AMH result is...

1.4, as of August 8th, 2011. Previously, as in May 2010, it was 1.2. I have to say I'm relieved it didn't drop dramatically as I had feared. Thank God for small favors.

Will wonders ever cease

Got some results from Monday. Antral follicle count was 15, still respectable. Estrogen was 40, AMH is not back yet, probably a week until its back. The oddest thing was my FSH was 6.2, which is the lowest it's ever been. Down from 9.21 in May 2010. Very weird. Although it doesn't change much I guess because you're only as good as your highest number, a whopping 12.3.

I'll be very interested to see what my AMH comes back at.

Blood type = crappy eggs?

I think I saw this mentioned before last year but it looks like the study was actually published. I'm O positive.

Blood type linked to earlier decline in fertility

Return to the RE's office

Before we get our hopes up about attempting IVF #3, I need to go get all my bloodwork checked out since it's been over a year since everything was last checked. This morning I made the all-too-familiar pilgrimage to the RE's office. The nurse was nice but tight lipped about my AFC count so I don't know if that was normal or not. I know I saw some but I don't know how many. I did get a "beautiful uterus" comment, thank goodness it's working well at least. They took four vials of blood (queue the queasy feeling) and are running my FSH, AMH, E2, progesterone, etc., etc. I won't get the results for at least a week, if not longer, but until then I'll live in a constant state of anxiety, positive that my FSH has jumped and my AMH has fallen down to the level of hopelessness. I've done a little more research on donor eggs. I'm not sure if our clinic has a donor pool or what, so if we wanted to use a egg donor we might have to go elsewhere. I shudder to think about how much a donor egg cycle would cost though.

Hitting the pause button

There has not been much to report around here in our reproductive life. The biggest bit of news is that we're putting the whole homestudy/donor embryo path on pause right now. We got the second packet of homestudy questionnaires and financial information requests and we even got an appointment at the NEDC. But then the tiny bit of waffling we had been doing got stronger and we both felt like we couldn't move forward just yet. It's a hard thing to say goodbye to your biology, to the dreams you had of a child that might resemble you or someone in your family. So we're holding on to our paperwork and waiting it out. We will most likely do IVF a third time before moving on the donor embryos. This time we'll know that statistically a third IVF cycle is not likely to work and we will most likely be spending $13,000 + without any return but at least we're kind of okay with that. At least we know we will have given our own DNA the best chance we could and after that it's alright to let go. I've had a lot of people (friends, my boss) tell me we should look at going to another clinic. That's been weighing on my mind heavily too. However when it comes down to it, doing an IVF cycle here, at a clinic 5 minutes from my office and 10 minutes from my home, is already hard - what would it be like flying to Denver or Las Vegas or even driving 5 hours to St. Louis? Plus we know the drill here, we know the staff, the surgery center, the doctors and they know us. I really like my RE, sure I haven't gotten pregnant yet but I don't blame the doctor. He's good, the practice is good, their SART numbers are good and frankly I don't want to start all over again somewhere else. We've been seeing this RE for almost seven years and my file is like an encyclopedia, I don't want to drag it elsewhere. Besides, if my eggs are bad, they're bad. We can try different protocols and medicines and supplements but going elsewhere isn't going to improve my egg quality, just like it isn't going to make Doug not sterile anymore.

I have to say that I never thought we'd be here all these years later. There are days when it feel hopeless, when everyone seems to be able to get pregnant without blinking an eye, when people are so clueless about the things they say and do, when the daydream of me being pregnant feels like it's going to stay just a daydream. But I have to snap out of it and realize how incredibly lucky we are, lucky to have each other, lucky that Doug survived cancer, lucky that we have options that others never had. We will get through this, we will be parents.