Archive for category genetics
Last Shot!
Posted by genescramble in baby, balanced translocation, egg donor, embryos, FET, genes, genetics, infertility, IVF, pregnant, progesterone, translocation on July 18, 2012
For anyone who doesn’t know, when someone does IVF (with or without egg donor) the person has to take progesterone til there 10th week of pregnancy. Some women use suppositories and some give themselves a shot daily. Well, I started shots of progesterone to support the pregnancy back on May 26th (2 days before the transfer) and I am happy to report that today was the last one! At this point the placenta takes over and supports the baby with what it needs. …I will not miss my morning routine of sitting on a heating pad, heating both the progesterone in oil and the area I inject it into. I will not miss getting the needles ready, and I will definitely not miss sticking the needle in to my upper back hip every single day. I think it’s time to find a new normal.
In other news, I’ve been having crazy heartburn this morning but gladly have only had really, REALLY bad nausea once so far this pregnancy. Our next big appointment is July 31 when we do the nuchal translucency screening which tests for the possibility of down’s syndrome, spina bifida, and a few other things. This is a normal screening that most pregnant women have and should be completely fine since I used the egg of a 29 year old.
-H
We Have Dates!
Posted by genescramble in Acupuncture, baby, balanced translocation, blood choromosome analysis, egg donation, egg donor, egg donor match, embryos, genes, genetics, infertility, IVF, Lupron, parents, PNW Fertility, translocation on October 10, 2011
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
Matched!!
Posted by genescramble in baby, balanced translocation, egg donation, egg donor, egg donor match, genes, genetics, infertility, PNW Fertility on September 14, 2011
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
Unique
Posted by genescramble in balanced translocation, blood choromosome analysis, genes, genetics, insurance, karyotype, parents, translocation, Unique on September 11, 2011
Back in June I had a bunch of blood tests to find out why I was miscarrying. Everything came back normal except for the Blood Chromosome Analysis, which is how I found out I have this Balanced Translocation. Over the past few days I joined a group online called Unique. I wrote a staff member there with my name, address, email, etc. and explained that I have a three-way translocation. Beverly got back to me by the next morning and had added me to the group and asked for more details on how I found out about this and what my exact karyotype is. I got out all my paperwork last night and wrote her back with it and all the testing they did to get this. This is my karyotype with all the breakpoints:
46, XX, der(1) t(1;21;3) (q12;q11.2;q12), der(3) rea(3) (?p26) t(1;21;3), der(21)t (1;21;3)
It really just looks like a bunch of gobbledygook to me so I spent last night on Unique’s website trying to figure this all out. At the bottom of this page is a list of information describing what some of this means. I tried to decipher it but it’s still another language to me and I really don’t get it all.
I also asked my parents over email last night if they would get tested because my paperwork recommended that I have my first tier family members get checked. We’ll see if they go for it and since my brother was adopted 5 years earlier than I was born they are the only people I can ask. It could be a lot of money for them to get tested and I’m not sure if their insurance would cover it, but it would be great to get more answers and see if they passed this on to me or if it just happened when I was created. I’m also interested to see if it could have been my dad because he had lymphoma 6 years ago and sometimes translocations can cause that.
When I got up this morning I had a new email from Beverly saying that she thinks my karyotype is “Unique”. She is going to do some research and get back to me soon. It’s pretty crazy to think of all the people in the world and I may be the only one with this particular genetic makeup.
-H