Spring, IVIG and 2 Week Wait..

Spring is here <3. My favorite time of the year :). Hope this spring will bring us greatest blossoms in our life this time. Below is the cherry blossoms in Portland, Oregon. Flowers, flowers and flowers everywhere :).

We had our first IVIG infusion at Dr. Kwak-Kim’s office at Chicago last week. We took our flight to Chicago the day before. Our appointment was at 9 am. We reached her office around 8:55 am. I was taken to the infusion room by the nurse. I took benadryl and tylenol prior to infusion. I was so scared at first and did not feel anything afterwards :). The nurse was so nice and very supportive. Then I was taken to the ultrasound room for checking the blood flow to uterus. I have been on Lovenox (blood thinner) injections and they wanted to make sure that it improved the blood flow to the uterus. Good news is blood flow to uterus did improve a lot and the blood thinner is working as expected. That was a relief. I was diagnosed with PAI-1 Heterozygous, Beta Fibrinogen Heterozygous (Both are blood clotting disorders) and low Protein C. Only solution is blood thinners. We were so happy that the lovenox is working as expected. They also checked my ovaries and found that I have 2 follicles (17 mm and 16 mm) one each at left and right ovary. I was taking Femara this cycle, so this was expected. My uterine lining was 12 mm which is great. Doctor was happy about the overall results and asked us to go ahead with natural cycle. I was so sleepy by the end of infusion (infusion lasted for 3 hours) and slept for half an hour in the most relaxing and comfortable recliner in Dr.Kwak-Kim’s office. We are planning to buy a similar recliner for our home for home infusions :). Our nurse told us it is from LazBoy furniture and planning to get one next week :). We took the evening flight back to Oregon. That was one of the toughest flight trip I have ever been. 5 hours-non-stop-tiring and I was not able to sleep for a minute :(. I slept like a baby when I reached home and took a day off from work. Next day, I had some headaches which was expected. Had lot of fluids and food to reduce the headache and I am glad that it worked well.

Our next steps:

Right now, I am on 2 ww and 5DPO. I started progesterone 400 mg from 3 DPO. I don’t have any discomfort other than little dizziness from progesterone. Only thing I am doing is praying for a BFP. If I don’t get a BFP this cycle, I have to repeat the Lovenox injections, IVIG infusions and many more pokes next cycle too :(. We never had any problem of getting pregnant in the first month of TTC itself. Only issue is keeping my pregnancy past 7-8 weeks. Really really hoping for a BFP and an uneventful pregnancy after 4 losses.

Another update is, I got my liver function test results back and my ALT values are at 264 which is 6X times higher than normal. This can be due to Metformin, Prednisone, Lovenox or IVIG. My doctor is not sure about what caused the sudden spike of ALT, so she asked me to reduce the dose of Metformin for couple of days and take the test again to see if the levels are coming down. She really needed to see a reduction in the ALT levels, or she will refer me to a specialist here in Oregon to see what is happening. We are really worried about the sudden spike in the levels which is really really high. I hope the levels will come down and next blood result gives an answer for the sudden spike. As we have really good hope this autoimmune protocol with blood thinners, I don’t want any other factors interrupting our TTC cycle.

Wishing my blogging friends a wonderful Spring! May all your dreams comes true..