Acupuncture and lining check

~ by Kim

It's no secret that I've had trouble building a thick uterine lining. Our first transfer had to be cancelled due to the lining being too thin, and even with the increased doses of estrogen we never made it beyond 4.7 mm. In our second cycle, my baseline ultrasound started off at 4 mm, and then after the 10 or so days on Estrace, it was still only measuring at 4 mm. We eventually managed to get the lining up to 6 mm, which was where it was at when we did the embryo transfer. Ideally, they usually like to see the lining measuring at least 8 mm before doing a transfer, but because the appearance of the uterus was otherwise so good, we went ahead and did the transfer anyway. The staff at the clinic said that even though this was not your typically ideal lining, it was still worth going ahead and that they had still seen lots of babies that started in a 6 mm lining. We crossed our fingers, and transferred one 3-day embryo, which unfortunately did not result in a pregnancy.

We're now trying again, and this morning I had another appointment at the clinic where I had another ultrasound to measure the thickness of the lining as well as check my hormone levels again. This will be my third time starting the Estrace and working on trying to build up a nice fluffy lining for a little embryo to nestle into. For this cycle, we decided to try some acupuncture as well. The acupuncture is supposed to work in conjunction with the medications and my own body, to increase chances of achieving and maintaining a healthy pregnancy. Apparently they've done studies showing great success with acupuncture and IVF and found the two work really well together. Today was my first appointment since starting the acupuncture, and my lining measured at a whoppin' 6.8 mm! This was huge for me, and the thickest that my uterine lining has ever been. For comparison, at this same appointment in the last cycle I was only measuring at 4 mm at this stage, so I'm feeling pretty excited about where we're at right now - as it should only get thicker from here. Whether or not this is from the acupuncture or not, I'm not sure, but I'll happily take it!

The other big thing that will be happening later on today, is that Janelle and Joel have an appointment with the doctor where they will decide on how many embryos we will be transferring. There are 3 frozen, and they will be deciding whether we will be transferring one or two? Transferring two does have a higher chance of pregnancy, but then there is the added risk of multiples. The doctor and I talked about it briefly this morning, so now we'll just wait and see what the verdict is later today. It's pretty exciting, and I'm fine with whatever they decide to do.

On a totally different note; this past weekend we decided to take advantage of being in between cycles (not pregnant), and we shipped both the kids out with the grandparents for a night out and enjoyed some Halloween festivities.

Here's us all done up.

I'm dressed as "Jem," but only us kids from the 80's really know who she is. You can't see the earrings I had, for "Showtime Synergy," but they're there. 

Truly outrageous.