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.

Needing a fix

I feel a little like an addict, I *need* to be shooting myself full of hormones and making morning visits to the RE's office. I read other people's blogs that are doing something, IUI/IVF and I'm not doing anything except waiting and it makes me a little crazy. Several times recently I've thought about us doing IVF again with our eggs/sperm but then I think about it and think about how crappy I'd feel if we wasted $13,000 + again and the feeling passes. I *know* the chances are better for us using donor embryos or donor eggs/sperm but the waiting is so frustrating.

On the homestudy front we went and got fingerprinted a few weekends ago, oddly at a gun range. The technician had trouble getting mine to work on the electronic fingerprinting machine so I may have to go back. Several of our references have sent in their letters, my brother, my boss and my best friend. I think we still have a few more out but they should be getting them in soon. We're hoping to get an appointment at the NEDC by the fall at least, their wait times are pretty long but hopefully once we get an appointment we won't have to wait too long for a transfer date (if nothing goes wrong). Until then I'm reading blogs of those couples who have gone through embryo adoption/donation, especially those who went through the NEDC, so I can get a better handle on the process. One of the bigger decisions we'll have to make is whether or not to use anonymous embryos or use embryos from a couple that we will 'know' (similar to open adoption). I'm leaning towards the idea of 'known' embryos, just because I want any children we might have to have the opportunity to know their genetic parents and siblings later on down the road. These are such big decisions to make and there's so little to go on because donor embryos are still such a new thing.

Where we stand

We are beginning the home-study process. We are currently undecided about domestic adoption. We thought we were on board but more reading/research has us unsure about the long-term aspects of domestic infant adoption. We are however still interested in donor embryos and we will need a home-study for that. We found a local agency to do it and just mailed off the initial paperwork/application to them last week. There was a fair amount of paper chasing just for the initial application so I shudder to think what the actual home-study entails. 

So we're pretty much back to waiting it out again. It's still hard because I know a lot of people with new babies and others who are expecting. Occasionally a wave of sadness will hit me if I think too much about last October, about where I should have been by now in terms of pregnancy, if it had lasted. Overall though I'm happy and excited for the immediate future. The summer, our trips, holidays, etc. I know that eventually our story will have a happy ending, it just may take a while longer.

Keeping my head above water

Still here. We're planning on dIUI #2 (overall IUI #5) in April. We're also making some moves towards other options, nothing concrete yet, just preliminary stuff. I'm feeling a little better, although the last few weekends I have barely wanted to leave the house. It's much easier to be at home where I'm insulated from the outside world. I'm still seeing the acupuncturist, although since we aren't cycling I'm down to one session per week instead of three and I haven't been very good about drinking all of my tea every day. Oops.

I bought several adoption books for us to read, The Adoption Decision, The Family of Adoption, and Parenting Your Adopted Child. There doesn't seem to be a book (that I can find yet) written about embryo adoption/donation, so I'm of looking for a book on third-party reproduction to see if some of that can apply. 

I have come to a realization that if embryo adoption/donation does not work, I would like to go the egg donor route at some point so that I could have the opportunity to be pregnant. That's a really important thing to me and I realize that we may end up adopting domestically first and then maybe in a few years doing donor-egg. I have been perusing adoption agencies too and have found a couple of good contenders. They're located out-of-state but their philosophies fit better with our lifestyle and beliefs.

All and all we're both hanging in there. We're planning a massive road trip across the country for early-June and we're getting really exciting about that.

Looking for answers & direction

Dr. K called me Wednesday night, a much different tone of phone call than I received last Thursday when he called to congratulate me. He gave me the normal "this is not how we wanted this to turn out" talk. I like him a lot, even though we haven't gotten the results we've wanted he's always been very honest and open with us about our options and I don't feel like he gives us unrealistic expectations.  He said they can't really say why the miscarriage happened because it was so early and they didn't really have any tissues to analyze. He very truthfully said he doesn't know what we should do. If this cycle had been a total failure it would be easy for him to tell us we should probably move on past ART, but because *technically* I did get pregnant he's torn as to what to tell us. I told him we're just as torn about what to do. Based on our conversation, I'm pretty sure he thinks there's an egg quality issue. Now I didn't come right out and ask him that but I feel like that's what he was inferring. He said the embryos this time were not as good as the embryos from our 2006 cycle, which I thought was surprising. In 2006 my FSH level was around 12 and this time it was 9. With the use of donor sperm I thought we would have produced better quality embryos than last time. He spoke briefly about embryo adoption, via the National Embryo Donation Center. He's very enthusiastic about the process and said one of their former embryologists now works at NEDC.

Doug and I are compiling a list of questions we want to ask Dr. K at our appointment next week. We need some straight-forward answers about certain treatments aspects so we can make a better decision as to what we should do next. Doug wants to do an IUI cycle and use up the last of his stored sperm, even though we both know that the chances of success with that type of cycle is like -0%. However, for his piece of mind I'm willing to do it. Dr. K will probably think we're crazy but you gotta do what you've gotta do. We did agree we would just do Clomid for that cycle and save the big guns for donor sperm. In my head I think we should do one IUI with what Doug has left, two IUI's with injectables and donor sperm and then make the decision to either do one more final IVF cycle or more on to embryo adoption. 

I feel like I'm on information overload, but really its my own fault. All these possibilities pop into my head and I start trying to compile data on everything. I'm still trying to heal physically and emotionally from the miscarriage. I thought the bleeding/spotting I had over the weekend was it, oh but I was wrong. On Tuesday the bleeding came back with a vengeance and is still ongoing, it's like a very heavy period. Dr. K said it could last eight days! The cramping isn't that bad thankfully, but I have had several headaches, breakouts and nausea since stopping the progesterone and estrogen. Emotionally I'm still have mini-breakdowns at least once a day but it's much better than it was last weekend/Monday.

I'm so tired of the infertility roller-coaster, the ride is too long and expensive and I'm ready to get off. It's nearly the end of the year and by this time next year I either want to be pregnant or moving on with adoption, whether it be embryo or domestic infant.

On being a crazy person

I'm at 9dp3dt today. I've had mild cramps for several days now which makes me want to cry. I'm afraid my period is on its way and the only thing preventing it is the progesterone. I've felt like crying since I woke up this morning and being at work is not helping. Everyone is annoying me, I feel like yelling at them "Don't you know what I'm going through!?" but I won't. Instead I'll sit here in my office, spending the day alternating working and fishing around on FertileThoughts.com or IVFConnections because I am a woman obsessed. The combination of the hormones, the nerves and the anxiety makes me feel like a crazy person. I just want the waiting to be over so we can either decide what the next step is or be really, really surprised. 

Besides the cramping I have broken out with tiny red bumps on my chest and across my forehead. My bum is still sore from the PIO shots, although I have to say Doug has gotten really good with them. Most nights I only feel a slight sting. I only have four estrogen pills left to make it through tomorrow but I'm not refilling until I know something definitive. I'm also supposed to be ordering progesterone suppositories because if the test is positive I'll need to start them Wednesday night - but I haven't done it yet. Mainly because they're $70 and I'd rather not spend $70 on something I might not need until I have to. I'd be really pissed to spend $70 on the suppositories only to not need them and you can't exactly return suppositories.

Last week in the throes of negativity, I made a Word document that outlined what are next steps should be if this cycle fails. The first step of course is a WTF appointment with Dr. K where he tells us what might have gone wrong (if anything) and I ask questions like "are all my eggs old and dried up now?"  and " is menopause impending?" I used to think two IVF cycles would be my limit, but now I don't know. Financially, I cringe at the thought of spending another $12,000-$14,000 on something that isn't guaranteed. Emotionally, I don't want to totally give up on the idea of having a child that's genetically linked to me. IUI with injectables is an option, but I can't imagine that statistically IUI would work if two IVF cycles didn't.