Yes, I changed the color of my blog. I do love pink and will confess to having a pink cell phone, pink Nintendo DS (What can I say? I like playing word and puzzle games on it), and a fair amount of pink clothes. I decided my blog doesn't need to be pink too though....especially not nauseating hot pink.
I'm sitting hear waiting for my Dr. from the Vegas office to call me for a consultation. I have a huge list of questions typed up to ask him. I've yet to have a consult with any RE that has actually proved very useful so I'm not expecting much. I really feel a need for some answers, but I don't think anyone has them.
I guess what I'm hoping is that he'll give me some indication of whether another cycle might yield better results than last time.
Is there anything we could do differently?
Should we test both the eggs and the embryo to try to determine if it's mainly an egg or sperm issue at this point? If we found out, for example, that I didn't have any normal eggs on a next cycle then I think donor eggs would be indicated. If I had several normal eggs but they became abnormal embryos, then maybe the Dr. would suggest donor sperm.
Of course, all of this would involve more cycles and more money. I'm just not sure if we could even swing it. Ideally, I'd like to transfer the embryos we already have there to a surrogate first. Yet, I don't know how long it will take me to find one and complete the whole process again. One agency I called to ask some questions yesterday told me it would likely be 3 to 6 months just to match me with someone. Factor in at least another month (probably more like 2 or 3) for psychological testing, the DQ alpha testing, negotiating a contract and then having to wait for her cycle to start bcp's. At 38, I don't feel like I have much time to be sitting around doing nothing.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
A plan is forming...
I can't say it's a good plan, but it's the best I can come up with under duress.
Yesterday, I spoke with a Dr. at the local clinic DH and I got treatment at prior to the one we're at now. He's actually the one who did the last transfer to my GS. We do still have some embryos frozen there. I haven't said much about them because they are untested. And, out of the 3 blasts transferred to me from that batch back when I did the fresh cycle and 3 blasts transferred to my GS back in Nov., we only had the one pregnancy which she miscarried due to an abnormal embryo. So, I'm far from optimistic for the remaining embryos. We have 2 Day 6 blasts, 3 Day 2 two cells and 3 Day 2 three cells. At best, I'm thinking 1 of the Day 2's may make it to blast and we'd be able to transfer 3 (assuming both blasts even survive).
Anyway, the Dr. there said DQ Alpha/HLA matching was something that was a popular topic of interest with a group of Dr.'s back in the 90's. However, no good research ever came out to prove it has an effect. He did a search for me of current research but did not find anything. He said some Dr.'s rely on their own anecdotal experiences with their patients to support their theories. He doesn't feel it's an issue and they don't even test for it (which seems to be the case with most clinics). However, I did go to the Las Vegas clinic because they deal with more difficult cases so it's reasonable to believe there are more obscure issues behind the failures. I'm not sure what to think at this point. I do feel comfortable with just going ahead and transferring the remaining embryos at the local clinic to my current GS. She is geared up to do a transfer. We do have to use those embryos at some point. And, granted, I suppose there is a tiny chance one normal one might sitting there in the few we haven't used yet. And, despite what the other Dr. said, I'm still quite convinced that she has a better chance for a good outcome than I do. Nonetheless, we're all setting our expectations even lower than very low for this one. Since she was on bcp's, we're just converting her over to this clinic's protocol and should be able to have a transfer around the same time in May as we were expecting to at the other clinic.
The other part of my plan is still the same. I'm still searching for a new GS for the embryos at the Las Vegas clinic. I really do not want to resort to using an agency (and the extra $ 13,000-$15,000 fee they charge) but may have to since I'm not having any luck finding someone on my own so far.
DH and I still haven't decided about doing an 8th fresh cycle. I feel like, if we're going to such a huge expense to get another surrogate, isn't it kind of silly not to do more than one transfer if one doesn't work? Usually, contracts cover up to 3 transfers. Then again, doing another cycle would also cost a lot of money and, after last time, I'm not feeling very optimistic we would get anything out of it.
Meanwhile, after completion of our last fresh cycle (which we thought was our last), DH has reverted back to his bad habits (well, bad for sperm anyway) of having a few beers after work, taking scalding hot baths and not taking any of his antioxidants. I feel like that puts us at least 3 months away from another cycle as it is. He told me to let him know if we're doing another cycle so he can go back to his "Quaker lifestyle". I really can't decide what to do. :{
Yesterday, I spoke with a Dr. at the local clinic DH and I got treatment at prior to the one we're at now. He's actually the one who did the last transfer to my GS. We do still have some embryos frozen there. I haven't said much about them because they are untested. And, out of the 3 blasts transferred to me from that batch back when I did the fresh cycle and 3 blasts transferred to my GS back in Nov., we only had the one pregnancy which she miscarried due to an abnormal embryo. So, I'm far from optimistic for the remaining embryos. We have 2 Day 6 blasts, 3 Day 2 two cells and 3 Day 2 three cells. At best, I'm thinking 1 of the Day 2's may make it to blast and we'd be able to transfer 3 (assuming both blasts even survive).
Anyway, the Dr. there said DQ Alpha/HLA matching was something that was a popular topic of interest with a group of Dr.'s back in the 90's. However, no good research ever came out to prove it has an effect. He did a search for me of current research but did not find anything. He said some Dr.'s rely on their own anecdotal experiences with their patients to support their theories. He doesn't feel it's an issue and they don't even test for it (which seems to be the case with most clinics). However, I did go to the Las Vegas clinic because they deal with more difficult cases so it's reasonable to believe there are more obscure issues behind the failures. I'm not sure what to think at this point. I do feel comfortable with just going ahead and transferring the remaining embryos at the local clinic to my current GS. She is geared up to do a transfer. We do have to use those embryos at some point. And, granted, I suppose there is a tiny chance one normal one might sitting there in the few we haven't used yet. And, despite what the other Dr. said, I'm still quite convinced that she has a better chance for a good outcome than I do. Nonetheless, we're all setting our expectations even lower than very low for this one. Since she was on bcp's, we're just converting her over to this clinic's protocol and should be able to have a transfer around the same time in May as we were expecting to at the other clinic.
The other part of my plan is still the same. I'm still searching for a new GS for the embryos at the Las Vegas clinic. I really do not want to resort to using an agency (and the extra $ 13,000-$15,000 fee they charge) but may have to since I'm not having any luck finding someone on my own so far.
DH and I still haven't decided about doing an 8th fresh cycle. I feel like, if we're going to such a huge expense to get another surrogate, isn't it kind of silly not to do more than one transfer if one doesn't work? Usually, contracts cover up to 3 transfers. Then again, doing another cycle would also cost a lot of money and, after last time, I'm not feeling very optimistic we would get anything out of it.
Meanwhile, after completion of our last fresh cycle (which we thought was our last), DH has reverted back to his bad habits (well, bad for sperm anyway) of having a few beers after work, taking scalding hot baths and not taking any of his antioxidants. I feel like that puts us at least 3 months away from another cycle as it is. He told me to let him know if we're doing another cycle so he can go back to his "Quaker lifestyle". I really can't decide what to do. :{
Friday, April 25, 2008
What now?
Anyway, I was rereading bits of all of them last night struggling to find an answer but not coming up with any clear cut path. At the moment my mind is a jumbled mess of options and I find myself considering moving forward with adoption, using a surrogate, doing another fresh cycle and possibly using half donor sperm, and doing an egg donor cycle all at the same time. Yeah, I know. Even if we did have the unlimited money this would cost, it's probably not a great idea. I'm just feeling so desperate right now.
I guess part of the issue is that there are some serious issues for us with any of the alternative options.
When it comes to adoption, we are just not comfortable with open adoption, which seems to be rather prevalent these days. I am also worried that our being Jewish might work against us when it comes to being chosen by birthparents. Ironically, I was raised as a Roman Catholic but converted to Judaism before DH and I married. Part of the reason was to be able to raise our children not feeling confused about religion yet, when it comes to adoption, our odds of getting a child may have been better if at least one of us was Roman Catholic. I sometimes regret converting for other reasons. I have great respect for Judaism and felt very strongly about converting at the time. Maybe the issue is just that I haven't taken any effort to participate in the customs or holidays, but it's hard when DH doesn't. I know we would both make the effort if we had children. Anyway, I'm getting into a whole different topic here.
Back to adoption... In all honesty, I also have to admit that adopting a child just seems like such a huge leap of faith to me. I worry about whether I'd be able to bond with the child. Would it feel like having a stranger in my home? Logically, I know from speaking to others who have adopted that it can be a great way to build a family and I'd feel like the children were truly mine. They would be mine. I love my cat like my own child so is it really that big a stretch to believe I'd love a child like my own child? That leads me into the positive aspects of adoption. We would get a child. It might be a very long wait but, if we were persistent, it would happen. I can't say the same about any of the other options. I also feel like adoption is something I could be proud of. We would be doing something altruistic by giving a child a great home and parents. Both of our families are fully supportive of it.
When it comes to egg donation, the first problem is that we aren't certain egg quality is our issue. And, if it is, we don't know if that's our only issue. Would we need an egg donor and a surrogate? If so, then we negate what many regard as a big positive factor with egg donation; being able to carry the child.
When I first started thinking about egg donation, the imbalance it might create in our marriage was a big concern to me. I've been able to convince myself that wouldn't be a problem and, sure, if there is some way at least one of us can have a genetic connection that would be great. It would somewhat ease my fears about the baby feeling like a stranger if I knew there was part of DH in there.
Another issue, though, is we would not be able to tell anyone. DH's mother would be the only one who would know (and, even then, only because we would need his parents help financially if we went that route... especially if we used a surrogate as well ). I wouldn't want to live my whole life putting up with stupid comments or subjecting the child to them. I don't like the feeling of having to keep secrets. I know that many who decide not to tell say it is really no one else's business (except for perhaps the child's) how they conceived. I would just feel a little strange about my parents thinking there was some sort of genetic link between them and the child when, in fact, there wasn't? So, there are definitely some issues here. And, of course, one big issue is that there is no guarantee donor eggs would work for us.
Then we have the option of trying donor sperm. Again, we have no clear cut need for donor sperm in light of ICSI being available. According to many Dr.'s, a sperm can be completely terrible in terms of quality yet still do it's job properly once they have injected it into the egg.
My DH is also not very receptive to this idea. He would do it if a Dr. were to tell him that he was 100 percent certain his sperm were the issue behind our very low percentage of normal embryos but has a problem doing it just as a part of trial and error to see what might work for us. Using donor sperm would also mean my doing another IVF cycle.....and I don't think we'd be willing to try that until we did one more cycle first with our own eggs and sperm to see if not having any normal embryos last time was just an aberration. So, that would bring me up to Fresh Cycle 9. I don't know if I have that in me, mentally or physically not to mention the financial impact it would have on us.
The only conclusion I've managed to reach for now is that I will try to search for a new surrogate for the embryos in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, I'm sure I'll spend everyday thinking about all of the above.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
They match
The title pretty much says it all. I got the result today and my surrogate and DH have the DQ/HLA match.
My Dr. said he strongly advises against my using her. I even asked him if the choice came down to transferring to myself or to this surrogate, what would he advise and he said definitely transferring them to me. To put this in perspective, I had 16 embryos (all were Day 5 or 6 except 3 which were Day 3) transferred to myself with only one chemical pregnancy before switching to his clinic. I then had two transfers of embryos that were tested to be free of abnormalities and, after 2 normal ones were transferred, I became pregnant with a singleton and miscarried at around 8 1/2 weeks. Then, I transferred 1 tested embryo and had a short lived chemical pregnancy. So, he is saying he would rather transfer to me than to a lady who has had 5 children successfully. Needless to say, that makes me think he really believes this HLA matching issue is a very serious problem. Part of me would just like to ignore him and proceed with the transfer but then, if it didn't work, I would have it in my head that this was the reason. We went to this Dr. because he is an expert with difficult cases so it seems like it'd be foolish to then ignore his advice.
I've been crying for the last couple hours. I just don't know what to do now. I don't think transferring to myself is even an option at this point. We can't take any chances with our last embryos....especially the one that is tested. It seems so overwhelming to go all the way back to Square one with trying to find a surrogate I can trust and going through all the intial stages of getting things set up.
Meanwhile, I still have to tell my surrogate about this. She is at work right now. I'm dreading having to tell her. She has been so great and we've really become good friends throughout all of this. I felt so comfortable having her do this for us. I know she really wanted to give us our children. She knew that doing a transfer at this clinic hinged on this test result, but neither of us ever thought we'd be this unlucky.
My Dr. said he strongly advises against my using her. I even asked him if the choice came down to transferring to myself or to this surrogate, what would he advise and he said definitely transferring them to me. To put this in perspective, I had 16 embryos (all were Day 5 or 6 except 3 which were Day 3) transferred to myself with only one chemical pregnancy before switching to his clinic. I then had two transfers of embryos that were tested to be free of abnormalities and, after 2 normal ones were transferred, I became pregnant with a singleton and miscarried at around 8 1/2 weeks. Then, I transferred 1 tested embryo and had a short lived chemical pregnancy. So, he is saying he would rather transfer to me than to a lady who has had 5 children successfully. Needless to say, that makes me think he really believes this HLA matching issue is a very serious problem. Part of me would just like to ignore him and proceed with the transfer but then, if it didn't work, I would have it in my head that this was the reason. We went to this Dr. because he is an expert with difficult cases so it seems like it'd be foolish to then ignore his advice.
I've been crying for the last couple hours. I just don't know what to do now. I don't think transferring to myself is even an option at this point. We can't take any chances with our last embryos....especially the one that is tested. It seems so overwhelming to go all the way back to Square one with trying to find a surrogate I can trust and going through all the intial stages of getting things set up.
Meanwhile, I still have to tell my surrogate about this. She is at work right now. I'm dreading having to tell her. She has been so great and we've really become good friends throughout all of this. I felt so comfortable having her do this for us. I know she really wanted to give us our children. She knew that doing a transfer at this clinic hinged on this test result, but neither of us ever thought we'd be this unlucky.
Waiting......
I had spent so much time worrying about the CGH test results and whether they would be back in time for my surrogate to prepare for the May cycle. Of course, I got those with plenty of time to spare but am now still waiting on the DQ/HLA test results. The clinic I go to requires this test even though I'm using a surrogate since it's possible (although unlikely) that she could have a match with my husband. I won't go into explaining the whole DQ/HLA matching theory. I'm not even sure I could explain it properly. I've never spent much time researching it since my DH and I did not have the match. Suffice it to say that having a match is bad....so bad that if by some small chance my surrogate has the match with DH they will strongly advise us not to transfer to her.
My surrogate is supposed to start lupron on Sunday. The problem is the clinic won't do up her official calendar or issue her prescriptions until they have the test result back. The lab that processes the results is not a part of the clinic. They received my surrogate's blood on the 8th and told us the results would take 7-10 business days. We thought that gave us plenty of time. Then, we were informed that they don't count Fridays as business days. Even so, I figured we would be okay since yesterday was Day 10 according to the lab's business days. When we hadn't heard anything, I asked my nurse to call them. She did so and was told to call back Friday by 2:00. This is a big problem. Friday afternoon there is 3 hours later here and I don't think we could have a pharmacy ship out meds. for Saturday receipt so late in the day. My nurse said if I wanted to try contact the lab myself to explain the situation and see if they'd have some sympathy to go ahead. She said they didn't have any for her.
So, even though I was feeling quite angry with the lab since they promised results by the 10th business day (which according to their calendar was already a ridiculously long time) yet were now telling us we couldn't have them until the 12th business day, I forced myself to take a few deep breaths and pick up the phone. I knew I probably wouldn't get far if I called them and was accusatory. I just got an answering machine so I sent over a fax explaining how important getting this result on Thursday was to us. I called about an hour later and spoke with someone who said she received it and had brought it to the attention of the Dr. but that he was still "calibrating the result and it was not even in the system yet." I'm not sure exactly what that means but it didn't sound good. I told her I was about ready to have a nervous breakdown not knowing if we'd have the result in time or not and could she please give me a call if she found out. I didn't receive a call back yesterday.
Postponing the cycle isn't even an option as my surrogate has already requested specific days off from work (she had to tell them last week before they did the schedule for next month). Her supervisor gave her a hard time so she had to go to the person above her to get approval. There is just no way she could get things changed around now without losing her job.
So, either I get this result or I no longer have a surrogate. Of course, I'm also worried about the possibility that she will have a match with my DH in which case I also no longer have a surrogate.
It's going to be a long day.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Hanging on by a thread
I was having an okay day yesterday. I even summoned up the motivation to find a new recipe to try, went shopping for all the ingredients and somehow made it in and out of the grocery store only seeing one child and, to make things even better, it was a screaming child.
DH had band practice during the afternoon so I played some music and got some things done around the house. I was feeling very focused and energetic for the first time in many weeks.
Then, around 7:00, just as I was in the midst of cooking dinner and expecting DH to get home any minute, DH's brother called. The last time he had called us was right after his first child was born. Since I knew my SIL was expecting soon, it wasn't very difficult to figure out why he was calling. I had answered the phone only because the number that came up on the caller ID was my MIL's number. I was caught off guard hearing my BIL. He basically just said he hadn't talked to me in a long time, asked how I was doing (to which I replied the most convincing "good!" that I could summon up) and then asked if my DH could call him back when he got home. I could tell by his voice that he could barely contain his excitement. I said "sure" and got off the phone as fast as I possibly could; partly because I really did not want to hear the details, but also because I had my new recipe on the stove getting overcooked.
When DH got home and I told him his brother had called, he seemed surprised and was like "why is he calling me?" I told him what my guess was and he sighed and went in the office to call him and get it over with. When he came out (which was about 2 minutes later), I could tell how agitated he was. He said that his brother started off the conversation the same way as last time saying "I know this is hard for you, but...." DH remarked that if he knew it was hard for him, why did he have to call us ASAP after his wife gave birth every time... particularly in light of the fact that we never hear from him otherwise?! It's not like he has ever called to offer his condolences or support after one of my miscarriages or our failed cycles (which he knows about through MIL). In fact, I had asked MIL to just let me know whenever SIL had the baby so we could send a gift. I had also wanted to spare my DH the dreaded phone call. Anyway, the result of his call was that we both had a crappy night and were unable to sleep. I finally gave in to taking xanax at 2 AM. At that point, DH was still up.
It's not even that we begrudge them. It has little to do with them. It's just that getting news like that reminds us that here they are effortlessly with a 2nd child (after getting married 3 years later than us) when we have been going through hell just trying to have a first with no success. After the call, I had that desperate time-is-running-out, anxious feeling that just would not go away and has carried over into today. And any small amount of hope I was feeling about the upcoming transfer to my surrogate has faded to practically nothing. Instead, all I can focus on is the familiar feeling of being disappointed.
I am also feeling annoyed with MIL. For all the help and support she has tried in her own way to give us, I am often reminded of how little she really understands what we are going through. Even so recently as last week, she had been trying to convince me to reconsider and for us to visit them for Passover. I held my ground and said I did not think it was a good idea with SIL so close to giving birth. She said "oh, it won't be a problem." Yes, for everyone else, I'm sure it would not have been a problem. The point is that it would have been a big one for my DH and I. Her due date was the 29th but I knew my luck. I knew it would happen when we were there and it turns out I would have been precisely right. I don't even think I could have handled being around her when she was that far along anyway. Had my surrogate not miscarried on the last cycle, she would have given birth in July. It's just too hard not to think of things like that.
I'm annoyed with myself that one little phone call has the power to completely disrupt my fragile world. I hate feeling like this and just wonder if it will always be like this if things don't work out for us or does it get easier to take with time.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Anniversary
Today is DH's and my 8th anniversary. We'll be going out for dinner tonight and I'm trying to shake myself out of the lousy mood I'm in. I wish I could celebrate holidays for what they actually are without having them overshadowed by thoughts of how it's yet another anniversary or birthday or New Year's without our having a child.
We've been dealing with IVF for well over half our marriage now. I think that, for the first 2 1/2 years of our marriage, we remained blissfully unaware that we had an infertility problem. DH didn't want to start trying until after around 2 years had passed. He was still trying to get established in a career and wasn't earning enough for me to stop working. He also wanted to have a large enough house for children and we were only living in a 2 bedroom condo. at the time. My job was very stressful and involved long hours and a 2 hour commute to Manhattan by train each day. Meanwhile, I was getting very nervous about my advancing age. I had never wanted to be an older parent and had always hoped to finish completing our family by the age of 35.
I finally managed to talk DH into my at least stopping bcp's (which were also making me miserable). At first, I wasn't charting ovulation or doing anything like that. I guess we just figured it would happen before too long without any planned efforts on our part. When nothing happened after a number of months, I suspected I might not be ovulating and went to see my Gyn. I can't even remember what she did.....I think she ran some blood tests (which were all normal) and basically said keep trying and come back to see her in 6 months. During that time frame, DH got a job in FL. I left my job and we moved. We decided that I wouldn't work and we'd focus on having children, after which the plan was that I'd be a stay at home mom.
We bought a 5 bedroom house in FL. We wanted to make sure we had plenty of room for the children (yes, those were the days of optimism). I then wasted some more time with an OB. She tested my FSH and LH levels which seemed perfect. Beyond that, she didn't do much for me other than admonish me to learn to relax. I had been using an electronic fertility monitor and, even though I had long cycles, I was ovulating. We made sure we timed things perfectly based on the monitor but still no luck. I made an appointment with a RE at a fertility clinic. There were really only 2 fertility clinics within easy driving distance of our house. I picked the one that had the most attractive advertisement in the phone book. At the time I made this appointment, I had no real idea what IVF was or involved and I certainly didn't think we would be told we needed it. Amazingly, neither of the OB's I had seen previously had ever thought to mention the possibility that my DH might have an issue preventing our success. As it turned out, his count, motility, morphology, etc. were all extremely low. My Dr. at the fertility clinic told us that we would need to head straight to IVF with ICSI. Anything less would be a complete waste of time and our chances of conceiving on our own were about 1 in a million.
That was a tough blow to take. I was scared to death by the whole IVF process and it took a lot for me to commit to that first attempt. The whole thing was as bad as I had feared. Looking back, I think a lot of it was the fact that we had moved fairly recently. I hadn't made any friends yet. I didn't have any awareness of the message boards online that later became my salvation. On top of that, DH was totally submerged at work and just didn't have anything left in him to deal with me and my emotions being all over the place. I think the only thing that got me through it was the hope of it working. Since all of the testing on me had come back clear, we had been told we'd have a great chance of success.
I don't think either DH or I really thought about it not working. We were that confident.
I'm sure my expectations would have been substantially lowered had I looked up that particular clinic's success rates which were far from impressive. I honestly didn't even know or think to do such a thing at the time though. After that first cycle failed, I was so crushed and I had found the whole process so miserable, that I swore I would never do it again if our frozen transfers from the cycle didn't work. Of course, there are days now where I wish I hadn't changed my mind. I just couldn't do it though. Both DH and I wanted children badly and I didn't want to go through life wondering "what if?" What if I had just tried one more cycle? What if the clinic was the problem? I did some research and switched clinics. At this point, I've been to 3 different clinics and still don't have the answer. Does the threat of having "what if's" ever end? I still don't feel at peace with giving up.
Well, this little walk down memory lane has definitely not helped put me in a better mood!!
We've been dealing with IVF for well over half our marriage now. I think that, for the first 2 1/2 years of our marriage, we remained blissfully unaware that we had an infertility problem. DH didn't want to start trying until after around 2 years had passed. He was still trying to get established in a career and wasn't earning enough for me to stop working. He also wanted to have a large enough house for children and we were only living in a 2 bedroom condo. at the time. My job was very stressful and involved long hours and a 2 hour commute to Manhattan by train each day. Meanwhile, I was getting very nervous about my advancing age. I had never wanted to be an older parent and had always hoped to finish completing our family by the age of 35.
I finally managed to talk DH into my at least stopping bcp's (which were also making me miserable). At first, I wasn't charting ovulation or doing anything like that. I guess we just figured it would happen before too long without any planned efforts on our part. When nothing happened after a number of months, I suspected I might not be ovulating and went to see my Gyn. I can't even remember what she did.....I think she ran some blood tests (which were all normal) and basically said keep trying and come back to see her in 6 months. During that time frame, DH got a job in FL. I left my job and we moved. We decided that I wouldn't work and we'd focus on having children, after which the plan was that I'd be a stay at home mom.
We bought a 5 bedroom house in FL. We wanted to make sure we had plenty of room for the children (yes, those were the days of optimism). I then wasted some more time with an OB. She tested my FSH and LH levels which seemed perfect. Beyond that, she didn't do much for me other than admonish me to learn to relax. I had been using an electronic fertility monitor and, even though I had long cycles, I was ovulating. We made sure we timed things perfectly based on the monitor but still no luck. I made an appointment with a RE at a fertility clinic. There were really only 2 fertility clinics within easy driving distance of our house. I picked the one that had the most attractive advertisement in the phone book. At the time I made this appointment, I had no real idea what IVF was or involved and I certainly didn't think we would be told we needed it. Amazingly, neither of the OB's I had seen previously had ever thought to mention the possibility that my DH might have an issue preventing our success. As it turned out, his count, motility, morphology, etc. were all extremely low. My Dr. at the fertility clinic told us that we would need to head straight to IVF with ICSI. Anything less would be a complete waste of time and our chances of conceiving on our own were about 1 in a million.
That was a tough blow to take. I was scared to death by the whole IVF process and it took a lot for me to commit to that first attempt. The whole thing was as bad as I had feared. Looking back, I think a lot of it was the fact that we had moved fairly recently. I hadn't made any friends yet. I didn't have any awareness of the message boards online that later became my salvation. On top of that, DH was totally submerged at work and just didn't have anything left in him to deal with me and my emotions being all over the place. I think the only thing that got me through it was the hope of it working. Since all of the testing on me had come back clear, we had been told we'd have a great chance of success.
I don't think either DH or I really thought about it not working. We were that confident.
I'm sure my expectations would have been substantially lowered had I looked up that particular clinic's success rates which were far from impressive. I honestly didn't even know or think to do such a thing at the time though. After that first cycle failed, I was so crushed and I had found the whole process so miserable, that I swore I would never do it again if our frozen transfers from the cycle didn't work. Of course, there are days now where I wish I hadn't changed my mind. I just couldn't do it though. Both DH and I wanted children badly and I didn't want to go through life wondering "what if?" What if I had just tried one more cycle? What if the clinic was the problem? I did some research and switched clinics. At this point, I've been to 3 different clinics and still don't have the answer. Does the threat of having "what if's" ever end? I still don't feel at peace with giving up.
Well, this little walk down memory lane has definitely not helped put me in a better mood!!
Friday, April 11, 2008
We have a transfer date
It looks like the transfer date will be May 21. My surrogate will need to get out there by the night of the 18th as my Dr. wants to do a 2nd lining check to make sure it looks good since she's having the original lining check done locally and he's not very trusting of other clinics measurements. She'll return home on the 23rd (after resting a full day and night in the hotel).
Her husband is going to travel out there with her. I wasn't going to go myself since it's not necessary that I be there, but have changed my mind. I decided I'll fly in the night before the transfer and leave the morning after. They do allow one person in the room with the patient during the transfer and my surrogate is fine with my going in. She actually seemed pleased that I'd want to be there. So, I'd really like to just see the embryos reach their destination on the monitor and to be able to speak first hand with my Dr. regarding how everything went. It'd just feel a little strange if the transfer was taking place on the opposite end of the U.S. and I wasn't even there. I'm not sure yet if my husband will travel there with me or not. It kind of depends on what he has going on at work and how expensive airfare is.
I've been feeling a bit of a high today after getting the exact date....the high that comes from knowing there is a transfer on the horizon. In between my imagining how I'll be one of those women who is able to claim miraculous success (and twins even!) after a gazillion failed cycles, I remember to be disgusted with myself. Haven't I been here before....way too many times? Have I learned nothing? The higher I let myself get, the further the fall (repeat to self a hundred times).
Her husband is going to travel out there with her. I wasn't going to go myself since it's not necessary that I be there, but have changed my mind. I decided I'll fly in the night before the transfer and leave the morning after. They do allow one person in the room with the patient during the transfer and my surrogate is fine with my going in. She actually seemed pleased that I'd want to be there. So, I'd really like to just see the embryos reach their destination on the monitor and to be able to speak first hand with my Dr. regarding how everything went. It'd just feel a little strange if the transfer was taking place on the opposite end of the U.S. and I wasn't even there. I'm not sure yet if my husband will travel there with me or not. It kind of depends on what he has going on at work and how expensive airfare is.
I've been feeling a bit of a high today after getting the exact date....the high that comes from knowing there is a transfer on the horizon. In between my imagining how I'll be one of those women who is able to claim miraculous success (and twins even!) after a gazillion failed cycles, I remember to be disgusted with myself. Haven't I been here before....way too many times? Have I learned nothing? The higher I let myself get, the further the fall (repeat to self a hundred times).
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Surprise embryo
Well, today my coordinator called to tell me that we actually have 3 embryos frozen; not 2. I tried to tell her that wasn't possible. It's not like I wouldn't remember how many embryos we have frozen. There's not many to keep track of....it's a little hard to lose count of 2.
Apparently, she had looked at my chart and things just didn't add up so she researched things and talked with the lab and it turns out there was one Day 3 embryo back in my July cycle that they didn't biopsy because it wasn't looking so good, but it ended up turning around and making it to blast. It was frozen but not discarded with the blasts that tested abnormal as it never actually got tested. I have no idea how I was never told about it but, since it seems to work in my favor, I'm not going to complain.
So we have an "inconclusive embryo" (which I understand is basically the same as untested),
an untested embryo and the CGH normal embryo. I talked with my Dr. and he's willing to let me transfer all 3 to my surrogate. The downside of this is, if by some miracle she does get pregnant, we won't really have the full benefit of the CGH testing when it comes to not having to worry as much about miscarriage or doing invasive testing. I know, who am I kidding? It's not like we'll get far enough to be worrying about an amnio. Ha! I can't believe the thought even entered my mind there for a minute.
DH and I both admitted to one another today that we would consider doing an 8th fresh cycle if things don't work out with this transfer to our surrogate. I had been afraid to mention it to him for fear he'd think I had become insane and he was afraid to bring it up to me. It's crazy, I know. I just can't "move on".... partially because I don't know what we'd move on to.
Apparently, she had looked at my chart and things just didn't add up so she researched things and talked with the lab and it turns out there was one Day 3 embryo back in my July cycle that they didn't biopsy because it wasn't looking so good, but it ended up turning around and making it to blast. It was frozen but not discarded with the blasts that tested abnormal as it never actually got tested. I have no idea how I was never told about it but, since it seems to work in my favor, I'm not going to complain.
So we have an "inconclusive embryo" (which I understand is basically the same as untested),
an untested embryo and the CGH normal embryo. I talked with my Dr. and he's willing to let me transfer all 3 to my surrogate. The downside of this is, if by some miracle she does get pregnant, we won't really have the full benefit of the CGH testing when it comes to not having to worry as much about miscarriage or doing invasive testing. I know, who am I kidding? It's not like we'll get far enough to be worrying about an amnio. Ha! I can't believe the thought even entered my mind there for a minute.
DH and I both admitted to one another today that we would consider doing an 8th fresh cycle if things don't work out with this transfer to our surrogate. I had been afraid to mention it to him for fear he'd think I had become insane and he was afraid to bring it up to me. It's crazy, I know. I just can't "move on".... partially because I don't know what we'd move on to.
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
CGH results
Out of the 5 blasts that were frozen, we have one "inconclusive" embryo. The other 4 were abnormal. I'm still not completely clear on how an embryo ends up getting an inconclusive result but the best I can understand is that, for some reason, the DNA was not able to be read from the cell they removed making the testing impossible. So, basically, "inconclusive" means untested.
The Dr. assured me that the fact the DNA couldn't be read is a technical issue and does not reflect on the embryo itself. Even so, what are the odds that the one embryo they couldn't test would be the only normal one out of the bunch? So, yeah, as far as I'm concerned we pretty much just had a cycle with all abnormal embryos and I have no idea if it was a fluke thing or if my days of having a few tested normal embryos per cycle are now over.
Fortunately, even though they usually will not transfer an untested embryo along with a tested normal one, my Dr. agreed to make an exception in our case since my surrogate can only go out there the one time for a transfer. And, since I haven't had success transferring 3 tested normal embryos to myself at this point, I think the untested embryo has a much better shot being transferred to her.
Now we are just waiting on my surrogate's DQ/HLA testing to come back and I'm praying she won't have a match with my husband. I'm not even sure if I believe in the whole DQ/HLA matching theory but I can't imagine going through with the ET if my Dr. told me there was no chance it would work due to a match. I would think it'd be extremely unlikely she'll have a match with him. She's had 5 children (one delivered for a couple as a surrogate) and each was conceived with a different man. And, of course, she did get pregnant for us once but miscarried due to an abnormal embryo.
The Dr. assured me that the fact the DNA couldn't be read is a technical issue and does not reflect on the embryo itself. Even so, what are the odds that the one embryo they couldn't test would be the only normal one out of the bunch? So, yeah, as far as I'm concerned we pretty much just had a cycle with all abnormal embryos and I have no idea if it was a fluke thing or if my days of having a few tested normal embryos per cycle are now over.
Fortunately, even though they usually will not transfer an untested embryo along with a tested normal one, my Dr. agreed to make an exception in our case since my surrogate can only go out there the one time for a transfer. And, since I haven't had success transferring 3 tested normal embryos to myself at this point, I think the untested embryo has a much better shot being transferred to her.
Now we are just waiting on my surrogate's DQ/HLA testing to come back and I'm praying she won't have a match with my husband. I'm not even sure if I believe in the whole DQ/HLA matching theory but I can't imagine going through with the ET if my Dr. told me there was no chance it would work due to a match. I would think it'd be extremely unlikely she'll have a match with him. She's had 5 children (one delivered for a couple as a surrogate) and each was conceived with a different man. And, of course, she did get pregnant for us once but miscarried due to an abnormal embryo.
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