3 on board

Today was transfer day. Full bladder I laid on the table and waited for the transfer crew to arrive. Dr. Indian wasn't there but I had the nice Italian or Spanish doctor that did my retrieval.

He said they had two embryos of very good quality to transfer (my heart literally did backflips with the words "very good"). I asked what happened to the 3rd. He said it only had 5 cells but I said "Let's just put it back. No sense freezing it or anything." And so they agreed. All 3 went back in.

Stats:
2 8-celled embryos, grade BB (very little or no fragmentation!! Yay!!!)
1 5-celled embryo, unknown grade

I told the doc I'd done an ultra low carb diet for two months prior to this cycle and he said that there is an insulin pathway in oogenesis that might have been helped in my case by cutting out carbs. I think it's the same path/reason that they put PCOS patients on metformin. I've always wondered if I was a wee bit PCOS because I used to make loads of follicles and I've got excessive chin hair (which is really odd since I'm blond). I'm not heavy, but I'm not svelte either at 5'10" and 170 lbs (I'm usually 155 - 160 but I'm carrying loads of steroid weight from these last 4 cycles that I've done since October, oy!)

Off to ride the couch for the day. I hope they're firmly planted in that uterus of mine and snuggling in for the next 8-8.5 months!

Aching OvariesDay Before Retrieval

I triggered last night at 10:30PM, on the nose. Dr. Indian's office prefers a trigger to the hip (my least favorite shot to do to myself) which didn't make me at all happy.

This morning my ovaries are hurting like m*ther f*ckers. OMG. I have six on the left and none on the right, but the right side is hurting more than the left. WTF? All I know is that I cannot wait for them to take these things out of me. I also don't know how I am going to walk the half mile to the train to get to the clinic in the AM with this much discomfort. It's like the sensation of ice picks in my sides, on both sides, that never goes away.

Pain aside, I feel like there's some catching up to do since I've been away. I've been on a really low carb diet this cycle. Two reasons: I gained a shitload of weight since October and, secondly, I read that spikes in insulin can screw up egg quality. I figured that doing the low carb thing would help me lose weight and might actually help with egg quality. Not that my egg quality has been sucky (as far as we know), but I haven't had really fragmented looking embryos so I haven't had reason to be largely concerned. Yes, my eggs are probably screwed to high hell due to my age, but it's not keeping them from doing all the right things.

Mostly I've cut out sugar, flours, and high glycemic fruits and veggies. It doesn't leave much. Seriously. I've been eating meat/chicken (my flock back in California would shudder) and dairy (I'm allergic but I don't seem to be having any physical reactions). There was a diet study out of Harvard that I cited in a previous blogpost that mentioned how full fat dairy seemed to be very positively correlated to fertility success. So, full fat yogurt is has been for the last month or so.

I've really stirred up my usual dietary routine this cycle. No telling if it will do anything, but I've got six on the left side, so I am hoping it's portentous of good things to come.