Well, its been a while...Depot Lupron update...

     Hey there. I have been pretty MIA for the last couple of months. I would love to say that it's been because I've been traveling the world, or [insert super fun thing here], but I haven't. I have been working, going to my clinical rotations, teaching and doing homework for class. Boo. Oh yea, I've also been in a menopausal state, so that's been pretty awesome.

My life has basically been like this:

Depot Lupron hasn't been that bad for me...luckily. The list of side effects would make your head spin...blood in your stool, muscle pains, bone pain, etc. I've just been hot flashing like hell. I would say I get about 1 an hour...sometimes more or less...it's like a furnace is lit in my body. My legs and arms heat up at rapid speed...then it reaches my face and I start to sweat. It's sexy, trust me.

The hot flashes and I were getting along swell until they fucked with my sleep. I'm a great sleeper usually. Despite being anxious and anal retentive, I can fall asleep on a dime. Once the hot flashes came to town, it's been a never-ending cycle  of waking up screaming hot...remove blankets...wake up freezing...put blankets back on...wake up because I am screaming hot again, rinse, wash, repeat.

Needless to say, wearing layers has been my friend.

My brave husband administered my last injection. I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but the needle is 2" long and made for someone that you would see on TLCs "My 600lb Life," So as of last weekend, there are no more Depot Lupron injections in my foreseeable future which is beyond exciting. I'm ready to have some estrogen back in my life!



My Depot Lupron Conundrum

     I don't want to do 3 months of Depot Lupron injections. There, I said it. I wish the decision was that simple. Today is the one day of the week that I decided to relax and do absolutely nothing. No homework, no housecleaning..I'm refusing to even walk the dog today. So, naturally, because I always need something to occupy my mind and elicit some sort of anxiety, I decided to focus on my upcoming Depot Lupron injections.

     To catch you up, Dr. Wang at SIRM CT recommended that I have the Endometrial Function Test (EFT) performed. You can read more about that here. My results showed that I had a high level of "Glandular Developmental Arrest," or GDA. Basically, this is corrected with three months of Depot Lupron injections.

    This is really fucking bad for several reasons. 1) Apparently Depot Lupron has been pulled from the market in several other countries because of the severity of its side effects. And we aren't talking just about the fact this it puts you into menopause. I mean things like cancer, chronic bone diseases, etc. Sounds fan-fucking-tastic. Of course there are many, many women who are just fine, but still. I don't exactly fall on the upside of odds as evidenced by my current bullshit situation.

    Second, we had our chemical in November. In December I didn't ovulate. In January I did the EFT. This month I cycled and for the next three months I'll be sticking myself with the menopause juice. In total, 6 months on the fucking bench. It's really horrifying to think that I will turn 33 in September. We started trying when I was 30. We still don't have a baby.

     This leads me to my major issue: I kind of want to try on our own for several months. Because of an underlying metabolic disorder, we sought treatment after 6 months of trying. That was fortuitous because I had Celiac and the septum. However, between all of the testing and cycling, we've only managed to try on our own for a total of 10 months. Only 1 month of which was after my big issues were solved. I kind of feel like we could have stuck it out longer. Plus, I am sick of feeling like I am spinning my wheels. The EFT and subsequent treatment is controversial at best. Am I doing the right thing by putting everything on hold for three months? Would I be doing the right thing by trying on our own? Should we do an FET with the embryos from this cycle (that are hopefully still growing) and implement Dr. KKs plan and see how it goes? Will I regret it if it is a BFN or winds up in another chemical? I hate not knowing the right path to take.

    To make matters worse, there is next to no research on this. My RE has quite a bit of ancedotal evidence showing that there is success with this protocol, but where is the scientific evidence to back this up? More specifically, where is the scientific evidence of this that isn't written by Dr. Kliman himself, the founder of the EFT? Along with this line of questioning, the population that actually requires this treatment is so small, and, quite frankly, if you make it to this point in your journey, are you willing to sacrifice potential success by participating in a study where you may wind up with a placebo treatment, or in a control group? Likely not.

     Between this, my emerging anger over my situation, and the fact that I have no damn clue about what course of treatment to take, my therapist will be hearing an earful.

    To quote Vince Vaughn and Wedding Crashers -  "I'm gonna go see Dr. Finklestein and I'm gonna tell him we have a whole new bag of issues. We can forget about mom for a while."

IVF #3: Roundup

     To recap, this cycle started with a baseline of 3 follicles and an estrogen of 195. Then I had a mental breakdown. A few days later, I had 5 follicles and my estrogen of 196. So, not a great start.

     We did everything completely different for this cycle. I was on a MDLF protocol with prednisone (for high normal Th1/Th2 Cytokine Ratio). I took 10 units of micro-dose lupron AM & PM beginning 2/8 and added300 units of Gonal-F in the AM starting 2/10. We added in a vial of Menopur in the PM on 2/12 and continued with that. I then added 20 units of HGH (Omnitrope) for four nights beginning Thursday 2/18. So, by the end, I was up to 5 injections a day!

     My follicle count grew to 11, which is the most I have ever had during a cycle, and my estrogen on the day of trigger was 3116! I was so blown away by this because I had never had an estrogen at trigger higher than 1979! However, I know how this IVF shit works...nothing good happens without anything bad...and I said to my husband "watch, we'll get 5 eggs."

Guess what?

   We got 5 fucking eggs. Ok, that isn't the whole story. We actually retrieved 12 eggs. I was pretty uncomfortable towards the end so props to you PCOS girls who have 1023232 follicles. Although I still hate you bitches because you make it rain embryos. #sorrynotsorry. #Iamkidding. #kindof.

     Annnyyywwwaaayyy, of the 12 retrieved, 5 were mature and 5 looked like they could possibly mature in the lab. 2 did. So, that brought our total haul to 7. This is hilarious because we have wound up with 7 eggs every cycle! My ovaries are pre-set on a very specific number apparently.  This is also the first cycle we have done ICSI and 6 of our eggs fertilized normally!! This is the highest number of embryos we've ever had!!!

     If I'm being honest, I'm slightly disappointed. I was really hoping more would mature and fertilize. However, 6 embryos is a totally normal number to have for anyone, let alone someone with DOR. I just feel so much pressure to freeze several embryos because I'm about to go on 3 months of depot lupron, after which, the lupron will hang out in my system and keep my ovaries suppressed for several months so stimming again too soon will yield a shit cycle.

     We are culturing out the embryos to day 5, which is nothing short of terrifying. We've never done this before. I'm praying that this protocol shift, my supplements and HGH really kicked the quality of my eggs into high gear, and that ICSI helped us get the best sperm possible.

     Mostly though, I'm just hoping that somehow, someway, my future child is in there.