Slight change of plans

You know, one can never have enough stress in one's life. This could be why I've gone and started the next IVF round. Well, sort of. I called Dr. Morris's office just to ask what would need to be done in order for us to start #3. I have a series of tests to go through in the next week to 10 days. Tomorrow morning, bloodwork and ultrasound (ooooh, been a while since the cootie cam been down there!). Next week Wednesday, hysterosalpingogram. Say that 10 times fast.

To refresh everyone's memory, Dr. Morris is the 3rd doctor we saw (I think it was in August). We decided to go with his protocol--low-dose HCG.

Here's a basic explanation of a typical IVF protocol. This is VERY basic and general.

• Period arrives...day 3-4 (?), start birth control pill (to prevent ovulation...gotta save the eggs for later!)...period will stop
• After 2 wks of pill, stop and start Lupron (suppresses egg production)...period will start again after 4-5 days (?)
• On day 2 of period, start FSH (Gonal, or similar) and Menopur....continue Lupron, Gonal, and Menopur for about 9-12 days. During this time, lots of monitoring with bloodtests and ultrasounds.
• On or around day 12 (latest), stop all drugs and do HCG shot--this releases the eggs that have built up
• 36 hours later, egg retrieval. 3-5 days after that, embryo implantation.

For Dr. Morris's protocol, we'd be taking out the Lupron and Menopur, and taking a low dose of the HCG drug. In our 2nd IVF gig, we continued our drugs after being cancelled. The HCG shot I took was 10,000 (not sure of what...). We'd be taking only 25 for the next round, so it's significantly lower.

I don't know if this will work. It's different than what the other doctors had suggested, but we thought it might be worth a shot (so to speak). If this doesn't work, we'll go to our last resort--Dr. Miller. But I'm leery of him now since he's changed his practice and is now working closely with Dr. Rinehart (the 2nd IVF doc who cancelled our cycle).

So there you have it. I'll keep this updated with numbers as we get them, but real drugs won't start until next month (I think...).