IVF walks a fine line between pushing your body to produce an abundance of eggs while avoiding potential overstimulation. You are given a high dose of hormones, and obviously there are some risks involved. If you overstimulate there are potential serious consequences and you can get very ill. My doctor will work to avoid this at all cost, even if that means canceling a cycle. One of the ways they keep track is by doing blood work every couple of days. Today they checked my estrogen levels.
Estrogen is the hormone that your body begins releasing when you make follicles. Obviously, I am on a drug that is making me produce many follicles so my estrogen should be higher than a women who isn't going through IVF. However, if it's to high, that's a sign that I could be headed for overstimulation. :(
Given my treatment, my estrogen should be sitting somewhere between 100 - 150. Currently I am at 525. Way to high. Now, without boring you with the medical detail, I will just say that in order to transfer embryos back in this month my estrogen must stay under 3000. If it goes above that we will have to freeze the embryos and try to transfer them next month. Bummer. If I have to wait another month it is what it is, but I really want to transfer those babies this month!
So what do we do? We try to slow my estrogen. Of course it isn't simple, I can't just stop the meds for a few days and I can't just significantly drop my dosage. If my estrogen crashes the follicles won't develop.
The plan is to reduce my dosage of stim drugs from 225 to 150. I also will be starting a new drug, called Ganirelix, every morning. So as of tomorrow - that's a shot in the morning and another at night. 😣
Hopefully, this does the trick and helps keep my estrogen in a safe place. I am praying that the doctors plan is the right one, praying that we will be able to keep moving forward. Safely. Thanking God for the technology in place and the monitoring to keep me safe. And, of course, asking God to keep me calm and patient and focused.
My follow up appointment is Thursday morning. We will be doing an ultrasound to get a count of follicles as well as more blood work. Once I know more I will post a follow up. I am optimistic that this is going to turn out just fine!
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