IVF Protocol

Here is my protocol for IVF #2.  

• 11/13 - Start lupron 20 units every evening.
• 11/20 - Stop birth control pills.
• 11/24 - Baseline ultrasound and blood work.
• 11/26 - Start follicle stimulating meds: Bravelle 4 vials every evening & Menopur 5 vials every evening.  Start doxycycline twice a day for 10 days.
• 11/29 - Blood work.
• 12/01 - Blood work and ultrasound.
  
• From here on it is blood work and ultrasounds every other day until it's time to do the HCG injection for final maturation, then the retrieval 36 hours later.
• Start progesterone in oil the evening of the retrieval as well.
  
• Transfer will be 5 days after the retrieval.  Also start doxycycline twice a day for 5 days

During IVF #1 with my last doctor I did lupron and started out on 2 vials of Menopur.  By the end of the cycle I was up to 4 vials of Menopur.  The new doctor is starting me out at FIVE vials of Menopur plus 4 vials of Bravelle!  Holy eggs!  I hope it works and we get lots of eggs.  I only had 9 last time and only a few were mature.  I hope that by hitting it hard in the beginning we will get a lot of eggs from the beginning and they will have plenty of time to mature before retrieval.

The bad part of using such high doses?  10 days of the Bravelle and Menopur is $5500!  The lupron is $100.  The rest of the meds are covered by my insurance so my copays are only $3 and $6.  It is absurd to think about the fact that I am spending $5500 on only a ten day supply of medications!  Hopefully they work well and we stay at that dose or decrease the dose rather than increasing! And that I don't need to stim for more than the initial 10 days.  

I call the office tomorrow to make my IVF payment.  I don't know what that will be.  After meds I will have about $3900 left on my flexible spending account card so the rest of the fees will have to come out of our bank account.  I'm hoping it's not much more than $1000-2000.  I will find out tomorrow morning!

It's so hard to not get excited about all of this.  I still can't imagine it working and don't have high hopes, but it feels great to actually be DOING something!