CD9 and CD11 Ultrasounds (Follistim cycle 2)

I decided to group together my last two appointments into one blog post. Honestly I’m going to the doctor so much this cycle it's hard to keep up. I have had two more ultrasounds. One on Saturday the 22nd (CD9) and one yesterday Monday the 24th (CD11). Today is CD12.

My first ultrasound on Saturday came after a small rise in my dosage from 100IU to 116IU. At Saturday's appointment. My follicles hadn't gotten a whole lot bigger. Three follicles in the medium size range. Ranging from a 12mm-to 9mm and a handful of 6's and 7's. NOTHING to write home about. I took it as not a great appointment but not a total failure either. Dr. Chang has been pretty surprised about need to raise my dosage up time and time again. But she was not seeing the results or the magnitude of what she was hoping for. Although the way she delivered the news it was as if it wasn't a bad sign just very different from last cycle which was odd. She upped my meds to 143IU, one click below the 150 mark on my Follistim pen. 

My next ultrasound was yesterday. My friend Kristina came with me to my appointment. It is SO nice to have someone to share the car ride with. I had started to feel some cramping on both sides and I was hoping it was because my follicles were getting bigger and starting to crowd my ovaries. I remember last cycle, when I had six big follicles sometimes I felt like I couldn't even button my jeans. We went into the office and got my ultrasound. I have one dominant follicle on the right side at 15mm and two medium sized at 12mm each. She decided for last night's dosage to keep me at 143IU and for tonight’s to raise me to 167IU. She is hoping that the other two smaller follicles will catch up to the larger one, while keeping the doses mild so that the bigger one doesn't ovulate on its own. I go in early tomorrow morning for another ultrasound. She is thinking that Thursday I will trigger and Saturday morning we will do our IUI, tomorrow's ultrasound should confirm that. Our timeline is sneaking up for our Honeymoon. We leave next Monday in six days and I can't wait for this all to be behind us. She anticipates 2-3 follicles getting mature enough to ovulate.

I thought at first that I would be disappointed. We had such a great response last month. I guess Dr. Chang's attention and keeping a positive attitude have really helped me stay pretty level headed. I guess that the average woman only produces 2-3 follicles while stimming anyways. I'm doing a pretty good job about staying neutral this month and not getting excited or disappointed. It sort of takes the what if's out of my head that are usually driving me crazy by now. I will just be happy to have few eggs pop out and get our IUI done before vacation time. In the beginning of all of this, I thought we would need to skip a cycle due to our trip and it has ended up working out perfectly so far. I can only thank God for that.

I will update tomorrow with my post ultrasound results. I am putting a lot of miles on my tires! I am really glad we decided to trade in our SUV (with terrible gas mileage) for a Chevy Cruize. Those 35mpg are really helping right now.