Knowing that we had to track my hormones for a month before we could do IVF, I decided to do that right away so we would know if there was anything going on in my body that we needed to take care of. And thus began the tracking month.
Hormone Tracking Month
So.... This was all me. For a whole month, they follow your cycle.
Day 1 - You call and make your Day 3 appointment
Day 2 - You wait
Day 3 - They do blood work and an internal ultrasound where they look to see how many follicles you have on each ovary. They also did our cystic fibrosis blood work at this appointment.
They also tell you no sex or exercise for the next week.
I had about 20 follicles between the 2 sides that looked good.
My hormones came back. The normal range is less then 50 for estrogen (I was 25.8) and for FSH (Follicle Stimulating Hormone) normal is less then 10 (I was 8.01).
Day 4 - Day 11 - You wait
Day 12 - 9 days after Day 3, they do another internal ultrasound to see how the follicles have progressed.
I had 5-6 follicles ready to go on the right side at 8 and 10 mm.
Day 15 - Another internal ultrasound.
My follicles were 10 and 18 mm. Goal is 20 mm or greater.
There is usually one more ultrasound to see when my follicles reached optimal size, but I had a business trip, so that did not happen. I used ovulation predictor urination sticks to guess when I ovulated to tell the nurses.
I learned that my progesterone from the Day 12 blood work was low. It is supposed to be above 15 and mine was not.
If you want to read more about my reaction to that meeting, you can read it here.
They are also looking for how many follicles are in the ovaries. If there are more then 12 follicles in an ovary, that means you could be susceptible to polycystic ovarian syndrome. This is something that they would watch for because the drugs they give you for IVF would effect it.
There needs to be more then 15 mature follicles total.
And! They finally told us that there are over 110 different cystic fibrosis genes. And both sets have to match perfectly. By the way, I do NOT have the gene. 1 less thing we have to think about.
So! Between knowing what Thomas is dealing with and knowing what I am dealing with, we know that the next step for us is IVF. And the next step in IVF is schedules.
Ours were crazy and it took us months to get it in the books.
But here it is. The Stages of InVitro Fertilization.
Day 1 - You call and make your Day 3 appointment
Day 2 - You wait
Day 3 - They do blood work and an internal ultrasound where they look to see how many follicles you have on each ovary. They also did our cystic fibrosis blood work at this appointment.
They also tell you no sex or exercise for the next week.
I had about 20 follicles between the 2 sides that looked good.
My hormones came back. The normal range is less then 50 for estrogen (I was 25.8) and for FSH (Follicle Stimulating Hormone) normal is less then 10 (I was 8.01).
Day 4 - Day 11 - You wait
Day 12 - 9 days after Day 3, they do another internal ultrasound to see how the follicles have progressed.
I had 5-6 follicles ready to go on the right side at 8 and 10 mm.
Day 15 - Another internal ultrasound.
My follicles were 10 and 18 mm. Goal is 20 mm or greater.
There is usually one more ultrasound to see when my follicles reached optimal size, but I had a business trip, so that did not happen. I used ovulation predictor urination sticks to guess when I ovulated to tell the nurses.
I learned that my progesterone from the Day 12 blood work was low. It is supposed to be above 15 and mine was not.
If you want to read more about my reaction to that meeting, you can read it here.
They are also looking for how many follicles are in the ovaries. If there are more then 12 follicles in an ovary, that means you could be susceptible to polycystic ovarian syndrome. This is something that they would watch for because the drugs they give you for IVF would effect it.
There needs to be more then 15 mature follicles total.
And! They finally told us that there are over 110 different cystic fibrosis genes. And both sets have to match perfectly. By the way, I do NOT have the gene. 1 less thing we have to think about.
So! Between knowing what Thomas is dealing with and knowing what I am dealing with, we know that the next step for us is IVF. And the next step in IVF is schedules.
Ours were crazy and it took us months to get it in the books.
But here it is. The Stages of InVitro Fertilization.
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