Our Second Round of IVF

We are done with our second round of IVF so it is time to do a recap of it.  Before I start I just wanted to clarify the title of this post a little bit.  We are doing three rounds of harvesting so this is our second round of harvesting. Sometimes when people say a round of IVF they mean the whole harvesting and implanting process but in our case each round is just harvesting.

This round started like the first round with me calling the doctor on the day I got my period.  This month instead of 9 days of birth control I only had to take 7 and then I waited 2 days and started shots. This time my body didn't react to the medicine as fast as the first round so I ended up having to take the shots for more days this time. I think the shots lasted about 2 1/2 weeks this time instead of 2. By the end of this round I was so ready to stop giving myself shots!

One my hormone levels were high enough I took the trigger shot.  The trigger shot is my least favorite one because it hurts.  It doesn't hurt during the actual shot but afterwards as the medicine flows through you it hurts.  I always try to go to sleep as fast as I can after the trigger shot in hopes I can sleep through the pain.

This time our appointment was at 11 AM so I got to sleep in a little bit and then head out with my empty stomach to have the harvest procedure.  Even though I had done this once already I was still nervous.  After the procedure was over and they released us it was time for another milkshake.  Last time we drove most of the way home before getting the milkshake in case riding in the car made me nauseous but this time I was feeling fine (and hungry) so we stopped to get a milkshake near the doctor's office.

This month there were 9 follicles but only 6 of them had mature eggs in them.  After they fertilized them 3 of them were successful and they let them grow for 5-6 days. Of those 3 eggs only one of them made it to day 6 to be frozen and tested.  I was really hoping for 2 this month but I will take the one.

Thankfully the one that made it to frozen tested perfectly and we now have another embryo waiting to be in planted in me.

It is so weird to think that the embryo from our first cycle and this one from our second cycle are siblings just sitting in their little frozen containers waiting.

We are about to start our 3rd (and final) harvest cycle and then the next steps are to start implanting the embryos and have a baby!