Report From The Front Lines (3rd u/s)

It has been 8 days of stims and things are continuing to chug along. I think I'm doing marginally better than how I did back in Canada but it's hard to say and my DH keeps saying that we are here also for the lab, the impact of which we will not see until after ER. So, for those of you numbers and detail oriented people, here are my stats from today with comparatives:

Left Ovary:
This cycle: 18mm, 12mm, 9mm. 5.6mm
Last cycle (cancelled): 18mm 8.5mm 7.5mm, 7mm
Last cycle in Canada: 13mm, 7mm

Right Ovary:
This cycle: 17.5mm, 15mm, 12.3mm, 12mm, 11.1mm, 10.5mm, 5mm
Last cycle (cancelled): 17.3mm, 13.5mm, 10mm, 9mm
Last cycle in Canada: 17mm, 15mm, 15mm, 13mm, 11mm, 11mm, 8mm, 8mm

It's very interesting that my last cycle in Canada had me on whopper stims of 600 units/day and I seem to be doing about the same, which supports what CCRM told me - that amounts >450 units/day are not proven to be beneficial. I think the whopper stims fried my eggs last time so I am hoping that this time, we will have better quality. They're estimating that we'll get between 6-8 eggs this cycle and I really hope that they're all mature and they all fertilize. Cross your fingers!!

I had lunch yesterday with Mangymutt and Mom2beASAP from IVFC yesterday and what a fun time that was! We met at around 11:30am and didn't leave the restaurant until 5pm when they politely told us they were starting dinner service!! The time just flew by and it was great to sit and chat with both of them and trade experiences.

I have also been chatting with the plebotomist that has been drawing my blood every day at CCRM and she has been telling me the funniest stories! She told me today that the fainters mostly tend to be the men (haha - but not my DH...he was a real trooper and didn't blink at all with all the vials of blood they've taken from him) and that she really has to baby them (i.e. fully recline the chair, give them juice, etc) and that it can take up to 40 minutes to draw 2 vials of blood! One poor guy was so nervous he soaked through his whole t-shirt in his anxiety over having blood drawn! Yesterday, we were talking about the colour of blood and if there are various shades she sees (mine was dark red, well oxidized she told me). She she said that sometimes, the blood serum that is spun out can vary if the person has high cholesterol. Blood serum s/b a yellowish colour, kind of like the colour of a custard but when someone has high cholesterol, that turns the blood serum white - ewwww! Interesting things you can learn chatting with the people at CCRM.

As for Dr. Sch, I have yet to even see him walking the hallways of CCRM. My ER is estimated to be on Sunday or Monday so I don't even know if I will meet him this time. If anyone else is potentially doing ER this weekend, Dr. Surry is the one who will be doing it.

That's it for now - will update with hormone levels later. I'm down for daily monitoring now so we're really into the crunch time now.

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Update:
My hormone levels came back today and E2 has continued to rise while P4 and LH have stayed the same. I was worried about potential breakthrough ovulation b/c I have had a lot of CM the last few days (sorry - TMI I know) but my nurse said that it would be very, very unusual to have breakthrough ovulation while on Cetrotide. I was worried because I know you can have breakthrough ovulation on BCP and Lupron so I wanted to make sure that this couldn't happen on Cetrotide.

So, today's hormones are:
E2=847
P4=0.4
LH=1.3