I've been happily
distracted by involved in life with Charlie lately, doing things one can't necessarily do if she has kids. While I'd like to say that includes diving with sharks in Australia and indulging in botox injections in South America, it has been almost as exciting...drinking copious amounts of alcohol, spending money on myself rather than baby items, and planning trips to the east coast.
Life for the past two years has been about waiting...two weeks until ovulation, two weeks until pregnancy test, two weeks until the follow up and the new plan. And now we're adjusting to not living in those baby making increments. I've been trying to stop calling the front bed room "the baby room" even though that is what it is set up to be, but what I find the most difficult is to omit those comments that begin "when we're parents..." from our conversation. It's often the silence that follow those moments that make my lips tighten, my chin scrunch to a walnut (that's what Charlie calls it), and my eyes well up.
We're not really talking about our options of more treatments, adoption, or kid free living. Kind of tired of feeling like we have to go, go, go one way or the other and *make* something happen. Hard to do, for me in general, but even more so when I think of a birthday looming and limited cycles per year to even try to get pregnant.
But we did schedule a noncommittal consultation wit Dr. Surrey of the
Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine and had a nice chat with him today. You know, they're the clinic with the highest success rates around. Dr. Schoolcraft is the doctor I specifically hear so much about, as he's the founder. I wondered if I should have held out for an appointment with him, but you know, waiting is quite the issue.
To sum it up for you, the consult went something like this:
Given my age and health, he would chalk the past IVF failures up to one of three things: simply bad luck, lab error, or genetic abnormalities. One of the three would be the most probable cause so his recommendations are:
- Another HSG (hysterosalpingogram) I'd hoped to never, ever have to do another. Not a long procedure, but it's painful. It's an x-ray of the uterus typically used to detect blocked fallopian tubes and abnormalities of the uterus.
- karyotype screening, specifically to look for our potential of being cystic fibrosis carriers and any chromosomal translocation which could prevent the development of healthy embryos. I think Charlie was screened for CF right after we got married, so I need to track down those records.
- Sperm chromatin structure assay This detects abnormal DNA in the sperm. Abnormalities would not mean viable embryos are not possible, but sperm would have to be handled in a certain way to achieve successful results. The semen sample would be frozen and sent to a lab in South Dakota for this test.
- FSH levels. FSH testing on day 3 is a typical indicator of ovarian reserve. I assume mine was within average range for a woman of my age when we tested many moons ago. I've never asked and have never been told what my day 3 FSH levels are, so I only assume them to be normal.
- AMH levels. This is new to me. Completely. I've never laid eyes on this in all of my fertility reading. Evidently as this hormone's presence goes down, so does a woman's chance of pregnancy. This is one I'll spend some time researching tonight.
- And most likely, given testing comes back with no abnormalities, IVF at their clinic
Dr. Surrey wants the both of us in Colorado between days 5 and 13 of my next cycle (uh, maybe the cycle after next) to do a "work up." And then blood drawn in New Orleans on day three of the following cycle and shipped to their lab to get FSH and AMH levels. I wonder if he can do these in the same cycle as the work up.
Of course I forgot to ask him about my lining never getting to 8mm, but he had my records (some of them, anyway) and I had indicated the lining development on the patient info page which he had obviously read considering the questions he asked. But, I am starting a Word document with information and questions to arm myself with if and when we ever make it to CCRM.
He commented on my embryos being "slow growing" and really on the lower limits of fair quality because of this. He was very confident that a cycle with their lab would reveal if it was simply lab quality that affected our embryos. He apologized if he sounded "arrogant" (his word) but backed up his statement. Had I not had both cycles at the same lab, then there would be less of a chance of attributing it to the lab. That's reasonable to believe. But then he put out this...
Success rates of women who had 3 previous failed IVF cycles at other clinics had the same rates of pregnancy on their first cycle at CCRM as other patients at CCRM in their first ever IVF cycle. Now, I wonder if there is a way to verify this stat. Pretty impressive if it is indeed the case. I also think several women are "ruled" out as IVF candidates through the testing they do, so only those who have a fair chance of success further use ART (assisted reproductive technology). I wonder if we'd be ruled out.
sighAs if fertility treatment couldn't get more complicated, we are now considering jet trips to do it. Dr. S suggested I be monitored by Dr. C, my previous RE (reproductive endocrinologist) who was actually a fellow of his post med school, during the stimulation phase of the cycle. When egg retrieval neared, I'd then come to the clinic and stay through embryo transfer and bed rest.
I gotta tell you, I like a man with a plan. He brought back all those hopeful feelings of starting a new cycle. Then why all the damn tears as I type?!? Is this really what hope is supposed to feel like?
We really just hope to be a family of more than two one day. One day soon.
