What have I done?

I paid the deposit for the July IVF cycle yesterday because I was sick of being on the fence. I took my first bcp last night. Now the realization is hitting me that I am actually doing this again.
Some of my friends think I'm crazy at this point.

This will be our 6th time traveling out to Vegas since Jan. '07.

The first try there (and my 5th fresh cycle) was in Jan. '07 and, since we were doing staggered IVF with the CGH testing, we had to freeze the embryos. I went back for the ET in March '07 which was as soon as I possibly could. That was the cycle I was pregnant up to 8.5 weeks. I had the D&C in early May '07.

I then did another fresh cycle in July '07. Again, that was as soon as I could realistically cycle again. We froze the embryos while waiting for test results. I went back in Oct. '07 (the earliest Dr. S. was in Vegas again and the earliest I could have done it based on when I got the results) for the ET of one of my two tested embryos. That cycle was a chemical pregnancy.

At that point, I truly thought I was done with fresh cycles. We had a FET using a surrogate for the first time in Nov. '07 with some embryos frozen at my old local clinic from a 2006 cycle. We transferred 3 blasts to her and she became pregnant with a singleton. Things looked good at first, but her 9 week u/s showed the h/b and growth had stopped. Her D&C was in late December '07. The embryo was abnormal.

I knew I couldn't let everything ride on the one tested embryo we had left in Vegas. I couldn't get in to do another fresh cycle until March '08 though. That was my most recent cycle where we had 5 blasts but none tested normal.

So, now here we are in May '08 and it's amazing to me how much effort I've put into this since we first decided to cycle out of state yet we still have nothing to show for it. Reflecting on this makes me wonder why am I doing another cycle. What do I expect to be different?

If something actually works for us, of course I'll say it was all worth it. If none of this works, it would be a very bitter pill to swallow that I've spent so many years of my life going from cycle to cycle to the exclusion of everything else and probably at least $ 150,000 (which is not a small amount to us). It would be so hard to take that it was all for nothing; that we still don't have the child we longed for. I am deathly afraid of having to face that realization so I guess maybe this "last" cycle is just buying myself some time.

Transfer

None of the Day 2 embryos made the thaw. This did not come as a huge surprise. Of the 6 that we had, three were 2 cells and three were 3 cells. At best, I thought maybe one might pull though but no luck.

So, the Dr. thawed our 2 Day 6 blasts and transferred those. He spoke with us before the transfer to let us know what we were transferring, but I didn't see him afterwards and my surrogate said he didn't say anything after having done the transfer about how it went.

I know he had a conference to go to which is why we had to do the transfer so early in the morning. He also hadn't said anything about the quality of the blasts and, normally, I would have asked but I just didn't feel like bothering. I figured that, if they were great looking, he would have said so. The fact that he said nothing indicates to me that they probably didn't look too hot. My surrogate's husband was standing there with us when we were talking to the Dr. and I knew he would tell her if the Dr. said the blasts didn't look so good. And, I'd rather she at least have hope this will work so that's she's careful about what she's doing over the wait.

Even if the transfer itself went smoothly, our chances with 2 Day 6 blasts are pathetically low.

Again, I'm not feeling upset or anything because I have no anticipation of this working anyway. We did it mainly because we have to use our remaining embryos. Even a 1% chance is better than nothing. At least we have now used up all of our embryos at the local clinic.

On the way home, DH and I stopped at the outlet center and he bought me some cute stuff. If a pregnancy doesn't result from this trip at least I have a couple new handbags and some new clothes to show for our drive over there (my lame attempt to look at the bright side).

Fresh cycle in July

Well, DH and I have discussed things and it looks like I'll be doing fresh cycle 8 in July.  This WILL be my last no matter what happens.  Fortunately, my mom thinks she can fly down here to take care of Kobi and Sasha again while we're away.  This will be the 4th time she's done this for us and I'm so grateful to her.  I could never bring myself to board them somewhere and I've had pet-sitters come in twice a day but just end up worrying about Kobi the entire time we're away.   Speaking of Kobi, I ended up canceling his vet appt. as he hasn't thrown up once since I made it.   I still need to bring him in for routine bloodwork but figured I would hold off a little longer on that.

My surrogate has her transfer tomorrow morning.  It's funny how, in the past, I would have been calling the clinic asking how many embryos had made it to today.  The thought didn't even cross my mind until now and the clinic is closed.  I actually don't even feel like I want to know right at the moment.  The odds of this working are are probably only a few percent at best even if we do end up with a decent number to transfer.

AF finally showed up for me today after a 52 day cycle so I'll be starting bcp's (ugh...hate those things) in preparation for July.  I'm just praying this cycle goes better than the last time around.  

 

Lining Check Appt.

Well, we did get the medication issue worked out after a lot of stress and phone calls. When I called our nurse Wed. morning, she was with patients and I got her voice mail. I knew it could be hours before she would check her messages and call me back. So, I called the other branch of the clinic (where the nurse actually answers the phone) and begged her to call in the prescriptions because the only way my surrogate could get the medications before the pharmacy closed was to have her husband pick them up on his lunch break. This nurse did it for me ASAP and the pharmacy was great about filling everything quickly so it was ready to go. If this doesn't sound like it was particularly stressful, just trust me when I say this is the abbreviated version of events.

My surrogate had her lining check appt. this morning. It was 16mm. That's always amazing to me as someone who typically had a lining of 7mm and barely would make it to 9mm using viagra.

Other than that, not much is going on. I'm worried about Kobi. He's been vomiting up the wet food I give him in the mornings about 50% of the time over the last few months but has been keeping his dry food at night done so I hadn't been too concerned. The problem is, due to his kidney stones, I'm really supposed to be giving him as much wet food as possible (preferably all wet food) but anytime the poor thing eats anything approaching a decent amount of the stuff, it seems like it comes back up. I've elevated his dish and that hasn't helped.

Well, it seems like the issue is getting worse and, last night, he threw up his dry food for the first time. Then, he threw up his wet food again this morning. He seems fine otherwise and is lying on his back on my lap right now purring. I hate bringing him into the vet's as he gets extremely scared.....to the point where he starts shedding huge amounts of fur and his heart rate speeds out of control. Given that he has early heart disease, I try to avoid stressing him whenever I can. I don't see what choice I have though? I've scoured the internet for articles about what would cause vomiting in cats and nothing really seems to fit. Personally, I don't have much confidence in the vet figuring it out either. He hasn't had bloodwork done for a year now though so I know he is due to go in for that anyway. I think part of the issue might be this stupid food I'm feeing him but I have limited options for diets that are designed to prevent stone formation. He doesn't like any of the others (and those all have terrible ingredients in them as well).

Forgetfulness

I have so little hope for this upcoming transfer at the local clinic that I keep forgetting my surrogate is even preparing for it.

That caught up with me today when my surrogate called to tell me she got forms from the clinic in the mail to sign and wanted to know if she could just bring them with her to sign there. Suddenly, I remembered that my DH and I usually sign consent forms before they thaw the embryos and I hadn't received anything. Since they are only Day 2 embryos, they'll need to start thawing several days in advance.

So, I called the nurse there and, sure enough, they need us to sign consent forms and have them notarized and we need to get them back to her ASAP. She faxed them over to me.

Then, this evening my surrogate called me again and asked shouldn't she have progesterone since she needs to start it Thursday night after the lining check? Then, I realized we had never gotten a prescription from the nurse for the progesterone for her. She had leftover patches from last time so we got started with those then everyone forgot about the progesterone. She doesn't even have the lining check at the clinic where the transfer is being done. It's too far away so she's getting it done locally and they can't help.

This is so unlike me. I'm usually so on top of this kind of thing. Normally, this wouldn't be a huge dilemma because I could call my clinic tomorrow and have them send a prescription to an overnight pharmacy for delivery to her on Thursday. The problem is my surrogate works all day Thursday and no one will be home to sign for it. Everyone she knows is unavailable Thurs. as well. I live 2 hours away from her. I called a mail order pharmacy and they said that, no, progesterone shouldn't be sitting out in 80 degree heat for several hours so waiving the signature isn't an option. I need to find a pharmacy local to her that carries it but, of course, by the time we realized there was a problem all of the specialty pharmacies I tried calling had closed.

Hopefully, I can get this resolved tomorrow. I'm feeling really bad because my apathy is resulting in extra headaches for my surrogate. It's not just with the transfer. It's with everything lately. I forgot to pay a bill on time for the first time in I don't know how long. Our house is a disorganized mess. DH keeps trying to pack for trips and doesn't have clean laundry. The thing is it's not like I'm lying around in bed all day. It seems like I'm constantly doing something, but I'm just so unfocused and distracted lately that everything I do seems to take me twice as long. It's like I'm a hamster running around a wheel expending a ton of energy but not getting anything useful done. I don't know what is wrong with me.

M-Day Weekend

I don't even feel like writing out the whole word. I had to pick out gifts for MIL, my mother and stepmother this week. Every time I go in the grocery store, I see all the flowers and balloons. My e-mail in box is full of M-Day sales notices. For me, it's just yet another holiday that I have to watch pass by from the sidelines.

My mood has been going progressively downhill all week and I have to think this has something to do with it. It isn't helped by the fact that I'm on cycle day 42 (no, I'm definitely not) and have been having PMS for about 2 weeks now. I've been on the pill so much lately in preparation for cycles that I had forgotten that going back to my long, unpredictable cycles which seem to be even more messed up after all the IVF's is not much better than dealing with the pill. I feel really good for about two weeks then PMS kicks in and that lasts for the 5 or 6 weeks it then takes for AF to show up.

I did decide to just not worry about the whole issue of my potential surrogate's husband. For one, I truly like her and can tell she wants to make this work for us. I do feel like I can trust her. I'm also going to go out on a limb and give her husband the benefit of the doubt. She's been married to him for a very long time so surely he has some good qualities. Maybe he was just nervous or uncomfortable with the whole situation. And, even if not, it just seems like he's not going to be playing much of a role in this process. As long as he's supportive of her (which I assume he is since she's done this 4 times prior), that's really all that matters....right?

Dilemma

My DH is out in Vegas this week for work so we arranged for him to meet the potential surrogate there. She brought her husband along.

I was kind of anxious yesterday about how it would go. Due to the time difference, I never got to talk with my DH last night when he got home. I did get an e-mail from her saying that things went well and that they were all very comfortable around each other.

This morning my DH called to tell me how things went. I could tell by his tone that it was not going to be a rave review. He said she was very nice. Actually, if he had just met with her, he probably would have been very positive.

He felt uncomfortable around her husband though. He couldn't quite articulate it but he said there was just something strange about him. He also said he was childish acting (he's 41). He made one comment in particular that really stood out to my DH as being completely inappropriate. Apparently, the potential surrogate said something about how her husband has been good to put up with all of her hormonal mood swings throughout all of these pregnancies and her husband said "Well, I get something out of it because she usually needs a lot of extra attention about halfway through." She tried to deflect what he was saying and said "yeah, I ask for a lot of foot massages, etc." and he didn't get the hint and said "Not that kind of attention; you know what I mean". Well, needless to say, even though we don't exactly expect whoever does this for us to remain abstinent for 9 months, the image of the couple who is carrying our child having sex is not exactly one that we want planted into our heads. So, anyway, my husband just found that highly inappropriate.

I guess we were lucky with my other surrogate because we both found her husband to be very respectful and polite and he acted appropriately in various social situations. He was a gentleman and we liked him. That doesn't seem like it will be the case with what we are getting into.

So, I guess the big question is, does it matter? I did question my DH further and asked who seemed to be the boss in the relationship and he said that she did and that he basically acted more like a child. He said the one positive thing he could find to say was that they did seem to be affectionate towards one another. They have been married for 19 years so wouldn't that at least indicate some level of stability?

I'm thinking that this would only be a major issue if we lived close by and were having more interaction with him. Just given the distance factor, I just don't see us really having too much involvement with him. It seems like the most important thing would be my relationship with her and the two of us seem to get along very well. I do like her. Is that good enough for this to work? I know she would like to have some sort of continued relationship after a pregnancy. I mean it's not like she's demanding it, but I can tell from how she's talked about her experiences with past couples that she would hope for that. I figure that, if I become friends with whoever is my GS, of course I would send occasional e-mails, pictures and stay in touch. My DH commented that her DH being so unpleasant to be around would make a continued relationship more unlikely. But, again, with the distance factor I'm not seeing it being that big an issue. I have plenty of friends whose husbands I don't really have any interaction with because occasions just don't come up where I'm around them....especially those that live any distance away.

Any opinions? I'm really struggling with this.

My DH did say maybe her husband was just uncomfortable with or intimidated by the situation and that accounted for some of his behavior. I could tell he knew I was disappointed and he was trying his best to give him the benefit of the doubt.

We've already had her do the DQ alpha testing and are just waiting on the results. They said we should have them back by the 27th.

I think I've found her

Well, I think I have my perfect surrogate for our embryos in Vegas.  The lady who I wrote about in my prior post and I have now exchanged many e-mails and pictures.  She really seems like the right one to do this for DH and I and she said she feels like we are the IP's she's been waiting for.    It's the same situation as with my last surrogate where I feel like she is someone I could be friends with.  That's the kind of relationship I'd ideally like to have with the person who might possibly be carrying our child.  I'd like for it to be more than just a business transaction.    I know there are some IP's and surrogates out there who do operate under those terms and who actually prefer it that way.  That's just not something I'm very comfortable with.  

We'll be talking on the phone today and my husband will be out in Vegas for work next week so they will try to get together for a cup of coffee.

We will still have to get the DQ Alpha matching test run on her before we can proceed with having a contract done or anything else.  At best, I would think we're looking at a July transfer. It will more likely be August but we're aiming for July.

Now the question is should I do another fresh cycle and, if so, when?  The earliest I could even do a fresh cycle would be July so I'm thinking it makes more sense to have the transfer done in Vegas and see what results then do another cycle if necessary.   Yet, the issue there is my Dr. only has upcoming cycles in July, Aug, and Oct.   So, if the transfer failed and I wanted to do another cycle, by that point in time I wouldn't be able to do it until Oct.; 1 month away from turning 39.  Cripes, it seems like I just barely turned 38.  Where did the time go? 

I also would strongly prefer to transfer 2 tested embryos to her if possible instead of just the 1 tested and 2 untested.  The thing is, based on what happened last time, there is a decent chance we wouldn't even get any normal embryos again.  And, to be honest, I'm just not feeling like I have another cycle in me right at the moment.  I still don't feel 100 percent recovered from the last one.  Yet, October is a long time to wait when egg quality is rapidly declining even further. 

I don't know what to do. :{

Making Some Progress

I feel like I've been making some progress on all fronts.

1.) I had the consult with my Dr.

He did not see a need for a repeat Day 3 FSH/LH test. He said he would increase my medications were I to try again. He admitted that, even though I had 18 eggs, that was considerably less than the previous 2 times and I also got off to a very slow start with their having to increase my medications on Day 8 when I got out there. I don't think this was ideal for egg quality.

He also said, next time, he would test the eggs instead of the embryos. He said that, 90% of the time a normal egg will go on to make a normal embryo. When he initially started doing CGH testing, he was testing the polar body of the egg, but then he switched to testing the embryo. Now he is saying that he thinks testing the egg would be better...at least in our case. He said something about it being less stress on the embryo. I'm a little confused by that and will have to ask him some more questions because I had thought it was the other way around. Unfortunately, this is the problem with taking advantage of new technology. Things are in a state of constant change as the more cycles and testing they do, the more things they discover and that leads to modifications. At my age though, I really don't have the luxury of waiting several years until they know everything there is to know.

Anyway, that was some information that I got out of the phone consult.

2.) I have everything in place now for my current surrogate to go ahead with the transfer of

our embryos at the local clinic in May and the ET will be the week of May 19.

I'm really feeling bad though because she is very hopeful of having it work and I'm just not feeling any optimism. This will be the 3rd transfer from that batch of embryos and we used all the best ones first so are kind of down to the last resort embryos. There are 2 blasts frozen but they are Day 6 and I'm not even sure what the quality is.

3.) I talked with a surrogacy agency yesterday, filled out a long profile for them and faxed over my DH's DQ Alpha results. I've also been making contact with independent surrogates.

The lady who runs the agency works frequently with my Dr.'s patients (she's actually his daughter) so some of her surrogates have already had the testing done. She was going to check to see if there were any surrogates that met our other qualifications that didn't have the match and will send me some profiles. She was nice enough to do this for me before I commit to anything. I'd only have to send in the first half of the fee if there is a surrogate I like and want to exchange information with. The problem here is the agency fee is $ 13,000 and, from my research, it's standard for these agencies to charge anywhere from $ 12,000 to $ 18,000. That's another fresh cycle!

This fee includes matching, scheduling travel arrangements for the surrogate if needed, managing the escrow account and acting as a liason throughout the process. This does not include any of the actual compensation for the surrogate or the attorney's fees to do the contract. Last time I found my own surrogate so, other than her compensation, we only had to pay an attorney $ 1,500 for the contract (we used the same one my surrogate had with her previous couple so the attorney charged $ 1,000 less than normal) and $ 1,000 to manage the escrow account.

The good news is I've been connecting with surrogates on a message board and have been e-mailing back and forth with one in particular who seems like she might be perfect. She actually lives out in Vegas and has done this 4 times (couldn't ask for more experience than that). She is also 38, is married and has two older teenage children and 2 cats. She seems really sweet. So, perhaps something will come of this. Although, it seems too good to be true that I would find the right person that quickly!

I'm just not convinced the agency can do anything for me that I can't do on my own. I have the time and plenty of experience coordinating all of this stuff at this point.

So, that's where things are at right now. I never thought I would have the energy to pick myself back up and do all of this stuff but, day by day, I am somehow getting it done. And, honestly, I have to admit enjoying exchanging e-mails with women on the surrogacy board. These are women who have some amazing stories to tell. It's pretty evident that, while many of them can use the money, it's not their primary motivation for doing it at all. They really enjoy developing a relationship with the IP's (Intended Parents) and being able to help them bring their child into the world.

Phone consult with Dr.

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.