New Beginnings?

Hello! It’s been a few weeks since my last post. It feels like a lot has gone on and at the same time nothing has gone on since I last wrote. I don’t even know where to begin with this post.

Yesterday my sweet, beautiful 93 year old grandmother passed away. She was not in any pain but was in the hospital. I got to see her Sunday for a visit at her home and could tell that something was going on with her. She was more tired than her usual perky self and just didn’t look good. My dad and uncle took her to the hospital later that day but I didn’t learn of this until Tuesday afternoon. She was dehydrated and had a bladder and kidney infection but was doing much better. I even talked to her for a few minutes at 3:30pm Tuesday and it sounded like she would go home in 24-48 hours. She sounded way better on the phone and said her legs were wobbly but she had gone for a walk around the building and had just needed rest. I told her I loved her and said good bye thinking she was still going to be with us for a little longer. But around 4a.m. my dad and uncle got calls to come to the hospital because her health had declined. They were with her at 4:45a.m. when she died. All I can say is she was the best grandma there ever was. Never judged anyone and always was around to talk or give you a smile. Grandma, I’m going to miss you and your laugh and spunk.

As for the fertility stuff – we decided not to look at other Fertility Clinics. I’m not sure exactly why other than to say that it seemed like it would just take more time to get going again and cause more ups and downs. We have been looking at new egg donors this week and have decided on a couple of gals. My husband has to take a genetic carrier type blood test next week and that may determine who we pick if he and these girls are carriers for any of the same things. One of the girls is currently matched with another couple so we would have to wait a month in between her cycles before we could use her eggs and would push us out to June sometime for new embryos; the other girl is slated to give eggs to the egg bank at the clinic we are at but we could end up using her eggs as early as next week and have embryos created while we are away on a trip.

I also started seeing a therapist a few weeks ago. It has helped to have an outlet and someone to talk to outside of the situation. She thinks I may suffer from compounded loss since I’ve lost (now) three grandparents in less than two years and have had 3 miscarriages and 1 DNC in about one and a half years. We have talked about meditation and just taking care of myself. She is good at reinforcing and reminding me that it’s okay for me to not be working outside of the home right now or it’s fine if I go see a friend at 3pm for happy hour or take tennis lessons or not work full time on things I think I should be doing. She calls it “wringing myself out” for the next round, and boy do I need it.

I’ve also started seeing a new acupuncturist. I saw the Chinese Dr. twice but she did not acknowledge my chromosomal issues at all. I decided I was not comfortable with that and so have moved on to someone else. There is no amount of herbs or acupuncture that is going to fix my chromosomal issues. She thought that no matter what my chromosomal rearrangement is we could still get pregnant with her support and then if that didn’t happen then we should move back to egg donor options. I even brought in an inch tall stack of paperwork from my doctor records over the past year and my basal temperature chartings and she still didn’t get it. Now I am seeing Kristi Stoddard who seems wonderful. She is a little more of a drive for me but hopefully she can help with my uterine lining and sustaining a pregnancy next time around.

I think that’s about all for now. I’m excited for a 10 day vacation coming up, have been exercising and just trying to stay sane while my husband works crazy hours and tries to support me during all my ups and downs. In some sort of way I hope with my grandma passing away and with new egg donors in our reach there is a new beginning lying ahead of us with happiness, calm and a healthy baby to hold.

-H

Nothing New Really…

Not a lot going on in my world right now other than still dusting myself off and trying to make some changes for my sanity. I have started to watch Gaiam TV and do some yoga and pilates videos through there when I don’t get to the gym. I’ve been also trying to get to the gym 3-4x a week and have really been focusing on some areas that I’ve noticed could use some toning lately (back side, stomach…the usual for most people). I hope in a few weeks that I will notice some difference. I’m also trying to find some people to play tennis in the Seattle area now that the sun is out because that is always fun and takes my mind off of things.

Today I have my first appointment with a counselor to discuss some of the things I’ve been feeling with the infertilty and other things in my life. I’m hoping that I will only need 2-3 sessions or to go every couple of weeks for a short time but I’ve got a lot on my mind so I’m afraid that I might be going for a long time! I’ll let you know how it goes.

I also saw the Chinese Medicine Dr. this week. She was stern and strict just as I had pictured she would be. She gave me some Chinese herbs to take—she has a different tea mixture for each of the 4 areas of a woman’s cycle. I’m apparently in the ovulation zone right now. It has been 18 days since my DNC and just waiting for another cycle to start. The one thing I don’t think she really understood was my 3 way Balanced Translocation…I think she thought we could definitely get pregnant on our own and didn’t understand why we would do IVF/egg donor because I’m still young enough. Either way we are still doing egg donor so hopefully between the two we will get pregnant next time.

As for when next time is…there is no time line yet. My husband and I are going to look into some options with some other fertility clinics in late April. There is a program where you can get up to 3 donor egg frozen cycles and pay one fee and if you don’t take home a baby after the 3rd attempt you get your money back. Whether we will qualify I’m not sure but we have to have a consultation first before we can even talk about the financial aspect. Our current clinic does not offer this program and since we are looking into getting a 2nd egg donor it makes sense to look at other options. I do worry that the other clinics we are meeting with are too big and “corporate” feeling. I like my current doctor quite a bit and trust that they are doing a good job with us. It’s hard to think of starting over with new people and even just filling out the paperwork brings up all the past miscarriages and everything before; I just really don’t want to start over.  In the meantime, I have not heard about any new egg donors yet from our egg donor coordinator so I guess we’ve got some time. I feel like we are in limbo and I would love to have a plan.

-H

New Egg Donor on the Horizon

I talked to our Egg Donor Coordinator this morning. I had just gotten up about 8:45 this morning and she called at 9:10am. I was just starting to think about my day and wasn’t really prepared to talk about all this stuff. But I had written her an email on Monday asking her her thoughts about what to do next. She had talked with my Dr. in length about our situation. As a reminder to anyone reading this, we did one egg donor in November but had to freeze the 3 (only 3!) embryos we got, it took 4 months for my lining to perk up enough to transfer in February, we thawed one embryo and it didn’t survive the thaw (1 in 100 chance) and thawed #2 and tranferred on Feb. 17. It stuck for about a minute in terms of how long it needed to stick and stopped developing at about 5 weeks. I had a DNC on March 19.

The next step apparently for us is to either use the last embryo we have or do another egg donor now or soon and freeze what we get from that cycle. Everyone seems worried that since two embryos haven’t made it the third one won’t either because we may have gotten a bad batch. AND the thing is we have always said we want two kids. So even if the last embryo makes it and we got a miracle child out of it we would probably try this again anyways. At the beginning of all this we really wanted two kiddos who could have the same mother biologically and that would not happen if we tried with the one we have and then tried with another embryo from a different donor later. Is that really important? Probably not in the grand scheme of things, but it was a nice thought. I still really want my kids to at least be half of my husband and I know he wants that as well so we must keep trying.I still really want to get pregnant and grow these babies myself.

My egg donor coordinator is going to start looking through every egg donor they have at their disposal and start sending me profiles. We want someone who is proven, meaning they have helped other couples get pregnant; someone with lots of eggs and follicles so we can potentially get lots of embryos this time; and there are other characteristics I’m sure they look at that make someone the “perfect” donor. I do worry that we will end up with a “bad batch” again because there is no guarantee. The donor we picked last time had a great track record and she got every other couple pregnant. I feel like I am the exception to every rule they have ever heard of unfortunately and I feel like we have to catch a break some time, right?

Just before I got on to post today I was searching around facebook and ended up looking up someone I used to work with. Lo’ and behold she had a baby today. Go figure. Sometimes I feel like I just can’t win. I really am happy for friends who have babies, but a large part of me is jealous. When will it be my turn?

So I’m hoping we find the perfect match and that this person will create a boatload of eggs for us and more will survive. I’m hoping to find someone in April or May so that while we are on a vacation early May we can come back and get my lining perfect and transfer. I’m even hoping right now that if we transfer two maybe they will both stick and we can be done with all this.

-H

Week 2 of Shots

We are well on our way towards IVF with our egg donor. Today was the 11th shot I’ve given myself in the abdomen and now I get to add progesterone patches to the mix.Yesterday I went to see Dr. Lamb for an ultrasound to make sure my ovaries are “quiet”, plus I had some bloodwork done to make sure my estrogen levels are low. Everything is going according to plan so I put on two patches yesterday afternoon and switch them out for two more tomorrow. They are kind of like putting clear stickers on my tummy and they are very sticky on one side but feel like plastic on the other. I’ve been told they may leave a sticky residue on me and I should use some sort of sugar scrub to get it off (sounds like an excuse to go shopping for something).

My doctor also told me that she is very excited about the egg donor we picked. She said she is the sweetest person in the world and she has been good at getting other couples preggo. I’m keeping my fingers and toes crossed that that is the case for us too. She starts her meds next Friday and only about three more weeks til my DH goes in to give his “collection”. It really is going to come up quick!

We are heading to Portland OR this weekend for a little fun (although my DH may have to work some). I have to bring my lupron and patches and syringes with me so need to figure out a way to keep the lupron cold for the trip. I called the hotel and we do have a fridge in the room so that’s good. I hope it is a relaxing trip.

Happy Weekend,
H

We Have Dates!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on here but since we decided on an egg donor we now have official dates of when we will have embryos transferred! Right now it is looking like either November 30th or December 1st!

Right now it still doesn’t seem real but I start my shots in just 15 days from today. I have a calendar our nurse sent us which tells me what type of medication to do each day. I start on October 25th with a shot of Lupron in my stomach, which I will have to go into the doctor’s office to learn how to give myself. I also continue my birth control pills at this time for 5 days. I continue the Lupron shots and then on November 3rd I have to go in for an ultrasound and blood work. I guess if everything looks good at that time I start to halve the amount of Lupron each day and then start Progesterone Patches that are replaced every other day, and sometimes you add one…so I start out with two but by the time I’m finished with them I do 4 patches every other day. I head back to the doctor Nov. 17th for another ultrasound and blood work. Then I continue with Lupron and the 4 progesterone patches every other day until the donor is ready for retrieval. And then comes the nasty progesterone shots I’ve heard about which my hubby will have to give to me. 5 days after the egg donor goes in for retrieval and my husband give his sample we get one or two embryos transferred. It’s very exciting and I so hope it works.

I’ve also started acupuncture over the past few weeks for fertility. So many of my friends have done this in the past and who knows if it really helps in the long run but I have to believe it can’t hurt so I’m doing it. I’ve been going in once a week and tomorrow is my 3rd appointment. I also decided not to do the mayan abdominal massage for now. It is expensive and I talked to my acupuncturist and she didn’t really see any reason for me to do it since I haven’t had adhesions or endometriosis.

Sometimes I still can’t believe this is all happening and we have to endure so much to have a family but I’m sure it will all be worth it one day.  I’ve asked my parents to get tested for the chromosomal translocation that I have. They’ve both agreed to do it but just may take some time. My mom doesn’t have a doctor she goes to regularly so she just needs to find a place she likes and get an appointment. My dad is doing some blood work for his diabetes this month anyways so hopefully he can get tested at the same time. There’s no real medical reason for them to get tested other than it might complete part of my puzzle — I think it would answer if I became this way because one of them carried these genetics or it just happened (which they call de novo). I would just like to know either way.

-H

One or Two Embryos?

We still have a while to go before we will be transferring embryos, but I’m sure the time will go fast. It turns out the woman we chose as our match is currently in a cycle with another couple. So we have to wait til her period starts and then another 6 weeks after that. It sounds like we will be transferring embryos around the 2nd or 3rd week of November. Meanwhile I am taking BC pills and will not be taking the non-active pills so I can be ready to go at any time— I have to be on active pills at least 15 days before we can start the Progesterone Patches and Lupron shots which get my body ready to carry this baby (or babies).

While we wait for November to roll around we have a couple of things to figure out…well, really one big thing to figure out. Do we transfer 1 or 2 embryos? My doctor seems to think that we should only do 1 because I am on the petite side and not sure how I would handle having two kiddos in my belly. My understanding is if we transfer two that there is a 70% chance of having twins. Our Egg Donor Coordinator actually said we might as well name them! But, I am kind of in the mindset that if we transfer two and get twins than maybe we’ll be done creating our family. I do know it would be a hard couple of years with a lot of diapers, crying, feeding and no sleep, but it could be worth it since I’m not getting any younger.

Other things I’m starting to think about is starting acupuncture for fertility and possibly doing Mayan Abdominal Massage. I have a friend who went to Ruby Moon Wellness for the Ab Massage and then got pregnant so maybe it works? I’m going to talk to the masseuse about it tomorrow. I do start acupuncture with Susan Darling in Seattle next Thursday. I also found this article on Livestrong.com which tells me basically to watch my weight, eat right, don’t drink caffeine or alcohol, and stay hydrated; basically things you should do anyways. I’ve also heard before embryo transfer that I should start exercising less vigorously but for now it’s okay to exercise normally.

I’m looking forward to the end of September/early October when we find out more information on our timing. The rest of this year is going to get a bit crazy, but in a good way (I hope!)

-H

Matched!!

Today I am so happy to say that we have been matched with an Egg Donor!! Yesterday we met with our Egg Donor Coordinator and she gave us 5 fresh egg donor profiles and 5 frozen egg donor profiles to take home and mull over. Profiles list everything from weight, height, skin tone, age, hair and eye color to what they like to do and what their parents and siblings are like. In general, its kind of like looking at profiles on a dating web site or looking at cars online, only not seeing a photo. We are pretty much looking for a connection to this person along with somehow “matching” some of my characteristics.

When we left we decided to have lunch and pretty much went over the profiles on the spot. By the time I went home and he back to work we had one person we liked. Then we decided to go over them one more time last night and decided we really had 3 fresh egg and 1 frozen egg people we liked.

Funny how things work out…you would think we would have ended up going with the person who was first on our original list but unfortunately she is moving away sometime this fall and probably won’t be available. So we ended up with two others on our fresh list but one spoke to me more than the other so she is who we have chosen. I wrote back the coordinator—and the good news is our person is in! Timing will all depend on all the medications we take to sync up our cycles but it sounds like things will be rolling right along in October or November. I’m so excited for the next steps even though I know it will probably be painful and uncomfortable at times (I have lots of shots to take). It’s just so nice to know at this point that our dream of having children is back on the table.

-H