A Weighty Issue

Published November 20, 2014 by Jennie

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Yesterday was retrieval #2. It is crazy how much less anxiety I felt with this one since I knew what to expect.  I even feel better today than I did the day after retrieval #1. I guess my body is just getting used to things. Here are our IVF stats so far.

17 eggs retrieved
16 mature
13 fertilized with ICSI

I know that people get pregnant with few eggs and numbers do not mean everything, but I am still ticked pink with this outcome so far :). So what is next for me?

In 4 days I will get a 5 day blastocyst call. After that, my frosties are biopsied and one cell from each one takes a trip to Detroit for PGS. My RE said we will get the results before Genesis Genetics closes for Christmas. If you are doing PGS anytime soon, it may be helpful to know that they close for a few weeks in December. Once AF starts in January, we start transfers, horray!

Since retrievals are done, my new objective is getting as healthy as possible for my January transfer. I have been eating healthy but I do not feel very healthy right now. One reason might be because I have cut down on the intensity of my workouts for the last few months. I did not want to overdo it during retrievals. I think this has also led to a little bit of stress build up as well.

I got weighed yesterday before my surgery and I was 139 (I am 5’4”). I was surprised at how much weight I have gained. I am probably weigh more today because all I did yesterday and most of today was rest on the couch, recover, and eat. Vanity aside, I feel healthiest between 125 and 130 with a little more muscle than I have right now. I know some of the weight will naturally go away as I recover from stims and my retrieval, but I still got a ways to go.

I am going to try to not focus on what the scale says but over the next 6-7 weeks, I am going to focus on getting back into shape as much as I can. It is hard to identify how much I want to lose each week since I will also be gaining some weight as I build muscle. Overall, it would nice to get back in my healthy range at a steady pace.

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Since I have never done a transfer before (I can’t believe it is getting so close!) I appreciate any tips, suggestions, etc to best prepare for it. Sometimes I feel I may go a bit overboard with all of this but I feel incredibly lucky to even have the chance to do IVF and I do not want to screw things up. xoxox – Jennie

27 comments on “A Weighty Issue”

  • We are doing PGS through Genesis as well but will get our results within 24-36 hours of shipping the embryos there (and we’re shipping from Canada)…from your post it seems like you will be waiting a while? Just wondering what the difference in timing is, since we will hopefully transfer ours during the fresh cycle.

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    • I think they may process them quicker if you are doing fresh. My RE said that genesis offers the option of getting them back in time for fresh but sometimes things happen and they get held up. Part of it may be that few people from my clinic use them so maybe things aren’t as streamlined because of that. We always planned on frozen so we are not in a big rush. I’m sure you will be fine! We would get them back in time for a December cycle but my RE doesn’t start transfers in December and closes for a bit for Christmas. I’m totally ok with having a break. Best of luck to you!

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  • Sweetie, the most important thing is to try and rest. My friends and I all drank fresh pineapple juice beforehand, as it contains bromelain, which is said to help embryos stick! I went for walks, meditated, and tried to keep my mind busy. I am thinking of you!

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  • great results! i think getting in as much exercise as you can and eating healthy right now is great, because chances are your RE will not want you to do much during the time between transfer and beta. that being said, when i did get pregnant with IVF i was 10 lbs over what i considered to be my “healthy” weight between the meds and decreased exercise – i think there is something to be said for babies liking a “fluffier” environment, haha. i haven’t gained any weight during the first trimester, so i think things evened out in the end.

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  • Excellent numbers, good luck with the screening.
    Id just focus on getting your 5 a day, drink milk and raspberry leaf tea (up to ET) as itll thicken up your lining. Sleep as much as you can. Keep your liquid intake at 2 litres, limit caffiene and alcohol (sorry you may be doing all this already). ET is a dead easy procedure so dont worry about it! Enjoy the holidays, good luck x

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  • Jennie- Those are great numbers for Retrieval #2! I received our PGS results from Natera last week (within 7 days of shipping) and we were pleasantly surprised to have 3 chromosomally normal embryos. Our transfer is scheduled for Jan as well! Our transfer was supposed to be in December but we have had issues getting my ovaries to suppress on the birth control pills so we had to postpone until Jan. This is a great chance to get healthy and enjoy the holidays. I also gained a bit of weight from the meds but it has been coming off very quickly. Must be water weight, so do not stress at all about this. Just drink a lot of water and raspberry leaf tea!

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    • Congrats on your genetic results! That is great. It also takes me awhile to suppress my ovaries. We had back to back retrievals but we had to wait almost a month in between for things to calm down. I am still a little bloated from my surgery but hopefully it will start to go away. It looks like most of my extra weight is in my stomach. Raspberry leaf tea sounds great! I will have to try that out.I hope you also enjoy the holidays. It looks like we will be IVF buddies in January. Fingers cross it goes well for both of us 🙂

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  • Hrmm…wish I had some thing grand to tell you about your transfer but really you just have to trust your body & that it will do what it needs to. My final and successful transfer, I did acupuncture treatments for IVF & I feel like it made a contribution to my success. I really took it easy and tried to relax as much as I could. Rest is out of your hands.
    Congrats on getting so many eggs retrieved! Are you planning to transfer 1 or 2 embryo?

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    • I do plan on getting back to acupuncture. Let me know if you have an idea as to how frequently I should go. I was thinking about 1 time a week then maybe a few more times right before and right after. Also, I can not decide on whether I will transfer 1 or 2. I keep going back and forth. I feel like there are lots of pros and cons to each.

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      • Your acupuncure treatments should be inline with your cycle and whats going on. Its several sessions in once cycle. Your acupuncturist should have an outline of how it works. Its not a weekly thing as much as cycke timing, retrieval, implantsion, etc.,.

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