Saturday, August 31, 2013
Lazy Saturday
We got up this morning and had breakfast with the in-laws. We haven't been over to visit them in awhile, so it was nice. I ate way too much and now have resigned myself to an afternoon vegging out on the couch. Maybe this evening I'll muster up the energy to do something productive around the house.
Infertility/IVF-wise we're still chugging along. Today I took my last steroid from our last IVF cycle (you have to wean off steroids) so I am officially done with those meds. I also started birth control pills today, so I feel like we are moving right along for our next cycle. I'll find out Tuesday when I need to order my meds and all that good jazz. Right now I am excited to try another IVF cycle, but I'm sure I'll be more nervous when we get closer to ER time.
Infertility/IVF-wise we're still chugging along. Today I took my last steroid from our last IVF cycle (you have to wean off steroids) so I am officially done with those meds. I also started birth control pills today, so I feel like we are moving right along for our next cycle. I'll find out Tuesday when I need to order my meds and all that good jazz. Right now I am excited to try another IVF cycle, but I'm sure I'll be more nervous when we get closer to ER time.
Friday, August 30, 2013
CD 3
Did my CD 3 blood work today. It went better than my NK cell and APA blood work. Today was only one stick (with a little digging around) and two vials of blood. I also got a call from the clinic to set up a calendar review for my October cycle. I thought that when I talked to the clinic before, they told me that I wouldn't need a calendar review but whatever. I like my nurse, so I don't mind going in to chat with her. Anyway they set it up for next Tuesday. I also stopped on my way home and picked up my birth control pills. I feel like I am officially getting the ball rolling for IVF #2.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Babies, Babies, Babies
So last night, my cousin's wife had their baby. It didn't really phase me, I knew she was pregnant and due around now. Then today my sister calls me and asks if I had talked to mom. I said, "Only for a second, why?" She says, "We'll, we heard something, but we aren't supposed to tell anyone." Well crap someone else is pregnant. I say, "Ok." She says, "Aunt D is going to be a grandma again." I say, "I'm assuming E and C not S and D this time." She says, "Yeah, and they're not sure how far along she is. Apparently the doctor's told her that she might never have kids and she hasn't had a period since may. She goes next week for an ultrasound."
I couldn't help having that moment of "It should've been me" jealousy. We are now the only married couple on my Mom's side of the family without kids. All 10 of my cousins have kids (or are pregnant), my sister has kids, only my brother doesn't and he's not even dating anyone.
Then we walked next to a pregnant lady (who was discussing her pregnancy) while walking back to our car after the preseason football game we went to. I really thought football was safe and would give me a pregnancy free evening. Nope, I was wrong. ::sigh::
At least tomorrow is a short day at work. It is CD 3 so I am going to get blood work done before work and the company is letting us out early (2:30 I think) to start our holiday weekend. I might need some non-pregnant lady drinks this weekend and I might start about 3:00. Hey it's 5 o'clock somewhere.
I couldn't help having that moment of "It should've been me" jealousy. We are now the only married couple on my Mom's side of the family without kids. All 10 of my cousins have kids (or are pregnant), my sister has kids, only my brother doesn't and he's not even dating anyone.
Then we walked next to a pregnant lady (who was discussing her pregnancy) while walking back to our car after the preseason football game we went to. I really thought football was safe and would give me a pregnancy free evening. Nope, I was wrong. ::sigh::
At least tomorrow is a short day at work. It is CD 3 so I am going to get blood work done before work and the company is letting us out early (2:30 I think) to start our holiday weekend. I might need some non-pregnant lady drinks this weekend and I might start about 3:00. Hey it's 5 o'clock somewhere.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
The Human Pincushion
It's a good thing that I don't have a fear of needles, then again doing a cycle of IVF probably would have cured me of that fear anyway. Today I went in for my APA and NK cell blood work. When I made the appointment the nurse warned me that they would be taking 7 vials of blood. I warned her that this ought to be fun since I have really bad veins. She recommended drinking lots of water the night before. I drank a big glass of water before bed and drank a bottle of water when I woke up. It didn't help. It took 5 nurses and 4 needle sticks to draw 7 vials of blood. I get to go in Friday for CD 3 blood work. Just call me the human pincushion.
CD 1 Woot Woot!
Who's excited about getting their period? That'd be this girl right here. Today is CD 1 in all it's glory, heavy flow, cramps, the works. It probably sounds weird that I'm excited to get my period, since yes are TTC, but I think my infertile friends understand what I'm talking about.
There are two reasons that I am happy to see Aunt Flo (side note: I don't understand the whole personifying your period, but Aunt Flo sounds better than menstruation or menses and one can only say period so many times on one post, so I'll go with it). Reason #1: I can officially put our crappy attempt at IVF #1 behind us. Ladies (and Gentlemen, if there are any out there reading this) our first cycle of IVF is officially over and I say good riddance. Now it's time to really start looking forward to our next cycle in October.
Reason #2 deals with scheduling. My RE orders general blood work through Quest Labs. This is usually super convenient since I can do it at the lab next to my house instead of driving all the way up to the clinic (45ish minute drive for me, although the hubs can usually make it in well under 40 minutes because he has a lead foot). I need to redo some of my CD 3 blood work that was done with my OB/GYN since it has been a year, so my nurse sent me home with some lab orders and instructions to go in on day 2, 3, or 4 of my cycle. I realized yesterday that if my period didn't get here today or tomorrow, the Labor Day weekend could throw a wrench into my plans. Anyway, all worked out and I'll be able to go Friday and do my blood work.
There are two reasons that I am happy to see Aunt Flo (side note: I don't understand the whole personifying your period, but Aunt Flo sounds better than menstruation or menses and one can only say period so many times on one post, so I'll go with it). Reason #1: I can officially put our crappy attempt at IVF #1 behind us. Ladies (and Gentlemen, if there are any out there reading this) our first cycle of IVF is officially over and I say good riddance. Now it's time to really start looking forward to our next cycle in October.
Reason #2 deals with scheduling. My RE orders general blood work through Quest Labs. This is usually super convenient since I can do it at the lab next to my house instead of driving all the way up to the clinic (45ish minute drive for me, although the hubs can usually make it in well under 40 minutes because he has a lead foot). I need to redo some of my CD 3 blood work that was done with my OB/GYN since it has been a year, so my nurse sent me home with some lab orders and instructions to go in on day 2, 3, or 4 of my cycle. I realized yesterday that if my period didn't get here today or tomorrow, the Labor Day weekend could throw a wrench into my plans. Anyway, all worked out and I'll be able to go Friday and do my blood work.
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
WTF Appointment
On the message board I post on, the follow up appointment after a failed cycle is referred to as a WTF appointment. If you don't know what WTF stands for, google it, I'm trying to keep this a family friendly blog. OK, who am I trying to kid, the language at my house is definitely rated R. With the hubs' love for four letter words, I'm just praying that the first four letter word our future child says is dada. :)
Any who, I digress. WTF stands for What The Fuck, which accurately describes our first attempt at IVF. Our cycle seemed to start off great. When I went in for my first monitoring u/s, I had 9 measurable follicles and the largest was around 20mm I believe. I also had 4 or 5 smaller follicles. I was told to continue my stims (injections to stimulate the growth of egg-containing follicles on my ovaries) and come back again in two days for more monitoring. At my second monitoring appointment I had 10 measurable follicles and was ready to trigger (for the fertile crowd, that means I would give myself a shot that would force the ovulation process to start). The doc (not Dr. B) thought I should get 7 or 8 eggs. This was a little lower than I had hoped for, but didn't sound too bad. So I triggered late that night and came in 35 hours later for my egg retrieval. This is where the wheels fell off the cycle. While I was coming out of anesthesia, Dr. B let me know that he got 6 eggs. I was upset, but Dr. B assured me that it was quality, not quantity, that mattered. So I convinced myself that we could work with 6 eggs. After the ER, the waiting begins. The clinic will call in the morning with our fertilization report. So we anxiously await our fert report, which brought more disappointing news. Out of 6 eggs, only 5 were mature and only 3 fertilized normally. WTF!?! Now we are down to 3 embryos. With all of our hope pinned on our three embryos (nicknamed the three stooges), we waited for our day 3 update. My clinic cultures embryos to blastocysts before transferring them, this is usually done on day 5 or sometimes day 6. While you wait for your embryos to grow, they give you an update on day 3. On day 3 your embryos should be 6-10 cells. The embryologist will also give them a grade (my clinic grades embryos on a scale of 1-3, where 1 is pretty much perfect embryos and 2 is good embryos and 3 is poor embryos). When I got the call on day 3, we had one 3 cell and two 4 cell embryos and all three were grade 3. None of our embryos made it to transfer on day 5. All that time, energy, and money and we didn't even get a chance at it working. If that's not a WTF moment, I don't know what is.
Today was our WTF meeting with Dr. B and honestly it went pretty much like I had expected. He said our cycle was a "terrible IVF cycle" and he told us again how shocked he was at the poor quality of our embryos. He also mentioned that we were the only couple that didn't make it to transfer. He reassured me that he thinks that IVF can work for us or he wouldn't be recommending it.
So after discussing our craptastic first cycle, it was time to come up with a new plan. Dr. B thinks my protocol (mix of drugs) was right, but wants to up my dose of stims to push my ovaries to produce more eggs. I also asked about both of us starting a supplement called CoQ10, which can help improve sperm function and some believe may improve egg quality, and Dr. B liked that idea. I asked about acupuncture and Dr. B said that was up to me. He said that there is no proof that it helps, but some women find it relaxing and that it helps with the stress of IVF. I'm on the fence on that one. He also backed me up on the hubs quitting smoking. Dr. B also ordered some blood work to test for immunological issues that could be preventing us from getting pregnant. This means that I have to be at the clinic at 7:45 tomorrow morning ready to give 7 vials of blood, which ought to be fun. I have terrible veins and getting one vial of blood can be a challenge. I also am redoing some of my CD 3 blood work since it's been a year since it was done by my OB/GYN (yup that's right, I started IF testing a year ago). Other than that he recommended taking September off and cycling in either October or November if we are ready. The hubs and I decided that we would cycle again in October. When I got home I called the clinic and put down our deposit to hold our spot in the October cycle. IVF #2 is officially set for October.
Any who, I digress. WTF stands for What The Fuck, which accurately describes our first attempt at IVF. Our cycle seemed to start off great. When I went in for my first monitoring u/s, I had 9 measurable follicles and the largest was around 20mm I believe. I also had 4 or 5 smaller follicles. I was told to continue my stims (injections to stimulate the growth of egg-containing follicles on my ovaries) and come back again in two days for more monitoring. At my second monitoring appointment I had 10 measurable follicles and was ready to trigger (for the fertile crowd, that means I would give myself a shot that would force the ovulation process to start). The doc (not Dr. B) thought I should get 7 or 8 eggs. This was a little lower than I had hoped for, but didn't sound too bad. So I triggered late that night and came in 35 hours later for my egg retrieval. This is where the wheels fell off the cycle. While I was coming out of anesthesia, Dr. B let me know that he got 6 eggs. I was upset, but Dr. B assured me that it was quality, not quantity, that mattered. So I convinced myself that we could work with 6 eggs. After the ER, the waiting begins. The clinic will call in the morning with our fertilization report. So we anxiously await our fert report, which brought more disappointing news. Out of 6 eggs, only 5 were mature and only 3 fertilized normally. WTF!?! Now we are down to 3 embryos. With all of our hope pinned on our three embryos (nicknamed the three stooges), we waited for our day 3 update. My clinic cultures embryos to blastocysts before transferring them, this is usually done on day 5 or sometimes day 6. While you wait for your embryos to grow, they give you an update on day 3. On day 3 your embryos should be 6-10 cells. The embryologist will also give them a grade (my clinic grades embryos on a scale of 1-3, where 1 is pretty much perfect embryos and 2 is good embryos and 3 is poor embryos). When I got the call on day 3, we had one 3 cell and two 4 cell embryos and all three were grade 3. None of our embryos made it to transfer on day 5. All that time, energy, and money and we didn't even get a chance at it working. If that's not a WTF moment, I don't know what is.
Today was our WTF meeting with Dr. B and honestly it went pretty much like I had expected. He said our cycle was a "terrible IVF cycle" and he told us again how shocked he was at the poor quality of our embryos. He also mentioned that we were the only couple that didn't make it to transfer. He reassured me that he thinks that IVF can work for us or he wouldn't be recommending it.
So after discussing our craptastic first cycle, it was time to come up with a new plan. Dr. B thinks my protocol (mix of drugs) was right, but wants to up my dose of stims to push my ovaries to produce more eggs. I also asked about both of us starting a supplement called CoQ10, which can help improve sperm function and some believe may improve egg quality, and Dr. B liked that idea. I asked about acupuncture and Dr. B said that was up to me. He said that there is no proof that it helps, but some women find it relaxing and that it helps with the stress of IVF. I'm on the fence on that one. He also backed me up on the hubs quitting smoking. Dr. B also ordered some blood work to test for immunological issues that could be preventing us from getting pregnant. This means that I have to be at the clinic at 7:45 tomorrow morning ready to give 7 vials of blood, which ought to be fun. I have terrible veins and getting one vial of blood can be a challenge. I also am redoing some of my CD 3 blood work since it's been a year since it was done by my OB/GYN (yup that's right, I started IF testing a year ago). Other than that he recommended taking September off and cycling in either October or November if we are ready. The hubs and I decided that we would cycle again in October. When I got home I called the clinic and put down our deposit to hold our spot in the October cycle. IVF #2 is officially set for October.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
The Secret to Being Strong
I made the comment last week while we were waiting to hear the status our our embryos, that if our IVF cycle was cancelled, we would just have to try again. Some of my online friends commented on how strong I was for making that statement. I stared at the screen awhile trying to formulate a response but I couldn't put the words together. Am I strong? Is trying again a sign of strength? At the time I didn't feel strong. There are times now that I still don't feel strong. I think this is an accurate description of my situation:
I have to be strong there are no other options. I call it strength by default.
These insights are brought to you by my glass of wine. When I told the hubs that my glass of wine had made me insightful and I felt the need to share these insights with others, he asked me if my glass of wine also made me horny. Apparently insights aren't at the top of his priority list. :)
I have to be strong there are no other options. I call it strength by default.
These insights are brought to you by my glass of wine. When I told the hubs that my glass of wine had made me insightful and I felt the need to share these insights with others, he asked me if my glass of wine also made me horny. Apparently insights aren't at the top of his priority list. :)
Baptisms and Football
So today was my nephew's baptism, and while it wasn't the day I was expecting, overall it was a good day. The first challenge of the day was finding something to wear. My job has a casual dress code, so I don't wear dress clothes very often. I thought I was golden since I had just bought new dress pants at the end of June for a business trip. I go to put on said pants and I barely got them buttoned. Between the stress and all the hormones the last few months, I have gained a significant amount of weight. I know that I should probably start exercising more to try to drop the weight before round 2, but I have very little motivation right now.
The baptism was nice, my nephew (who's 11 months old) cried when the preacher held him and definitely wasn't a fan of water on his head. When I had pictured this day 3 or 4 weeks ago when my sister scheduled it, I thought that I would be 4DP5DT. Since we didn't make it to transfer, I thought that today might be hard, but it really wasn't. I am starting to accept our failed cycle and am finally at a point where I can look forward to our next cycle.
When we were walking out of the church my brother mentioned to the hubs that he had some extra football preseason tickets if he wanted to go to the next game. The hubs is all like, "Do you have anymore extra tickets? I have a friend that might like to go." I looked at him and said I hope by friend you mean wife! So maybe, I will be going to a preseason football game. I haven't been to a NFL game since high school. I think it could be fun!
The baptism was nice, my nephew (who's 11 months old) cried when the preacher held him and definitely wasn't a fan of water on his head. When I had pictured this day 3 or 4 weeks ago when my sister scheduled it, I thought that I would be 4DP5DT. Since we didn't make it to transfer, I thought that today might be hard, but it really wasn't. I am starting to accept our failed cycle and am finally at a point where I can look forward to our next cycle.
When we were walking out of the church my brother mentioned to the hubs that he had some extra football preseason tickets if he wanted to go to the next game. The hubs is all like, "Do you have anymore extra tickets? I have a friend that might like to go." I looked at him and said I hope by friend you mean wife! So maybe, I will be going to a preseason football game. I haven't been to a NFL game since high school. I think it could be fun!
Saturday, August 24, 2013
Moving On Up...
My last post left off with the hubs and I deciding that it was time to call in the big guns, it was time to see a specialist. A true infertility specialist is called a Reproductive Endocrinologist. Don't be fooled by OB/GYNs who claim to be "infertility specialists" they haven't had the extra training that a RE has had. Don't get me wrong OBs are great at taking care of pregnant women, you just shouldn't rely in them for infertility treatments. Learn from my experience.
::Steps off Soapbox::
Now, where were we? Oh yeah, we decided to move on to se a RE. The first step is finding a RE. I start my search by checking my insurance to see which REs are listed as in network. Just in case I need something that will not be billed under the diagnosis of "infertility," I want to make sure my doc is in network. I also ask for some names from my OB/GYN. I cross reference these names and then start my Internet research. I scour SART data, online reviews, websites, etc. until I decide on a doc. We'll call her Dr. A. I call Dr. A's practice and the earliest we can get a consultation is 6 weeks. Then we wait. Finally consult day rolls around and the hubs and I take off work and head to see Dr. A. We arrive a few minutes early, I sign in and we take a seat in a nice waiting area. So far so good. A few minutes later I am called back to get weighed, blood pressure taken, etc. when I'm done I head back to the waiting room. After a little more waiting, we are finally called back to see the doc.
How do I describe my first impression of Dr. A? Fake. I pride myself on being a good judge of character on first impressions and I knew from the get go that Dr. A wasn't what I was looking for. You could tell her "niceness" wasn't genuine. Anyway we sat down and started going over my test results and the medical/family history forms we brought with us. Things seem to be going smoothly and I try to bury my uneasiness about Dr. A. Then her cell phone rings and she explains that her sister is sick and that she needs to step out to take this call. She steps out of the office. I assume that her sister must be pretty sick if the doctor is going to step out of our consultation to talk to her. When she comes back in, I let her know that I am sorry that her sister is sick. She gives me a strange look that tells me that maybe her sister's illness is not as serious as I had assumed. Well ok, she puts her sister's sniffles as a higher priority than our consult. Good to know. We get back to our consult and Dr. A recommends that I have some blood work done to check my rubella antibodies and she also recommends that I get screened for cystic fibrosis and they have a lab that will do the screening for like $25 if your insurance won't cover it. Sounds good to me. Then we get to her treatment plan, drumroll please...... Unmonitored Clomid + IUI. Wait, what?! I leave the care of my OB/GYN, wait six weeks for a consultation and you want to do the same thing he was doing? I start asking about monitoring and she says it's not necessary, she wants to keep it low cost since I don't have insurance coverage for infertility. I ask her about cysts and she says that she will worry about cysts if I show symptoms. I ask her about thinned lining and she writes me a prescription for estrace. She goes over IUI instructions and recommends digital ovulation tests and let's me know that they are open every day but Sunday and basically I am supposed to come in the day after a positive ovulation test for the IUI. If I get a positive on a Saturday, I come in Monday morning (which I know from temping is probably too late). Awesome, at least my OB did IUIs 7 days a week. Age goes on to tell us that if we are not successful in 3 or 4 cycles, that we should move on to IVF. She then gives us a ton of info on IVF. I leave the appointment with blood work orders, a prescriptions for Clomid and Estrace, and a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I go ahead and do the blood work and then the hubs and I have a serious talk. I tell him that I am not at all comfortable with Dr. A's "plan." He's not too happy at first (he's convinced that I spend too much time researching stuff. He might be right, but not in this case. Reluctantly he agrees that I need to feel comfortable and I start my RE search all over.
For RE #2, who we will call Dr. B, I went with a recommendation of a friend of my sister. He also had mostly good reviews online. I call up his office and get a consult in a week and a half. So the hubs and I take another day off of work and meet with Dr. B. this consult could not be anymore different. Dr. B is so warm and friendly. He takes time to explain everything in basic terms (not necessary for me but helpful for the hubs). He gives us his plan (3 monitored Clomid + trigger + IUI cycles, then we should move on to IVF) and then he takes me back for a surprise ultrasound (u/s) and post coital test (PCT). I had just ovulated the day before, so the u/s didn't show much. The post coital test also showed that the hubs' swimmers weren't moving much. The doc orders some more blood tests and tells me to call when I start my period. One of the blood tests is a CF screening for the hubs since I got a call saying that my screening had come back positive as a carrier. We go get our blood work done and both agree that we like DR. B.
I takes a few months for us to start treatment with Dr. B since he is very thorough with his testing. He monitors a few of my cycles repeating my PCTs, which pretty much all come back bad. He thinks that I might have hostile cervical mucous, so we move on to IUIs. I did one unmedicated and two Clomid + Trigger IUIs with Dr. B. All of them failed. Dr. B recommended that we move on to IVF since IUI wasn't working. In July of 2013 we refinanced our house and pulled out cash to pay for IVF.
In August of 2013, we did our first cycle of IVF. It was actually a lot easier than I had thought. I started off on birth control pills (BCP) to suppress my cycle and sync my cycle up with everyone else doing IVF in August. I added a drug called Lupron a few days before stopping BCP. I continue taking Lupron injections every morning. After I start my period I go in for blood work and an u/s to check for cysts. Then a few days later I started injections to stimulate my ovaries. After a few more days I go in for an ultrasound to check how many follicles are growing and more blood work. When the follicles are big enough I take a trigger shot. When I triggered, I had 9 or 10 follicles and was told to expect 7 or 8 eggs. Dr. B only got 6 eggs at my retrieval. The next day the clinic called to tell me that out of the 6 eggs 5 were mature and 3 fertilized normally. Then we waited for our day 3 update of our 3 embryos (aka the 3 stooges). That call was my worst nightmare come true, all 3 of our embryos were slow growing and poor quality. We were told that we would that we would have to wait and see what happens, but hopefully they would catch up by day 5 our transfer day. All morning, we waited by the phone. The clinic would call if our transfer was cancelled. About 45 minutes before we would have to leave, Dr. B calls our embryos have stopped growing and our transfer is cancelled. He admits that even he was shocked at how bad our embryos did. We are devastated. How can two young relatively healthy people make such poor embryos? We make an appointment for the following week to meet with him to talk about what happened and to make a new plan.
And that brings us to the present. Our appointment is next Tuesday. Right now we just hope that Dr. B has a good plan to make our next IVF cycle much more successful.
::Steps off Soapbox::
Now, where were we? Oh yeah, we decided to move on to se a RE. The first step is finding a RE. I start my search by checking my insurance to see which REs are listed as in network. Just in case I need something that will not be billed under the diagnosis of "infertility," I want to make sure my doc is in network. I also ask for some names from my OB/GYN. I cross reference these names and then start my Internet research. I scour SART data, online reviews, websites, etc. until I decide on a doc. We'll call her Dr. A. I call Dr. A's practice and the earliest we can get a consultation is 6 weeks. Then we wait. Finally consult day rolls around and the hubs and I take off work and head to see Dr. A. We arrive a few minutes early, I sign in and we take a seat in a nice waiting area. So far so good. A few minutes later I am called back to get weighed, blood pressure taken, etc. when I'm done I head back to the waiting room. After a little more waiting, we are finally called back to see the doc.
How do I describe my first impression of Dr. A? Fake. I pride myself on being a good judge of character on first impressions and I knew from the get go that Dr. A wasn't what I was looking for. You could tell her "niceness" wasn't genuine. Anyway we sat down and started going over my test results and the medical/family history forms we brought with us. Things seem to be going smoothly and I try to bury my uneasiness about Dr. A. Then her cell phone rings and she explains that her sister is sick and that she needs to step out to take this call. She steps out of the office. I assume that her sister must be pretty sick if the doctor is going to step out of our consultation to talk to her. When she comes back in, I let her know that I am sorry that her sister is sick. She gives me a strange look that tells me that maybe her sister's illness is not as serious as I had assumed. Well ok, she puts her sister's sniffles as a higher priority than our consult. Good to know. We get back to our consult and Dr. A recommends that I have some blood work done to check my rubella antibodies and she also recommends that I get screened for cystic fibrosis and they have a lab that will do the screening for like $25 if your insurance won't cover it. Sounds good to me. Then we get to her treatment plan, drumroll please...... Unmonitored Clomid + IUI. Wait, what?! I leave the care of my OB/GYN, wait six weeks for a consultation and you want to do the same thing he was doing? I start asking about monitoring and she says it's not necessary, she wants to keep it low cost since I don't have insurance coverage for infertility. I ask her about cysts and she says that she will worry about cysts if I show symptoms. I ask her about thinned lining and she writes me a prescription for estrace. She goes over IUI instructions and recommends digital ovulation tests and let's me know that they are open every day but Sunday and basically I am supposed to come in the day after a positive ovulation test for the IUI. If I get a positive on a Saturday, I come in Monday morning (which I know from temping is probably too late). Awesome, at least my OB did IUIs 7 days a week. Age goes on to tell us that if we are not successful in 3 or 4 cycles, that we should move on to IVF. She then gives us a ton of info on IVF. I leave the appointment with blood work orders, a prescriptions for Clomid and Estrace, and a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I go ahead and do the blood work and then the hubs and I have a serious talk. I tell him that I am not at all comfortable with Dr. A's "plan." He's not too happy at first (he's convinced that I spend too much time researching stuff. He might be right, but not in this case. Reluctantly he agrees that I need to feel comfortable and I start my RE search all over.
For RE #2, who we will call Dr. B, I went with a recommendation of a friend of my sister. He also had mostly good reviews online. I call up his office and get a consult in a week and a half. So the hubs and I take another day off of work and meet with Dr. B. this consult could not be anymore different. Dr. B is so warm and friendly. He takes time to explain everything in basic terms (not necessary for me but helpful for the hubs). He gives us his plan (3 monitored Clomid + trigger + IUI cycles, then we should move on to IVF) and then he takes me back for a surprise ultrasound (u/s) and post coital test (PCT). I had just ovulated the day before, so the u/s didn't show much. The post coital test also showed that the hubs' swimmers weren't moving much. The doc orders some more blood tests and tells me to call when I start my period. One of the blood tests is a CF screening for the hubs since I got a call saying that my screening had come back positive as a carrier. We go get our blood work done and both agree that we like DR. B.
I takes a few months for us to start treatment with Dr. B since he is very thorough with his testing. He monitors a few of my cycles repeating my PCTs, which pretty much all come back bad. He thinks that I might have hostile cervical mucous, so we move on to IUIs. I did one unmedicated and two Clomid + Trigger IUIs with Dr. B. All of them failed. Dr. B recommended that we move on to IVF since IUI wasn't working. In July of 2013 we refinanced our house and pulled out cash to pay for IVF.
In August of 2013, we did our first cycle of IVF. It was actually a lot easier than I had thought. I started off on birth control pills (BCP) to suppress my cycle and sync my cycle up with everyone else doing IVF in August. I added a drug called Lupron a few days before stopping BCP. I continue taking Lupron injections every morning. After I start my period I go in for blood work and an u/s to check for cysts. Then a few days later I started injections to stimulate my ovaries. After a few more days I go in for an ultrasound to check how many follicles are growing and more blood work. When the follicles are big enough I take a trigger shot. When I triggered, I had 9 or 10 follicles and was told to expect 7 or 8 eggs. Dr. B only got 6 eggs at my retrieval. The next day the clinic called to tell me that out of the 6 eggs 5 were mature and 3 fertilized normally. Then we waited for our day 3 update of our 3 embryos (aka the 3 stooges). That call was my worst nightmare come true, all 3 of our embryos were slow growing and poor quality. We were told that we would that we would have to wait and see what happens, but hopefully they would catch up by day 5 our transfer day. All morning, we waited by the phone. The clinic would call if our transfer was cancelled. About 45 minutes before we would have to leave, Dr. B calls our embryos have stopped growing and our transfer is cancelled. He admits that even he was shocked at how bad our embryos did. We are devastated. How can two young relatively healthy people make such poor embryos? We make an appointment for the following week to meet with him to talk about what happened and to make a new plan.
And that brings us to the present. Our appointment is next Tuesday. Right now we just hope that Dr. B has a good plan to make our next IVF cycle much more successful.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
The Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Infertility is “a disease of the reproductive system defined by the failure to achieve a clinical pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse.”… (WHO-ICMART glossary1).
Infertility. A disease that affects about 10% of the population. A disease that nobody talks about.
So after we hit the year mark, I made an appointment with my OB/GYN for my annual exam that I had been putting off for a few months (because I just knew I would get pregnant then I could combine my appointments) and to talk about our trouble conceiving. So I print out my BBT charts and head to the doctor. He's thoroughly impressed with my charting skills (thanks, but it's not rocket science doc) and definitely thinks it's time for some testing. He orders a Semen Analysis for the hubs, 7 DPO progesterone blood work for me, and an HSG (x-ray with contrast dye to check to make sure my fallopian tubes are clear) for me. I had to request CD 3 blood work since he usually only does it for women over 30 (I'm 29 at the time). This should have been my first clue to move on to a Repeoductive Endocrinologist (RE a doctor who specializes in treating infertility), but I was convinced that my OB/GYN would be able to help me.
Let me preface this next part with the fact that while my doctor may be a good OB/GYN (although he has no business treating infertility), his office staff are pretty much all morons. So I call on CD 1 to schedule my CD 3 blood work. I ask the girl doing the scheduling if I need to schedule my HSG, or if I can schedule it when I come in 2 days later for my blood work. She says I can take care of that when I come into the office. Cool. I come in two days later and let them know I am there for a blood draw they take me back and the nurse notes that they have the wrong doctor listed as my doctor (there are two doctors in the practice), she changes it and verifies with my doc which hormone levels he wants to check. He wants TSH, FSH, and Prolactin. This means he is missing LH and E2, which should be checked on day 3. I made her double check the hormones, but my doc wouldn't order the other two. This is another red flag I ignore. So after poking around for a decent vein, she gets the blood she needs and I let her know that I need to schedule my HSG. She turns to me and says that has to be scheduled on day 1 of your cycle, you should have called then. Of course I reply with the fact that I did call on day 1 and the girl told me I could schedule it today. The nurse says nope, it has to be scheduled on day 1, so you'll have to wait until next cycle. Are you kidding me! I start to respond that that was ridiculous, that I started my cycle two days ago, how can it be too late to schedule the damn test, when my doc who was standing nearby filling out a chart overheard our argument. He told the nurse that we could still scheduled the HSG, since it couldn't be done until next week anyway. Crisis averted.
So the HSG. It's the most dreaded test amongst infertile women. I won't lie mine hurt like hell, but the good part of the test is that it is over in just a few minutes. My big issue with this test was again the doctor's office. So I get a call from the lady that schedules outpatient procedures (HSG is done at the hospital imaging center) and she tells me that my insurance has lapsed. I said no, I gave them my new insurance card when I had my annual a few weeks ago. She said that she doesn't have any of my paperwork on my new insurance card. Come to find out, the idiots in reception pulled the wrong chart! All of my records, blood work and insurance info were in another patient's file who has the same name as me. This is also why my blood work had the wrong doctor on it, they had pulled the wrong file then too. They get it straightened out, but this is another red flag I ignore.
The hubs' SA was only a little bit of a headache. The two hospitals that do SAs are both about 45 minutes away and do not allow collection on site (catholic hospitals). So we were in a rush to get the sample from our house to the hospital lab with in the hour time frame. Some how we managed. The only other test I had was a progesterone blood test. The dumbasses pulled the wrong chart yet again, but the nurse and I caught it and they got the right chart. The other issue that I had with the office staff is they refused to consider recoding my blood tests. I have no insurance coverage for infertility and I asked that at the very least that my TSH (thyroid blood work) be recoded since they were planning to run that test anyway due to family history. They refused. I asked again and the nurse said she would look into it, but she never did. So on top of being idiots, they are also liars.
Once all of our testing was done, the doc calls to tell me he has a diagnosis. Despite having a normal length LP (luteal phase, number of days after ovulation), I have low progesterone. He diagnosis me with weak ovulation and wants me to try Clomid to strengthen my ovulation. I tell him that it sounds good to me, but I insist on being monitored by ultrasound. He agrees and I start my first treatment cycle in October of 2012. I take Clomid days 5-9 and my mid cycle u/s shows a 27mm follicle and my lining is 6.7mm. I worry that my follicle is too big and that my lining is too thin, but my doc says it is fine. He doesn't use trigger shots so I have to wait 3 days to ovulate on my own before we have our first IUI. My blood work shows that the Clomid improved my progesterone level, however the cycle is not successful.
After the cycle fails, I decide that it is time to move on to a RE. I don't want to waist any more time with a doctor that doesn't want to monitor me and relies on OPKs to time IUIs. Also we are OOP for all infertility testing and treatment, so I would rather spend my money on treatment with an expert.
I think this is enough rambling. I'll discuss our adventures in RE land in the next post.
Infertility. A disease that affects about 10% of the population. A disease that nobody talks about.
So after we hit the year mark, I made an appointment with my OB/GYN for my annual exam that I had been putting off for a few months (because I just knew I would get pregnant then I could combine my appointments) and to talk about our trouble conceiving. So I print out my BBT charts and head to the doctor. He's thoroughly impressed with my charting skills (thanks, but it's not rocket science doc) and definitely thinks it's time for some testing. He orders a Semen Analysis for the hubs, 7 DPO progesterone blood work for me, and an HSG (x-ray with contrast dye to check to make sure my fallopian tubes are clear) for me. I had to request CD 3 blood work since he usually only does it for women over 30 (I'm 29 at the time). This should have been my first clue to move on to a Repeoductive Endocrinologist (RE a doctor who specializes in treating infertility), but I was convinced that my OB/GYN would be able to help me.
Let me preface this next part with the fact that while my doctor may be a good OB/GYN (although he has no business treating infertility), his office staff are pretty much all morons. So I call on CD 1 to schedule my CD 3 blood work. I ask the girl doing the scheduling if I need to schedule my HSG, or if I can schedule it when I come in 2 days later for my blood work. She says I can take care of that when I come into the office. Cool. I come in two days later and let them know I am there for a blood draw they take me back and the nurse notes that they have the wrong doctor listed as my doctor (there are two doctors in the practice), she changes it and verifies with my doc which hormone levels he wants to check. He wants TSH, FSH, and Prolactin. This means he is missing LH and E2, which should be checked on day 3. I made her double check the hormones, but my doc wouldn't order the other two. This is another red flag I ignore. So after poking around for a decent vein, she gets the blood she needs and I let her know that I need to schedule my HSG. She turns to me and says that has to be scheduled on day 1 of your cycle, you should have called then. Of course I reply with the fact that I did call on day 1 and the girl told me I could schedule it today. The nurse says nope, it has to be scheduled on day 1, so you'll have to wait until next cycle. Are you kidding me! I start to respond that that was ridiculous, that I started my cycle two days ago, how can it be too late to schedule the damn test, when my doc who was standing nearby filling out a chart overheard our argument. He told the nurse that we could still scheduled the HSG, since it couldn't be done until next week anyway. Crisis averted.
So the HSG. It's the most dreaded test amongst infertile women. I won't lie mine hurt like hell, but the good part of the test is that it is over in just a few minutes. My big issue with this test was again the doctor's office. So I get a call from the lady that schedules outpatient procedures (HSG is done at the hospital imaging center) and she tells me that my insurance has lapsed. I said no, I gave them my new insurance card when I had my annual a few weeks ago. She said that she doesn't have any of my paperwork on my new insurance card. Come to find out, the idiots in reception pulled the wrong chart! All of my records, blood work and insurance info were in another patient's file who has the same name as me. This is also why my blood work had the wrong doctor on it, they had pulled the wrong file then too. They get it straightened out, but this is another red flag I ignore.
The hubs' SA was only a little bit of a headache. The two hospitals that do SAs are both about 45 minutes away and do not allow collection on site (catholic hospitals). So we were in a rush to get the sample from our house to the hospital lab with in the hour time frame. Some how we managed. The only other test I had was a progesterone blood test. The dumbasses pulled the wrong chart yet again, but the nurse and I caught it and they got the right chart. The other issue that I had with the office staff is they refused to consider recoding my blood tests. I have no insurance coverage for infertility and I asked that at the very least that my TSH (thyroid blood work) be recoded since they were planning to run that test anyway due to family history. They refused. I asked again and the nurse said she would look into it, but she never did. So on top of being idiots, they are also liars.
Once all of our testing was done, the doc calls to tell me he has a diagnosis. Despite having a normal length LP (luteal phase, number of days after ovulation), I have low progesterone. He diagnosis me with weak ovulation and wants me to try Clomid to strengthen my ovulation. I tell him that it sounds good to me, but I insist on being monitored by ultrasound. He agrees and I start my first treatment cycle in October of 2012. I take Clomid days 5-9 and my mid cycle u/s shows a 27mm follicle and my lining is 6.7mm. I worry that my follicle is too big and that my lining is too thin, but my doc says it is fine. He doesn't use trigger shots so I have to wait 3 days to ovulate on my own before we have our first IUI. My blood work shows that the Clomid improved my progesterone level, however the cycle is not successful.
After the cycle fails, I decide that it is time to move on to a RE. I don't want to waist any more time with a doctor that doesn't want to monitor me and relies on OPKs to time IUIs. Also we are OOP for all infertility testing and treatment, so I would rather spend my money on treatment with an expert.
I think this is enough rambling. I'll discuss our adventures in RE land in the next post.
Where's the Damn Baby Carriage!?!
So now that you've read our epic love story, I guess it's time to tell our trying to conceive (TTC) story. We had talked about children before we got married and we were both pro repopulating the earth. We decided however, that we would wait a year after we got married to start trying to get pregnant. We were both 27 when we got married so if we waited a year, we would still have plenty of time to have our first baby before we turned 30. It was the perfect plan.
Or so we thought.
We spent our first year together fixing up the little starter home we bought and took a belated honeymoon/first anniversary trip. When our first anniversary rolled around I decided to push our "go" date for TTC back a few months. We were still working on our house and I was afraid we would get pregnant right away and we wouldn't have time to finish everything before we had the baby. Oh, to be that naive again.
So we threw out the birth control pills and on August 10, 2011 we started our first cycle of TTC. We decided that we would start out with the "Let's just see what happens" approach. I had done some research on fertility and menstrual cycles (Note that i might have a little control freak in my personality), so I at least I had some idea of when was the right time to ave sex. Here's my big issue with the "Let's just see what happens" approach, I had no idea what was going on! I just came off of birth control pills and I had no idea when/if I had ovulated. I didn't even know when to take a pregnancy test because I had no idea how long my cycle might be. So at the end of cycle 1, I bought a basal body thermometer, signed up with fertilityfriend.com and started charting my basal body temp (BBT). I also purchased some Wondfo OPKs from amazon. I was ready for Cycle 2.
I found that I really enjoyed charting my BBT and OPKs. I learned about my cycle and it gave me a job (other than just spreading my legs to the hubs) while we were TTC. The first few months, it was the hubs that was really upset when a cycle was a bust. I had done my research and knew that it could a healthy couple under 35 up to a year to conceive, so I wasn't worried. I looked at it as each failed cycle we were one cycle closer to our BFP (Big Fat Positive- as in pregnancy test). If I only knew. It was around the time we hit cycle 10 that I started to get concerned. I would get a little more upset after each failed cycle. What's strange is the more concerned I got, the less concerned the hubs got. When we hit the year mark in August of 2012 and an all time low in our marriage.
One thing they don't tell you about TTC (unsuccessfully) is the stress it can put on a marriage. I was completely stressed out, which made the hubs completely stressed out. When I'm stressed, I want to over think and talk through every decision, lists the pros and cons of each choice, and think out load about every possible outcome. The hubs is more of a make a decision and move on kind of guy, no need for discussion. Slowly our communication broke down and arguments took over. We were lucky that with a little therapy and some hard work, we were able to rebuild what was broken. Not every couple dealing with infertility is so lucky. I have talked to several women online that their marriage did not survive infertility.
Speaking of infertility, I think I will save the our infertility journey for the next post.
Or so we thought.
We spent our first year together fixing up the little starter home we bought and took a belated honeymoon/first anniversary trip. When our first anniversary rolled around I decided to push our "go" date for TTC back a few months. We were still working on our house and I was afraid we would get pregnant right away and we wouldn't have time to finish everything before we had the baby. Oh, to be that naive again.
So we threw out the birth control pills and on August 10, 2011 we started our first cycle of TTC. We decided that we would start out with the "Let's just see what happens" approach. I had done some research on fertility and menstrual cycles (Note that i might have a little control freak in my personality), so I at least I had some idea of when was the right time to ave sex. Here's my big issue with the "Let's just see what happens" approach, I had no idea what was going on! I just came off of birth control pills and I had no idea when/if I had ovulated. I didn't even know when to take a pregnancy test because I had no idea how long my cycle might be. So at the end of cycle 1, I bought a basal body thermometer, signed up with fertilityfriend.com and started charting my basal body temp (BBT). I also purchased some Wondfo OPKs from amazon. I was ready for Cycle 2.
I found that I really enjoyed charting my BBT and OPKs. I learned about my cycle and it gave me a job (other than just spreading my legs to the hubs) while we were TTC. The first few months, it was the hubs that was really upset when a cycle was a bust. I had done my research and knew that it could a healthy couple under 35 up to a year to conceive, so I wasn't worried. I looked at it as each failed cycle we were one cycle closer to our BFP (Big Fat Positive- as in pregnancy test). If I only knew. It was around the time we hit cycle 10 that I started to get concerned. I would get a little more upset after each failed cycle. What's strange is the more concerned I got, the less concerned the hubs got. When we hit the year mark in August of 2012 and an all time low in our marriage.
One thing they don't tell you about TTC (unsuccessfully) is the stress it can put on a marriage. I was completely stressed out, which made the hubs completely stressed out. When I'm stressed, I want to over think and talk through every decision, lists the pros and cons of each choice, and think out load about every possible outcome. The hubs is more of a make a decision and move on kind of guy, no need for discussion. Slowly our communication broke down and arguments took over. We were lucky that with a little therapy and some hard work, we were able to rebuild what was broken. Not every couple dealing with infertility is so lucky. I have talked to several women online that their marriage did not survive infertility.
Speaking of infertility, I think I will save the our infertility journey for the next post.
Our Story: First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage...
My name is Lindsay and this is my very first blog post, so bear with me I'm still figuring it all out. I guess I'll start with our story thus far.
Once upon a time, in a land far away, there was a guy and a girl... Yeah, it's not really that kind of story. Travis (aka the hubs) and I met on a float trip set up by a mutual friend. For city folk that may not know what a float trip is, it's a camping trip that includes floating down a river on rafts or canoes all day and usually includes consumption of copious amounts of alcohol. I say usually because in my case there was very little alcohol consumption. At the time of the float trip, I had recently dumped a deadbeat boyfriend, was on major steroids and antihistamines for chronic hives, and my grandmother had just passed away (I left straight from the funeral lunch to head to the campsite). I figured mixing copious amounts of alcohol with a handful of prescription meds was probably not the best idea so sober weekend it was. Travis and I barely said two words to each other all weekend, although he did fill my cousin (who came as my plus one in place of deadbeat ex boyfriend) in on his master life plan of never getting married. The finale of this trip was me ending up in the ER with some sort of bacterial infection, that I probably picked up from the river water
Awesome start to our love story right? As the months go on we occasionally run into each other a few times when out with mutual friends, but no real connection until one fateful night at a friends wedding. I was a bridesmaid in the wedding and he was a guest. As fate would have it I caught the bouquet and he caught the garter. There was a little controversy, as some people claim that I knocked a little girl down to catch the bouquet, but this is not true. 1. The girl fell on top of me and 2. The hubs is not worth assaulting a minor for, I mean I love the guy but let's be honest here. So anyway, right as I was leaving for the night, he finally asked for my number. We went on our first day a week later, were engaged 13 months after that. We were married 13 months after we got engaged.
And we lived happily ever after...
Well obviously there is more to the story or this would be a pretty boring blog. Since this is already a pretty long post, I'll save our adventures in trying to conceive in the land of infertility for my next post.
Once upon a time, in a land far away, there was a guy and a girl... Yeah, it's not really that kind of story. Travis (aka the hubs) and I met on a float trip set up by a mutual friend. For city folk that may not know what a float trip is, it's a camping trip that includes floating down a river on rafts or canoes all day and usually includes consumption of copious amounts of alcohol. I say usually because in my case there was very little alcohol consumption. At the time of the float trip, I had recently dumped a deadbeat boyfriend, was on major steroids and antihistamines for chronic hives, and my grandmother had just passed away (I left straight from the funeral lunch to head to the campsite). I figured mixing copious amounts of alcohol with a handful of prescription meds was probably not the best idea so sober weekend it was. Travis and I barely said two words to each other all weekend, although he did fill my cousin (who came as my plus one in place of deadbeat ex boyfriend) in on his master life plan of never getting married. The finale of this trip was me ending up in the ER with some sort of bacterial infection, that I probably picked up from the river water
Awesome start to our love story right? As the months go on we occasionally run into each other a few times when out with mutual friends, but no real connection until one fateful night at a friends wedding. I was a bridesmaid in the wedding and he was a guest. As fate would have it I caught the bouquet and he caught the garter. There was a little controversy, as some people claim that I knocked a little girl down to catch the bouquet, but this is not true. 1. The girl fell on top of me and 2. The hubs is not worth assaulting a minor for, I mean I love the guy but let's be honest here. So anyway, right as I was leaving for the night, he finally asked for my number. We went on our first day a week later, were engaged 13 months after that. We were married 13 months after we got engaged.
And we lived happily ever after...
Well obviously there is more to the story or this would be a pretty boring blog. Since this is already a pretty long post, I'll save our adventures in trying to conceive in the land of infertility for my next post.
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