Wednesday, March 9, 2016

One Week Countdown!

We are ONE WEEK away from our embryo transfer. This is our busiest week for this surrogacy. We'll be adding three different medications, all on different days, and all with varying intensities and duration. It's quite a bit to keep track of, but luckily Tonya, our superstar coordinator, has our calendar all mapped out!

We started this transfer cycle at the end of last month with our baseline ultrasound and blood work. All of our blood tests for now are E2 blood draws, which tests the amount of estrodiol (17 beta-estrodiol) in my body. The first baseline E2 test came back a little higher than they wanted it to be, 183 when they wanted it under 100, so the next day we redrew the test to make sure my estrodiol level was dropping. Our second result came back just they way they wanted it too, so we began our estrodiol injection that night.

But wait, why did they want my estrodiol level low when they were just going to turn around and shoot me up with that very hormone? Great question, the reason why is because they needed a baseline to measure all of our subsequent tests against. If they had used my first E2 result, which was too high, my next E2 test after I had started the hormones wouldn't have been an accurate representation of how my body was taking the estrodiol injection. My baseline ultrasound was used the same way, to show the progress my body was making in preparation for our embryo transfer.

We have weekly E2 blood draws to ensure that my body is still making the progress it needs to be making. So far, they've all been perfect. Last Friday (March 4th) we had our uterine lining check. I was a little nervous, seeing as our first lining check in our first embryo transfer showed that my uterine lining was too thin, and we had to add another hormone medication to help stimulate it. Happily, it seems my body is taking to the hormones even better this time around! Our uterine lining looked perfect, happy and healthy and almost ready for a baby!

As we delve into our one week countdown to our embryo transfer, I'll be updating more frequently as almost every day has a new aspect to it in preparation to our transfer. As always, positive thoughts are greatly appreciated and questions are always welcome! Please don't be shy to reach out at all, this is a subject that affects us all in one way or another, and I love seeing the wonderful community that surrounds infertility and its treatments!

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