinyl was supposed to prevent a lead follicle as well and it obviously didn't do that....so we'll just wait and see. That's basically what Check said.

Not very informative and more than a little frustrating, I'm afraid. I'll try again to talk to him about (because that's me..) but I got the sense that Check was kind of annoyed with me. I can be kind of annoying when it comes to this...lol. I basically said I was about ready to give up and he said, "But we just started." I said something like, "Dude, I've been doing this for nearly 3 years and have had 4 IVFs." And he said, "But you just started here. Let's try to wipe the slate clean if possible."

So I'm trying...

How as the consult with Braver.man? Did he find anything other the low LADs?

Bra.verman actually called me on the phone a couple of weeks ago when I requested a consult, but DH wanted to wait a cycle to see if the LIT treatment and Lovenox from Alan Bee.r Center was enough to improve our chances. He does have a point - I'm always onto the next thing, probably because at this point I assume the current "thing" won't work...probably not a healthy or helpful stance, which I'm trying to work on. Positive visualization ladies, positive visualization.

Keep the faith ladies. Sending you good thoughts.

xoxo,
Sara