Cycle Day 13 Update

Whew! It’s been a busy/stressful last couple of days. We had major training at work on a new system that was recently implemented. I swear, I was so tired by the time I got home, I could barely keep my eyes open! Glad the weekend is almost here, I need a break!

I had my B/W and U/S this morning. B/W looked good…no LH surge, still high on estrogen but that is to be expected during this time of the month, and also from the supplements I’ve been taking to try and thicken up my lining. A different RE did my U/S today (good thing I’m not shy about who sees my “lady goods,” geez louise!) I got both good and bad news. The good news is that I do NOT have any cysts! I could have sworn I had a cyst, but he thinks that my left ovary is just painful while it is producing follicles. I have two very large follicles on the left ovary, and multiple small ones, so that is why I am feeling so much pain! Ouch!! I guess that would be a good pain, but still…..ouch! So, that leads me into my other good news….I do have two large follies ready to go! I also had multiple small ones on the right ovary. The bad news is that my lining is still thin. He really thinks that the clomid is causing my lining to be thin, even with the estrogen supplements….it is still too thin. He said that even though I have plenty of estrogen in my blood stream, the clomid is taking up all of my estrogen receptors, so they cannot bind and do their job (oh the chemistry of it all!!) He does think we should follow through with the cycle and IUI this month, since the follicles are there. But, we are going to give it one more day in the hopes of my lining thickening up. I am praying and crossing my fingers that it miraculously thickens up! I’ll be getting the hCG trigger shot tomorrow evening, and then IUI on Sunday morning.

I spoke to him about what we should do if this cycle is a failure; he is recommending a drug called letrozole. I’ve heard both good and bad about this. The bad is that it tends not to give as many follicles as the clomid, but it shouldn’t cause my lining to be thin like the clomid does, so I wouldn’t have to do the estrogen supplements with it (not that that is helping anyway!) So, I think after this cycle we are going to try one or two cycles of letrozole before moving onto the menopur injectables.

So, I guess at this point it’s really just a waiting game. I’m not super optimistic about this cycle, but I also know that I need to follow through with it since the follicles are there, and there is that small chance that my lining will thicken up and the cycle will be successful. But, I still have my eye on future cycles with new drugs.

We still haven’t decided yet what we are going to do about our insurance. We are going to call two other insurance companies that hubby’s job offers benefits through and see if they cover IVF treatment. I wish there were two more months left in this year so we could do two rounds of letrozole and two rounds of menopur with our current insurance before we switch. If we switch, then I’d have to do a few menopur cycles with a new RE. Which I guess is fine, but it would set us back since they will require a lot of testing over again before moving onto the treatment. So, more waiting……