Hellobee Boards

@jaguar: yay!! looks perfect!

anyone highly caffeine dependent prior to IVF? I cut cold turkey and I am SUFFERING--nausea, headaches, etc. Super fun. anyone have tips? Just spent the morning at the park with my kid wanting to slam my head into a tree

Also, anyone else doing the vaginal meds? I'm just on the estrogen so far, but feeling like a drug mule with smurf blue discharge. conversation yesterday with my 3 year old--mommy is that candy?
no, it's not candy.
Is it gum?
No, it's not gum.
Mommy, are you putting candy in your butt?
no. go away

Hi ladies! So sorry I've been MIA for a while but I've been keeping up on the thread every day. It seems like there are a lot of FETs coming up so yay for November/December :). @agold & @amorini- do you guys have any idea about transfer dates yet? Ours is scheduled for November 9th. I started Lupron on Tuesday- just glad to finally be doing SOMETHING. It seems like ER was 6 months ago at this point. The med schedule for the week before transfer is intense! Once again- mad respect for you girls who have done this multiple times. I was thinking FET was going to be so much less complicated than stims- where I got that idea from I have no idea.

Random question- are any of you on prescription prenatals? My RE's recommendation was for 1000 mg of folic acid a day. The one I'm currently taking is an OTC w/800 so I will need to add a supplement. The nurse said they could write me a prescription if I wanted but I was curious about how much the prescription ones cost.

@waiting4you: I just wanted to weigh in on PGS. I know it's really expensive (for us it was around $8k) but for us it was totally worth it. My husband and I weren't testing for any specific genetic issues- we just knew egg quality was an issue due to my age. We had 4 "good" embryos come out of the 10 that were tested- 3 of those were 5AA and 2 of those 5AAs were abnormal. So without PGS we would have probably implanted each of those 5AAs (1 at a time) thinking we were in good shape and would have had a 1 in 3 chance of a successful pregnancy. So as much as it sucked to pay that $8k upfront, I at least feel as though we're going into our FET with a good chance. Also- having already been through 3 MCs it was worth any amount of money to me to reduce those chances as well.

@jaguar: Fingers crossed for you!!

@endymion4: I've gone cold turkey off of coffee a few times with stims and now FET prep. I only usually have 1 cup a day and was really surprised of how bad the withdrawals were those 1st few days. It's a little scary how little it takes to get "addicted". Your 3 year old sounds like a little interrogator like mine. I tell my husband he's primed to be either a lawyer or a cop :).

Hi Ladies! I love how much action is going on on this board the last few days. Thank you all for your feedback re: PGS testing. I was worried that the Dr. was going to suggest it on our follow up call today, but I guess there's still "room for improvement" for the next cycle so we aren't there yet. What the hubby and I were told...
I am/was too sensitive to the meds. My follicles/eggs grew too fast which compromises egg quality. I triggered on day 8 of stims. Apparently that's very early. The dr. has never had a pregnancy come from a day 7 trigger and few from a day 8 trigger. Ideally it should be somewhere in the 9-12 day time period. Also, I need to take birth control pills for longer to "quiet the ovaries more" and they are going to start the stim meds quickly after the BC pills since my body "started on it's own" so they need to jump in and control things earlier. Also have an endometrial biopsy schedule for 3 weeks from now. My lining was great (15 at peak) but they want to make sure there's no issues within the layers. So while I wasn't planning to start anything again till the new year, we're going to be starting the BC pills in mid December sometime. Since we only had a few eggs this last time, they did all ICSI so they don't really have much feedback on anything on my hubby's side. I'm also going to be emailed a list of additional supplements for both of us to start taking right away (one of which I heard him mention was CoQ10, which I know comes up in discussion on here a bit).
While I'm still sad, and I wanted to slam closed this chapter of our life and throw away the key...I guess it has to stay a little bit open since December is right around the corner. Not excited, but optimistic that there is a plan.
Now...to get back to the gym and lose this weight before the next round!!!

@endymion4: Sorry about the blue stuff. Why does it have to blue?! Where are you in your FET prep? Transfer day should be right around the corner!

Sorry, I'm no help with coffee withdrawl. Can you try green tea? It still has caffeine, just not as much.

@dookie32: We're already halfway through October so November 9th will be here in no time. I start BCPs this Sunday for a few weeks. I don't know my schedule yet, but it sounds like transfer will be late November or early December.

I'm surprised the med schedule is so intense. Everyone says it's so much easier! Maybe it's just complicated? (3 of those and two of these, every other day. Is that it?) I don't have my schedule yet so I don't know. I just know vaguely it will involve Lupron, estrogen (Vivelle patches, 2x every other day) and progesterone (3 suppositories a day).

I'm taking a pharmaceutical grade prenatal by Theralogix called Theranatal Core. (So not prescription, but super high-grade. Every vitamin is tested to have equal amounts of the right stuff.) It has 1000 mg of folic acid. It wasn't expensive at all compared to the Rainbow Lights I was taking. And I only have to take 1 per day. That is such a relief! After two months of taking it, I keep checking the bottle now and again to make sure I'm read it correctly! Theralogix does have a prenatal for egg quality but my RE advised against COq10 while doing IVF.

I just learned that I have to have another $900 saline sonogram and trial transfer. I "failed" my TT last time because the RE said I didn't drink enough. I think I just didn't drink enough for a long enough time... Anyway, I'm upset to pay the $900 but I'm rather relieved that we will have another opportunity to make sure the RE knows exactly where to put those embies. (Yes, we will transfer two).

@Amorini: We will have our transfers right around the same time!! At my office, the doctor requires one PIO shot a day for fresh transfers and two PIO shots a day for frozen transfers. Yikes! I assume that is one reason that FET meds can be more intense. And that is a bummer about the $900 surprise, but at this point, everything is expensive and its all necessary so I suppose we can't dwell on it too much, right? I'm dealing with the same kind of charges so I feel ya!

@dookie32: Your transfer is really soon and will be here before you know it! Why is the med cycle so intense or what are they having you do?!

@waiting4you: What your doctor says makes sense - slow and steady is what I've heard.. I'm taking CoQ10, mainly because of things I've read and other IVF ladies who have suggested it greatly increased their egg quality. As far as I can tell, it doesn't hurt anything.

@Amorini: I'm so confused why they couldn't do your trial transfer because of your bladder. I was at my RE a month ago for a nurse consult and an appointment with her, she was like, 'let's do your trial transfer now since you are here anyway (we live 2.5 hours away) and I won't charge you for it'. So, my doctor didn't care about my bladder - I get so flabbergasted why all these RE's are different! I hope it goes better this time and that the RE can figure out exactly where to place them.

@agold: We are not planning on doing ICSI because all of my husband's numbers look great. But, now, of course, I'm questioning if that is the best course of action. It costs $1,000 extra, which I guess in the grand scheme of things isn't a big deal.

@Amorini: Hooray! Cycle twins! Good thing I've decided the back/hip/butt shots really aren't that horrible. Its just time consuming to think about doing it twice a day! I had to pay $410 for something at the RE on Sunday and I was like "meh, here's my credit card." My husband was so against financing any portion of this IVF, but i didn't want to wait because its not like we are truly debt-adverse people - we've financed the house, our college education and our cars. I didn't want to draw a line in the sand with our baby. So, gulp, we are at the point of putting IVF stuff on a credit card and I'm dying a little inside but I'll hopefully have it paid off by tax time. HOPEFULLY.

@NorthStar: and @waiting4you: so this totally makes sense now that you've explained it - ICSI is pretty pricey. I just now looked at my IVF cost break down and I paid $1,200 for it. I also paid $550 for assisted hatching. Yikes its a lot of money but I didn't even consider skipping ISCI specifically. I was hestitant for a while about IVF in general because of various reasons similar to "natural selection" concerns, but I didn't single out ICSI as the cause of my concerns. Once I accepted IVF, I really didn't want to leave anything to chance if I could possible control it. After all, you still have to put whatever embryo you have back in you and hope that it sticks and grows. You really have no way to control that so "natural selection" or whatever or whoever else is really still very much in control of the situation. I also whine to myself - why can't I just pay enough to have the embryo implant!?! But then how much to keep it growing?

@NorthStar: I would definitely ask. As my embryologist put it (he's very laid back and DOES NOT sugar coat ANYTHING)....not doing it would be the equivalent of watching an IUI in a dish. If it wasn't doing it on it's own then, then we don't take the chance now...definitely not an $18k chance.
That was the statement that "sealed the deal" for ICSI for us.

@agold: We did put the amount we took out of savings on our CC first to get points, but didn't for what we wanted to put on the 0% card. I did the math (yes, I'm a dang accountant) and the points benefit that we would have received was less than the balance transfer fee. I'd double check that..

@waiting4you: Good point - i'll bring it up and see what they say. thanks

@waiting4you: oh what a bummer! I was like - ok, let's just put $15k on this credit card. we pay off our CC's every month, so this is really killing me and going against everything I stand for! lol. but, it's worth it!

@waiting4you: I have to head to a hair apt soon and will try to reply more later, but I'm a CPA (although not tax, I'm an audit one). From what I can tell, you can deduct medical expenses over 10% of your AGI. It might be worthwhile to have your tax person run it both ways - filing jointly versus separately, but I have a feeling that filing separately might be more beneficial. Now that I'm writing this, I might have to check this out for myself! lol. Also, anything paid out of health savings account or flex spending account cannot be included in your 'medical expenses' that you add up to figure out your deductions. since you already receive a tax benefit on those funds, you can't 'double dip' so to speak. i'll see what else I can think of..

There is a standard mileage rate and while I don't have that in front of me, I think that it's about 0.23/mile. I believe that you might be able to include gas too, but I might be wrong on that. I still have a lot more research to do, but I've been tracking the days that I have appointments so that I know what days to take mileage for. I wonder if meals or lodging can be included too (if you needed to stay overnight)? I'll see what else I can come up with!

@PurplePumps: you cannot include hsa/fsa funds. I know that for sure. I asked a tax partner where I used to work. I'll double check the mileage thing because mileage rate for medical expenses is much lower than for work reimbursement..

@PurplePumps: @ northstar thanks ladies! No HSA/FSA for us, so that part of the equation is out. Hubby makes more than double what I do, so putting the expenses towards my income only (if that's an option) would definitely be the better way to go.
What about copays? For a while (all the IUI visits and diagnostic testing) we paid $30 Every. Single. Time. we went down there!!!! While that's not a lot of money each time, it adds up after a year of appointments. Also had to pay for 2 or 3 SA's for hubby out of pocket and ICSI.

@MrsMed: I don't know! it's one of those things I didn't have time to research, but RE recommended it so I'm trying it! I've only been drinking one cup of chai or coffee (half milk/half coffee) in the mornings, so I don't think that's all too bad. I'm just getting anxious about the upcoming transfer. I'm not even sure it makes much difference to give it up so soon to the transfer!

@dookie32: Yay for having a date and starting meds!!
How long did it take you to get past the bad days of withdrawal?

@agold: Glad to help

@waiting4you: So glad you have a plan with some changes! and you are right--December is RIGHT around the corner!

@Amorini: I wish it was a different colour! but nope. little blue pills. I haven't looked to see what colour the progesterone is yet. But I've seen on a couple boards where people have said that it is yellow progesterone mixed with blue estrogen making a lovely green colour
I have an u/s and bloodwork on Monday to see how the lining is looking and transfer hopefully the week after if all looks good!
Bummer for the extra $900! I hadn't had enough water to drink at my mock transfer, so they brought me some and waited!

@jaguar: You have done your absolute best to get to this point and now nothing you do or think can alter the outcome. Sending good wishes and lots of burrowing thoughts!!!

@jaguar: It's good to have positive thoughts, so try to keep those up! You even said your squishy was the best one since Georgia! Hang in there..

@jaguar: I know those feelings. Try to push them out of your mind! You are doing all you can do and that's the best you can do. Turn on a funny movie!