Friday 13 March 2015

Day 4 and counting

Today is my cycle's day 4, which means second day of stimulation. The money has been paid, my shame has been thrown out of the window and my body has 6 new puncture marks. Yesterday I went to the clinic for my first day of appointments, paid for some of the medicines (more of this ahead) and the IVF cycle (so many zero's in my credit card!), had the ultrasounds and got poked and probed.

I am getting 300 units of Gonal F and 75 units of Bravelle a day, full on throttle. In my IUIs I had 75 units of Gonal F only, and got upped to 150 units at one point when I wasn't performing up to expectations (shame on me!). So now I'm getting headaches that I didn't expect, but still not crying, so yeay me! I had had two blood tests and 3 ultrasounds, but I haven't looked at the results from today. The good news is that my FSH (follicle-stimulating hormone) went from 10.6 last cycle to 6 this cycle!! Ten or more is not good, it means you won't produce too many eggs and you might have DOR (Diminished Ovarian Reserve), so going back down to 6 makes me extremely happy.

Money wise I'm incredibly happy. Even though we had to pay so much money for the IVF, we were expecting it. The drugs on the other hand can get out of hand. My nurse had offered to send a letter to the pharmaceutical companies to see if they could give me some of the medicines for free. This would have never crossed my mind, and I welcomed the offer in a second. Yesterday I got the run down of the medicines and got a bunch free! So I already know I'm saving $1K in medicines thanks to the donations from the companies and my fabulous nurse :)

One thousand may not seem as much when you are spending that much money, but we are talking our savings here! Even $100 is a very appreciated gesture. At work they are also helping us. I had a debt that I was slowing paying from the loan they gave us for the first 2 IUIs and they waved it! Basically we had 1 and a half IUIs for free, plus the 75% third IUI they paid, so we have been very blessed with "small" debts in our pursue of a little bundle of joy.

How am I taking this cycle? One day at a time. Even the thought of making decisions of what to do with our frozen embryos (filling out forms by Monday) is a little overwhelming. We had already decided most of it before hand since I knew it was coming, but I'm still undecided if we would want to donate embryos to other couples if the situation arises. Otherwise I have my acupuncture appointments set-up, my counselling appointments every week, and my friends and family in standby and help mode ON. My road ahead today is to end today in a good note, hopefully without a headache and being able to go to the gym, and going to my next appointment tomorrow bright and early. Small expectations, Big progress.

No comments:

Post a Comment