Happy Easter!

Well I am sorry it has taken me a while to post. I have been busy this week doing various things. Monday I went to Harrisburg, PA to help my father and his wife with their adoption from China. Then I went on Wednesday to New York City to finish that up. On Tuesday and Thursday I had more monitoring for my current cycle. Yesterday, Friday, I was waiting for my meds to come for my IVF cycle.

I thought that I would take a picture of this so you can all see what is involved in it. HPIM1801As you can see there is quite a bit too it. Some of these meds are stored in the refrigerator and others are not. They came from 2 companies and I wasn’t sure who was supplying the needles and syringes so I asked for them from both. I also asked for a sharps container from both too. Good thing too since I don’t think that the small one will hold all of the needles and syringes for this whole cycle! The two boxes they came in were 1 lbs. and 12 lbs. in weight. Last time I only had a 7 lbs. box so you can imagine that this is quite a bit more meds then last time with the IUI with injectable cycle.
The meds that I am taking are the following:
I am currently on (these are not pictured):
Vitamin E
Vitamin C
Fish Oil
DuetDHA
Avandia (which I will stop at the ER)

Meds I will be taking that I got Friday:
Lupron (link will direct you to the generic Leuprolide)
Gonal-F
Repronex
Medrol (Link will take you to the generic site)
Doxycycline
Prometrium and Progesterone in Oil These are 2 drugs with two delivery methods but the same ingredients. The Prometrium is oral and the Progesterone in Oil is injected.

Now it has come to my attention that perhaps I should go into some of the things that they can do when doing IVF. These are “ad on’s” if you will. None of which I believe we will be doing this cycle however there is a chance that we will have them done should this cycle not work.

Assisted Hatching – “The assisted hatching procedure involves thinning or making a small hole in the zona pellucida that surrounds the embryo (a protective layer). There some evidence that assisted hatching may improve implantation rate. Before an embryo implant into the uterus it must hatch from the zona pellucida. There is some evidence that in some women the zona becomes toughened, restricting the embryo to hatch. Making a small hole in the zona using a micromanipulation, this may make it easier for hatching to occur.”

ICSI or intracytoplasmic sperm injection – This is basically when the sperm is injected directly into the egg.

Finally there is PGD or Preimplantation genetic diagnosis – This is when the embryo has a cell taken from it so it can be tested for a number of different things. Normally this is done if chromosomal problems are suspected or detected. This can also tell the gender of the embryo.

This is all the news I have for now. Hope all is well with everyone!
Jennifer