Things aren't looking good....

I could probably use the above title for 90% of my posts.

Last week, I found out that we actually had 17 embryos fertilized (apparently 1 more made it) and, of those, 13 were growing on target. Four were lagging and probably wouldn't make it. I was really happy with that report because by Day 3 the last cycle we did, we had 11 embryos growing on target and all 11 of those made it to blast. Of those, only 2 were competent and capable of creating a healthy pregnancy according to the CGH testing. So, of course, I got my hopes up that we might have 13 blasts which would give us a great shot at 2 normal ones, if not 1 or 2 more than that.

As usual, my optimism was short lived. I found out a few days later that only 7 embryos made it to blast to be frozen. Last time about half our embryos made it to blast by Day 5. This time they all took until Day 6. I suppose that, in and of itself, that's not necessarily a problem. One of my embryos that tested normal last time around was a Day 6 blast. However, I asked for the embryology report on the 7 embryos and things look even worse than I thought. One of the embryos was 10 cells on Day 3. Since it was dividing too quickly, the Dr. said it's likely to be abnormal. Two of the embryos weren't even expanded as of Day 6 and they should have been. One embryo has over 20 percent fragmentation which is not a good sign. So, the way I see it, I really only have 3 embryos that have any remote chance of passing the CGH testing as compared with 11 last time. Needless to say, things do not look promising.

I have a phone consult with Dr. S. today. I guess I'm looking for some kind of explanation of why this cycle went so poorly in comparison with the last one considering I was on the exact same protocol. I don't think I did anything different lifestyle-wise although, as you can imagine, I've been driving myself crazy trying to think of any possible little thing I might have done differently that ruined things.

I'm feeling so frustrated and scared.....scared that this really is never going to work no matter how long I persevere. This was my 6th fresh cycle. One was canceled right before the trigger ....a bad call by a Dr. who got worried about OHSS. So, I guess I could say it was my 5th fresh cycle in terms of not having success but my 6th if I'm looking at how many times I've gone through it and exposed myself to all the medications. On top of that, I've done 4 FET's. I may have already passed the point of excess. The thing is, the first clinic we went to didn't do well with my case so I feel that cycle really doesn't count. The 2nd clinic canceled my first cycle due to the OHSS fears. Then, the cycle after that, the Dr. put me on a ridiculously low dose of meds. It took me forever to stim. and I had far fewer eggs. The embryos we had seemed to be good quality but they usually do appear to be on the surface. Then, the next fresh cycle my meds. were upped some and I had a better response. The problem there is the Dr. opted to freeze 10 of my embryos on Day 2. I haven't used those yet. He left another 8 out to go to blast for the fresh transfer. On Day 5, we had 1 blast and 2 morulas and the rest were still growing. We transferred the 3 and, of the others, 2 became blasts by Day 6 and were frozen. So, I have 12 embryos frozen at that clinic. The reason why I didn't do those transfers before moving onto another clinic was because the Dr. there refused to let me use viagra to treat my lining. I didn't feel comfortable transferring with a lining of only 7. At the moment, it looks like the plan is to get a surrogate to transfer those embryos to. My fifth fresh cycle and first in Las Vegas went really well; the best ever. I finally found like maybe I found the solution. And, even though 2 out of 11 blasts being normal (only 18%) was far below what one would expect even at my age, I was happy with that because I suspected it was the first time we've ever had normal embryos to transfer. I did the fresh transfer a few months later and it worked. I thought maybe my dream was finally coming true. Wrong again. Transferring the normal embryos resulted in a missed miscarriage at 8.5 weeks leaving me uncertain if it's me or the embryos that are the problem. Maybe neither was the issue and it was just a case of bad luck with the embryo implanting in too high a location and lack of blood supply. The thing is we'll never know. At the very least, I had hoped to get an answer from the last cycle regarding why this wasn't working and I don't feel like I have it.

Back from Las Vegas....and waiting

We returned from Las Vegas on Saturday. 28 eggs were retrieved. 23 were mature. 16 fertilized.
This is not as good as our last cycle in which we had 31 eggs, 24 mature and 21 fertilized. I had 11 that made it to blast to be frozen last time and 2 of those turned out to be normal after CGH testing.

I'm feeling less than optimistic. I know these would seem like good numbers to most people but, considering that of the half of our embryos that made it to blast last time, only 18% were actually capable of creating a pregnancy, that means I'm on target to get to get one normal embryo this cycle at best. Don't get me wrong. One is certainly better than none. It's just that I was really hoping for at least 2 so I could try a transfer for myself again. If we only have 1, I'm really going to feel like we have to use a surrogate because I can't take chances with it.

I triggered with an E2 in the 5000's but am feeling okay and may even attempt working out today. I need to do something to get my mind of things. I should get a Day 3 report at some point today and I'm very nervous about it.

Back from Las Vegas....and waiting

We returned from Las Vegas on Saturday. 28 eggs were retrieved. 23 were mature. 16 fertilized.
This is not as good as our last cycle in which we had 31 eggs, 24 mature and 21 fertilized. I had 11 that made it to blast to be frozen last time and 2 of those turned out to be normal after CGH testing.

I'm feeling less than optimistic. I know these would seem like good numbers to most people but, considering that of the half of our embryos that made it to blast last time, only 18% were actually capable of creating a pregnancy, that means I'm on target to get to get one normal embryo this cycle at best. Don't get me wrong. One is certainly better than none. It's just that I was really hoping for at least 2 so I could try a transfer for myself again. If we only have 1, I'm really going to feel like we have to use a surrogate because I can't take chances with it.

I triggered with an E2 in the 5000's but am feeling okay and may even attempt working out today. I need to do something to get my mind of things. I should get a Day 3 report at some point today and I'm very nervous about it.

Here I go again

I guess I'm not as good at blogging as I thought I'd be. Two months without an entry. One might get the impression that I actually had things going on in my life (other than IVF). Ha!

I'm currently on lupron in preparation for what will be my last fresh cycle. Unfortunately, it's going to require traveling out to the clinic in Las Vegas again; something which I'm dreading. I've had enough of Las Vegas to last me for my life (of course, my hatred for it may have something to do with the fact that we are always out there for IVF procedures and never to enjoy ourselves). We'll be doing testing on the embryos again and, since it can take up to 6 weeks to get the results back, the embryos will be frozen. If there are any normal ones, then either myself or a surrogate will be doing a FET at some point. I may actually try transferring to myself one more time, but only if we have more than 1 to work with.

Other than that, I'm just extremely stressed because my cat Kobi (who is my best friend!) has been having some health issues. We've known for awhile that he has kidney stones and he's been doing ok but at his last visit to the vets we learned that he has a level 4 heart murmur. Now, the vet had discovered a Level 2 murmur last year and we had an echo done which looked okay. The fact that it has gotten worse though is concerning and I found out we did not have the echo. done by a veterinary cardiologist last time around. It was just an internist and it's possible he might have missed a problem in its early stages. So, now he's set up for another echo. on Tues. I'm just praying everything will look okay. He's only 6 1/2 and I've been counting on him being around for many, many more years. Honestly, I don't know how I could have made it through all these stressful years of infertility and IVF treatment without him. I do love my other cat, Sasha, as well but just don't have the same kind of connection with him. Kobi is my baby.

When this next cycle is over with, I fully intend to try to enjoy life for awhile. I've had it with IVF. I just feel so bitter lately. We've spent so much money and, even worse, I feel like I've completely wasted years of my life and we have nothing to show for it. I know it's my own fault. Maybe I should have drawn the line long ago, but I just didn't want to live my life thinking "what if"? And, I guess for a while I deluded myself that I'd be able to look back on all of this with my baby in my arms and think how much it was all worth it. It's looking like that's not going to happen.

Hmmm.... now I see why I blog so little. I end up depressing myself!

Should have known better than to hope

Well, as of this morning's ultrasound at 8 weeks 5 days, there was no longer a heartbeat and
the things had stopped growing. Ironically, I had started to feel more calm about things and like there was a chance things might work out. I should have known better than to let my guard down.

I have no idea what happened. The heartbeat was very strong at the last ultrasound. The OB said that, since the embryos were tested for abnormalities prior to transfer, that was an unlikely cause. He thought that maybe the bad location resulted in a lack of blood supply but I guess I'll never know for sure. It makes things very complicated because I don't know whether I need a surrogate or not on a next attempt. I'm really starting to feel like my body is hopeless when it comes to carrying a pregnancy even though none of the Dr.'s have been able to find anything wrong with me.

I'm still in shock. I can't believe that after all this time and effort we're right back where we started again.

A little bit of hope

Amazingly, the appointment with the high risk OB yesterday went better than expected.
I was so fearful of getting horrible news. What we ended up getting was a little bit of hope.
The OB said he was going to go out on a limb and say he did not think it was a cornual implantation. However, it was too early for him to be certain. He thinks it's just a very high implantation which could straighten itself out as it grows. I'm praying that's the case. He wants to keep a close eye on me so I'll be going back in next week on Tues. for another u/s.

Before the Dr. came in the room yesterday, the nurse did a u/s and we heard the heartbeat for the first time. I also got to see the screen (I wasn't allowed to in my last 2 ultrasounds as they were STAT u/s done to look for a potential problem). I could help but think how horrible it would be to have to terminate after that and I started crying. My husband held it together for my sake but I could tell he was really upset too. The Dr. seemed puzzled when he walked in. He was like "I haven't even said anything yet!" I told him we were just so used to getting bad news.

It's hard for me to acknowledge that I'm even pregnant right now. I haven't been able to since I've been feeling like I'm just going week to week waiting for the ax to fall. I'm just hoping that each u/s will make a cornual pregnancy look less likely and I can relax a little.

possible cornual ectopic....

Over the past 4 years of dealing with infertility, I've relied heavily on reading others infertility related blogs and frequenting message boards where women who are involved in the IVF process come together. I don't know what I'd do without the internet. Being able to make contact with others going through the same struggles has largely kept me sane (well, relatively sane anyway).

I finally decided today to start my own blog. If nothing else, it may help me vent. Ideally, it will help others going through this to feel less alone.

I'm also finding myself in one of the most stressful situations I've ended up in throughout this whole journey. After 5 fresh cycles and 4 frozen, my husband and I finally had success. Growth is on target and there is a heartbeat. Right now, I'm 7 weeks, 3 days. Yet, there is concern about where the embryo implanted. I always thought a pregnancy was either ectopic (bad) or intrauterine (good) but apparently there's a type of ectopic pregnancy called a cornual or insterstitial ectopic which can be in the uterus but up in the extreme corner in front of the tube. This type of pregnancy will also eventually rupture but usually when one is further along because there is more room for growth in that area. When one of these ruptures, blood loss is severe. According to what I've read, most women who die from ectopic pregnancies die from this type. Lovely.

Well, my first u/s (done at 5wks 4 days) indicated that a cornual implantation was a possibility. I was told to wait a week and hopefully things would look more clear. The 2nd u/s basically showed the same result. The technician was not willing to say it was a cornual pregnancy but couldn't say it wasn't either.

At that point, my OB suggested a MRI for better visualization but I was hesitant to do a MRI in the first trimester since so many things warn against it. We ended up deciding to hold off
for one more week (after I got a warning about the possibility of rupture....although even the OB agreed it would be early for this type to rupture). I'll be having an u/s done with a high risk OB on Tues. I'll be 7 weeks 5 days at that point. I have never been so anxious about anything in my life. I could potentially get the most horrible news of my life on Tues. or the best.