I spoke with the nurse practitioner. She spoke to our RE and the head of the egg donor program. I have an entirely new and aggressive protocol. The first weird thing -- no Lu*pron. I'm as shocked as you on this one. I'm instead using an antagonist, which is a Lu*pron alternative. So, I'm to continue on the pill. I will stop, and then get my period. On cd1, I will start stimming. I am using Folli*stim again, but this time at 375, plus they are going to add 75 of LH. On cd 3 I will go in for blood work. If my E2<150, then they will increase my LH.
Then, when my largest follicle is 13mm or my E2>500, I will start the antagonist. I will continue to be monitored until I am ready to trigger.
Our RE came up with this protocol on his own, and the nurse practitioner checked with the head of the donor egg program, and the protocol matched pretty well. This is a very aggressive cycle. So, I feel like I'm being proactive and am definitely allowing myself a tiny bit of optimism for this next cycle.
In addition, thanks to the lovely Serenity, I am doing acupuncture. I was there for two hours yesterday and left feeling really relaxed. I'm definitely going to be doing it once or twice a week during this hectic 2-3 week portion of the cycle. I want to be more proactive this cycle. I'm not just going to sit back. Though, part of the proactive part is me calming down a little. That's where the acupuncture fits in. So I am doing a little something for myself, and it feels good.
Life as an adoptive family.
My Story
- Rachel
- 4 miscarriages, 3 failed IVFs with PGD, 2 different sperm donors, 1 diagnosis of balanced translocation. Now we are the proud parents of a boy via domestic infant semi-open adoption. We had a failed match for kid #2 and are now matched again.
4 comments:
I have used the antagonist protocol as well. I think I ended up using the supression drug for 4 days with my last cycle.
I hope this new protocol works well for you.
I hope that this new protocol is the ticket for you this time around.
Hi Rachel,
I found your blog recently and found some real similarities between us. I have the balanced chrom. translocation though, and have been thru 6 miscarriages.
I tried my first IVF cycle when you did yours, and was cancelled because of poor response (not enough eggs to make PGD worthwhile, according to the RE). I was on the Lupron protocol too.
I have recently got my new protocol, and it's the antagonist one as well! Only I'll be on 600 units Follistim (the whole dang cartridge!). I'm still waiting for Auntie Flow to show from my cancelled cycle, so I will probably start the new protocol after you.
Here's hoping we both have better cycles this time around!
-Emily
the new protocol sounds very promising. as long as there islots of monitoring, i think it's great that they're being more aggressive. i hope this is the answer for you!!
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