3dp3dt: First Self Administered PIO Shot!

Today is 3dp3dt, 3 days post 3 day transfer.  According to this link, my Three Amigos who should be blastocysts by now, begins to hatch out of its shells.  At NEDC, if you are transferring any embryos that are not blastocysts, the embryologist will perform assisted hatching, a process that pokes a tiny hole  to help the embryo hatch out of it's shell.  Well since we thawed 2PNs and grew them to multicells (day 3), we did assisted hatching.  Hopefully, this means that our embryos had no problems hatching out of their shells and will start attaching to my uterus.

Blastocyst (not mine) embryo hatching out of it's shell
Image from Advanced Fertility

I had an awesome FIRST today!  I administered my first PIO injection shot on myself!  Not once, but twice so far.

Babe has to do a bit of traveling for his work, which is very rare.  He was supposed to leave the week before our transfer but plans changed.  He will be gone for 2.5 days this week, so I need someone to do my shots.  Back in November, I had my brother-in-law and his wife (both nurses) do the shots for me when Babe was gone for a few days for hunting.  This time around, I am not so keen on getting then involved again as we have not told them we are having another transfer.

I'm not really sure why but I wanted to try doing the shot myself.  Maybe it was because I know of other women that do/have done their own shots, or because I this could possibly be our last transfer, and I want to experience all aspects of a transfer.  Or maybe I just wanted to know that I really could do it, that I had the GUTS to finally poke myself with the big bad scary needle.

So this morning, I gave myself the shot.  Babe of course supervised and actually was very helpful, but I had to tell him to stop counting while I psyched myself up to get enough courage to stick the needle in.  When I finally stuck the needle in, it really wasn't so bad.  The tough part was actually having to twist around and reach back so that I could get the angle right and I am NOT a flexible person.  I was also having a hard time figuring out the pressure needed to push the plunger without injecting too much at one time.  I did not take as much time to inject all the oil as when Babe does it as my body was starting to get sore from the twisting and I was afraid I would start cramping up.  But all in all, it wasn't too bad.  The hardest part is gathering enough courage to stick the needle in.

Tonight, I shot myself on the left side.  It was even harder because I am a right hander and could not twist myself far enough to give myself the shot on my left hip.  I ended up just using my left hand which wasn't so bad.  It is weird though having a needle stuck in your hip and the syringe moves up and down as you are trying to push the plunger in.  But in the end, it worked out fine too.  Again the hardest part was finding the right angle and gathering enough courage to stick the big ass needle in.  Babe took a few photos of me giving myself the shot tonight.  I seriously considered posting a photo here but decided that it is not a good idea to show you a picture of my ass!

Praying that the Three Amigos are growing and staying healthy.

8 more days to our first beta!

1dp3dt & 2dp3dt

Transfer was on Friday, so today is technically 2dp3dt (2 days post 3 day transfer).  Babe and I have affectionately named our three embryos "The Three Amigos".  And he is convinced they are all boys!

According to this link, yesterday, which would be one day post transfer, The Three Amigos were continuing to grow and develop, turning from 6-8 cell embryos into morulas.  We know that at transfer, one of the embryos was already at the morula stage, so hopefully he is already at the the blastocyst stage.

Today, which is 2 days post transfer, the cells of the morulas continue to divide, developing into blastocysts.

Yesterday, we hit a blood vessel when doing my morning PIO shot.  Yeah, fun times.  So Babe pulled out the needle, switched out to a new needle and found another spot to "stick it to me".  Two sore spots on the same (right) side.  I sleep on my right side, so I wanted make sure I got the right side in the morning shot and not the evening one.

Yesterday I also had the pleasure of meeting Lara from Living Our Miracle.  Lara, her husband and I met for dinner.  Babe couldn't join us because he had a deadline to meet for his job.  It was so fun to chat and get to know each other.  In the end, we spent almost 3 hours at dinner!  The main reason we had to leave was because we both had to go back to our hotels and get our PIO shots.  She had her transfer this morning at NEDC, so it was great for me to be able to meet another NEDC mama!  I am praying that this transfer will result in a healthy pregnancy for her.

We left for MN early this morning.  We had to get up at 5 am (4 am MN time!) to catch an 8 am flight.  When we got home, the first thing Babe did was give me my morning PIO shot.  Then we both took our showers and napped for a few hours because we were so tired.

Based on this calculator, my due date for my day 3 transfer is supposed to be February 2nd, 2015 for a singleton.  If we have twins, my due date is January 11th 2015.  I'm not even going to look at the due date for triplets!

My first beta (pregnancy test) is on Tuesday, May 27th.  So, 9 days to beta!

Finally, Our Transfer Date

I have been waiting for my May transfer date and protocol all week.  I knew I would get it by Friday because Katie, the nurse's last was was Friday.  On Thursday, I heard that some of the ladies on the FB embryo adoption/donation group had received their protocols.  Yet, I still did not get mine.  I knew that in the past, my transfers were usually towards the end of NEDC's cycle because I was transferring blasts.  So I assumed mine would be towards the end again.  I was getting pretty anxious.  So Friday morning, I sent Katie an email saying I still have not received my protocol yet.  I received an response that she was working on the protocols then and hoped to get them all by the end of the day.  At a little after noon, I finally received my protocol.

My transfer is scheduled for Friday, May 16th.

I was pretty excited to get my transfer date and a little earlier than I had expected.  Then I noticed that the stage of my embryos to be transferred is 2PNs (day 1 embryos).  I was a little surprised as I was expecting to transfer blasts (day 5 embryos).  I called Katie and spoke to her about this.  Because our new donors has both 2PNs and blasts, NEDC's normal process is to thaw and 2PNs first and grow them into multicells (day 3) and transfer them.  That way if none of the 2PNs survive, NEDC would still have time to thaw the blasts and we would not have to cancel our transfer.

I'm a little torn about this.  We selected the donor family based on the fact that they had blasts, and we were planning on transferring blasts.  The fact that the donors also has 2PNs was more of an afterthought.  I am worried that we will not have a successful an outcome with 2PNs as with blasts, though I know many people have had success with transferring blasts, multicells and 2PNs.  On the other hand, Dr. Keenan had suggested we consider transferring different stage embryos this time around since we had transferred blasts the last two transfers.  I think we had decided on blasts because we still had leftover blasts from our last donor family.  I had asked Katie about the success rate of embryos from different stages and she assured me that many pregnancies have resulted from all three stages and the success rate is the same.

Katie said that if we really wanted to, we could call the embryologist on Monday (she was out of the office) and talk to her about it.  We do have a total of 7 2PNs and 5 blasts, so it is possible that we could have enough blasts to transfer if we really wanted to.  However if none of the blasts survive the thaw, then our transfer would be cancelled, though this is highly unlikely.

Babe and I need to talk about this a little more and decide if we should just go with the normal NEDC process as they obviously know what are doing, or if we want to push transferring blasts.  I think I am just a little shaken up realizing that we may not be transferring blasts after having setting my mind on it.  But maybe that is not such a bad thing.  I just have to shift my thinking a little.  I will be praying about this.

After getting my protocol, I called the pharmacy to order my medications for this transfer.  This time, I ordered only what I really need to get me through the transfer and my first beta.  I still have some leftover meds from my previous cycle too.  Plus, with the new pharmacy, and maybe this year's coverage has changed, the some meds cost a lot more than before.

When we were still working with Briova, the PIO (progesterone in oil) only cost me around $20 and $4  for 4 vials each time.  This time around, it cost me about $60 for 2 vials!  I'm so glad I ordered the PIO from Briova last time, even though I didn't need it then.  Also, now I have to pay for the syringes and needles, whereas in the past, it came free.  I'm waiting to order needles and syringes since I have a lot of extras from past transfers and a fellow blogger friend who is now pregnant sent me her extras.  I thought it was unnecessary then, but now I am grateful for them.  Es.trace is still super pricey, costing me about $3.50 each tablet (and I need about 70 to last me through my beta).

And this showed up at the door yesterday morning via overnight service.

It is a lot less than my usual order of meds, but like I mentioned earlier, I only ordered what I absolutely need.

• 2-week Lu.pron kit + extra syringes and needles
• 2 vials of progesterone in oil (PIO)
• 15 tablets of Es.trace
• Albuterol for transfer
• Diazepam (Vali.um) for transfer

Next step, I'll be starting my Lu.pron shots on Tuesday.