CD6 Hell

Another 81 mile drive to Dr. Czech's office. It's my second blood run and ultrasound. So far all I'm on is 0.02mg of estinyl estradiol (EE2) a day. That's it.

Frighteningly simple cycle.

The ultrasound tech said I only had 1 follicle at 12mm. I freaked out. ONE? Wasn't there anything else. "Yeah, a couple small follicles too small to measure."

Me: "How many? Where?"

Her: "Two on each side".

OK, so a big one at 12mm on CD6, and two smaller ones on each ovary.

I dressed and went to the waiting room, sauntered up to the front desk, and said, "I need to talk to a nurse."

The receptionist said, "I"m not sure if anyone can talk to you for awhile" but go ahead and sit down and they'll call you. Not 5 minutes later I was called by Nurse M who walked me back to one of the other doctor's offices.

I told her, "I really don't understand what the strategy for my cycle IS at this point. The ultrasound tech said that I had one follicle. I am FORTY FIVE years old. 1 in 10 is normal at my age. If you guys are TRYING to just get one follicle I don't understand it."

I was shaking. Pissed.

She pulled out my CD3 bloodwork as it was still too soon for my CD6 work to be processed.

CD3:
FSH 15
E2 26 (my E2 has never been this low that I know of. Hmmm.)

My heart sunk seeing the FSH that high still. Apparently the endometrioma surgery that I did on June 30th really screwed up my ovaries. It hasn't touched 10 since then and right before the surgery it had consistently hovered around 7 or 8. Damned good for 45. But now it's gone to hell in a handbasket. I remember Dr. Italian warning me against the surgery for this reason and I turned him a deaf ear. My mistake. But I thought that the endometriomas would cause more damage as they grew and would slowly shut down my ovaries. Maybe this would have happened anyways?

Who the heck knows.

So Nurse M explained that the "follicle" on my ovary was not likely a follicle. Not with an E2 of 26 (value on CD3). Much too low to be a "functional follicle", more likely a cyst. She said that the other follicles that the US tech said were too small to measure were what they were going after.

OK. So why the hell did the US tech say that the big one at 12mm was "the follicle" and that the other ones were nothing to so small that she didn't measure them?

Holy crap.

You know, the same US tech did my scan in August when I cancelled myself due to having only two follicles...and know I find that she's completely inept? And I cancelled myself due to HER analysis of my US scan?

I am pissed ladies.

I truly love Dr. Czech, but this is reckless.

I was so upset that I was shaking as I spoke with Nurse M. SHAKING. I'm not the type of person that gets that emotionally flipped out. Pissed at crappy New Jersey drivers, yes. But to hear how screwed up things are with my US really gets to me.

Later this afternoon I got a call from Nurse J. She gave me the following CD6 values:

E2 18 (down from 26 on CD3)
FSH 6 (down from 15 on CD3)
P4 0.2
LH 3

Nurse J reaffirmed that the data seemed to show that the 12mm thing was a cyst, not a follicle. The protocol is to continue on with my EE2 until Monday morning, more bloodwork and another US to see if this cycle will kick off or not. Nurse J said that they need my E2 to rise to about 50 (some docs would say 75) or the cycle is over.

I guess that the EE2 that I am taking suppresses FSH, just like a high E2 value on CD3 can falsely lower a FSH value. OK. That worked. It went from 15 down to 6. Bravo.

But I'm not sure how the oral EE2 kickstarts my teeny tiny follicles into producing their own and getting the value up and over 50. Will have to go and read up on this a bit.

Guess I should have taken an endocrinology class when I was premed.

Sigh.

Rude Awakening

I went to bed with a terrible stomach ache. It's been a stomach ache that has been building for a week or so. I'm not sure what it was but last night it was pretty bad.

And then AF woke me up in the middle of the night. Usually I get a pretty good warning but not this time.

Thank god she's here. I wanted this fucking failed cycle to be OVER.

So now the question is whether I get my FSH tested to see if it's still elevated from the 2 back to back cycles...or if I just take an ENTIRE month off from "collecting data" and get ready for IVF#8 in 4 week's time.

I sorta want to know if the elevated FSH is persisting, but then I sorta don't want to know.

The scientist in me usually persists. So on Monday I'll probably zip over to Dr. Italian's at lunch to get a blood draw. (I'd go there because if I go to the other clinic they do their draws between 7 and 8AM and that's just too bloody early, pun intended, to get on a train on a Monday morning).

I do fully intend on leaving Dr. Italian's clinic though. I did like having him as a "fall back" clinic in the case that the other clinic cancels me for a cyst, but as we've proved, draining a cyst doesn't always work, neither does sclerotherapy for endometriomas. I feel that I would be more successful staying at the old clinic.

So, a potential blood test on Monday...then a month long wait in which I hope to get some of this steroid weight off.

Speaking of which, I can't tell you how affected I was by steroids these last two cycles. OMFG. Lupron is bad, but these little bad boys are a very close second.

I am thankful to be off of them. I finally feel a lot more like myself. I came "this close" to making some rather rash decisions while on 'roids these last two months. I am glad that it's over. For now.

CD4: WTF?

Day two of femara.

I got a call from my clinic with my cycle day 3 blood work.

So, as a preamble, just keep in mind that December 29, 2009, by FSH was a decent 9.7.

Yesterday, these were my values:

FSH 32.8
E2 46.39
bHCG 0
LH 7

FSH was THIRTY TWO POINT EIGHT?

You have got to be fucking kidding me!? WTF?

I wrote to Dr. Italian and his reply:

I think this maybe somewhat falsely elevated from recent cycling.
I would move ahead rather than lose a month.

SOMEWHAT falsely elevated? A 300% increase is SOMEWHAT ELEVATED?

Have any of you ladies heard of FSH values going through the roof when cycling back to back? This is the first I've seen it and I am totally freaked out.

What is really weird is that I definitely had antrals...maybe 5 or 6 of them in all. So potentially a better "looking" cycle this month, but the FSH readings make absolutely no sense.

I am baffled.

I start stims tomorrow. Do I dare waste potentially $8K worth of drugs?

Do I wait a month and risk getting another cyst?

I'm screwed no matter what I do.