A Reason to Celebrate

Happy almost 4th of July!  This is my most favorite holiday and I'm so looking forward to the long weekend.  We are planning on spending it boating on our lake enjoying the water, sunshine, and good friends.  There's also a little thing called my birthday occurring but we are ignoring that this year to hopefully get through the weekend without any breakdowns on my part.

But the future is looking a little bit brighter than it was a week ago.  On Tuesday I miraculously started my period!  Then on Wednesday we had our WTF appointment with Dr. H.  I was relieved that the options he layed out were what I expected.  (As a recap I thought he would suggest another fresh cycle with genetic testing or donor eggs).  His recommended path was to try again with my own eggs.  He said that since we had a "success" (it sure doesn't feel like a success since it ended in miscarriage and we have no baby) that proves that I am capable of producing healthy embryos and no implantation issues.  He feels like it's worth it to try another cycle with my eggs and we agree.  We are going to test my AMH level (evidently they didn't do that a year ago when they did my day 3 blood work?!?) and that will let us know if we stick with the L8 protocol that we did last time or bump up to the L10.  I'm VERY anxious to see what that number is since it's a good indicator of your egg quality.  Since we already know my FSH is slightly elevated (10.6) the addition of this number will give us a better understanding of my fertility as a whole.  I'm just praying it's not really, really low as in there's no chance for you.  Dr. H. doesn't think it will be since I was able to become pregnant once.  

So overall I'm feeling pretty good.  Unless the AMH test comes back with terrible results and we need to reevaluate we are on path for Aug. cycle.  I'm trying not to focus on all of the unknowns and things I have no control over (i.e. - how many mature eggs we'll get, how many embryos will form, what the genetic results will be, etc. etc.).  Obviously it will be disappointing if we get through retrieval and do the genetic tests only to discover we have no "normal" embryos and nothing to transfer.  But I'd rather know at that point than suffer through the 2ww.  How my clinic does the CGH testing is they take 1 cell from each day 3 embryo.  Then it's shipped off for the testing and we'll have the results on Day 5 so we can do a Day 5 transfer if we have any normal embryos.  I'm going to pray really hard that we get as many eggs as we did last time if not more.  

So...for now it's back on birth control and back to the waiting room.  We've got lots of fun stuff happening this summer so I'm going to do my best to enjoy it and just focus on getting my body and mind ready to give this another try.  This battle has taken it's toll on us, but we aren't done fighting yet.  I know in the end it will be worth every tear, every shot, all the pain and all the waiting.  

Closure

Well today was my first day back to work after a 2 week break.  I did enjoy the down time but was ready to get back in to my routine.  Even more so I'm anxiously awaiting our WTF appointment with Dr. H. tomorrow.  I'm really hoping that he can answer our questions and concerns and has a good plan to help us move forward with better results.  I did start my period and they've got me back on birth control pills and baby aspirin to prepare for the next cycle.  So now we just have to see if Dr. H is on board with us trying again right away or if there's any tests or procedures he wants done before.  I'm really hoping he will just tweak my protocol and meds to hopefully help us produce MORE eggs to give us a better chance.  Nurse Jenny did tell me that I was on a lower end protocol so there is room to be more aggressive.  And now we know how my body responds to the meds so that information can only be helpful.  I'm also curious on if he'll be able to provide any insight on our low fertilization of the eggs.  D has already wondered out loud if it was the eggs, his sperm, or a combination of the two.  My clinic does ICSI (where they literally inject the sperm into the egg) which typically yields very high fertilization.  Not the case with us.

So we've got our list of questions and hopefully this time tomorrow will have a solid plan of what our next steps are.  I've been a mess of highs and lows since the negative Beta and am looking forward to being able to focus on what's next and let go of what went wrong.

On a plus note I heard a hopeful story this past week. One of my buddies from college got married to his beautiful wife about 5 years ago.  I am facebook friends with her and she posted the most beautiful 2013 year in review video on NYE.  It told the story of their adventures and accomplishments throughout the past year and as the video was drawing to a close it stated that behind the scenes they have been fighting a very difficult battle with infertility.  It included some quotes about infertility and some pictures of her meds, and procedures.  It then stated that just when they were about to give up hope 2013 wasn't done with them.  Next up came a picture of their embryo and the ultrasound from transfer.  It went on to announce that she is 20 weeks pregnant and they are expecting their little one in the spring of 2013.  Obviously I had no idea they were struggling through this and their video touched me so deeply.  It gave me a renewed since of hope that I'm trying desperately to hold on to.  She stated in her post that if the video helped even one other person who was going through this then it was worth the vulnerability.  I'm thankful for her bravery as it was exactly what I needed at this time.